“…the settlers’ colonization of Israel’s public sphere and state apparatus is not the result of some sudden divine, or even domestic, inspiration. They have consolidated their power in a methodical manner, ensuring that organizational effectiveness and financial backing compensate for a lack of popular support. Settlers, it is crucial to remember, make up a mere 4.5 percent of Israel’s population. The profound irony of their ultranationalism is that, in the name of serving Israel, the new religious right is importing to the region an unmistakably American-style conservative ideology, which represents a sharp shift from the ideas traditionally held by its political predecessors. “

“The initiative to drive Bedouin voters to the polls was intended to assist those living in the unrecognized villages in the Negev Desert to fulfill their most basic right as citizens. These communities are seldom connected to electricity, water or paved roads. Many of the Bedouin families in the Negev, and particularly those in the unrecognized villages, live below the poverty line. While eligible to vote, it is particularly onerous for them to get to the polling stations, which are located in more urbanized Bedouin localities such as Segev Shalom, Rahat or Lakiya. In response to the petition submitted by the Likud against Zazim’s attempt to drive voters to the polling stations, the organization defended its actions by providing examples of why it is important to provide these voters with access, given that the polling stations are so far from their homes.”

Diana Buttu writes, “Regardless of whether Netanyahu actually annexes the West Bank, or the precise makeup of the next government, all of the major parties in Israel seek to entrench its apartheid system rather than set a path for freedom and equality. What this means is that if there is to be any movement toward peace and justice in the region, it will require intervention from the outside world, as was the case with apartheid South Africa. Now, as then, this means including boycott, divestment, and sanctions campaigns. Given that Israelis are seemingly unwilling to force their government to change, the question remains whether the world will finally force Israel to pay a price for denying Palestinians their freedom.”

Dr. James Zogby writes, “Before a single vote is cast in Israel’s second national election this year, two disturbing facts are clear: the outcome will be as muddled as it was after the April contest and whoever wins, despite the permanent state of denial in which Western liberals find themselves, Israel/Palestine has become one state – an Apartheid state.”

“Israel’s redux election seemingly offers a stark choice: Between the Netanyahu-led right-wing bloc that’s committed to West Bank annexation and protecting Netanyahu from criminal corruption proceedings, and a center to center-left that declares its commitment to the rule of law and liberal democracy. But the lines between the blocs are more fuzzy than that: Kachol Lavan won’t reject going into coalition with the Likud, and its language on Gaza and annexation is not always distinguishable from the right-wing. With the interminably-delayed Trump peace plan in the offing, and Netanyahu’s all-in embrace of Trump being tested as the U.S. president offers mixed messages on Iran, which cluster of parties scrapes together a viable coalition will have clear consequences for the future of the Jewish state – and its repercussions will be felt far more widely as well. Here are the Haaretz op-eds that will both clarify, analyze and perhaps infuriate anyone seeking an insight into a critical election.”

“While Israelis usually vote on security and the economy, there is little difference among the leading parties on those topics, so while there is still heated debate about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and Netanyahu has tried to garner support by promising to annex part of the West Bank, the competition in the current race revolves more around domestic issues, including the role of religion.”

“This limbo where Palestinians are not citizens of Israel and not ruling themselves — it was supposed to be temporary, in theory,” Yehuda Shaul, co-founder of Breaking the Silence, an Israeli group that gathers testimony from past and serving Israeli soldiers to shed light on the occupation of the Palestinian territories, told my colleagues. “And Netanyahu basically came out in his speech saying it’s not temporary.”

“And I must try to remember what I have learned during more than 50 years of occupation, about how to live here on my own terms without losing myself to hatred or anger. For whoever gets elected in Israel this week, it will make no difference to our future in this land.”

“Many have been arguing that there is no real significance to formal annexation, because on the ground, de facto annexation – the application of Israeli law to the settlers and the settlements – already exists. For some, this conveniently provides a reason (or an excuse) not to strongly challenge Netanyahu over this; for others, it reflects their abandonment of the two-state paradigm. Even though there is indeed much credence to the claim that de facto annexation is already operational, this position grossly underestimates the dire and far-reaching ramifications that will derive from de jure annexation…”

“Through its owned Israeli subsidiary, Cisco – Israel, Cisco Systems is currently involved in the establishment of technological hubs in the occupied Palestinian territory and in the Syrian Golan, as well as, in the Naqab (Negev) region. The company is complicit in Israel’s expanding visual surveillance apparatus in Jerusalem and has won an Israeli Ministry of Defense (IMOD) tender to provide servers and IT support to the Israeli military. Further, through its Israeli subsidiary, Cisco Systems is involved in the emerging Palestinian hi-tech sector. This involvement takes the guise of technological development and job creation but in fact, contributes to the structural dependency of the Palestinian economy to that of Israel. The company’s involvement in activities related to Israel’s occupation comes in violation of international law and contradict its stated commitment to human rights and the UN Global Compact for Corporate Social Responsibility.”

“Elad has other reasons for promoting David’s presence at the site. The City of David is located in East Jerusalem, across the Green Line—­the internationally recognized border that here separates the state of Israel from the Palestinian territories—­on what are perhaps the most contentious few miles of the Israeli–^­Palestinian conflict. East Jerusalem was effectively annexed by Israel after the Six-Day War, in 1967, but the area is still considered occupied land by the United Nations. Elad knows that what is found at the City of David, and whose history is represented there, has the potential to shape the political fate of Jerusalem. Unbeknownst to most tourists, Elad is a right-­wing settler group that employs archaeology as part of a long-­term effort to strengthen Israeli control over Jerusalem.”

“ch year, the City of David, the archaeological site believed to be the ancient core of Jerusalem, attracts some six hundred thousand tourists, who come to see the place where King David may have ruled in the 10th century bc. The problem is that, as Harper’s Magazine senior editor Rachel Poser explains in our September issue, the City of David is no scientific operation. Elad, the organization that manages it, is in fact “a right­wing settler group that employs archaeology as part of a long-term effort to strengthen Israeli control over Jerusalem,” and the City of David is only one of many such projects that, taken together, constitute a threat to the legitimacy of archaeological research throughout the region. Poser, who once trained as an archaeologist herself, charts the uneasy history of archaeology as a “national vocation” in Israel, from the country’s founding to the current use of excavations as both justification and method for evicting Palestinians from their homes in East Jerusalem”

“A State Department report delivered last week to Congress and obtained Monday by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency lists actions taken by U.S. diplomats to oppose the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel in compliance with a 2015 law mandating such periodic reports. According to the report, the diplomats engaged senior government officials and party leaders in Ireland ‘strongly urging them to drop their support’ for a bill that would target for penalties the importing of goods from settlements in the West Bank.”

“Efforts to revoke the residency of Omar Barghouti, the co-founder of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement (BDS), have been escalated to Israel’s deputy Attorney General for a decision over his status in the country. Barghouti, considered “major threat to the citizens of Israel” by the country’s ultra-right politicians, has already been banned from entering the US; a decision denounced by the Palestinian human rights activists as “McCarthyite repression”. His entry ban in April along with Israel’s decision to block American Congresswomen Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar from entering the country due to their support for BDS, is being used by Barghouti’s opponents in Israel to revoke his residency status.”