From the Editors 14 June 2021
For Palestinians, I explained, the new leadership is merely like changing the executioner. It may matter for the spectators, but for the person whose head is on the chopping block, it makes absolutely no difference whose hands are holding the ax.
Watch the full interview above.
I highlighted delusional statements from many in the so-called international community marketing the new government as an opportunity to work for “peace” and a “two-state solution.”
US Senate Majority leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, asserted that with the new government in place, “we are hopeful that we can now begin serious negotiations for a two-state solution.”
EU envoy Sven Koopmans also looked forward to “working with the new government of Israel towards lasting peace and security.”
The leaders of the US, Britain, Canada and Germany also gave Bennett a warm welcome.As I told TRT World, Bennett has over the last decade attacked his predecessor Benjamin Netanyahu from the right.
While Netanyahu was willing to publicly pretend to support a Palestinian state – albeit under impossible conditions – Bennett has never even been willing to do that.
Bennett has pushed for formal apartheid, in which Israel annexes most of the occupied West Bank without giving the vast majority of Palestinians any rights.
As a young officer, Bennett was involved in Israel’s April 1996 massacre of more than 100 refugees sheltering at a UN base in southern Lebanon.
“I have killed lots of Arabs in my life – and there is no problem with that,” he reportedly bragged later.
Of course, Bennett is not alone in the government. As I recently wrote, the new cabinet contains a collection of other war criminals and genocidal fanatics.
The new interior minister is Ayelet Shaked, a senior member of Bennett’s Yamina party.
In 2014, she notoriously promoted a call for genocide of the Palestinian people, “including its elderly and its women, its cities and its villages, its property and its infrastructure.”
Staying on as defense minister is Benny Gantz.
He has now led two major massacres in Gaza, the one in 2014, when he was Israeli army chief of staff, and the one last month – a record of slaughter and destruction he brags about.
Meet the new executioners, same as the old.
Comments
the perfect becomes the enemy of the good
Permalink Ed Felien replied on
Palestinians are part of the new Israeli government. This is a great victory. Without their support and the support of the left, the government will fall. Just as Biden's government can get nothing through Congress without the support of Manchin, so Bennet, Lapid and Ganz will be able to get nothing through the Knesset without support from Abbas and the Palestinians. Forgive me my pathological optimism, but I have hope this could be the beginning of rapprochement.
Ridiculous
Permalink Nestor Makhno replied on
is the qualification which I give to your opinion concerning the presumed "veto power " of Abbas and his ilk.
There is no Palestinian power other than that of Hamas, Hezbollah, Ansarallah and Iran.
delusional
Permalink Peter Purich replied on
Palestinians are part of the same old "Israeli" government, assuming that same old "Israeli" government doesn't drag a Palestinian "law maker" and through them in their military prisons as they have done over and over. You are Charlie Brown and getting all hopey and changey with the same god damn Lucy van Pelt.
The addition of a some to the
Permalink Jack T replied on
The addition of a some to the new regime in Israel who are less neanderthal than Bennett and his party will not dilute his absolute and total commitment to implement his racist Zionist obsession.
from Al Jazeera
Permalink Ed Felien replied on
Mansour Abbas – deputy prime minister
Abbas’s small United Arab List will be the first party in an Israeli government to be drawn from Israel’s Palestinian citizens.
He split with other Palestinian politicians who prefer to remain outside government and cast aside differences with Bennett and other right-wingers to tip the scales against Netanyahu.
Abbas is expected to serve as a deputy minister in the prime minister’s office. He aims to negotiate a big increase in government spending in Palestinian towns and villages.
But his presence is a potentially destabilising factor. He has been criticised by Palestinians for agreeing to support an Israeli government while Israel continues to occupy the Palestinian territories.
Addressing these tensions, Abbas told the Italian daily La Repubblica on Friday: “There will be difficult decisions to be made, including security decisions. We have to juggle our identity as Palestinian Arabs and citizens of the State of Israel, between civil and nationalistic aspects.”