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 Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and former defence minister Yoav Gallant caught many in the international community by surprise. How is it that a perceived constitutional democracy, bound by the rule of law, with a supposedly autonomous judiciary, could allegedly be in such grave violation of international laws and norms?

However, those who have observed, in horror and shock, the unfolding genocide over the past year needed no revelation by the ICC to know the extent of the war crimes and atrocities committed in Gaza. Palestinians, in the ruins of bombarded Gaza, the occupied West Bank, or illegally annexed East Jerusalem, were undoubtedly not surprised. For decades, generation after generation of Palestinians have been deprived of their basic rights and liberties under the auspices of the Israeli occupation. For them, the idea of an Israeli rule of law is as absurd as any colonial attempt to legitimise tyranny through hollow legality.

That same hollow concept of legality has now been used by the government of Israel – to justify the masses of slaughtered Palestinians in Gaza, the targeting of hospitals and medical centres, blocking the distribution of humanitarian aid and forcefully expelling residents of north Gaza. When starvation and deprivation of the fundamental necessities for human life are employed as a method of war for more than a year, what other word than genocide can be used to describe that reality? At the same time, there is a continuing ethnic cleansing campaign unfolding in the West Bank, where more than 20 communities have been forcefully expelled amid escalating levels of settler violence. In that regard, the ICC warrants are too little and too late.

Palestinians were not surprised, but truthfully, neither were Israelis. We read and see the statements of the Israeli government, unfiltered and untranslated. We know senior ministers celebrated the killing of innocents while another announced their plan to empty more than half of the population in order to make space for Jewish settlements within the next few years. When I, a member of the Knesset, spoke out against these crimes in parliament, I was punished harshly. I am currently serving a six-month suspension from all parliamentary activities for using the term “genocide”. The ethics committee has stated that it reached the decision based on my use of the term “genocide” and opposition to alleged war crimes perpetrated 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 inside Israel itself, made up of democratic Jews and Arab citizens, finds the notion of democracy in Israel under Netanyahu absurd too. Democracy in Israel never really existed, owing to the state of Israel’s definition as an ethnic concept, antithetical to political egalitarianism.

A state that under its basic laws declares one group politically superior to the other cannot be regarded as a democracy, but as an ethnocracy. Since its formation, Israel has been pursuing discriminatory policies towards its own Palestinian citizens in all spheres of life – housing, employment, welfare and education. Even the supposed Israeli bill of rights, the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty, doesn’t dare to mention the right to equality.

The current government of Netanyahu’s is, however, distinctive among its predecessors, in that there is no pretence of upholding any illusion of democracy. It consists of the worst of Israeli society, more vile ministers, more racist bigots, more messianic settlers, more criminal fanatics. “The Jewish people possess the sole and unalienable right over the entire realm of the land of Israel, ‘Eretz Yisrael’, the government would develop settlements in all its parts, including Judaea and Samaria,” read the first bullet point of its formatting coalition agreement. That was prior to the attacks of 7 October, which my compatriots and I all condemned in the harshest language. We said even the entire atrocities of the occupation cannot justify such horrible massacre of innocents as was committed by Hamas – but by the same token, that horrible massacre cannot justify the genocide committed by Israel in Gaza.

Currently, Israel’s government is forging a more monolithic, more violent and more unashamedly racist state with each passing day. Under the guise of combating terrorism, legislation to shrink the democratic sphere is being passed at an accelerated speed. Teachers, academics, students, journalists, workers are all targeted, censored and silenced. A special bill to bar parties whose main constituency is Israeli Arab from participating in national elections is currently being formulated.

Fanatical settlers are waiting for the green light to reoccupy the Gaza Strip, actually campaigning outside its border with no interference from law enforcement. Palestinians are concentrated in smaller and smaller enclaves that are targeted with heavier and heavier military force. The “Decisive plan”, first conceived by MK Bezalel Smotrich, is under way as Netanyahu pursues his fantasy of being the first Israeli prime minister in decades to expand the state’s territory. In order to fulfil this plan, he is willing to drown the entire region in rivers of blood, of both Jews and Arabs, of Israelis and Palestinians. His government is sacrificing the hostages and it sees no wrong in abandoning all hope for a full ceasefire and peace.

We must continue to believe that just peace is possible and act to achieve it. Once people sense that liberty and justice are close, then they tend to reject bigotry and violence and embrace more rational and peaceful solutions. Thus, even the most bitter conflict can come to an end.

Hope must be kept alive in Israel and Palestine too, but it should not blind us to the darkening reality of today. The international community must understand that supporting the government of Israel is in opposition to supporting the people of Israel. It is our government we fear most and should get rid of. If you really wish for the best for both Palestinians and Israelis, arm us with the means of peace and freedom, not of war and destruction.

• Dr Ofer Cassif is a member of the Knesset, representing the Democratic Front for Peace and Equality (Hadash) since 2019

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