This year, news from Israel and Palestine were dominated by two ongoing developments.

The first concerns widespread, persistent protests against the Israeli government’s “judicial overhaul”: a series of bills which, if passed, would significantly weaken the Supreme Court. Protesters have mounted remarkably audacious demonstrations, attended by as many as 500,000 participants – more than any other demonstration since the 2011 “Social Justice” protests.

Another concerns a violent escalation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israelis – both uniformed and civilian – killed 78 Palestinians since the start of 2023. The Israeli military raided the cities of Jenin and Nablus, killing both militants and bystanders, including children. Meanwhile, Israeli settlers rampaged through the Palestinian town of Huwara, setting vehicles and homes on fire, killing one man. Since the start of the year, Palestinian gunmen killed 15 Israelis – including children – within Israel and in the West Bank.

While these stories are often treated as separate, they are interconnected.

Elections, Netanyahu and his Trial

To international observers, Israel seems to be caught in a constant election cycle. Indeed, no less than five election rounds were held between 2019-2022 alone. Why?

Israel has a parliamentary system with a unicameral legislature – the Knesset. The electoral system is highly fragmented and highly proportional: today, ten different parties and lists are represented. No party has ever secured a 61-seat majority. Traditionally, coalition- rather than minority-governments are formed.

Benjamin Netanyahu, chairman of the Revisionist (read: nationalist, conservative, and economically liberal) Likud party, served his first term as Prime Minister between 1996 and 1999. Returning to power in 2009, he held on to the PM’s office through two general elections, held in 2013 and 2015. In 2019, he became the country’s longest-serving PM. Israel does not have term limits.

That year marked the beginning of Israel’s infamous political crisis. Fed up with Netanyahu, who was, by then, under police investigation for corruption, large portions of the Israeli public demanded his ouster. The first of five elections, in April 2019, already saw the political landscape split into pro- and anti-Netanyahu axes, which superseded traditional left-right divides.

In November 2019, Netanyahu was indicted for breach of trust, accepting bribes, and fraud. The ensuing trial, which began in May of 2020, deepened the crisis. While the ideological, religious Right remained loyal, softer right-wing elements defected to the anti-Netanyahu camp. The 2020, 2021, and 2022 elections were widely seen as plebiscites on his fitness for office, with the opposition eventually managing to cobble together a diverse coalition government comprising ultra-nationalists, an Islamist party, and liberals. Unsurprisingly, this fragile alliance crumbled in 2022 due to internal disagreements. Netanyahu returned to power last December, helming Israel’s most right-wing government to date.

The Breadth of Israeli Consensus

While it might seem that Israel is being pulled apart by centrifugal forces, a closer look reveals remarkably strong political and ideological bonds. Though Israelis are split on many issues, including Netanyahu, they share strong political narratives about national identity, security, regional and international affairs.

In the 1980s and 1990s, Israel had a thriving “Peace Camp”. It promoted a negotiated solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and supported Palestinian demands for sovereignty. Members of this camp described themselves as Zionist patriots, to be sure, but their vision prioritized peace over territory.

This camp has dwindled significantly since the Second Intifada, which took the lives of hundreds of Israeli and thousands of Palestinian civilians. Many of its members turned rightward, giving rise to a new, large Centre camp which maintains social and economic liberalism, on the one hand, but is also markedly militaristic and nationalist. Scholar Rafaella Del Sarto argues that, since the second Intifada, a “Neo-Zionist” consensus emerged within Israel, characterised, by a zero-sum outlook regarding security and regional politics, a pervasive sense of being surrounded by enemies (a “villa” in a hostile “jungle”), and the conviction that peace with the Palestinians is unattainable. Other scholars speak of an emergent “Neo-Zionist” hegemony.

Analysis of Israeli politics should start here; with the recognition that the Israeli Left, today, is a marginal political minority. While there is significant political contestation among the Jewish-Israeli majority, it occurs within narrow ideological boundaries. Among large segments of this majority, “the Left”, and Israel’s Palestinian politicians, are considered far less legitimate than Netanyahu.

Palestinians Here

During the 2019-2022 crisis, Palestinian parties – representing 20% of Israel’s population – repeatedly expressed their desire to form an alternative coalition with the Centre-Left. They made gestures toward the Centre by moderating their stances, de-prioritising – but not completely abandoning – their commitments to combat ethnic and national inequality.

Still, these positions proved too contentious for the Israeli opposition, which rejected Palestinian politicians on multiple occasions – at the cost of continued deadlock and repeated, costly election cycles.

Ahead of the 2021 elections, one of the Palestinian parties – the Islamist, United Arab List party – changed course. Positioning itself as an apolitical “kingmaker”, the United Arab List completely omitted references to its Palestinian identity, the Occupation, or ethnic inequality from its campaign. Instead, it focused on increasing Palestinian localities’ budgets. Its leader, Mansour Abbas, stated his willingness to partner with any political actor, including Netanyahu. It was ultimately included in the short-lived, alternative government of 2021-2022.

Today, with Netanyahu back in power, mainstream politicians – including opposition leaders – continue to exclude Israel’s Palestinian politicians. Meanwhile, Palestinian citizens of Israel are glaringly absent from anti-government demonstrations. These dynamics of exclusion and political participation play out in an oft-neglected, but integral sphere of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; within Israel proper.

Palestinians There

Unlike Israel’s Palestinian citizens, those living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, under military occupation, have no political rights.

The Occupation will turn 60 in 2027. Soon, there will be no one left in the Territories – home to 5 million Palestinians – who had ever held a citizenship, voted, or had the ability to organise politically. Meanwhile, Palestinians continue to face military and settler violence on a daily basis. With the Peace Process going nowhere fast, there is no end in sight.

Experts (including Israeli military officials) and pundits routinely warn that violent resistance is on the brink of eruption in the Territories. The recent escalation is nothing more than a fulfilment of these predictions. New, armed Palestinians groups are forming, but that was predictable. Controlling a disenfranchised population breeds resistance.

Similarly, though the mode of violence inflicted on Palestinians remains unchanged, its extent and scale have increased. While clashes between Israeli military forces and Palestinian militias are not unheard of, the recent, large-scale confrontations in cities like Jenin and Nablus – which cost the lives of multiple, unarmed bystanders – are worrying. Similarly, while Israeli settlers frequently attack Palestinians, the February 26 attack on the Palestinian town of Huwara – a full-scale pogrom that lasted several hours – is a worrying development.

The timing leaves little to doubt: Netanyahu’s far-right partners intend to pursue their expansionist agenda swiftly and aggressively. Meanwhile, extremists on the ground are growing more violent, emboldened by government officials’ inflammatory rhetoric.

Possibilities for Change

Thus far, Israeli protesters have framed their grievances through the prism of “regime change” (“hafichah mishtarit”); the fear of losing Israel’s democratic procedures. While this struggle is vital, it cannot succeed without an explicit push for substantive democracy, for all.

The overhaul is not merely driven by Netanyahu’s personal interest to secure a get-out-of-jail card. That is just one part of the bargain he struck with the ultranationalist Right. For the latter, the judicial overhaul serves a variety of goals, such as banning Palestinian parties from participating in elections, expanding settlements, and annexing territories. It is meant to facilitate the exclusion and persectution of LGPTQIA+ individuals, religious minorities, and asylum seekers.

Some protesters from the movement’s mainstream have thus far attempted to represent themselves as an apolitical, “sane center”. This apologetic, middle-of-the-road approach is unlikely to bear fruit.

Others internalised these lessons. Following the pogrom, for example, protesters chanted: “where were you in Huwara?”. And while a small, vocal “anti-occupation block” remains marginalised among demonstrators, its voice is growing louder. Moreover, protesters are increasingly turning to radical tactics of civil disobedience, such as blocking highways, strikes, divestment, and other disruptive measures.

These signs are encouraging. Eleven weeks on, the demonstrations are showing no sign of abating. Still, this is just the beginning. A loud call for substantive, rather than procedural democracy, is needed. The formation of a positive, forceful, inclusive ideological alternative is needed; of a new democratic vision for all between the Jordan and the Sea.

This column was originally published on Ynet, in Hebrew and in English.

About three weeks ago, Supreme Court Justices Noam Sohlberg, Anat Baron and Yael Willner allowed the state to destroy the Palestinian community of Khan al-Ahmar and expel its citizens to a site near a dumpster in Abu Dis. A total of 32 families—173 persons, including 92 children—will be expelled. All structures, including a school serving more than 150 children from Khan al-Ahmar and from neighboring Palestinian communities, will be demolished.

Khan al-Ahmar is but one of dozens of Palestinian communities under threat of expulsion. It will be the first such community in many years to be forcibly expelled in its entirety and relocated deep into the enclaves the state created for its Palestinian subjects in the West Bank.

In recent decades, however, Israeli policymakers have been trying to silently transfer Palestinians from all of Area C (the 60 percent of the West Bank that Israel exploits as though it were its own). The upcoming war crime in Khan al-Ahmar is merely an extreme example of an expulsion strategy that Israel is undertaking vis-a-vis all Palestinian communities in Area C, to create an environment that will coerce them into leaving.

The mechanical details of this environment are simple: The state forbids residents from connecting to infrastructural networks like water, sewage and electricity, prevents them from building legally, demolishes homes that residents had to build without permits, destroys basic infrastructure laid by them (such as solar panels, water containers and unpaved paths) and holds military training exercises that include firing live ammunition and shelling on agricultural land, in pastures and even within residential areas and between houses.

As in the case of Khan al-Ahmar, the state does not spare educational establishments: In the last year alone, the Civil Administration demolished two schools and one kindergarten in Area C—in Jub a-Dib in the Bethlehem area, in Jabal al-Baba in the Ma’ale Adumim area and in Khirbet Zanutah in the South Hebron Hills. This left 138 children with no educational framework. Today, 45 schools in Area C are under threat of partial or full demolition.

The vast majority of Palestinians in Area C cannot build legally without master plans. These do not fall from the sky, but have to be approved by the Civil Administration (spoiler alert: it never approves them). In discussing the future of Khan al-Ahmar, the Supreme Court’s basic assumption was that the residents are criminals who built their homes illegally. Yet in the West Bank, Palestinians do not have the privilege of building legally outside the small, crowded enclaves the state allocates for them. The master plans they submit for approval are rejected time after time and when they do build, having run out of options, Israel responds with demolition.

In other words: The state has created an unbearable daily reality for Palestinians in Area C in order to make them leave as though of their own free will. These actions are part of a deliberate, premeditated policy aimed at expelling Palestinian residents from Area C and building (and expanding) settlements in their place. A Western-liberal state in theory; silent transfer of an entire population in practice.

If we take a few steps back and look at Israel’s policy in the Occupied Territories since the Oslo Accords, a clear picture emerges. Israel is trying to concentrate Palestinians in the tiniest enclaves possible, while taking over as much land as it can. This policy is twofold: For Palestinians, creating unbearable living conditions to make them transfer themselves; for Jews, building and expanding settlements.

Think about it. No infrastructure, no running water, no electricity and no educational framework for your children. You live under the constant whir of projectiles fired by training military forces, and all the while, the state destroys the few buildings and basic infrastructure you managed to lay out. Would you stay?

Although Israel has been carrying out this policy of silent expulsion for years, the forcible transfer of Khan al-Ahmar’s residents to the dumpster in Abu Dis is a horrific escalation. No more coercion, no more leaving-as-though-freely, but a violent transfer out in the open. By the book.

There is no telling how this decision might affect other Palestinian communities in Area C. However, Israel’s heightened motivation to accelerate the process of expulsion, coupled with the green light given by the Supreme Court in the case of Khan al-Ahmar, is a bad omen for other Palestinian communities — especially those that have legal processes pending a Supreme Court decision. These include Khirbet Umm al-Jamal and Khirbet Ein al-Hilweh in the Northern Jordan Valley, Abu a-Nuwar and Jabal al-Baba in the Ma’ale Adumim area, and the residents of Susiya and the South Hebron Hills in general.

At the end of the day, whether this policy of expulsion is enacted silently over many years, and whether it morphs into open forcible transfer in Khan al-Ahmar and elsewhere, Israeli policymakers bear criminal liability for it. The prime minister, the minister of defense and the head of the Civil Administration are all responsible. The fact that Supreme Court justices openly authorized this war crime exposes the complicity of Israel’s legal system with dispossession and forcible transfer.

This article was also published on 972.

Over the years, both the Israeli and Palestinian Left have learned to lower their expectations — to live on crumbs of hope. So who is left to lead peace negotiations? Trump? We’ll see what he has to offer, and probably be disappointed. In Israel there is not a single leader capable or ready to lead a real, broad political movement to end the occupation — setting aside for a second that there is no majority of Jewish Israelis lining up to join such a movement. In Ramallah we have one of the least popular leaders in the history of the Palestinian struggle. So who will save us?

Palestinians in the occupied territories have grown tired of organized resistance. Two intifadas were enough. True, Palestinian resistance is still alive to a certain extent in Bil’in, Ni’lin, in the South Hebron Hills, and elsewhere, but in order to bring about real political change, more organized and far broader resistance would be needed. In a sense, Israeli deterrence has worked, and you won’t find too many people who dare resist the Israeli army these days. Not even armed resistance is a prospect these days. Salvation will not come from the occupied territories.

So that’s it? Should we pack our stuff and find a foreigner to marry? Not quite yet. There is one last source of hope: young Palestinians — citizens of Israel.

Palestinian citizens haven’t yet truly flexed their muscles. Not with all their might, and the key to ending the occupation is in our hands. Whereas Palestinians in the West Bank see Jewish Israelis at checkpoints, we learn, work and shop with them. We have had the privilege of developing an intimate working relationship with Israeli society. Furthermore, we have all been sentenced to live with the rising tide of racism in Israel, whether in civilian clothes or in uniform. Palestinians in Israel are motivated and eager to make real changes. We have a large stake in Israeli society, albeit oftentimes an unwelcome one, and are familiar with the Jewish population.

Marwan Barghouti has been calling for wide, popular and nonviolent resistance to the occupation for years. We should support him. He has been openly calling for a change of tactics, to start a civil rights campaign against Israeli oppression between the Jordan River and the sea, similar to the civil rights campaigns in South Africa and the United States. Palestinian citizens of Israel would have a central role to play in such a campaign. Palestinians in the occupied territories do not have the tools to truly disrupt daily life in Israel, as an effective nonviolent campaign for civil liberties would require. We do. If it is large enough, Israel would not be able to disrupt such a movement without ripping the mask off the true face of apartheid once and for all.

Young Palestinians with Israeli citizenship are especially ready for such a movement. The new Palestinian generation has a larger stake in Israeli society: unlike our parents’ generation, many of us live in Jewish neighborhoods, work in the heart of the Israeli economy, and are much more exposed to the rest of Israel.

Granted, making significant gains will not be easy without the support of the Israeli Left. Alongside us, however, they will be able to build a democratic majority in Israel. With us, there is a broad consensus for ending the occupation, for creating a Palestinian state, for a sustainable solution. Together, we can lay a path toward partnership, toward an environment conducive to negotiating as equals, toward open borders and mutual recognition of ownership over this piece of land.

Palestinians with Israeli citizenship must organize. We must make our voices louder among our representatives in the Knesset. We must utilize existing civil society organizations, and create new forums for internal coordination and communication. The rest of the Israeli Left must also stand up. This could be our last chance to make an organic, internal, mutual move toward ending this conflict once and for all.

This post was originally published in Hebrew, in Haaretz.

There are two prevailing myths among the Israeli left that we should critically examine. First, that the occupation is destined to fail: the Palestinians will not tolerate it forever, and so we can anticipate further rounds of violence, ultimately leading to its collapse. Second, that Israel is already a de-facto binational reality and that, barring a diplomatic solution, we are destined (for better or for worse) to live in a binational state.

These claims are inaccurate. History shows that the status quo in Israel-Palestine, and many other nations, is sustainable. Military occupations, discrimination and segregation do not dissipate on their own. In Israel, it will take a broad, Palestinian-Jewish-International coalition to end the occupation. As long as the balance of power is so clearly in Israel’s favor, and as long as Israel is determined to hold on to the territories and continue with its system of segregation and discrimination, we have no reason to think the Palestinians will make any political gains in their national struggle – not through peace, nor through violence.

The comparison between Israel and other colonial projects – specifically the colonization of the Americas and Australia – is not perfect, but it is useful in this case. The most important point of resemblance is in that the current Israeli government (and most of its predecessors), like the European colonies in the New World, aspire first and foremost to control as much of the natives’ territory and exclude them from the political establishment at the same time.

These colonial projects won, despite persistent resistance on the part of the natives. In the new world, just as in Israel/Palestine, the natives did not have the necessary means to challenge the colonies. So long as the occupied is completely devoid of political and military leverage, and so long as the occupier is determined to maintain the status quo, it will be maintained. The natives fought and lost, and the Palestinians will continue fighting. We should expect more rounds of violence, but in the absence of fundamental changes in the geopolitical balance of power, we ought not to expect the Palestinians to make any meaningful political gains.

The second claim is also inaccurate. Many on the Israeli left compare Israel to the Apartheid regime in South Africa, but this comparison is only partial. Enormous domestic and international pressures were put on the Apartheid regime – pressures we have no reason to expect in Israel’s case. Not in the foreseeable future. The United States was the first country to officially divest from South Africa in 1986; America under Donald Trump will be the last to divest from Israel. Barring such pressures, the occupation, segregation and disenfranchisement will not cease.

We ought to learn from the past, and from the ongoing experience of other peoples in similar circumstances: the Rohingya in Myanmar, the Kurds in Turkey, the Sahrawis in Western Sahara, the Bidun in the Persian Gulf, the Tibetans in China, and countless others that prove the occupation will not end without a wide coalition working against it.

We should, therefore, invest our time and efforts in two main fronts. First, damage control and persistent, nonviolent, binational resistance at home. Second, in building multinational coalitions of oppressed peoples. Such coalitions should mark the year 2020, for example, to promote a progressive candidate in the US to push their agenda.

As long as Netanyahu treats us as a bargaining chip with the Arab states; as long as the Israeli population remains indifferent at best; as long as the world loses its interest in our struggle; as long as we wait for a “messiah” to come and take this terrible occupation off our shoulders – it will not end. An equal and just society does not sprout on its own, we must cultivate one.