Palestinians respond to Netanyahu election win

As the final results of the Israeli elections were announced today, Israel's Palestinian citizens are coming to terms with the outcome that Benjamin Netanyahu will lead the country for the fourth time as prime minister.

Netanyahu’s shrewdness proved that he knows exactly what the majority of Israeli people want, at a time when many were writing him off as being detrimental to the best interests of Israel. In a video posted on his Facebook on the day of elections, Netanyahu galvanised voters by dangling the bogeyman in front of them: the Arabs will take over the country.

“The right-wing government is in danger,” he said. “Arab voters are coming out in droves to the polls. Left-wing organisations are bussing them out. Get out to vote, bring your friends and family, vote Likud in order to close the gap between us and Labor.”

Netanyahu’s election campaign was criticised for focusing on security and not on the domestic issues that Israelis face, such as the high housing costs. But Netanyahu knew what he was doing all along. The prospect of Israel even pretending to cater to the whims of its Palestinian citizens, referred to repeatedly as the fifth column by right-winger Avigdor Lieberman, was enough to send Likud to the top.

The mask is off

The Palestinian Authority was less than enthusiastic about Netanyahu's victory, and warned that they are willing to combat Israel’s war crimes and violations of human rights in the international arena. The PA signed up for the International Criminal Court in January, to which Israel retaliated by freezing hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenue.

Several Palestinian officials from the West Bank reacted to Netanyahu’s win, calling it as the end of the two state solution.

Palestinian legislator Mustafa Barghouti tweeted: “No more masks. #Netanyahu kills the two state solution and Israel is officially an #Apartheid state.

Senior Palestinian Liberation Organisation official Yasser Abed Rabbo, touted as a peace dove, accused Israel of abandoning the chance to reach a political settlement.

“Israel chose the path of racism, occupation and settlement building, and did not choose the path of negotiations and partnerships between us,” Abed Rabbo said.

Chief negotiator Saeb Erekat called on the international community to stand with the PA in order to deal with the soon-to-be-formed Israeli right-wing government.

“Netanyahu has buried the two-state solution,” he said. “There is no partner for peace in Israel. So the international community must stand shoulder to shoulder with us to expedite our efforts toward…defining our relations with Israel.”

Netanyahu win is a positive thing

Naji Mohammed, a 30-year-old IT specialist from Tulkarem, preferred the win of Israeli right-wingers from those who pose as the left.

“The only outcome this election achieved was to empty the Israeli government of the fig leaf that [the left] represented,” he said. “The positive thing that came out of Netanyahu’s victory is to do with losing the fig leaf that posed as the peace process. Of course, the peace process is long dead but now there is no excuse to perpetuate it since Netanyahu is not even willing to pay lip service to the peace process.”

Mohammed believed that things will only get worse for Palestinians under the new Israeli government, pointing out how there is no difference between the Israeli right and left -“Livni was in the cabinet during the war on Gaza in 2008-2009”- and the Labor party built more settlements than Netanyahu did.  

“There won’t be an intifada, but there will be some radical changes,” he said. “Look at the stance of the Palestinian Authority, for example. I know they talk the talk, but the discourse of the PA is now all about the recognition of the peace process is game over. Their statements of saying they will stop the security coordination with Israel, or when Abed Rabbo, the biggest peace dove in that camp, says that Israel has chosen the path of racism…all points to a change.”

Buthaina Lathqani, a 27-year-old living in Haifa, attributed Netanyahu’s win to scaring off the Israelis from Palestinians, whether they live within Israel, Gaza or the West Bank.

“In a way I am glad he won,” she contemplated. “He won’t change his policy against us. His name and government already has an obvious black mark on it, and it gives perfect justification for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanction movement.”

Lathqani hopes that the Joint List, a coalition of Arab parties that came in third place in the elections and secured 13 seats, will be able to affect the lives of Palestinian citizens of Israel in a meaningful way.

“I hope they will manage to improve our lives by at least trying to get us some equality to start with,” she said, “as well as to support the youth movements and help Palestinians everywhere [to] connect and meet.”

'Fierce four years'

Marwan Frieh, a Palestinian journalist and political activist from the Negev, said that the Israeli election results did not differ from his own expectations.

“No one expected Netanyahu to win so decisively, with the United States and Europe not keen on backing him,” Frieh told the Middle East Eye. “But if anything, this shows that the Zionists are all followers of the right-wing, not the left.”

Frieh is under no illusion as to what Palestinians should expect from the next Israeli government, and said that Palestinian Bedouins will not be spared from mass expulsion from their lands as presented by the currently frozen Prawer Plan. Today the Israeli government carried out demolitions in the town of Rahat and the Bir al-Hammam, one of the unrecognised Bedouin village.

“We’re going to face a fierce next four years under a strong occupation government not seen in history since 1967,” he stated. “This government will devote every effort to pillage the territory of the Naqab (Negev) which is around 800,000 dunums, forcibly displace 40,000 Palestinians from the area, and continue to not recognise 38 villages here.”

The government will be formed of a coalition of the extreme right-wing parties, or the “national camp” said Frieh, referring to the right-wing’s term.

“The government will work to exclude the Palestinian citizens in the north (the Triangle and the Galilee) from their rights by enacting laws or amending them; will speed up the Judaizing of Jerusalem; continue to expand and construct more settlements; and according to Lieberman and Netanyahu’s statements, there will be no Palestinian state and they will get rid of all those who try to compromise the security and stability of the occupying entity,” he summarised.