This is an Article by our Chair Leon Duveen that was first published on Liberal Democrat Voice.
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It has taken me a few days to deal with the results of the latest elections to the Israeli Knesset.
To say they were disappointing is a massive understatement. Even though the popular, the Nationalist parties led by Netanyahu only gained a small majority in the popular vote (2,397, 624 who voted for parties that will support Netanyahu and 2,334, 239 who voted for parties opposed to Netanyahu), the way the PR system works in Israel, it will has gained a majority of 6 to 10 seats in the new Knesset.
For now, Yair Lapid remains the Israeli Prime Minister while Netanyahu tries to do the deals that will allow him to form a Government. However it seems inevitable that before long, Netanyahu will retake the office backed by religious &, to put it bluntly, fascist parties who will take Israel into dark, dangerous and deeply worrying places.
As Gershon Baskin wrote in his latest column in the Jerusalem Post: “If Netanyahu was prime minister now and Itamar Ben Gvir was minister of the police, there would be continued attacks against Israeli soldiers and armed settlers. In fact, I believe very strongly, when (God forbid) Minister of Police Ben Gvir lets loose his unrestrained policies of hatred against Arabs, we will witness not only the acts of individual Palestinian combatants or small groups of armed resisters, we will witness attacks against Israel on a scale that will remind us of the second intifada.”
The future for both Israel and Palestine (which has it’s own leadership problems with a weak President Mahmoud Abbas holding onto power but having little idea what to do with it) looks bleak. The political leadership on both sides claim the other side isn’t interested in finding as solution to their conflict, too many young people on both sides seem to have given up on living in peace with those they share a land with.
At such a dark time, we need to be resolute in helping those on both sides who want to take another direction, those who realise that a future of conflict will only lead to more violence, more blood shed and more deaths on both sides. There are many in both Palestine & Israel who reject violence, who realise that the only future that will allow both nations to thrive and prosper, to live in security & peace, is one where there is dialogue between them, where there is recognition of the fears, history and trauma of both the Jews & Arabs who share the thin sliver of land between the River & the Sea.
This is why now, more than ever, we must reach out the Peace Activists in both Palestine & Israel, to give them moral support, to listen to them and help them grow the Peace camp on both sides, and to help them counter the views of those who are myopically supporting one side or the other that all they are doing is encouraging more violence and killing, because the only way to stop that violence is through dialogue.