Netanyahu promotes re-election with promise to annex colonies | Internationale

In the last round of elections, Netanyahu played a resounding Saturday night to mobilize the voters who gave him the victory in 2015, holding a third consecutive term as head of government for a decade. If he succeeds in revalidating him tomorrow, he will become the prime minister who has remained in office as long as possible – including his term between 1996 and 1999 – after defeating the mark of the founder of the Jewish state, David Ben Gurion.

Its policy of maintaining the status quo of the occupation, which it considers to be in favor of Israel's interests, has now turned in favor of the most refractory theories of international law in order to attract the votes of the far right. nationalist. The latest published polls show an unfavorable result for Netanyahu's Likud party, behind its main rival, former General Benny Gantz (former head of the armed forces), consecrated as an alternative to the leader of the blue and white centrist coalition.

The prime minister says that "the creation of a Palestinian state can threaten the existence of Israel". More than 400,000 settlers settled in two hundred settlements after the occupation of the West Bank in 1967, in the so-called Six Day War.

The debate over the equation of peace by the territories was absent from the campaign. The famous slogan, which was politically translated more than 25 years ago into the Oslo Peace Accords and into the birth of the Palestinian Authority, is an empty message today.

Retired Lieutenant-General Gantz clashed with the promise of the Likud leader. "It seems to me irresponsible to express myself about a strategic and historic decision as part of an election campaign," he warned on Ynet's news portal. The opposition's favorite candidate in the polls rejects any "unilateral" measure. "We will do our utmost to reach a regional and global peace agreement," promised Gantz, who has not spoken out on the creation of a Palestinian state, but defends Israeli sovereignty in the valley of the Jordan and the peace blocks. settlements in the West Bank.

The Netanyahu government had so far interpreted that large settlements such as Maale Adumim (east of Jerusalem), Gush Etzion (south-west of Bethlehem) or Ariel (north of the West Bank) were to become integral part of the Jewish state after an exchange of territories, fruit of a peace agreement with the Palestinians. Netanyahu has now radically changed his doctrine. "We will not distinguish between large settlement blocks and isolated settlements because each of them is part of Israel and we will not place them under Palestinian sovereignty," said Likud leader in an election pledge that triggered the angry Palestinian protest.

The Secretary-General of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Saeb ErekatHe immediately responded via Twitter: "With Netanyahu, Israel continues to violate systematically international law, while the international community grants impunity". Turkey has also denounced the election announcement. "The promise to win votes does not change the reality: the West Bank is a Palestinian territory occupied by Israel," said Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Cavusolglu.

"Progressive Sovereignty"

Ofer Zalzberg, International Crisis Group badyst, pointed out in social networks that Netanyahu had been introduced in the final debate of the campaign on the policy of the fait accompli of "progressive application of Israeli sovereignty" to Jewish settlers settlements.

Israeli NGO Peace Now, which is closely monitoring settlement growth, reported yesterday that the administration pushed Thursday construction of 4,615 new homes in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. "The promotion of thousands of homes for Israelis in the occupied territories can only be explained by Netanyahu's willingness to annex the West Bank," a statement issued by the peace organization said. "These projects only undermine the two-State solution and the continuity of Israel as a democratic country.

A "flagrant violation" of international law

The international community believes that all Israeli settlements built in the occupied Palestinian territories lack "legal validity". On December 23, 2016, the United Nations Security Council last reiterated it in its resolution 2334, pbaded unanimously, with the exception of the United States, which abstained for the first time in decades. At the end of his term, President Barack Obama decided not to exercise Washington's veto power over Israel after eight years of fierce opposition to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's policy on the Palestinian issue.

During a session chaired by Spain, which took turns in the presidency of the Council, resolution 2334 described as "gross violation" of international law settlements in the Palestinian territories occupied since then. 1967, including East Jerusalem. Netanyahu defended the two-state solution ten years ago in a speech at Bar Ilan University, but did not strive to implement it. The latest negotiations with the Palestinians, promoted by the United States, were canceled five years ago.

The division demobilizes Arab voters

The Arab parties of Israel joined the 2015 legislative parties, in which they achieved their best result and became the third force of the Knesset (Parliament), with a bench of 13 of the 120 seats. They represent one fifth of the population: Palestinians and their descendants who remained in the Jewish state after its creation in 1948.

Internal conflicts have now split the vote of the country's largest minority into two blocs. The list of Hadash-Taal, with a program of left and Arab nationalism, oscillates in the latest polls published between seven and eight deputies. The Balad-Raam (Nationalists and Islamists) candidacy is limited to a minimum of four seats, within a limit of 3.25% of the national vote that opens the door to the Knesset.

In the streets of Haifa, the metropolitan capital of the region where much of the Arab population of Israel is concentrated, the lampposts are intertwined, calling to vote "in hordes", ironic allusion to Benjamin Netanyahu, to both lists of the minority, with videos posted on social networks, such as rapper Tamer Nafar. But many calls to boycott ballot boxes and leaflets denouncing the fact that Arabs were relegated to the status of second-clbad citizens after the promulgation, in 2018, of the controversial law of the Jewish nation.

Four years ago, two-thirds of Arabs went to the polls. The latest voting estimates indicate that only half of the registered Arabs will vote tomorrow. Although they do not join a center-left government, Arab parties can be decisive in blocking the Likud leader's fifth investiture.