Category: News

A complex and paradoxical mix of polarization and integration in the Middle East creates uncertainties and potential for all-out war.

By Robert Malley | Foreign Affairs | November/December 2019

When it comes to the Middle East, Tip O’Neill, the storied Democratic politician, had it backward: all politics—especially local politics—is international.

The war that now looms largest is a war nobody apparently wants. During his presidential campaign, Donald Trump railed against the United States’ entanglement in Middle Eastern wars, and since assuming office, he has not changed his tune. Iran has no interest in a wide-ranging conflict that it knows it could not win. Israel is satisfied with calibrated operations in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Gaza but fears a larger confrontation that could expose it to thousands of rockets. Saudi Arabia is determined to push back against Iran, but without confronting it militarily. Yet the conditions for an all-out war in the Middle East are riper than at any time in recent memory.

Continue reading “The Unwanted Wars – Why the Middle East is more combustible than ever”

Creating a coalition with Palestinians is the long term solution to true democracy.

By Peter Beinart | Forward | Sept 26, 2019

The deeper malady is that Palestinians — even Palestinians who live inside the green line and can thus vote in Israeli elections — aren’t considered equal citizens.

Last week, Bret Stephens penned a New York Times column entitled, “Israel’s democracy is doing just fine.” With their “rebuke” of Benjamin Netanyahu at the polls, Stephens declared, “Israelis showed that demagogy doesn’t work.”

This week, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin gave Netanyahu the opportunity to form Israel’s next government. Netanyahu could fail to do so, in which case his center-right rival, Benny Gantz, would likely get the chance. But there’s a real possibility that Netanyahu — a man so racist that Facebook shut down one of his chatbots for violating its hate speech rules this month, and so authoritarian that the president of Israel’s supreme court this spring compared his attacks on judicial independence to the Nazi era — will remain Israel’s leader well into the future.

Continue reading “No, Israeli Democracy Is Not ‘Fine’”

The Joint List’s recommendation of Gantz as prime minister dramatically alters the traditional political stance of Arabs in Israel

By Orly Noy  | Middle East Eye | Sept 24, 2019

The degree of chaos in the Israeli political landscape today is indicated by the status of Yisrael Beiteinu, headed by Avigdor Lieberman, who has proposed among other things the “transfer” of Arab citizens out of Israel entirely.

Many people were hoping that the mid-September election in Israel would resolve the political mess that followed the previous election in April when neither of the two leading candidates for prime minister – Benny Gantz of the Blue and White alliance and Benjamin Netanyahu of Likud – garnered enough votes to form a government.

But that hope was quickly dashed within a few days when the votes were counted. The political blocs headed by both candidates fell short of securing the 61 seats required for a parliamentary majority.

Continue reading “Netanyahu or Gantz: The tragic dilemma facing Israel’s Palestinian citizens”

Strategizing for solidarity and effectiveness within the universal human rights/justice movements.

By Alice Rothchild | American Friends Service Committee | Sept 13, 2019

We need a collective liberation, which also means, by the way, no POOPS (Progressive Only On Palestine).

The American Friends Service Committee conference in DC, September 7-8, Preparing for 2020: Advocating for Rights, Justice, and Freedom, was an excellent antidote to the stormy and frightening times in which we live. It is a measure of our failure to be more outraged than we already are that Netanyahu’s pledge to annex much of the West Bank to Israel (as if there was not already one apartheid state) barely caused a flutter of protest. Between Trump and Netanyahu we are all suffering from shock fatigue and a good dose of gloom about the future of the planet. I lie awake at night wondering, will it be forest fires, drought, floods, and wars over water, or maybe an old fashioned nuclear war that will finish us off. For folks with children and grandchildren, this is not a theoretical concern.

Continue reading “Preparing for 2020: Advocating for justice for Palestine and beyond”

Whether Netanyahu or Gantz forms the next government, the right-wing policies will remain the same.

By Henriette Chacar | The Washington Post | Sep 20, 2019

By giving only a certain class of Palestinians the right to vote, Israel maintains a veneer of democracy, even though more than 75 percent of Palestinians who live under varying degrees of its rule are disenfranchised.

As polling in Israel came to a close Tuesday night, my family turned on the news to watch the results trickle in. Flashes of blue and white fired from the screen onto my brother’s face, revealing a sense of relief and confusion. Despite — or perhaps because of — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s rampant racist rhetoric in recent weeks, about 60 percent of eligible Palestinian voters participated in the elections, up by 10 percentage points over turnout in the April elections, which left no party able to form a government. The Joint List, the slate uniting non-Zionist Palestinian and Jewish candidates, will be the third-largest party in the Knesset, with 13 seats.

“That’s great, no?” my brother asked.

Well, it’s complicated.

Continue reading “No matter how many Palestinians vote in Israeli elections, we still can’t win”

It is unclear how Rivlin will get the sides to cooperate, after their campaigns promised not to be part of a government that included certain candidates or certain parties.

By Ruth Eglash | The Washington Post| Sep 22, 2019

‘We will recommend Benny Gantz as prime minister. We want to return to be legitimate political actors and bring an end to the Netanyahu government.’
— Ayman Odeh, leader of the Joint List [of Arab Israeli parties]

In a historic move, an alliance of Arab Israeli parties recommended a prime ministerial candidate to President Reuven Rivlin for the first time in almost three decades, saying in consultations Sunday that it would support a bid by former army chief of staff Benny Gantz to replace Benjamin Netanyahu.

The process of selecting Israel’s next prime minister has entered its second stage, with eyes firmly on the country’s largely ceremonial president as he looks for a way out of a deadlocked election result to avert a third vote.

Continue reading “Arab parties throw support behind Gantz”

Regardless of what new coalition government emerges, Israel has broken no new ground on resolving its largest problem.

By Richard Silverstein | Middle East Eye | Sep 18, 2019

But Israel is not a secular democracy. It is rather an ethnocracy, in which the rights of Palestinian citizens are subordinated to those of Jews. No ruling Israeli coalition has ever included Palestinian parties.

Israel’s second election in the past five months has led to yet another political stalemate. As occurred in April, the two main political parties, the far-right Likud and center-right Blue and White, fought to a virtual tie.

The political kingmaker today, as he was in April, is Avigdor Lieberman of Yisrael Beiteinu. In the last election, he refused to offer his party’s seats to a Likud-led coalition headed by his once-patron and now arch-rival, Benjamin Netanyahu. This is what led to the current round of voting.

Though it is hard to predict what Lieberman will do, he is holding out for a secular “unity government” consisting of Likud and Blue and White. His main aims are to keep the Orthodox parties out of the ruling coalition and pass a military draft law to compel currently-exempt Orthodox youth to join the army.

Continue reading “Israeli elections: Rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic”

Six trends underlined by the Knesset elections will determine the future of Israel.

By Marwan Bishara | Al Jazeera |  Sept 19, 2019

…the Israeli vote confirms some larger trends that will shape the future of Israel/Palestine more than any one particular leader.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s spell may have finally worn out. He tried every trick in the book to win Tuesday’s Knesset elections but failed to secure enough seats to form a government.

For months, the incumbent premier lied to his constituency, ridiculed his competitors, flouted electoral rules, demonised the Palestinian minority in Israel, bombed several neighbouring countries, announced new illegal settlements, vowed to annex a third of the occupied West Bank, and trotted around like a superhero with US and Russian leaders.

All to no avail.

Continue reading “Israel after Netanyahu?”

Israeli voters went to the polls on Tuesday for the second time in five months. The results aren’t certain, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu failed to gain the support he had hoped for, and Israeli Arabs are poised to become the third largest party in the Knesset.

By Megan Specia | The New York Times| Sep 18, 2019

•  Netanyahu’s reign appears to be fading. He had hoped to achieve a stronger mandate this time around, with the support of smaller parties on the religious right, but he seems to have made no gains and the support of those groups seems unlikely to be enough to form a governing coalition.
•  What happens now? Benny Ganz, whose broader bloc of center-left parties may give him the support he needs, may be able to form a coalition provided he can count on the backing of Mr. Liberman.
•  What will Mr. Liberman do? The secular ultranationalist party Yisrael Beiteinu, which is expected to win nine seats in the Knesset, may have the potential to make or break a coalition. Its leader, Avigdor Liberman, appears to hold the power to be a kingmaker.
•  Arab voters came out in force. The Joint List of Arab parties — a coalition of the four largest Arab-majority parties — has regained the influence it lost in April and looks set to be the third-largest party in the Knesset, according to early results.

A day after Israel’s general election — the second in five months — there is still uncertainty about the final outcome, but it appears the long reign of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could be coming to an end.

As expected, neither Mr. Netanyahu nor his main rival, the former army chief Benny Gantz, a centrist, won enough votes to claim an outright majority in the Israeli Parliament. Crucially, neither seems to have a straightforward path to forming a governing coalition with at least 61 of the 120 lawmakers in Parliament.

Continue reading “Netanyahu is in trouble, and other takeaways from the Israeli election”