Exit polls suggested the war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu, who is facing several corruption charges with one trial alone, hearing from over 300 witnesses, is taking the lead with a very narrow majority. A final result is not expected until later in the week.
Israel's longest-serving premier is poised to form government with rightwing extremist religious Zionist party, which may spell defeat for his rival war criminal Yair Lapid. But Israeli elections tend to take weeks of negotiations for a cabinet formation and the chances of another political stalemate triggering yet another election are high. Many exhausted Israelis are already bracing for a sixth election next year.
It reflects the state of the Israeli internal and political crises that has existed for years, with the intensification of competition and the sharp polarization between the camp of Netanyahu and the camp opposed to him. This is accompanied by the internal divisions of the Israeli parties alongside settlers who are illegally squatting on people's indigenous land.
Should an Israeli war cabinet be formed by a difference of one vote, it will be another weak ruling regime that can collapse at any moment, as was the case during the Lapid era when it took only one cabinet member to withdraw from the ruling system to fall apart.
Recent Israeli opinion polls show how the trend of Israeli society is heading further to the extreme far-right. This means more Palestinian ethnic cleansing efforts in the face of a growing armed resistance movement in the occupied West Bank.
But as has been seen before the Netanyahu camp may struggle to form a cabinet and other smaller parties have not decided on supporting either Netanyahu or Lapid, which keeps the Israeli political scene in a state of instability. It has been proven difficult for one of the two camps to obtain an absolute majority to resolve the political crisis that has been in place for years.
Netanyahu is seeking the surging power of the far-right Itamar Ben-Gvir to bring him back to power. The so-called "lawmaker", as the Western press like to refer to him, casted his vote in one of the many West Bank settlements where he squats on.
Ben-Gvir is a reflection of how much more authoritarian the occupying regime has become. His regular hate speech against the Palestinians is a stain on the regime's Western backers.
Whatever results the Israeli political scene produces in this election, any cabinet that may be formed will remain one that is brutal to the Palestinian people and will continue to deny them their most basic human rights.
This hostility to the Palestinians, the murder of civilians including children, demolition of homes, expansion of illegal settlements extends to the settlers’ crimes of desecrating holy sites most important of which is the flashpoint al-Aqsa Mosque.
This is the dire Israeli reality that works to reproduce more and more far-right extremism towards the Palestinians with every new election.
Another issue is that the electoral alliances of the two competing camps will not be able to offer anything new to the Israeli voter, and the deep political division and sharp polarization between two competing racist camps will continue to undermine the longevity of any Israeli cabinet that can be formed. The Israeli political system will remain in a state of instability and will continue to suffer.
The cost of living has been a hot issue in this election as Israelis, having long endured high prices, are feeling the pinch even more amid economic turmoil linked to the Ukraine war.
Another realistic scenario, which is strongly possible, is that if neither camp is able to form a cabinet, the Israelis are likely to return to the polls for the sixth time after only six months, in light of a state of severe polarization and political instability. It is a real political nightmare that may fall upon the regime once more.
There are both internal and external challenges to the election. On the foreign front, one of the most prominent challenges that constitutes a great concern for Israel and disturbs all its political and security levels, from its extreme right to its extreme left, is the Islamic Republic of Iran in particular, which is a top priority in Israeli foreign policy, and is an obstacle in the face of all parties that struggle for power and call for a military strike on Iran to undermine its influence in the region, yet are unable to do so.
This approach collides with the calculations of the US administration, which does not like the hawkish Netanyahu to return to the political scene. Washington is more in favor of a diplomatic solution when it comes to the Iran nuclear deal, knowing a military option of toppling the Islamic Republic on behalf of the Zionist lobby is off the cards.
Israel's strongest ally, the United States is facing its own crisis of losing its hegemony over the region as a result of Russia and China's influence in West Asia that could end the state of American control and rule in the region. At the end of the day, no matter how close the American President Joe Biden is to "BiBi", American mentality takes precedence over the interests of Israel, at times when US hegemony is at risk.
This was reflected in the OPEC Plus decision to slash its oil production target over US objections, drawing anger from Washington which accused the organization of siding with Russia. Reports of Saudi Arabia being in active talks with Beijing to price some of its oil sales to China in the yuan currency instead of dollar suggest the regional allies of the US are becoming less trustworthy of Washington than before.
The end of American hegemony in West Asia spells the end of the Israeli apartheid regime. Internally, there are basic challenges that face any Israeli cabinet arising from the latest election that pose many difficult dilemmas. Aside from the economic insecurity there is, more importantly, the personal security of the Israelis, and the state of internal instability experienced by the Israeli society, which is dominated by bribery, corruption, organized crime, and the inaction of the judiciary. These are challenges that the Israeli rulers have been unable to find a solution to.
The most prominent and latest problem facing Israel at this stage is the security challenge in the occupied West Bank after the growth of the Palestinian resistance and the emergence of new military formations in the West Bank cities such as the Jenin Brigade, the Lion's Den Brigade and others, and their progress in carrying out successful and sophisticated retaliatory operations against occupation soldiers and settlers have imposed new equations on the military occupation.
Around 30 Palestinians and three Israelis were killed across the occupied West Bank in October alone. Scores of others have been injured from both sides.
In the face of increased insecurity, Israel stands bewildered and helpless and has witnessed a catastrophic failure, which has created an insecure environment, from which no weak or fragile future cabinet will be able to find a solution.
This election may do nothing to end Israel's brutal ethnic cleansing against the Palestinians, but the growing strength of the resistance will deal heavy blows to the future of the apartheid regime.
Courtesy: The Tehran Times
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