Whatever Netanyahu Says

“This will be the end of the idea of Israel as a Jewish democratic state, and it will be an apartheid state.”

Israel Defense Forces Colonel (retired) Shaul Arieli on the full and permanent annexation of the West Bank by Israel.

In so many ways, Israel is a wild success story. Literally built out of ashes of Auschwitz and its horrific ilk and notwithstanding its litany of short wars with neighboring Arab states, Israel has become a regional powerhouse, with economic, agricultural and technological achievements that vie with any nation on earth for excellence and proficiency. But over the reign of Benjamin “Bibi’ Netanyahu, Israel’s longest running leader, its religious and spiritual commitments to human rights and moral dignity have eroded beyond recognition.

We know about the internal travel restrictions imposed on Palestinians, how Palestinians are subject to searches and pat-downs as the move through the country. Sometimes outright bans on movement. There is a balancing act that has gone on for years, but if you are wondering why Palestinians want their own autonomous nation, consider how hard it is for even those who want to integrate into Israeli mainstream society to get a break.  I’m not talking about the Hamas hardliners, but about ordinary people who just want to be treated equally as human beings. But that is definitely not the story in Israel, a nation that has, under right wing iron-fisted Netanyahu, made life for Israeli citizens of Arab descent impossible to rise to anything above second- or third-class citizens. You only have to look at the numbers.

“37.8% and 72% of male and female [Israeli Palestinian college] graduates, respectively, did not have jobs in 2017; nearly 70% of those who pursued education degrees [are] unemployed.” Times of Israel, 8/12/18.  “The unemployment rate in the Palestinian territories rose to 31.7 percent in Q3 2018. In Gaza, according to the World Bank, 54 percent of the labor force is unemployed. In Israel the unemployment rate is approximately 4 percent.” Times of Israel, 12/3/18. Younger Palestinian children are even denied access to better quality public schools under a two-tiered educational system.

It’s been this way for a very long time. Looking back at a 2001 Human Rights Watch report: “Nearly one in four of Israel's 1.6 million schoolchildren are educated in a public school system wholly separate from the majority. The children in this parallel school system are Israeli citizens of Palestinian Arab origin. Their schools are a world apart in quality from the public schools serving Israel's majority Jewish population. Often overcrowded and understaffed, poorly built, badly maintained, or simply unavailable, schools for Palestinian Arab children offer fewer facilities and educational opportunities than are offered other Israeli children. This report is about Israel's discrimination against its Palestinian Arab children in guaranteeing the right to education.  “The Israeli government operates two separate school systems, one for Jewish children and one for Palestinian Arab children. Discrimination against Palestinian Arab children colors every aspect of the two systems. Education Ministry authorities have acknowledged that the ministry spends less per student in the Arab system than in the Jewish school system. The majority's schools also receive additional state and state-sponsored private funding for school construction and special programs through other government agencies. The gap is enormous--on every criterion measured by Israeli authorities.” Not much has changed since then. While the rest of the world stands aghast at this purported “democracy,” Donald Trump’s foreign policy has effectively embraced a “whatever Netanyahu wants” mantra. We’ve supported the declaration that Israel is now officially a state where Jews and Judaism have legal priority, where Jewish settlements in West Bank land once reserved for a possible future Palestinian state have exploded, as we moved our embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem tanking the purported neutrality of the religiously significant city in favor of just Israel and pretty much abandoned the long-held American support for a two-state solution. These are just some of the steps we’ve to given Jewish Israel evidence of the anti-democratic Netanyahu assault on human rights. This is hardly an anti-Israeli tirade. We need Israel not just as a dependable regional ally, but as a font of technological creativity and innovation. Israel should always be a cherished American ally. My views are also shared by a pretty large constituency of Israeli Jewish voters, many of whom find revulsion in Bibi’s continued leadership position, despite being indicted for corruption by his own judicial system. Unable to win several elections needed to control a coalition to maintain a clear position as Prime Minister, Netanyahu was forced into a spilt-term coalition with his moderate opponent, retired army Gen. Benny Gantz.

Let’s be clear on Trump’s political motivations in all of this. Though he may claim he is in fact courting American Jews, Trump has never been able to assemble anything close to a majority of that community to support him. His real constituency, aided and abetted by Kushner-family ties to Netanyahu, is that most fundamental side of the American evangelical constituency, who believe that a militarily strong Israel will provoke the “war to end all wars” in the Holy Land, one of the required steps to the “rapture,” the end of time/Judgment Day and when all true Christian believers will rise and all others on earth will perish. Apparently, even death to the Kushner clan, which includes his daughter Ivanka now (converted from Christianity to Judaism).

Hard to think of all those seemingly pro-Israeli policies as truly supportive of that Jewish community… when ultimately, under this evangelical vision, all those Jews will die along with all the other non-Christians in the world. Despite all the furor over foreign interference in our elections, there appears to be a tacit agreement that Trump will de facto campaign for Netanyahu – which Bibi uses in Israeli TV and newspaper ads and posters everywhere (an example is pictured above) – and that Netanyahu will make sure that the American evangelical and Jewish communities are unequivocally aware of his support for Trump.

The latest Trump campaign effort to shore up a waning Netanyahu legacy takes the form of a visit to Israel, in the middle of a COVID-19 pandemic, of US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo. Just as that severely limited Netanyahu coalition limps forward to take effect. But there is a huge message behind this momentous visit: eliminating all pretense the West Bank could ever be ceded in whole or in part into a Palestinian state.

“To avoid what would have been the fourth national election in a little over a year, Netanyahu and his chief rival, retired army Gen. Benny Gantz, agreed to share power for the next several years. The agreement could clear the way for the new government to extend Israeli sovereignty over large parts of the occupied West Bank, which Palestinians want for a future independent state.

“Israel seized the land during the 1967 Middle East War and proceeded to build scores of Jewish settlements, now housing hundreds of thousands of Israelis. The settlements are widely considered illegal under international law… ‘We’re glad that there is a now fully formed government in Israel,’ Pompeo said ahead of the trip. ‘As for the annexation in the West Bank, the Israelis will ultimately make those decisions.’ [wink, wink, it’s a done deal]

“Many believe annexation will be the final nail in the coffin for the two-state solution, the long-cherished notion that creating a Palestinian state alongside Israel would be the best formula for a peaceful end to one of the most intractable conflicts in the Middle East. It would make it much harder to dismantle some Jewish settlements, as had been envisioned in some past peace plans.

“The Trump administration, reversing decades of U.S. foreign policy, is ready to welcome Israel’s unilateral annexation of the Jewish settlements, despite fierce opposition by Palestinians, senior U.S. officials said. Pompeo’s visit seems designed to give that approval.” Los Angeles Times, May 13^th.  Clearly, Trump has long-since approved this annexation move. “Netanyahu said he would proceed ‘based on the understandings’ he reached with Trump in January during a visit to Washington…

“Annexation would also enrage much of the Arab world, especially neighboring Jordan, one of the few countries in the region that recognizes Israel… Angering his allies, particularly Saudi Arabia, might be problematic for Trump as well, coming just ahead of his own reelection bid…

“Meanwhile, France and other European countries said they planned to protest any annexation moves by Israel. The issue will top the agenda at a virtual meeting of European Union foreign ministers on Friday [5/15] and could include punitive measures such as economic sanctions, Josep Borrell, the head of EU foreign policy, told reporters in Brussels… ‘But it’s important for me, for the European Union, for foreign policy, to know what is the position of the member states with respect to the respect of international law,’ he said.” LA Times, May 14^th.

Pompeo also continues to push an absurd Jared Kushner-designed “peace plan” to raise money to fund improvements in Palestinian areas in exchange for their giving up any notion of a separate state. It was dead even before arrival, as the main vectors of that proposal leaked out before it was announced. There is virtually no support for that proposal anywhere except in Israel and the United States. Effectively, Arabs wondered why local Palestinians would surrender their dignity and take money (not yet committed anyway) to give up their hopes, dreams and freedom.

In my mind’s eye, aside from continuing to isolate the United States from the rest of the world, these moves are only going to result in greater defiance and violence against Israel from Palestinians who feel helpless from the constant erosion of their waning remaining rights. We can expect rising support for a Palestinian insurgency against Israel, and someday, someday, those angry Arab neighbors just might launch a weapon of mass destruction against Israel, which may make more than a few fundamentalist evangelicals cheer, but for which there can be no rational or moral justification.

              I’m Peter Dekom, and discrimination, wishing your peaceful neighbor dead because they don’t share your religious beliefs, and fomenting violence seem somehow worse when the world should be pulling together to fight a horrible pandemic and the unrelenting catastrophes generated by climate change.