The Kahol Lavan is not an alternative in Israel

Kahol Lavan, Blue and White party, has projected itself as an alternative to Netanyahu's Likud. It claims it has solutions to Israel's problems but its policies are not much different from Bibi's. Its leadership is less corrupt than Bibi and they may change some social policies here and there but on the key issues of rights of Israeli Arabs and the Palestinian state, they want to continue the failed policies of brutality,  force, status quo, and settlements. This was made obvious once again when the chairman of the Joint (Arab) List, Arab-Israeli parliamentarian Ayman Odeh said in an interview that, on some conditions, he would be willing to join a center-left government, led by the Kahol Lavan. The conditions were as follows:

• "Planning and Construction: Freeze demolition of buildings in privately owned territories, repeal the Kaminitz Law that exacerbated the penalty for building offenses, build an Arab city.
• Violence: Gather weapons from the public, establish anti-crime organizations and an inter-agency team to combat crime.
• Welfare: Construct a public hospital in an Arab city, raise old-age pensions, disburse extra budget for dormitories for battered women.
• Political: Resume negotiations with the "Palestinians", abolish nationality law."

This was a historic shift, something which Kahol Lavan should have considered seriously. They could have negotiated and rejected one or two conditions but its leadership immediately rejected this peaceful overture. 

Gideon Levy in Haaretz takes Kahol Lavan to task on 25th August and appeals Israelis to reject this "nothing" party in the coming elections:

Vote left, vote right, just don’t vote nothing. The nothing of Kahol Lavan isn’t merely nothing, it’s an actively destructive nothing. It suffocates any possibility of providing an alternative and eliminates any hope for change. 

The leaders of this nothing threaten that the next round of warfare in the Gaza Strip will be “the last round” and avoid the most moderate of Israeli Arab leaders as if he were the plague. If that’s the alternative to the right-wing government, then we’re better off with the original. 

It’s true that they are nice and less corrupt, that they would undoubtedly introduce a few changes that would improve the atmosphere in Israel. But they’ve already proven beyond all doubt that whenever a position must be taken not on a populist issue like the need for more hospitals, but rather on a controversial topic such as war and peace, they will always choose a right-wing stance. The daylight between them and Likud when it comes to core issues can be measured in microns. Kahol Lavan will only rush more quickly to lead Israel into another pointless, criminal war.

The disgraceful response of the heads of Kahol Lavan to the statement of Joint List Chairman Ayman Odeh offered definitive proof of their cowardice or their right-wing credentials, and it’s not clear which is worse. It’s safe to assume that the heads of Kahol Lavan seemingly agree with most of Odeh’s theoretical conditions for joining the government; only their fear of being painted in a too-left light pushed them into a response that pushed them to the right of Kahanist party Otzma Yehudit. When Yair Lapid and Gabi Ashkenazi treat Odeh as if he were contagious, their incitement affects centrist voters, not the “hilltop youth” hard-core activist settlers. 

The hollow talk of “the last round” and “the restoration of deterrence” has also proven that the nothing of Kahol Lavan is right and more right. Their next round in Gaza won’t be the last or even the antepenultimate round, because exactly like Likud, all they are offering is force and more force, with a few bones tossed in to assuage the hunger. The rounds of warfare will continue into infinity. The leaders of Kahol Lavan know what is the only solution for the Gaza Strip, but it's something which they don’t have the courage to propose. A few of them killed more than a few people, they have Palestinian blood on their hands; they know where all of that has led in the past, and where it will always lead in the future. 

They also know just how hollow the talk of deterrence is, when desperation is the main driving force. When a young Palestinian man places a bomb at a spring that was robbed from his village, he knows that he is ruining his own life and that of his family — and he is not deterred. And there is nothing that could deter him, apart from hope for a different reality. Pronouncements about deterrence are for cowards and populists, like those of Kahol Lavan. Courageous people would speak about a genuine solution, about lifting the siege on Gaza and ending the occupation of the West Bank. Save for these, there are no solutions. But that’s a few sizes too big for Kahol Lavan. 

Kahol Lavan offers a government of generals. Having spent the majority of their lives in barracks, they know only one language, the language of force, and only two kinds of Arabs, the terrorist and the collaborator. They also know very little about life in Israel. They were too busy with wars and policing. Not one of the three leading generals in Kahol Lavan has broadened his view of the world beyond that. Their clumsy way of speaking only underlines this. The addition of Yair Lapid, the civilian, only detracts from the party: He is the most populist politician in Israel today. “Deterrence you build through force, through a lot of force and through disproportionate force,” the off-brand macho boasted on Friday, sizing up the chances for achieving change in Israel at zero. If the choice is Netanyahu or Ahmad Tibi, then it's Tibi, without hesitation. Bibi or Benny Gantz of Kahol Lavan? Bibi, with hesitation.

A rightwing corporation has taken over Israel

Akiva Eldar argues that a rightwing coalition, led by Prime Minister Netanyahu, has taken over Israel. He contends that this corporation has ignored the interests of the owners of Israel (Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs) and made a small minority, the rightwing settlers and their supporters in Israel, the major beneficiary of Israeli state's largesse. The latest evidence of this takeover is the pledge by PM Netanyahu that 800 million shekels ($226 million) would be spent on upgrading security measures along West Bank roads that are only used by settlers, are not in Israel, and bypass the Arab villages. This pledge is problematic at many levels. Israeli settlements are against international law. These settlements and roads leading to them are an illegal confiscation of the future Palestinian state's lands. Helping settlements will make a two-state solution even more improbable. Furthermore, these roads discriminate against Palestinian Arabs who are not allowed to use them. Finally, the funding discriminates against both Israeli Jews and Arabs as projects to improve their quality of life are put on back burner to support settlers who do not live in Israel. An excerpt from the article is reproduced below (You can read it in full Israeli right’s anti-democratic laws penetrate everywhere)

The accepted definition of a corporation is “a legal entity that is separate and distinct from its owners.” The main goal of the entity headed by Netanyahu is to entrench the rule of the right wing over the entire land of Israel, including the occupied territories. To promote this goal, the corporation is crushing — one by one — the fundamentals of democracy, foremost among them the principle that the citizens of Israel, including its minorities and the guardians of its democracy, are the owners of the corporation.

The takeover of the corporation of the State of Israel is being executed in incremental fashion, using legislation and sanctions, making it a little less democratic, a little more Jewish. The plethora of laws and sanctions make a mockery of Israeli democracy. Viewed separately, each of these initiatives is a yawn; taken together, this accumulation of legislation should make every Israeli lose sleep.
Following are select examples:

• The “loyalty in culture” bill aims to authorize the Ministry of Culture to withhold funding from cultural institutions for other than professional reasons. Regev is conducting a crusade against institutions she deems disloyal to the state and its values by curtailing their funding.

• Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon is working to withdraw the tax exemption of Amnesty International. Israel will thus join the dubious elite club of governments that persecute human rights activists, such as Turkey, Thailand, Russia and Iran.

• Minister of Public Security Gilad Erdan is working to formulate sanctions against entities that call for a boycott of Israel or of settlements.

• Education Minister Naftali Bennett is seeking authorization to ban certain speakers from appearing before school students. Bennett has acted to withhold funding from the play “A Parallel Time” by the Arabic-language Al-Midan Theater and to ban the novel “Borderlife” by Dorit Rabinyan from the literature matriculation exam. He has also suspended funding for organizations dedicated to pluralistic Judaism. At Bennett’s request, professor Asa Kasher has compiled an ethics code for universities, which includes establishing a unit to oversee political activity in academic institutions and prohibits lecturers from expressing political views or calling for an academic boycott of Israel.

• The so-called Expulsion law initiated by the prime minister authorizes Knesset members to oust their peers, risking abuse of power by a political majority against a political minority.

• The so-called Muezzin law limits the use of public address systems in mosques during the early morning hours.

Netanyahu is turning the state prosecutor’s office, the police and the media into punching bags. Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked is conducting an aggressive campaign against the Supreme Court and the separation of powers. Bennett has mobilized the school system for a religious, right-wing brainwashing of the country’s youth. The Knesset and Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit have managed to scuttle some of the more outlandish proposals, such as the “French law” that would have precluded criminal probes of an incumbent prime minister. But the notion that a prime minister is above the law has already become a legitimate issue for discussion.

The Regulation law that enables the theft of Palestinian lands in order to turn them over to Jews — legalizing West Bank outposts constructed on private Palestinian lands — is likely to be struck down by the Supreme Court. However, its invalidation will simply provide Netanyahu with ammunition against the “leftist traitors” who petitioned against the bill. Proposed legislation banning left-wing nonprofits from receiving donations from foreign countries has been blocked, as expected, by pressure from the European Union. Never mind. This is yet another opportunity for Netanyahu to bolster his claims that the Europeans are anti-Semites.

However, the Nationality law dwarfs all other initiatives. The proposed bill is the biggest existential threat to the challenge of coexistence — between the twin founding visions of the state as equally Jewish and democratic.

Source: Latuff's Cartoons

Mr. Eldar's contentions were corroborated by the lavish celebrations to mark the fiftieth anniversary of settlements in September 2017 where Netanyahu not only said that settlements are here to stay but also announced an increase in the construction of houses for settlers:

Israel has hosted a lavish ceremony marking 50 years of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank and Golan Heights. 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed the settlements would never be removed, even though they are illegal under international law.

"There will be no more uprooting of settlements in the land of Israel," he said at the ceremony, held in a settlement in the West Bank, south of Jerusalem.
"It's not the way to make peace."

Reporting from the Palestinian village of Al Kader, Al Jazeera's Harry Fawcett said that "nearly 600,000 settlers live in the occupied West Bank including East Jerusalem." 

On Wednesday, Netanyahu had promised that a further 3,300 settlement units would be approved next month, bringing the total number of settlement units constructed to 7,000 in the year 2017 alone. (See Netanyahu on settlements: 'We're here to stay, forever')