With less than a week before Israeli general elections and with nearly 20 per cent of Israeli voters undecided, most opinion polls give right-wing political parties — both secular and religious — the solid victory. A joint list comprising Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's Likud Party, and the “Russian party” of former Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, Israel Beitinu (Israel is Our Home), is expected to win more seats in the Knesset than any other electoral list. Lieberman resigned as foreign minister two weeks ago after he was indicted for breach of trust, among similar charges. However, his indictment is not expected to have a drastic impact on the former Moldovan immigrant's popularity, especially among supporters, who mainly hail from the one million strong Russian immigrant community who arrived in Israel amid the collapse of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s. The Likud-Israel Beitinu list is forecast to win as many as 37 parliamentary seats, according to the latest polls. This means that Netanyahu would be asked to form the next Israeli government. All in all, the Israeli right is expected to win a minimum of 70 seats in the 120-seat Israeli parliament. In the past few weeks, hopes arose over the possibility of building a strong “leftist-Zionist” challenge to the hegemonic right, but to no avail (the term itself is an oxymoron given the inherent contradiction between leftist ideals and Zionism). The so-called left and centre-left parties, whose ideological and political views vis-à-vis the Palestinians differ little from those on the right, failed to get their act together. Former foreign minister Tzipi Livni, who has been struggling to sell herself as the leader of the opposition, failed to rally an exhausted and hopeless left around her. Livni, nonetheless, continued to accuse Netanyahu of pushing Israel towards the one-state solution, with the prospect of Israel losing its Jewish identity as a result of losing its demographic majority. According to most demographers, there are already more non-Jews living between the Mediterranean and River Jordan than there are Jews. Right-wing parties, including the Likud, didn't respond directly to Livni's accusations. However, it is widely understood that the bulk of the right-wing camp in Israel views apartheid or “transfer” as the ultimate solution for the Palestinian demographic advantage. According to the Israeli political lexicon, the term “transfer” is widely understood as a euphemism for ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their ancestral homeland. Livni and other like-minded leaders are expected to capitalise on remarks critical of Netanyahu, reportedly made recently by US President Obama. According to the Israeli The Jerusalem Post newspaper, Obama called the Israeli prime minister a political coward, saying that under his leadership, Israel doesn't know what its own best interests are. Obama's remarks reportedly came in response to the ongoing phenomenal expansion of Jewish settlements, including the provocative colony of E-1 which, if implemented, would cut Jerusalem off from the rest of the West Bank and put an end to Palestinian hopes for establishing a viable state in the West Bank. “RISING STAR”: One of the surprises expected to feature in the upcoming elections is the rising star of the Bayt HaYahudi, or Jewish Home. This is the settlers' party par excellance, which is expected to become the third or fourth largest party in the Knesset. It is highly expected that a large majority of Jewish settlers in the West Bank (nearly half a million) and Jerusalem will give the party their votes. The party is openly fascist as far as the Palestinians and non-Jews in general are concerned. It advocates apartheid (without specifically mentioning the word, however) for resolving the “conflict with the Palestinian”. In the long run, the Palestinians can choose between service to the master race of Jews, pursuant Jewish religious law, or Halacha, or expulsion or physical extermination. Some leaders of Bayt HaYahudi propose allowing the Palestinians to remain west of the Jordan River, for the time being, in return for total and complete loyalty to Israel as a Jewish state as well as giving up all claims to equal citizenship and democratic rights. According to the platform of the party, there must be “no other” state between Jordan and Israel. Bayt HaYahudi leader Naftali Bennet, an American from California, says his party represents true Jewish values. “In fact, we are witnessing a ‘Jewish Spring' that is sweeping Israel.” Bennet speaks kindly to Jewish electorates as opposed to his clearly hostile tone towards Palestinians. Bayt HaYahudi views rabbis such as Meir Kahana as ideological inspirations. Kahana, who was killed in New York in 1990, had written a book entitled They Must Go, referring to Palestinians in both Israel proper and the occupied territories that Israel seized in 1967. The Bayt HaYahudi Party leadership hopes to either join a government led by Netanyahu or form a strong opposition that would foil any prospective territorial “concessions” to the Palestinians. Other extreme right wing groups have been provoking Palestinians both in Israel and the West Bank as part of their respective election campaigns. At the village of Mosmos in northern Israel, a few dozen extremists on Tuesday held a provocative march demanding the expulsion of Arabs from Israel. Hundreds of Palestinian villagers confronted the Jewish extremists, calling them “Hitler youth”. In Hebron, Lieberman “visited” the Ibrahimi Mosque under heavy military protection. The racist politician said that the nearly 100 per cent Arab city would remain “Jewish” and “part of Israel”. With the political map in Israel looking increasingly bleak, at least for those willing to give chances for peace the benefit of the doubt, pundits expect the next Israeli government to exacerbate the regional and international crisis over the Palestinian issue. For his part, Netanyahu, likely to remain as Israeli premier, would probably seek to form the broadest possible coalition in order to thwart possible American pressure on Israel aimed at salvaging whatever prospects for a peace settlement remain.
