I was suspended from Israel’s Knesset for highlighting the tyranny of Netanyahu. Help us to oppose him | Ofer Cassif

The arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) against the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahuand former Defense Minister Yoav Galant surprised many in the international community. How is it that a perceived constitutional democracy, bound by the rule of law, with a supposedly autonomous judiciary, could supposedly be in such gross violation of international laws and norms?

However, those who watched in horror and shock as the genocide unfolded over the past year did not need an ICC revelation to understand the scale of the war crimes and atrocities committed in Gaza. Palestinians in the ruins of bombed Gaza, the occupied West Bank or illegally annexed East Jerusalem were certainly not surprised. For decades, generation after generation of Palestinians have been deprived of their basic rights and freedoms under the aegis of Israeli occupation. For them, the idea of ​​an Israeli rule of law is as absurd as any colonial attempt to legitimize tyranny through hollow legality.

The same hollow concept of legality is now used by the government of Israel – to justify the mass slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza, the targeting of hospitals and medical centers, the blocking of the distribution of humanitarian aid, and the forcible expulsion of residents of northern Gaza. When starvation and deprivation of the basic necessities of human life have been used as a method of war for more than a year, what other word than genocide can be used to describe this reality? At the same time, a campaign of ethnic cleansing was unfolding in the West Bank, where more than 20 communities have been forcibly expelled amid rising levels of settler violence. In this regard, ICC orders are too little too late.

The Palestinians weren’t surprised, but frankly, neither were the Israelis. We read and see the statements of the Israeli government, unfiltered and untranslated. We know that senior ministers celebrated the killing of innocents while others announced their plan to clear more than half the population to make way for Jewish settlements in the next few years. When I, a member of the Knesset, spoke out against these crimes in parliament, I was severely punished. I am currently serving a six month suspension from all parliamentary activities for using the term ‘genocide’. The ethics committee said it reached the decision based on my use of the term “genocide” and opposition to the alleged war crimes committed in Gaza.

In the Orwellian dystopia of the Israeli parliament, those who celebrate war crimes are considered heroes, while those who fight for justice are persecuted as traitors. My punishment is a continuation of the political persecution of opponents of the dirty war and critics of Netanyahu’s bloody rule.

I am not alone in opposing his tyranny. The consistent political opposition in Israel itself, made up of democratic Jews and Arab citizens, finds the idea of ​​democracy in Israel under Netanyahu also absurd. Democracy in Israel never existed, due to the definition of the state of Israel as an ethnic concept opposed to political egalitarianism.

A country which, according to its basic laws, declares one group to be politically superior to another cannot be considered a democracy, but an ethnocracy. Since its inception, Israel has pursued a discriminatory policy against its own Palestinian citizens in all areas of life – housing, employment, welfare and education. Even Israel’s supposed bill of rights, The Basic Law: Human Dignity and Freedom, dares not mention the right to equality.

However, the current Netanyahu government differs from its predecessors in that it makes no pretense of maintaining any illusion of democracy. It consists of the worst of Israeli society, meaner ministers, more racist fanatics, more messianic settlers, more criminal fanatics. “The Jewish people have the sole and inalienable right to the entire kingdom of the land of Israel, Eretz Israel, the government will develop settlements in all parts of it, including Judea and Samaria,” reads the first point of the coalition’s form agreement. This was before the attacks of October 7, which all my compatriots and I condemned in the strongest terms. We said that even all the atrocities of the occupation could not justify such a terrible slaughter of innocents by Hamas – but equally this terrible slaughter could not justify the genocide carried out by Israel in Gaza.

The government of Israel is currently building a more monolithic, more violent and more blatantly racist state by the day. Under the guise of fighting terrorism, legislation to shrink the democratic sphere is being passed vigorously. Teachers, academics, students, journalists, workers are targeted, censored and silenced. A special bill is currently being formulated to ban parties whose primary voters are Arab citizens of Israel from participating in national elections.

Fanatical settlers are waiting for the green light to reoccupy the Gaza Strip, effectively campaigning outside its borders without law enforcement intervention. Palestinians are concentrated in smaller and smaller enclaves that are subject to increasingly heavy military force. “A decisive plan”, first conceived by MK Bezalel Smotrich, is underway as Netanyahu pursues his fantasy of being the first Israeli prime minister in decades to expand the state’s territory. To carry out this plan, he is prepared to drown the entire region in rivers of blood, both Jews and Arabs, Israelis and Palestinians. His government is sacrificing the hostages and sees nothing wrong with abandoning all hope of complete cease fire and peace.

We must continue to believe that a just peace is possible and act to achieve it. Once people sense that freedom and justice are at hand, then they tend to reject bigotry and violence and adopt more rational and peaceful solutions. Thus even the fiercest conflict can end.

Hope must be kept alive in Israel and Palestine as well, but it must not blind us to today’s bleak reality. The international community must understand that support for the government of Israel is inconsistent with support for the people of Israel. This is our government that we fear the most and we must get rid of it. If you truly want the best for both Palestinians and Israelis, arm us with the means for peace and freedom, not war and destruction.

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