Unity... Does Not Depend on Deception

While the official policies of Israel have shifted from managing the conflict with the Palestinian people and their cause to decisively resolving it through deportation, genocide, and daily oppression, a political "trend" among us is active in seeking participation in Israeli governments that adopt and implement these policies. This means that there is an inverse relationship between the idea that some promote as a "new approach" and the essence of Israel as a state and a people at this stage. To go against time, against simple political logic, and against the realities on the ground means either that you are ahead of your time, seeing like the blue-eyed woman what we do not see, or that you possess a "power" that will make the prevailing colonial situation embarrassed by your gaze and retreat to assert the rights of your people unconditionally. It can also be completely the opposite, and many labels and judgments can return this tendency to its origins, which I tend to believe.

It is important to try to grasp the political moment in Israel so that we can rationally read the tendency of this mentioned "trend" to engage in a clear apartheid system and completed colonialism. To understand why some - like Mansour Abbas - want to be part of a Jewish fascism that practices its fascism not only in Gaza and the West Bank but in the Negev, where most Arab voters cast their ballots for the "United List" in the recent elections. Has his approach saved the villages that were demolished or their inhabitants from displacement, or have the courts changed their decisions in pending cases between the fascist government and its arms and the people of the Negev? This says that the "system" as a whole, from the smallest parliamentary committee to the Supreme Court, through the government and the security agencies, is managing the conflict with the Palestinians across the entire area between the sea and the river to resolve it by every possible means, including the law, the judiciary, discourse, and policies, and so on. The Israeli government that embodies this approach does not hide it at all. This is its project, which it applies at all levels, including changing the nature of governance because it seeks a resolution against all Palestinians.

The Israeli system, with its government and opposition, exists at a historical moment that does not classify the Palestinians who are also on its targeting into "this means this and this is against us." It does not distinguish between them except for tactical reasons until it can become more and more powerful. It does not care about the differences among them except to the extent that these differences serve its grand project. From here stems its nurturing and fostering of the "new approach," and from here comes the police terrorism, and from here the threatening of Arab voters, and from here the threat of canceling Arab lists, and so on. On another level, in media, propaganda, and representations before world public opinion, it is in desperate need of repairing its image as a state that practices genocide and commits war crimes, through Captain Ela or Youssef Haddad, and the "new approach." All these serve to restore the image that has been tinted with the colors of genocide and destruction. The impact of an Arab in a genocide and deportation government is no different from the impact of Youssef Haddad on the Arab psyche, not necessarily politicized and ideologically colored with the spirit of its people and cause.

I do not think that the proponents of the "new approach" and the backers of "the Tahini Campaign" are anything but people in positions of comfort toward their people in the Negev or the victims of violence and organized crime, or so they believe. They are like the Arabs who engaged in the "economic peace" project or those who serve the Israeli war machine through the "Ibrahim Peace" project. They are echoes of an Arab and "Islamic" trend in the region that believes they will benefit and that their benefit will increase. They will win everything if they turn their backs on Palestine and its people. They are a local reflection of a trend in the region that is gasping for profit, even if it is dipped in the blood of the people of Palestine, Sudan, or Lebanon. At this particular point, I must distinguish between this "trend" that obliterates dignity and personal and moral honor, and between the people who are waiting for relief and the assertion of their people's rights, but are engaged in work here or a job there to survive and endure. There is a fundamental difference between the human act in managing the situation and obtaining capabilities under conditions of apartheid and occupation, and a "trend" that wants to ride this wave and engage completely in projects targeting the Palestinian people - also in the Negev - and its rights and cause. Perhaps the clearest indication of this difference is the involvement of the proponents of this "trend" in attacking everything that is collective and unifying for political and moral power while the people - the common people continue their lives and achievements without attacking, assaulting, or organizing electoral campaigns steeped in venom - not against Ben Gvir and Smotrich and what they represent but against the leaderships of other Arab parties. It is noteworthy that Mansour Abbas and his entourage have not done anything since the last elections except build a "discourse" and "justifications" to cover their rejection of the idea of the "joint list"!

Our people expressed in a series of opinion polls, the latest published results at the beginning of last week, their desire to see a joint list. The percentage of supporters for seeing such a framework, not just for electoral purposes, was high enough that no one, regardless of how insightful they may be, can escape from it. A crushing majority wants to see a joint list. This is understandable and natural in light of the scenes coming from Gaza, the West Bank, and the Negev. People want solidarity and unity as a primal need in a time of genocide. Only the "madmen" like Mansour Abbas refuse that. And I am in favor of going for this option to the end because it will prevail with or without the presence of "the trend" and Mansour Abbas. Yes, this collective option will prevail without Mansour Abbas as well. This election does not resemble those that preceded it, and our people exist at a historical and political point after the second Nakba.

In 1987, the late deputy Muhammad Watad, a Knesset member from the Mapam party for two full terms, withdrew from his party and joined the "Front" in protest against the rejection of his party's secretary at the time, Eliezer Granot, of a peace settlement suggested by the late Arafat's advisor, Bassam Abu Sharif, claiming it was not serious. In a similar move, Knesset member Abdul Wahab Darawsha from the Labor Party at that time resigned from the Labor Party and established the Arab Democratic Party in protest against the adoption by Yitzhak Rabin, then Minister of Security and one of the leaders of the Labor Party, of policies to suppress the first intifada with iron and fire. What stood behind the deputies Darawsha and Watad's alignment with their peoples cannot possibly be compared to the level of genocide and deportation that we witness now. As for Mansour Abbas, despite the second Nakba occurring now in the Negev, as in Gaza and the West Bank, he wants to drag his community into the embrace of those involved in it, slaves without name, identity, or belonging.

Unity under our circumstances is an end and not just a means, but no "unity" can exist and endure based on deception.