While committing genocide in Gaza, the far-right government of Benjamin Netanyahu is simultaneously waging another war. This time within Israel, against the "internal enemy" who condemns and exposes the vile, genocidal acts against the Palestinian people.
These “enemies from within”, who have not stopped denouncing Netanyahu's leadership since the beginning of the war, have been fighting for years in extremely difficult conditions, in favor of peace and against the occupation.
For years, the far-right establishment that governs the country has attempted to silence the left-wing-progressive voices expressed by the Democratic Front for Peace and Equality, known as Hadash, in which the Communist Party of Israel (Maki) actively participates. The most recent episode in this effort to silence voices against the war and occupation is the political persecution of MK and Hadash leader Ayman Odeh. Last Monday, following two days of heated debate, the Knesset House Committee – a decisive majority of 14 Mks, including representatives of opposition parties Yesh Atid and National Unity - voted in favor of the impeachment of Odeh.
The “crime” of Odeh, an Arab-Israeli lawyer who heads the Hadash-Ta'al parliamentary coalition, was a post made earlier this year on “X”, in which he was expressing his happiness for the release of the hostages and prisoners under a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. “Happy about the release of hostages and [Palestinian] prisoners, from here both peoples need to be freed from the burden of the occupation, we were born free”, were the exact words. In a pathetic and highly hypocritical effort to justify their initiative, his persecutors argued that he equated the Israeli hostages held in Gaza with Palestinian security prisoners held in Israel and that a call to “free the burden of occupation,” constituted a “legitimization and call for violence” (!!).
However, the above was just a necessary pretext for the beginning of Odeh's expulsion from the Knesset. For several years now, but especially recently, as the genocide in Gaza goes on, the voice expressed by Hadash seems to be a thorn in the side of the far-right Kahanist political establishment. Ayman Odeh has managed to humiliate Netanyahu himself from the Parliament's podium, exposing and highlighting the horrors of genocide in Gaza.
Showing outstanding courage and boldness, the Hadash leader has become the voice of all Jews and Arabs who have the right to live in dignity, freedom and equality, against racial supremacy and all forms of repression. On 31 May, during a large anti-war rally in Haifa, Odeh proclaimed: “There isn't, and cannot be, victory over corpses of thousands of dead children, crushed families, starving civilians and total devastation. The right wing conducted this war out of blind vengeance and was defeated. It’s a defeat for Netanyahu, Ben Gvir, and anyone who thought an entire people could be defeated through starvation, bombardment and siege.” “Because annihilation is not victory. Life is victory. Only those who see Gazans as ‘terrorists from birth,’ like the government de facto does, can twist my words in this way. Yes, Gaza will win. Life will win”.
For his activity, Ayman Odeh and his comrades have been targeted by the far-right, Kahanist establishment. Itamar Ben Gvir, the fascist political partner of Netanyahu who serves as Minister of National Security, has called Odeh the “respresentative of the terrorists in the Knesset”, throwing threats against the Hadash leader. Similarly, Likud MP Ofir Katz characterized Odeh an “arch-terrorist”, stressing out that in Iran he would have been “hanged and stoned in the town square”. Unsurprisingly, the leader of the social democratic opposition Yesh Atid party, Yair Lapid, joined forces with the far-right deputies, calling Odeh’s wartime rhetoric “unforgivable” and supported his impeachment.
Netanyahu government and its allies in Europe and the US are boasting that Israel is the only Western-style democratic state in the Middle East. Nonetheless, like every bourgeois democracy, Israeli “democracy” has its own limits. Especially when it comes to criticism against the war and occupation or when the discussion goes to the atrocities in Gaza, the so-called “democratic rights” and “freedom of speech” are suddenly limited in order to avoid highlighting the long-standing responsibilities of the Israeli governments. Like Ofer Cassif and Aima Touma Sliman before, comrade Ayman Odeh is persecuted because he broke the wall of silence about the Israeli crimes in Gaza; he is facing a McCarthyist political persecution because he publicly challenged the dominant Zionist narrative.
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| Ayman Odeh |
“Netanyahu and his fascist government know exactly what they want, not just Jewish supremacy, but a land free of Palestinians. We, a united force of democratic Jews and Arabs, know exactly what we want. We want equality, real democracy, justice, and peace! We will stand tall, proud of our principles, against fascism, against racism, against the war, and against the occupation. No matter the cost”, Odeh stressed out in a response to his persecutors. This “united force” of democratic Jews and Arabs must be supported and strengthened by the international communist movement, as well as by every progressive and peace-loving individual in the world, at all costs!
What we can promise to Ayman Odeh and all those who are fighting for a peaceful and prosperous future for all citizens, Arabs and Jews, irrespective of their ethnic or religious background, is that we will firmly stand by their side. In this struggle, against fascism, war and occupation, for real democracy, justice and peace, they are not be alone. From the river to the sea, Jews and Arabs will be free.
* Nikos Mottas is the Editor-in-Chief of In Defense of Communism.
