Global Left Midweek - September 18, 2019
Portside
Palestinian citizens of Israel - and their political parties - agreed on a most basic principle: there should be equality under law and in practice between them and Israeli-Jews. Everything else, the peace process, the two state solution, could fall to the side. Netanyahu's demographic fear-mongering is rooted in the foundation of the Zionist project in Palestine and demographic engineering to ensure political power remains in the hands of one ethno-religious group.
Israel is not a liberal democracy that supports the flourishing of its citizenry. Democracy requires consent of the governed, and Israel controls, directly and indirectly, millions of Palestinians without their consent. There is a progressive, liberal, civil rights movement in Israel - the third largest list in the Knesset. The awful crisis of the right's victory is an unprecedented opportunity for us to learn from our mistakes and create a new mass movement.
Thousands of Israeli Jews, many of them young and educated Tel Avivians, are casting their ballots with the country's perennial underdog...For the past 15 years I've been active in Hadash, but now, because the Joint List will be an even more powerful force in the Knesset, I feel more motivated than ever to vote,' says the 32-year-old doctoral student in anthropology. 'There is a real opportunity now to make a difference.'
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