For weeks, huge gatherings of protesters have raged in Israel against some of the reforms (particularly those of the judiciary) introduced by the most right-wing and xenophobic government in the country’s history. Palestinians with Israeli citizenship who do not take part in these protests do not share the analytical framework: they do not see them as pro-democracy demonstrations.
Palestinians make up 20 percent of Israel’s population and, according to the Al Araby al Jadid newspaper, they have stayed out of anti-government demonstrations because – and this is the most common view among Palestinians – “the demonstrators are not demanding democracy, all citizens of the country, but only for the Jewish ones, thereby perpetuating inequality and employment”.
In fact, the Balad party, founded in 1995 by Azmi Bishara along with a group of young Palestinian intellectuals from Israel, writes in a statement: “Even before the current government of Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel was a fake, reprehensible and completely anomalous”.
Today’s paradox, adds Marwan Barghuthi – a leading figure of the Palestinian opposition who is still in prison – in a text published by the Palestinian site 180post, is that the slogan of Israel is “a Jewish and democratic state”. not only excludes Palestinian Arabs, but bans all political positions opposed to the current fascist system of government. Some representatives of religious Zionism have even called for the arrest of opposition leaders.”
non-democratic ideologies
Palestinian activist Mohammed el Kurd, a figure in resisting the evictions of East Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, added the popcorn emoji to his post on twitter in which he compares the demonstrations to a small theater in very strong terms: “The Israeli protests are not about ‘judicial reforms’. Rather, we are witnessing the culmination of a long struggle between liberal Zionists and religious Zionists for the public face of the regime. Is Israel a colonial, racist and expansionist country disguised as a democracy? Or is it just that?”
Furthermore, the Israeli protesters’ lack of attention to Israel’s Palestinians and people living in the occupied territories, writes Arabi21, “hides a deeper set of forces at play. The millions of Palestinians who live under de facto Israeli military control are denied many of the same rights as their Israeli neighbors. Their mere existence invalidates any substantive debate about Israeli democracy.”
Researcher Ali Mawasy intervenes on the Arab48 side and also rejects the definition of “democracy for Jews only”: “If democracy is when every citizen, regardless of religion, sect, race or gender, has the right to take part in public affairs participate, then this does not apply to Israel as long as the state applies a system of ethno-religious apartheid”. Consequently, Mawasy concludes, “colonialism is neither dictatorship nor democracy and exploitation, so not everything that happens around colonialism can be democratic”.
A history of violence
If the Palestinians as a whole do not share the democratic framework, their concern remains at the far-right government’s recent decisions.
In Al Quds al Arabi, journalist Wadiya Awwada primarily notes the agreement between Netanyahu and his national security minister, Itamar Ben Gvir: In exchange for his support for the temporary suspension of judicial reform, Netanyahu offered the right-wing extremist the “establishment” of a national guard under his command , basically armed militias, a private army.” These militias, even for the Balad party, pose a terrible threat to the Palestinians living in mixed towns or in the occupied territories and at the mercy of a “legal armed gang already at your mercy ministers convicted of terrorism will be at their mercy.
Given the danger posed by this far-right government, “unfortunately, it is very rare to find an Israeli voice that can discuss the current crisis with the policies of occupation, illegal settlements and extreme violence against the Palestinians in the West Bank, in Jerusalem or in the Gaza Strip ,” writes another Al Quds al Arabi editorial. “Neither the ousted Likud defense minister nor opposition leader Yair Lapid really disagrees with Benjamin Netanyahu on the occupation.”
Amnesty International’s annual report was released this week. For 2023, he underscores how double standards and inadequate responses to human rights abuses around the world have fueled impunity and instability, noting most notably the refusal to confront the “Israeli apartheid system towards the Palestinians”.
According to Amnesty, 2022 was one of the deadliest years for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank since the United Nations began counting the death toll in 2006: 151 Palestinians were killed in the past year, including dozens of children.