The Israeli extreme right is ruling Israel today, and has enough popularity to prompt the Likud Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to bring forward the Knesset elections by eight whole months. On Monday, he announced his decision to dissolve the Knesset, which is set to begin its winter session next Monday, and will find before it a draft bill aimed at disbanding it. No doubt, the bill will be passed quickly. The major parties of the government coalition, including Likud, Yisrael Beiteinu and Shas, are the personification of political and religious extremism, although the majority of Jews around the world, and in Israel itself, are liberal and centrist. The best proof of this extremism is how the Palestinians in Jerusalem and the occupied territories as a whole are being treated. Even Yedioth Ahronoth ran in one day two articles, one by Alex Fishman and the other by Yaron Doron, about ‘Jewish terrorism', involving arson attacks on mosques, assaults on monasteries and graffiti insulting to Christianity. In addition to the assaults on Palestinians, their mosques and their churches, another issue is the fall of the Israeli liberal media and the rise of the right-wing media funded by wealthy Jews, including some from Britain and the United States. Israel's Channel Two, the most widely viewed in Israel, is on the brink of insolvency, and Channel Ten has probably already gone bankrupt. Maariv, Israel's oldest newspaper, is facing either closure, after 64 years of non-stop publication, or shifting to the right. Meanwhile, the Israeli leftist-leaning paper Haaretz was not published even once this week, because of strikes by its staff in protest of the firing of their colleagues and strict cost-cutting measures. By contrast, Israel Hayom, which is only five years old, is thriving, thanks to its billionaire owner, the Jewish American Sheldon Adelson, a Las Vegas gambling casino tycoon and Mitt Romney's ally. Makor Rishon is not doing too badly either. It is owned by Shlomo Ben-Zvi, a Briton who immigrated to Israel where he lives in a settlement. His newspaper represents a small extremist wing within Likud. In other words, he is more fanatical than a fanatical fascist and racist party to begin with, if that is at all possible. These people are neo-Nazis, even if they deny it. In such a situation, with the right in control, Netanyahu felt confident enough to call for early elections, because he can guarantee that he will return for a third term as prime minister. Naturally, Netanyahu is a professional charlatan and a pathological liar. For this reason, in his announcement that he would be dissolving parliament, his excuse was that he insisted on passing a ‘responsible' budget, and that his failure for doing so was the reason behind his decision. But this is an excuse as deceptive as Netanyahu's entire policies. This is not my opinion alone, as Matti Tuchfeld, a commentator in Israel Hayom, said that Netanyahu could have passed any budget he wanted with ease. What Netanyahu did not say was that the budget will include painful austerity measures, something that does not suit a ruling party in an election year. He thus decided to hold early elections in order to win them again, and then austerity would follow. Then there is his spat with Defense Minister Ehud Barak, which was the topic of my article last Sunday. I just want to return to it from the standpoint where Israeli commentators themselves have wondered whether bringing the elections forward was caused by political issues or personal agendas. The two last words indicate that Netanyahu is seeking to get rid of Barak, after the latter tried to go behind the prime minister's back to present himself to the Americans as a moderate alternative that does not meddle in their internal affairs. In the meantime, the Israeli newspapers revealed that Tzipi Livni and Haim Ramon decided to establish a new centrist party led by Livni. The papers said that Ramon was behind the idea, and he believes that the new party can snatch 14 or 15 seats in any new elections. This would go on to eliminate Kadima, which is now led by Shaul Mofaz after Livni lost the elections for the party leadership. There is no longer a center ground in Israel. The left is made up of a small number of people who have no influence on political decision making. It hence remains for the Arab governments, both new ones and old, to realize that they are facing a racist fascistic regime that combines war criminals, neo-Nazis, settlers and religious extremists who claim that the Haram al-Sharif is theirs, and assault the sanctities of Muslims and Christians every day. [email protected]
