Political prediction for 2023

There is a new Israeli government in formation this week. As part of the negotiations by Netanyahu to bring in extremist fascist allies to his coalition, the new government will

1) Expand “security” powers to Kahanist minister and colonial settler Ben Gvir. Basically a terrorist will now have command of police and border police (his own army)

2) Agree to work even harder to finish the job “not done well by Ben Gurion” (Ben Gurion’s regime ethnically cleansed most of the local people see Ilan Pappe’s book “The ethnic cleansing of Palestine”). The proposed actions include making the Galilee and Negev “Jewish” by providing incentives for Jews to move there and pressuring the local Palestinians out. Strengthening the so called “Green police” (racist Zionist militia that does ethnic cleansing in the name of “greening”) and enforcing draconian measures to destroy communities that survived 1948 (so called unrecognized villages) and to consolidated Palestinians into “concentration areas”. This is already happening inside and outside the Green line (1949 cease-fire line).

3) Expand colonial settlements in the West Bank (already nearly one million Jewish illegal settlers live here). Also expand home demolitions and other measures intended to drive the Palestinian population out

4) Allow open racism in the Knesset (no member will be censored for openly attacking Arabs) while restricting freedom of speech from Palestinians and from Jews who oppose racism.

5) Impose death penalty on Palestinians and encourage soldiers to shoot more freely on Palestinians (no legal consequences)

6) Enforce nation state law that defines Israel as a state by and for “Jewish people” (the law says only Jews have a right to “self-determination” and “sovereignty” in historic Palestine (aka Eretz Yisrael)

7) Increase the genocidal strangulation/blockade of Gaza

8) Deny Palestinian political prisoners any right gained via long process of hunger strikes that resulted in some basic dignity to prisoners (like education, healthcare). Already medical neglect is killing many Palestinians in Israeli jails

9) Expand hostage taking and collective punishment by the regime exacted against the local Palestinian community

10) Strengthen segregation and apartheid laws on both sides of the Green Line

11) Make the Israeli Army more “Jewish” for example by giving more power to the Chief Army Rabbi

12) Expand funding for right-wing private schools that teach Jewish children racism against the “goyim” (non-Jews)

13) Expand pressure on Christians and Muslims throughout the country and ignite a war with Muslims by taking over their third holiest site (Al-Aqsa mosque) or at least divide it spatially and temporally as Israel illegally did in the Ibrahim mosque in Hebron

14) Stack the judicial deck with racist political appointees so that any faint image of “fairness” is gone.

Now these and many more unjust actions to come make it so crystal clear that “Israel” is not a state. It is a gang of fanatics with an army. Most people around the world already realize this. Best demonstration was the massive support of Palestine in the World Cup games in Qatar.  But even political leaders who are far easier to manipulate than the public are rethinking. Leaders from the Global South are seeing that indeed there is a lunatic Israeli regime and are increasingly keeping distance. Elections of Lula in Brazil is an indicator. More countries are either moving fascist (like right wing in Italy and Hungary and Ukraine) or moving left. Arab regimes run by dictators kept as banana republics USA/Israel surely will not fare any better than banana republics in South America did.

Even Mahmoud Abbas who has bent over backwards before to provide security and economic growth to the Israeli regime, is getting close to giving up on Israel. His speech 17 December 2022 is reminiscent of speeches by Yasser Arafat before he was poisoned. Both predicted their coming end . The US government under the thumb of AIPAC is even trying to leave a window for difference. The Zionist secretary of State Blinken even addressed J Street (I hope next he will address Jewish Voice for Peace which is far more rational). The US Biden administration is basically now trying to walk along a very narrow tight rope across the abyss. To justify continued dumping of billions of tax payers money down the black hole of Zionism, they merely verbally say they only support the Prime Minister (Netanyahu) and that they hope he will reign in his terrorist coalition ministers like Ben Gvir and Smotrish. But who on earth believes you can draw a line between a racist criminal like Netanyahu and a racist criminal like Ben Gvir. Even old Zionist Henry Kissinger suggests the US empire cannot rule the world any more and must give space for others. The people of earth no longer buy the hypocrisy of massive sanctions on Russia for occupying parts of Ukraine that speak Russian while funding a rogue regime that has occupied all of Palestine, does not obey international law, violates dozens of UN resolutions, and ethnically cleansed the native people (now 8 million of us are refugees or displaced people).

My prediction for 2023, more people and even more governments will challenge the hypocrisy. More and more people rightly view Palestine as the Achilles’ heel of Western Hypocrisy. Time for a Free Palestine so that we end this hypocrisy and build foreign policy based on true justice, democracy and human rights.  We can then all focus on equally pressing issues like women rights, climate change, and increasing risk of nuclear war. But all of these issues intersect. For example, lunatic Israeli regime has hundreds of nuclear weapons and I would not be surprised if they use them (some on nuclear powered submarines supplied by Germany).  Another example is that the military produces significant green-house gas emissions (in the case of the Israeli army more than the whole remaining Palestinians under Israeli rule). Addressing injustices with a uniform yard stick not only challenges western hypocrisy but it results in a more livable world. As Neslon Mandela said: our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of Palestine. Or as Martin Luther King Jr said: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”.