Israel’s elections have shown there will be no progressive change from within the apartheid state, and that racism and support for genocide are thoroughly entrenched.
In the lead up much of the Western media fawned over opposition leader Gadi Eisenkot and painted him as a candidate for change. Polls predicted defeat for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Among complicit Western politicians there was a belief that Eisenkot, the former general and head of the Israeli Defense Forces, could provide a PR reset after three years of genocide and help rehabilitate support for Israel.
The New York Times ran a headline saying “Gadi Eisenkot Couldn’t Be More Unlike Netanyahu.”
As the election results came in Foreign Minister Penny Wong was questioned in parliament about why Australia hadn’t joined the UK in adopting sanctions on trade with illegal settlements.
She seized on exit polls that showed Netanyahu’s coalition losing its majority to place Israel’s crimes in the past tense and avoid calls for action, saying “We disagree with and oppose the former Netanyahu government’s policy.”
But the final election result has left both coalitions short of the majority of 61 seats in the Israeli parliament necessary to form government. Netanyahu’s coalition holds 53, Eisenkot’s opposition bloc 48 and Palestinian parties 19.
Negotiations over forming a government could drag on for months, or Israel may be forced to another election.
Eisenkot was never fundamentally different from Netanyahu. He is a different face of the same genocide, occupation and ethnic cleansing.
Eisenkot was head of Israel’s Northern Command in 2008 where he developed what is now known as the “Dahiya Doctrine”.
This involves the deliberate targeting of civilians in an effort to counter military resistance through, in his words, applying “disproportionate force” causing “great damage and destruction”.
Dahiya is the name of the southern Beirut suburb devastated under this barbaric doctrine. Its logical conclusion is seen in Gaza.
Eisenkot joined Netanyahu’s war cabinet after 7 October, helping carry out the genocide.
He opposes a Palestinian state and supports the expansion of settlements in the West Bank.
In 2018 when Palestinians marched peacefully during the Great March of Return, Eisenkot boasted of deploying 100 snipers around Gaza. They mercilessly targeted children and killed over 200 Palestinians.
Palestinian parties
The election also saw a historic voter turn-out of around 80 per cent by Palestinian citizens of Israel.
These are the descendants of the population that Israel failed to ethically cleanse during the 1948 Nakba, when 700,000 Palestinians were expelled to pave the way for Israel’s founding.
Today they number about 2.1 million and are 20 per cent of Israel’s population.
The two Palestinian election groupings the Joint List and Ra’am together gained a record 19 seats, enough to deliver government to either of the major party blocs.
But one of Eisenkot’s election pledges was that he would not form a government with Palestinians. In the wake of the election both Netanyahu and Eisenkot declared they would seek to form a “Zionist government” without Palestinian representatives.
This shows the racist sham of Israeli democracy, where Palestinian citizens are treated as so suspect they cannot be allowed any role in government.
The millions of Palestinians occupied and besieged by Israel in Gaza and the West Bank of course cannot vote at all, further giving the lie to the claim that Israel is a democracy.
Change won’t come from within
The election result is another clear indicator that overwhelmingly Israeli society backs genocide, occupation and ethnic cleansing and has been radicalised further to the right by the genocide carried out in Gaza.
This reality is making itself felt in the West Bank where thousands of IDF and settler attacks on Palestinians have taken place this year.
Following an attack on soldiers at an Israeli checkpoint, Israel has now begun demolishing homes in Hebron and placed the whole West Bank under lock-down.
The change needed will not come from within Israeli society. It must come from an international campaign to isolate Israel and revolt across the Arab world connecting up with the Palestinian struggle.
The people of the region have a common enemy. US imperialism and its allies like Australia help prop up Israel as well as dictators in Egypt, Jordan and the Gulf states.
The Palestine solidarity movement of the last three years, and the global port strikes on 30 October against war and genocide in particular, are a glimpse of the kind of struggle needed.
By Adam Adelpour
