Fascism Needs an Enemy

Critically thinking Israelis – a negligible minority – already know the pattern: no matter how extreme our new prime minister is, it won’t take more than a couple of months for the media to portray him as the sane, moderate, and pragmatic leader of the political center. If even the warrior General Sharon could be reborn as "a Man of Peace," why can’t Netanyahu? The landmark was his "Bar Ilan Speech" of June 14, after which mainstream Israeli columnists, lead by the pathetic Ari Shavit (Ha’aretz) and his lowbrow twin brother Ya’ir Lapid (Yedioth Achronot), all resorted to ludicrous narratives of Rebirth, Revolution, and Rubicon for the allegedly new leader of peace-loving Israel.

One can expect little else from the Israeli mainstream, blinded as it is by decades of indoctrination and vested interests, or from Israel’s President Peres, whose political lexicon never included the T of Truth. But the world should be warned. Unlike Lebanon or Iran, Israel has not moved a single step forward in the Obama Era. On the contrary: With the rogue triumvirate of Netanyahu, Barak, and Lieberman, Israel is now ruled by the most nationalist, racist, and fanatical government it has ever had. On top of that, the main opposition party, led by the ultra-nationalist Livni and the opportunistic professional soldier Mofaz, offers yet another duplicate of the government’s narrative, so that the ever narrower public discourse is framed by two ideological and political twins, offering no alternative whatsoever. In fact, the Israeli far Right has now more than 80 percent of the seats in the Knesset – the rest being the Arab parties, Meretz, and a dubious dissenting faction within Labor. Thus the Israeli media consumer is not even exposed to anything but nationalist at best, racist at worst, anti-Palestinian, anti-peace, pro-occupation brainwashing.

Make no mistake: Netanyahu is a man of the occupation, as he always has been. Listen to Netanyahu’s ideological mentor, his father Prof. Benzion Netanyahu, who openly said his son would never agree to a Palestinian state; as Netanyahu told his father, he placed so many conditions on his offer at Bar Ilan in order to make it unacceptable to the Palestinians. It is yet to be seen whether Netanyahu’s anti-peace tactic will be eternal peace talks that go nowhere or whether he will attempt Barak’s "unmasking" gambit. But giving up the occupied territories and ending Israel’s colonialism is clearly not on the agenda. Just two weeks before Netanyahu’s "historic" two-states speech, the Knesset endorsed a decision against a Palestinian state, which enraged Jordanians by claiming Jordan is the Palestinian state. Indeed, the initiator did not come from within Netanyahu’s coalition but from a fascist party on the further Right, but his bill, overwhelmingly endorsed 53-9, was raised just a few days after a Knesset conference on "alternatives to the two-states solution" organized by a member of Netanyahu’s Likud Party. More