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January 7th, 2021 
Awake Goy Yesterday the political reporter Barak Ravid spoke to a liberal Zionist organization and told an audience of American Jews an important political truth: The reason Israel is going to a fourth election in March, and probably a fifth after that, is that Israeli Jewish politicians on the “center-left” refuse to become prime minister with the support of Palestinian voters.
That would be “unheard of” in the U.S., Ravid said. Though this has been the overarching lesson of Israeli politics in the last year— and it has not reduced mainstream Jewish support for Israel one iota.
The Walla news reporter also told the Israel Policy Forum that Israeli government plans to annex the West Bank — which Benjamin Netanyahu announced more than a year ago to a lot of fanfare — are now “dead” because of the opposition of Biden to such plans. This was the achievement of the Israel lobby inside the Democratic Party, when it flexes its muscle.
Ravid described an Israeli political system suffused with racism. Palestinian voters are deeply frustrated because they turned out at historic levels in March 2020 and won 15 parliamentary seats, successfully blocking Netanyahu from forming a rightwing government. The Palestinians hoped to be part of the Israeli government.
Then the racism kicked in big time. Netanyahu began a “delegitimization” campaign against center-left rival Benny Gantz for counting on seats of the Palestinian Joint List to form a governing coalition, and several Jewish members of Gantz’s potential coalition said they were not willing to sit in a government that is supported by Palestinian votes.
Ravid pointed out to listeners this wouldn’t happen in the United States.
“I know that is unheard of for someone in America. Just think if you can imagine… let’s say someone who says he doesn’t want to be elected president with the vote of African Americans, or Hispanic Americans. A, No politician would say that because it’s stupid politics, but b, it’s unacceptable. [Gantz’s party] Blue and White decided to be both racist and politically stupid, and joined Netanyahu in his government. It basically sent the signal to Arab voters that their vote doesn’t count because it can’t change anything.”
The likely result is that Palestinian turnout will go down in the coming election from 65 to 55 percent, and Palestinian parliamentary seats will drop from 15 to 10. And Netanyahu is exploiting this demoralization: He is now campaigning in Arab communities, going twice to Arab cities in recent weeks, asking for rightwing Palestinian votes.
Ravid said this racism will likely force a fifth election in Israel inside of 2-1/2 years even after the fourth one in March. Because Israeli politics is stalemated.
Netanyahu’s rightwing bloc gets as many as 57 seats (Likud, ultra-Orthodox parties and Naftali Bennett’s party). While the anti-Netanyahu bloc of politicians, including Gideon Saar, Yair Lapid, the remnants of Blue and White, and Labor and Meretz too, gets up to 64. Sixty-four is enough to make a government, but that includes the Palestinian Joint List!
“Basically you get to the same point as the previous election. Netanyahu can’t form a government, and the people on the other side don’t want to form a government because they don’t want to get the support of the Joint List. So we’re stuck.”
It’s amazing that an audience of important US Jews — including William Daroff, head of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, and Mort Zuckerman, the real estate baron and media mogul — can hear this central truth of Israeli politics and go on holding Israel’s hand. But they do! J Street, the leading lobby for Israel inside the Democratic Party, calls Israel a “Jewish democracy,” even in the face of such racist traditions.
The power of the American Jewish community was demonstrated by Ravid’s other point, that annexation is dead.
“No one is talking about annexation any more, it is clear that this thing is dead… There is no annexation when Joe Biden is in the White House. Every politician that I ask, and this includes Bennett and Gideon Saar, they all acknowledge that it is not feasible and that you cannot move forward with annexation when you have a president like Joe Biden in the White House.”
Susie Gelman, chair of the Israel Policy Forum, said that hers was the first organization on this side of the ocean to talk about the dangers of annexation three years ago. IPF was joined by several other liberal Zionist organizations, even as AIPAC waffled on the issue. These organizations threatened withdrawing U.S. support over annexation. And the Israel lobby got the Democratic Party to oppose annexation firmly, and got Netanyahu to hold off.
The point here is, If American Jewish organizations cared about the occupation and the routine slaughter of 15-year-old Palestinian boy protesters to support “Jewish settlement” as enshrined in Israeli law, they could stop that too. But they’ve chosen not to oppose occupation with any vigor.
Ravid said Israeli politics are more rightwing than ever. “The center-left camp that managed just a year ago to get 65 seats– the majority… is comletely disintegrated, it is disoriented, leaderless, and in a very, very deep crisis.” No one is debating settlements in Israeli politics, and the country is pursuing a policy of “creeping annexation.”
Ravid said it’s his impression that Biden “doesn’t have any appetite to deal” with creeping annexation by taking on the Israeli government; while rolling back some Trump policies, Biden won’t speak up unless the Israeli government does something “extreme.” That means he will let his State Department spokesperson deal with the issue of Israeli settlements.
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