“Laugh, laugh at all my dreams,” wrote the poet Shaul Tchernichovsky.
Israel’s election on Tuesday is not a general election, and therefore not a democratic one. Apartheid South Africa had exactly the same deception: the regime was defined as a parliamentary democracy and later as a presidential democracy. Elections were held in adherence with the law, with the National and Afrikaner parties forming a coalition. Only one thing separated South Africa from democracy – elections were meant for whites only.
“Laugh, laugh at all my dreams.” In Israel, too, only whites – or the Israeli equivalent – will take part in the election. Israel currently rules over 15 million people, but 5 million of them are prevented from participating in the democratic process that chooses the government that runs their lives. The masquerade in which Israel plays at democracy should finally be ended with an unmasking. It’s not a democracy.
A regime in which elections are held only for whites, namely Jews, or for those with citizenship that is not bestowed on all subjects, including the native ones living under the permanent rule applying to their land, is not a democracy.
When an occupation stops being a temporary one, it defines the regime of the entire country. There is no such thing as a partial democracy. Even if there is democracy from Dan to Eilat, the fact that between Jenin and Rafah there is a military tyrannysullies the regime in the entire country. It’s amazing how for decades Israeli have knowingly lied to themselves, just like the whites in the parties of the Afrikaners.
Qaddum and Kedumim, two adjacent villages, exist side by side. Qaddum has been around since the second century C.E. and currently has a population of 3,000. Kedumim has been around for less than 50 years, and now has a population of 4,500. Only several hundred meters separate the two communities. The Jewish village was built on the lands of the Palestinian one, choking the village when the exit road from Qaddum was blocked by Kedumim.
On Tuesday, only the inhabitants of Kedumim will be voting. The residents of Qaddum will stay home. If that weren’t enough, they’ll be under a closure order, in order to ensure the safety of democracy. The fate of Qaddum’s residents will be impacted by the results of the election much more than that of their neighbors from Kedumim. No government will dare harm Kedumim. Any government will continue to harm it and torment its residents. But Qaddum has no voice, no voting rights, no freedom to choose or a right to wield influence.
An election in which only one community can vote, while its older and indigenous neighbor is prohibited from participating, is undemocratic. How can Israelis deceive themselves so brazenly? How can one say that this is not what apartheid looks like? In the name of what value do the residents of Kedumim have the right to vote, while that right is denied the residents of Qaddum? Are the Jews in Kedumim superior to the Palestinians from Qaddum? After all, they share the same land and live under the same government. But Zionist propaganda always has an appropriate answer to any evil perpetrated in its name.
Participating in an election in an apartheid regime is problematic, almost impossible. Nevertheless, we’ll all dress up as democrats on Tuesday and go vote. No person of conscience can vote for anyone supporting the continuation of the current regime, in which parts of the people of this country are living under a military tyranny. No true democrat can vote for a party which has etched on its banner the continuation of Jewish superiority, which is what Zionism entails. All the Jewish parties, from Otzma Yehudit to Meretz, support the continuation of a Jewish state, which dares call itself a democracy, within a binational reality. This is why they cannot be considered by anyone making a conscientious decision.
It’s not easy to say this, it’s hard to write it, but any vote for a Zionist party is a vote for a continued tyranny posing as a democracy.