Gideon Levy: Israel is Voting Apartheid

An apartheid state voting for apartheid? Who'd have thought?

"There will be one certain result from Tuesday's election: around 100 members of the next Knesset will be supporters of apartheid. This has no precedent in any democracy. A hundred out of 120 legislators, an absolute of absolute majorities, one that supports maintaining the current situation, which is apartheid. With such a majority, it will be possible in the next Knesset to officially declare Israel an apartheid state. With such support for apartheid and considering the durability of the occupation, no propaganda will be able to refute the simple truth: nearly all Israelis want the apartheid to continue. In the height of chutzpah, they call this democracy, even though more than 4 million people who live alongside them and under their control have no right to vote in the election.

"Of course, no one is talking about this, but in no other regime around the world is there one community next to another where the residents of one, referred to as a West Bank settlement, have the right to vote, while the residents of the other, a Palestinian village, don't. This is apartheid in all its splendor, whose existence nearly all the country's Jewish citizens want to continue.

"A hundred Knesset members will be elected from slates referred to as either right-wing, left-wing or centre, but what they have in common surpasses any difference: none intend to end the occupation. The right wing proudly says so, while the centre-left resorts to futile illusions to obscure the picture, listing proposals for for a 'regional conference' or 'secure separation.' The difference between the two groupings is negligible. In unison, the right and left are singing 'say yes to apartheid.'

"As a result, this election is so unimportant, so far from crucial. So let's cut the hysteria and the pathos over the outcome. Neither civil war nor even a rift is in the offing. The people are more united than ever, casting their vote for apartheid. Whatever Tuesday's result may be, the country of the occupier will remain the country of the occupier. Nothing defines it better than all the other marginal issues... So there's no reason to hold our breath over Tuesday's results. The election is lost in advance. For the country's Jews, it will shape the tone, the level of democracy, the rule of law, the corruption in which they live, but it won't do a thing to change Israel's basic essence as a colonialist country.

"The far right wants the annexation of the West Bank, a step that would make permanent in law a situation that has long been permanent in practice. Such a step would present a tempting advantage. It would finally rip off Israel's mask of democracy and might finally generate opposition both in the country and abroad. But no person of conscience can vote for the fascist right wing, which includes people who advocate the expulsion of Palestinians or the construction of a Third Temple on the Temple Mount, the destruction of the mosques there, or who even dream about extermination. (From Israel is voting apartheid, Haaretz, 7/4/19)