One, Two Three – Victory!

Ameer Bisharat

According to its own narrative, Israel gained quite a few victories over the past two and a half years that will be remembered for generations: The destruction of the people in Gaza; the “evaporation” of Hezbollah in Lebanon; and the destruction of the nuclear program in Iran during the Twelve-Day War. But all these victories are insignificant compared to the absolute victory of the Zionist narrative in the West Bank. Land confiscation, the forced displacement of the local Palestinian population, Jewish terror backed and accompanied by the army, and a fully right-wing narrative on the Palestinian state solution.

A similar situation can be seen in the complete victory in weakening the Palestinian public that are citizens of the state, in deepening socio-economic gaps, and in reinforcing the lack of personal security, which is amplified and echoed by the crime organizations and rising violence.

It seems that indeed there are several theatres of war, all defined as existential: the war to destroy Hamas (which in the past was considered an asset); the war on the northern front to eliminate Hezbollah (which in the past some defined its end as the evaporation of the organization, and in recent days have contradicted themselves); and the war against Iran and its nuclear program. But in practice, the central front is against the Palestinian population: one in the West Bank, and the other within Israel.

On the one hand, there is the global public opinion, which ranges from legitimizing the elimination of Hamas due to the massacre of October seventh, through legitimizing the replacement of the Ayatollah regime in Iran, to the destruction of Iran’s most significant proxy organization on the northern border – Hezbollah. On the other hand, at the same time, informal extensions of the Zionist state impose terror in the West Bank, and the Israeli police empower crime organizations to ensure control over the Palestinian population living in Israel.

On the one hand, there is the Zionist opposition – a broad spectrum that includes on the right, the frontrunner to lead a ‘change coalition ‘Naftali Bennett, and on the left the process-identifying general Yair Golan – an opposition which supports, mobilizes for, and advocates the war against Iran. This “opposition” maintains a resounding silence in the face of Jewish terror in the West Bank, and shows only a loose and insufficient respond to the harsh reality of the Palestinian community in Israel.

The Palestinian population in Israel is more vulnerable to falling missiles and interception debris. It suffers from a severe shortage of shelters, is physically and mentally affected by the war, is disappointed by an obedient opposition that favors wars over political arrangements, while struggling to express the depth of the pain caused by the cruelty of war. At the same time, its finest members are taken into detention on false charges of identifying with the enemy, its voice is silenced and its faith is fractured, and it is being slaughtered by crime organizations backed by the Zionist state.

The Palestinian population in the West Bank suffers from Jewish terror, from the crimes of the army, and from a weak and disgraceful Palestinian Authority. Both the government and the opposition do not conceal the racist nature of Zionism, by openly declaring that a political arrangement with the Palestinians that would bring an end to the occupation and the establishment of a Palestinian state is not on the table in the coming years, and that there will be no change in political and security priorities. This is true whether it is a full right-wing government or a so-called change center-right government.

The most significant victory of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not the many electoral victories over the past decades, but rather the closing of ranks within the Zionist opposition around leading candidates who resemble him. Like him, they support right-wing policies, distance themselves from being labelled as left or even center, encourage continued control over the Palestinian population, are deterred from Arab-Jewish political partnership, and share countless similarities with Netanyahu – not the person, but the policy.

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Attorney Ameer Bisharat is a strategic consultant.

He is a graduate of two School for Peace programs: Change Agents in the field of Law, and Politicians Building Bridges.

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