Last week, while visiting the European Parliament on the invitation of the Portuguese Communist Party, MK Aida Touma-Sliman (Hadash) give an interview to Rosa Luxemburg Foundation on the escalating repression against Arab-Palestinians in Israel, the Gaza war, Netanyahu’s plans for territorial conquest, and the shrinking space for left-wing forces in the country. Above some excerpts of the interview.
As an Arab-Palestinian citizen of Israel, you have been very vocal about the discrimination and inequality facing your community in the past, even referring to Israel’s 2018 Nation-State Law as an “apartheid law”. How have things changed since 7 October?
As an Arab-Palestinian citizen of Israel, you have been very vocal about the discrimination and inequality facing your community in the past, even referring to Israel’s 2018 Nation-State Law as an “apartheid law”. How have things changed since 7 October?
We always knew that we did not enjoy equal rights in Israel, but we had never experienced what we’ve faced in the last year. Harsh persecution of Palestinian citizens began right after 7 October. Many were arrested for things like posting verses from the Quran on Facebook or other social media. I often tell the story of a 70-year-old man from the Negev who wrote “Good morning” at 7:45 on 7 October and was arrested a few days later. Not even Netanyahu knew what was going on that early in the day, but they arrested someone for waking up and posting “Good morning.”
Many students were expelled from universities, and many artists’ lives were turned into a living hell because they were suspected of supporting the 7 October attacks. The Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, published photos of the arrested blindfolded in front of an Israeli flag, and accused them of being Hamas supporters. Almost none of them were ultimately prosecuted, but it didn’t matter — their reputations were already ruined.
Of course, we were all in a state of shock after the attacks, and we understood that there would be a reaction from the Israeli side. When we began to understand that the reaction would be total war, even a genocidal war, we wanted to demonstrate — not in support of what happened on 7 October, but for peace and a political solution. But the Israeli government used local police forces to practically forbid all protests for two or three weeks. When the leadership of the Palestinian community tried to hold a vigil in Nazareth holding up a banner saying, “Stop the war!”, many of them were arrested, including [leading Communist Party of Israel activist] Muhammad Barakeh, the chairman of the High Follow-Up Committee for Arab Citizens of Israel, and some former MKs.
On top all that, public incitement against Palestinians as a community has become normalized. It’s common for MKs to say we are all Hamas supporters; we are all terrorists. The threatening phone calls and harassment on the street have all gotten worse. When you take into consideration that Ben-Gvir, that fascist, distributed over 100,000 firearm licenses and thousands of guns to pro-government Jewish civilians, you can imagine what kind of danger we face.
Prior to the Hamas attack, Netanyahu’s government seemed to have given up on any permanent solution, instead preferring to “manage” the occupation and wear down the Palestinians bit by bit, making an independent Palestinian state impossible. Since the war started, he seems to have decided on his own political solution. namely, ethnic cleansing in Gaza and annexation of the West Bank.
You must understand that this was the plan from the beginning — 7 October just gave Netanyahu and his far-right government the pretext to implement it. If you look at the coalition agreement establishing the current government, they were already talking about annexation of the West Bank back then. They cancelled the law that authorized the disengagement plan in 2005, which applied to Gaza as well as part of the northern West Bank. This enabled them to intensify efforts on the ground to resettle the evacuated area, which was supposed to be part of the land controlled by the Palestinian Authority, alongside a settlement push throughout the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
If you look at [Finance Minister Betzalel] Smotrich’s plan for a Grater Israel, he basically says Israel will expand to encompass the West Bank and Gaza or even further. That’s why he insisted on becoming a Minister in the Ministry of Defense, in charge of civilian life in the West Bank. According to Smotrich’s “Decisive Plan”, the Palestinians have three options: they can stay in the Jewish state and accept their status as second- or even third-class citizens, they can leave, or they can die at the hands of the Israeli army. He calls his ethnic cleansing plans a “voluntary transfer” of the Palestinian population.
It sounds a lot like how the Bush Administration used the 9/11 attacks
You were suspended from the Knesset last year for suggesting that Israel was committing war crimes in Gaza. Just a few days ago, your colleague Ofer Cassif, another Hadash MK, was suspended for a social media post in which he described Palestinians resisting settler violence in Jenin as “freedom fighters”. This comes on top of growing restrictions on freedom of the press, expression, etc. To what extent can Israel still be considered a liberal democracy?
Well, I never believed that Israel was a full democracy. Especially after the 2018 Nation-State Law, Israel resembled something more like an “ethno-democracy”: democratic for Jews, but not for Arabs. Now, however, it’s increasingly discriminating against Jews as well. It’s becoming a fascist regime.
Left means a socialist strategy. As a Communist in Israel, do you believe there is still space to build alliances between Jewish and Arab workers, and to unite people on a class basis?
First, you must remember that I am a Member of the Knesset. Therefore, my role is to be in touch with the wider society. I cannot afford to be the most radical person in the movement. That said, the space for building broad-based alliances in Israel is shrinking all the time — there are fewer and fewer people who are willing to cooperate. Many of the people who are demonstrating for democracy in Israel right now refuse to work with us.
Nevertheless, there is still a minority among the Jewish Israeli population that has not changed its position in terms of the occupation and colonization of the Palestinian people, people who truly believe that Israel must be a state with equal rights for all its citizens. Those are the people with whom we, as Palestinians in Israel, are fighting side-by-side against the war and against the occupation.
There are many Palestinians with whom I agree on the need to stop the war and end the occupation, but who have lots of right-wing ideas that I do not share at all. If I can maintain relations with them, then I can surely maintain relations with my Jewish comrades who are willing to put themselves in danger to defend Palestinians’ human rights. Still: we are a small group, and we are much smaller than before. We need support from the international Left now more than ever.
What would that international support look like?
You know, in the past, we used to invite people from abroad to come visit us in Israel, to show them the inequality and the oppression. But now, we tell them to stay where they are and struggle there. The best solidarity action the international Left can take is to put more pressure on their own governments to stop supporting the Israeli government, to make them understand that Israel is acting against the best interests not only of its own people, but of everyone in the region.
Many students were expelled from universities, and many artists’ lives were turned into a living hell because they were suspected of supporting the 7 October attacks. The Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, published photos of the arrested blindfolded in front of an Israeli flag, and accused them of being Hamas supporters. Almost none of them were ultimately prosecuted, but it didn’t matter — their reputations were already ruined.
Of course, we were all in a state of shock after the attacks, and we understood that there would be a reaction from the Israeli side. When we began to understand that the reaction would be total war, even a genocidal war, we wanted to demonstrate — not in support of what happened on 7 October, but for peace and a political solution. But the Israeli government used local police forces to practically forbid all protests for two or three weeks. When the leadership of the Palestinian community tried to hold a vigil in Nazareth holding up a banner saying, “Stop the war!”, many of them were arrested, including [leading Communist Party of Israel activist] Muhammad Barakeh, the chairman of the High Follow-Up Committee for Arab Citizens of Israel, and some former MKs.
On top all that, public incitement against Palestinians as a community has become normalized. It’s common for MKs to say we are all Hamas supporters; we are all terrorists. The threatening phone calls and harassment on the street have all gotten worse. When you take into consideration that Ben-Gvir, that fascist, distributed over 100,000 firearm licenses and thousands of guns to pro-government Jewish civilians, you can imagine what kind of danger we face.
Prior to the Hamas attack, Netanyahu’s government seemed to have given up on any permanent solution, instead preferring to “manage” the occupation and wear down the Palestinians bit by bit, making an independent Palestinian state impossible. Since the war started, he seems to have decided on his own political solution. namely, ethnic cleansing in Gaza and annexation of the West Bank.
You must understand that this was the plan from the beginning — 7 October just gave Netanyahu and his far-right government the pretext to implement it. If you look at the coalition agreement establishing the current government, they were already talking about annexation of the West Bank back then. They cancelled the law that authorized the disengagement plan in 2005, which applied to Gaza as well as part of the northern West Bank. This enabled them to intensify efforts on the ground to resettle the evacuated area, which was supposed to be part of the land controlled by the Palestinian Authority, alongside a settlement push throughout the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
If you look at [Finance Minister Betzalel] Smotrich’s plan for a Grater Israel, he basically says Israel will expand to encompass the West Bank and Gaza or even further. That’s why he insisted on becoming a Minister in the Ministry of Defense, in charge of civilian life in the West Bank. According to Smotrich’s “Decisive Plan”, the Palestinians have three options: they can stay in the Jewish state and accept their status as second- or even third-class citizens, they can leave, or they can die at the hands of the Israeli army. He calls his ethnic cleansing plans a “voluntary transfer” of the Palestinian population.
It sounds a lot like how the Bush Administration used the 9/11 attacks
You were suspended from the Knesset last year for suggesting that Israel was committing war crimes in Gaza. Just a few days ago, your colleague Ofer Cassif, another Hadash MK, was suspended for a social media post in which he described Palestinians resisting settler violence in Jenin as “freedom fighters”. This comes on top of growing restrictions on freedom of the press, expression, etc. To what extent can Israel still be considered a liberal democracy?
Well, I never believed that Israel was a full democracy. Especially after the 2018 Nation-State Law, Israel resembled something more like an “ethno-democracy”: democratic for Jews, but not for Arabs. Now, however, it’s increasingly discriminating against Jews as well. It’s becoming a fascist regime.
Left means a socialist strategy. As a Communist in Israel, do you believe there is still space to build alliances between Jewish and Arab workers, and to unite people on a class basis?
First, you must remember that I am a Member of the Knesset. Therefore, my role is to be in touch with the wider society. I cannot afford to be the most radical person in the movement. That said, the space for building broad-based alliances in Israel is shrinking all the time — there are fewer and fewer people who are willing to cooperate. Many of the people who are demonstrating for democracy in Israel right now refuse to work with us.
Nevertheless, there is still a minority among the Jewish Israeli population that has not changed its position in terms of the occupation and colonization of the Palestinian people, people who truly believe that Israel must be a state with equal rights for all its citizens. Those are the people with whom we, as Palestinians in Israel, are fighting side-by-side against the war and against the occupation.
There are many Palestinians with whom I agree on the need to stop the war and end the occupation, but who have lots of right-wing ideas that I do not share at all. If I can maintain relations with them, then I can surely maintain relations with my Jewish comrades who are willing to put themselves in danger to defend Palestinians’ human rights. Still: we are a small group, and we are much smaller than before. We need support from the international Left now more than ever.
What would that international support look like?
You know, in the past, we used to invite people from abroad to come visit us in Israel, to show them the inequality and the oppression. But now, we tell them to stay where they are and struggle there. The best solidarity action the international Left can take is to put more pressure on their own governments to stop supporting the Israeli government, to make them understand that Israel is acting against the best interests not only of its own people, but of everyone in the region.
Read the Full Interview here: https://www.rosalux.de/en/news/id/52758/israel-is-hurtling-into-the-political-abyss
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