{"id":597,"date":"2026-10-14T20:20:19","date_gmt":"2026-10-14T17:20:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/socialiststruggle.org\/en\/?p=597"},"modified":"2026-10-17T11:22:47","modified_gmt":"2026-10-17T08:22:47","slug":"a-protest-vote-for-the-joint-list","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/socialiststruggle.org\/en\/2026\/10\/a-protest-vote-for-the-joint-list\/","title":{"rendered":"A protest vote for the Joint List against the forever war, struggle for a socialist-left alternative"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Socialist Struggle Movement shares the aspiration to mobilise a mass vote to remove Netanyahu and the far right\u2019s capitalist government of death. We will work to strengthen a protest vote for the Joint List, as a voice against the \u2018forever war\u2019 and the occupation, and against austerity and privatisation, while calling for the advancement of a socialist and class-based left alternative that cuts across ethnic and national divides.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The final stretch before polling day is marked by acute uncertainty. Despite mass revulsion at the existing state of affairs and cross-community hopes for the defeat of Netanyahu\u2019s rule at the ballot box, deep pessimism prevails regarding the potential for real change in people\u2019s lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Public discourse in Israeli society has been hijacked into the dead end offered by the debate between the two blocs of the political parties of occupation, war and the rule of capital. The debate between the establishment parties concerns the responsibility of Netanyahu and his partners for the atrocities of 7 October and the abandonment of the hostages. Yet it contains no challenge whatsoever to the military campaign, the mass atrocities it has inflicted on Gaza and the region, or the bereavement and damage it has exacted from working-class and poor people in Israel. It fuels the myth of a \u2018war of no choice\u2019 and does not address the root causes of the immense crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The parties of the Netanyahu bloc secured less than 50% of the vote in the 2022 elections and provoked mass movements and protest general strikes. Yet they received decisive assistance from the establishment parties of the \u2018opposition\u2019, and the Histadrut leadership, which mobilised in support of the military campaign. The \u2018Change Bloc\u2019, headed by former chief of staff Eisenkot and led by representatives of the generals\u2019 and capitalists\u2019 mainstream, promotes security demagoguery to normalise the repression and dispossession of millions of Palestinians. It also inflames the chauvinist conception that occupation \u2014 rather than an end to national oppression and peace founded on equality between the peoples \u2014 can provide secure lives for millions of Israelis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The elections are taking place as the historic crisis of war continues to develop at varying levels of intensity, while Netanyahu\u2019s regime continues to threaten further rounds of escalation on various fronts. Added to this are threats from the Trump administration, which is concentrating military forces in the region for possible attacks against Iran or the Houthis, despite its apprehension about the consequences on the eve of the US midterm elections. Even if renewed conflagration does not erupt immediately before the elections, it remains a prospect during the transitional period and under a new capitalist government of occupation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three years have passed since the surprise offensive and the atrocities involving the massacre and abduction of Jews, Palestinians and others, led by the right-wing, pro-capitalist Hamas movement as a false answer to the occupation and siege imposed on millions of Palestinians. That event provided a cynical pretext for the multifront \u2018forever war\u2019 and the genocidal assault on Gaza, with killing and destruction on a scale unprecedented in the history of the Zionist-Arab conflict. At the same time, aggression in the West Bank escalated, with extensive displacement of Palestinians, settler terror and the destruction of the livelihoods of masses of people. The international protest movement that arose influenced the dynamics that led to the Gaza \u2018fire reduction\u2019 arrangement and the exchange deal, and prompted symbolic sanctions against the settlements as governments sought to defuse mass anger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \u2018forever war\u2019 has sown death and destruction on an enormous scale throughout the region, including the occupation of territories in southern Lebanon and southern Syria, and a war aimed at advancing regime change in Iran. The assault on Iran also inflicted damage on the living conditions of masses of people around the world. It is one of the background factors behind a global wave of demonstrations and strikes over the cost of living and wider issues, from Syria to France.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Israeli ruling class, which united around the military campaign led by Netanyahu\u2019s regime, is divided under the impact of fears about trends towards the international isolation of Israeli capital, the destabilisation of society, the potential for a Palestinian uprising, and the possibility that settlement and annexation trends could lead to growing pressure for a \u2018binational state\u2019 \u2014 in which the millions of disenfranchised Palestinian subjects in the territories occupied in 1967 would be incorporated and create a Palestinian majority. Yet a consensus against territorial concessions prevails across the different wings of the ruling class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Netanyahu bloc is advancing an acceleration of ethnic cleansing to eradicate the \u2018demographic problem\u2019. Eisenkot claims to oppose annexation in the West Bank in order to prevent a \u2018binational state\u2019, but rejects both territorial concessions and the democratic demand for recognition of a Palestinian state. He calls for the strengthening of the settlements, against the backdrop of rampant settler terror. The \u2018Democrats\u2019 vaguely promote \u2018separation\u2019 as an alternative to annexation, while Bennett and Lieberman advocate partial annexation in the West Bank. Lieberman proposes replacing the Palestinian Authority with an \u2018Israeli-Jordanian confederation\u2019 for controlling the Palestinians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because the \u2018Change Bloc\u2019 seeks not to end but to fuel the burden of occupation and war \u2014 the future it offers young people \u2014 it relentlessly pushes the \u2018equality of burden\u2019 spin. This demands the expanded conscription of ultra-Orthodox youth into the war machine for the sake of equality in killing, alongside the imposition of \u2018national service\u2019 on Arab-Palestinian youth. This \u2018divide and rule\u2019 approach redirects public anger towards impoverished communities as scapegoats. And despite its attempt to harness anger over Netanyahu\u2019s attempted \u2018judicial coup\u2019 and his regime\u2019s authoritarian measures, including deepening exclusion of women in the public sphere, the \u2018Change Bloc\u2019 does not support the democratic demands to repeal the discriminatory \u2018Nation-State Law\u2019, to separate religion and state, and to abolish all discriminatory legislation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For three years, Israel\u2019s military industries, banks and retail chains have been raking in enormous profits, while the government and employers advance economic attacks on the working class to finance the machinery of war, occupation and settlements. The war consequently also serves as an instrument for extracting wealth, with the support of both establishment blocs and the right-wing, pro-war, pro-capitalist leadership of the Histadrut general federation. The Eisenkot bloc promotes policies that will perpetuate the cost-of-living crisis, particularly unaffordable housing and poverty wages. It does not advocate the extensive construction of public housing for all or rent controls, the taxation of luxury properties and the expropriation of control from the property giants. Nor does it demand genuine regulation and the expropriation of control from the retail giants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the face of a profound social crisis and soaring violence within the community, the Israeli centre-right bloc offers no end to the deliberate starvation of hospitals and social services through the taxation of billionaires, the reversal of privatisation, and public ownership and democratic control of the banks and the commanding heights of the economy for the benefit of society. As instruments of capitalism and Zionist national chauvinism, the parties of the \u2018Change Bloc\u2019 have no interest in such a transformation. Their agenda does not include guaranteeing a living wage throughout the economy or substantively strengthening organised labour. Their role is to ensure the \u2018more responsible\u2019 management of occupation, imperialist wars and the capitalist system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Growing uncertainty<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Uncertainty over the expected outcome has only increased in recent weeks. For now, it appears that most votes cast will be directed against the government. The centre-right bloc will benefit substantially from a \u2018lesser evil\u2019 vote, although it has failed to channel mass revulsion at the status quo into decisive support, and even its ability to form a minority government in the Knesset remains in doubt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fact that the conservative Ra\u02bfam (United Arab List \/ al-Muwa\u1e25\u1e25ada) \u2014 identified with the southern tendency of the Islamic Movement and formerly a partner in the ruling coalition of \u2018Change Government 1\u2019 \u2014 has been excluded from the \u2018Change Bloc\u2019 from the outset makes it harder to project the appearance of majority support. Yet even with Ra\u02bfam, no majority for the bloc appears to be in sight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the election approaches, the increasingly precarious position of the Eisenkot bloc is becoming ever clearer. It is in a nominal dead heat, and it is entirely plausible that it could even finish at a disadvantage to the Netanyahu bloc \u2014 although the latter, too, appears nowhere near securing a majority coalition in the next Knesset, even if the satellite lists \u2018Amcha Israel\u2019 and \u2018The Reservists and the Economic Party\u2019, which serve as receptacles for right-wing populism seeking to absorb public anger, clear the electoral threshold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \u2018Change Bloc\u2019 is competing with the government over the continued maintenance of the occupation, the settlements and regional military aggression under the cover of security demagoguery, while the differences between the blocs are largely reduced to promises of differing degrees of credibility and responsibility. General Eisenkot himself, together with General Gantz, joined the present government for several months following 7 October 2023 \u2014 when support for the Netanyahu bloc had collapsed and was estimated at 45 seats<\/a> \u2014 in order to shore up both the government and the war of extermination in Gaza. Chair of \u2018The Democrats\u2019 and a former deputy chief of staff, Yair Golan, repeatedly emphasised his support for the war, outflanked the government from the right with calls for military strikes, and criticised it principally for failing to advance \u2018complementary\u2019 measures to consolidate \u2018military achievements\u2019 through diplomatic agreements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The generals are concentrated in the bloc opposing Netanyahu because of the continuing tensions between the government, led by forces of right-wing populism and the far right, and the senior officer corps, which, from a systemic standpoint, tends to be more apprehensive about losing control of events \u2014 yet they served as an engine of legitimation for government propaganda justifying the catastrophic war as \u2018imperative\u2019 for protecting the security of the Israeli public.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In doing so, they helped the Netanyahu bloc partially rebuild its support and strengthen the forces of the far right. Although, according to polling averages, the combined electoral weight of the far-right parties \u2018Jewish Power\u2019 and \u2018Religious Zionism\u2019 has not increased significantly since the 2022 election, and the latter, led by Finance Minister Smotrich, required an electoral bloc with Feiglin\u2019s \u2018libertarian\u2019 Zehut to lift it above the electoral threshold, the boundary between varieties of right-wing populism and these parties has become blurred. The longer this government has remained in office, the more it has advanced parts of their programmes and provided backing for the flourishing of Kahanist-fascist gangs in the West Bank and beyond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eisenkot\u2019s \u2018Yashar!\u2019 (Straight\/Truthful) list is an electoral vehicle intended to present itself as a new product on the shelf, centred on the figure of Eisenkot, although it is largely a repackaging of the lists previously stitched together around Gantz, who has meanwhile been kicked to the sidelines in favour of a \u2018new broom\u2019. In the 2020 election, Gantz\u2019s list (including \u2018Yesh Atid\u2019) secured 33 seats on the back of the \u2018Anyone But Bibi\u2019 vote and harnessed them to a government headed by Netanyahu. Now, an attempt to establish a joint government with Likud remains a possible scenario, just as Eisenkot joined such a government after 7 October. Yet given the political polarisation and the depth of mass revulsion at Netanyahu\u2019s rule, the idea is deeply unpopular<\/a>. If the political system fails to produce even the symbolic appearance of \u2018rectification\u2019, and instead delivers a symbolic victory image for the head of the blood-soaked government, it will only fuel mass anger. Eisenkot and his bloc partners<\/a> have therefore distanced themselves from the idea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The delegitimisation campaign dovetails with war propaganda<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The traditional disqualification ritual in the Central Elections Committee, where government representatives enjoy an inbuilt majority, escalated under the impact of the war with the disqualification of the two largest lists among the Arab-Palestinian public, alongside those of Balad\/at-Tajammu\u02bf chair Sami Abu She\u1e25adeh and Hadash\/al-Jabha MK \u02bfOfer Cassif (who, as part of political persecution, has since been convicted of \u2018assaulting a police officer\u2019).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The disqualifications were advanced in the knowledge that the state\u2019s judicial arm, in the form of the High Court of Justice, would uphold most of the appeals against them. For its part, the High Court\u2019s support for Abu Shehadeh\u2019s disqualification, while overturning the others, reflects a combination of intensified persecution of Palestinian citizens of Israel amid the war crisis and the policing of the boundaries of permissible criticism of Israeli capitalism\u2019s political regime \u2014 while maintaining the false appearance of a \u2018pluralist\u2019 bourgeois democracy, not least in an effort to stabilise national tensions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This forms part of a campaign to delegitimise the political voice of Palestinian citizens of Israel and those among the Jewish population who consistently oppose the war of extermination and the occupation. The campaign as a whole undermines the legitimacy of any government not resting on a \u2018Zionist majority\u2019. For the Netanyahu bloc, from a weakened position, it also serves as a lever for delegitimising a cross-community \u2018civic majority\u2019 in society that has reviled the government from its first day, and for blocking a \u2018Change Government 2\u2019 that would rely on any form of support from parties based among the Arab-Palestinian population in Israel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under the \u2018Basic Law: The Knesset\u2019, a candidacy for the Knesset must be disqualified, among other grounds, for \u2018incitement to racism\u2019. The committee, of course, found no evidential basis for any such disqualifications. \u2018Jewish Power\u2019 and \u2018Religious Zionism\u2019 were given a clean bill of health. More generally, the parties responsible for advancing the \u2018judicial coup\u2019, the occupation and mass atrocities, including the crimes of ethnic cleansing and genocide, as well as the extensive assault on the living conditions of masses on both sides of the Green Line and around the world, passed every \u2018democratic\u2019 test.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The high point of the witch-hunt was the chauvinist disqualification of Abu Shehadeh, who withdrew on the recommendation of the High Court judges who supported his disqualification. A lawyer convicted of murder following a Kahanist attack against Palestinians in Jerusalem in 1992 represented \u2018Jewish Power\u2019, led by Police Minister Ben-Gvir, before the High Court. Until recently, Ben-Gvir boasted of displaying in his home a portrait of Baruch Goldstein, the perpetrator of the 1994 Cave of the Patriarchs massacre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the proceedings, establishment representatives who support the war of extermination engaged in sophistry over an article written from a nationalist ideological perspective that Abu Shehadeh published on 8 October 2023<\/a>. Abu Shehadeh swiftly condemned the 7 October massacre on various occasions, but in that article, which addressed the atrocities of the occupation, he omitted any mention of it, claiming he was unaware, and presented the Hamas attack uncritically and as leverage for negotiations between the PLO and the occupying state. The censors were appalled by this, yet, as noted, politicians who demanded and acted to erase Gaza are regarded as legitimate public representatives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \u2018Change Bloc\u2019 joined the disqualification campaign, which dovetails with its own chauvinist war propaganda and the silencing of criticism of the war\u2019s atrocities and the \u2018security\u2019 deception inflicted on working-class and poor people in Israel. This included \u2018The Democrats\u2019, led by General Golan, who repeatedly supported the government\u2019s military operations and the massive harm inflicted on the masses in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran under the cover of security demagoguery. They supported Abu Shehadeh\u2019s disqualification and avoided voting against the disqualification of the Joint List and Ra\u02bfam. This was despite their claim to prefer a coalition with Ra\u02bfam<\/a>, as part of their lip service to the idea of \u2018Jewish-Arab partnership\u2019 and, in practice, as a prop for a capitalist government of occupation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their bloc partners rule out a formal coalition with Ra\u02bfam, even though it formed part of the coalition under the Bennett\u2013Lapid government. Party chair Man\u1e63our \u02bfAbbas pointed out<\/a> that Ra\u02bfam did not interfere at the time in \u2018security policy\u2019 (even during an assault on Gaza<\/a>). The party\u2019s packaging has been tailored to the needs of the establishment parties, with its formal severance of ties<\/a> with the Islamic Movement\u2019s Shura Council and the addition to Ra\u02bfam\u2019s list of Yoav Segalovitz, a former deputy police minister from \u2018Yesh Atid\u2019 \u2014 supposedly \u2018in return\u2019<\/a> for recognising Israel as a \u2018Jewish and democratic state\u2019. Yet Abbas had already declared<\/a> in 2021, at the outset of Ra\u02bfam\u2019s turn towards the \u2018politics of influence\u2019, that Israel \u2018was born as a Jewish state \u2026 and that is how it will remain\u2019<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Abbas must, however, take account of the party\u2019s social base, particularly within the Arab-Palestinian Bedouin community, and therefore qualifies<\/a> his reconciliation with Zionism \u2014 that imposes discrimination and dispossession: \u2018The Jewish character of the state is an existing fact that was imposed upon us \u2026 the Arab parties were compelled to accept it in practice, otherwise they would have been disqualified\u2019<\/em>. He markets a politics of opportunistic deals as comparable to \u2018Arab and Jewish doctors who work together in hospitals for the benefit of patients, and work together in production in factories\u2019<\/em>. In reality, instead of struggle, he promises crumbs in return for strengthening a coalition that will oversee attacks on workers and Palestinians on both sides of the Green Line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most of the \u2018Change Bloc\u2019 grounds its rejection of Ra\u02bfam on the fact that the party is not Zionist. It was not Zionist under the previous government either, and the ultra-Orthodox parties on which Netanyahu\u2019s rule depends also represent non-Zionist tendencies. For the Zionist establishment parties, cooperation with Ra\u02bfam arose from the outset from their electoral weakness. They seek to discipline the party while reducing their dependence on it to a minimum because of the burden imposed by Ra\u02bfam\u2019s support base, which does not support Zionism or the occupation. Forces such as \u2018The Democrats\u2019 and Segalovitz are prepared to rely on coalition discipline from Ra\u02bfam over \u2018security policy\u2019, but the bloc faces growing pressure not to appear \u2018weak\u2019 in its capacity for military action. The bloc insists on a \u2018Zionist majority\u2019, and Eisenkot, responding to Ra\u02bfam, was pushed into adding support for the \u2018destruction of Hamas\u2019 as a coalition precondition \u2014 a code phrase for justifying military offensives against the Palestinian people. The \u2018Change Bloc\u2019 is highly preoccupied with competing against the Netanyahu bloc in inflaming national chauvinism and warmongering, in order to create the hollow appearance of a strong \u2018security\u2019 alternative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Obstruct the Netanyahu bloc, expose the centre-right bloc, build opposition on the left<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Much like Hungary\u2019s centre-right Tisza party, which in April channelled public anger into a \u2018strategic vote\u2019 to remove Orb\u00e1n\u2019s regime and projected the appearance of \u2018cleaning out the stables\u2019, the \u2018Change Bloc\u2019 promises to implement the popular symbolic demand for a state commission of inquiry into 7 October. Various investigations have found that Netanyahu received intelligence warnings in advance. Yet the centre-right bloc uses such findings to divert public debate towards the question of Netanyahu\u2019s personal responsibility, torpedoing any discussion of the root causes of the catastrophe that they assisted in bringing about in recent years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The findings concerning the role Netanyahu played in the dynamics preceding 7 October must be connected with the testimony of former soldiers in the documentary NAZA, which partially exposes the methods used to carry out the mass atrocities in the Gaza Strip. The full picture should serve as an indictment of the war of extermination as a whole and of the policies of siege and \u2018managing the occupation\u2019 that preceded it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By promising, in effect, a \u2018less bad\u2019 government amid a catastrophic reality, the centre-right bloc benefits from the void resulting from the weakness of the left. This allows it to present itself as the default vehicle for harnessing the mass thirst for change, while lowering expectations and normalising the \u2018status quo\u2019 of occupation and the rule of capital as a reality of \u2018no choice\u2019. The politics of the \u2018lesser evil\u2019 offers a dangerously short-sighted perspective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The entirely justified sense of urgency surrounding the mass aspiration to remove the Netanyahu bloc and the far right from positions of governmental power does not make the centre-right parties a solution. As already noted, these parties rescued Netanyahu\u2019s rule and support both the military campaign he led and the policies of \u2018managing the occupation\u2019 and perpetuating the rule of capital. In this way, \u2018Change Government 1\u2019 had already paved the way for the rise of the \u2018full-on right-wing\u2019 government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under any scenario, a capitalist government of occupation led by the Eisenkot bloc would not only fail to resolve any of the burning problems at their roots, but would continue to foster them, including the \u2018forever war\u2019, the settlements and the economic attacks being deferred until after the election. It would pave the way for future disasters and open the door to an even more aggressive comeback by right-wing populism and the far right, together with the rampant terror of its gangs, disguised as a supposed alternative to the establishment and to a system that \u2018does not work\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In other words, a centre-right government could potentially lead to an even more catastrophic deterioration, unless a left opposition and alternative are built against it. The task of a socialist left at this juncture is not to persuade every audience to \u2018move a little to the left\u2019, but to connect with the profound revulsion at the existing state of affairs and tell the truth as it is: while it is necessary to act to throw the \u2018full-on right-wing\u2019 government out at the election, it is equally necessary to fight with the same determination against the politics of the establishment parties in the Eisenkot bloc, which fundamentally advances an agenda of generals and capitalists committed to the occupation and the rule of capital.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fundamental problem in this election is the near-total absence of a left alternative from public debate. There is no left leadership within organised labour capable of offering a serious direction for struggle, and there is no broad left party, across national and ethnic communities in the working class, that could offer an \u2018exit strategy\u2019 from the catastrophic reality of occupation, wars and the rule of capital. Even among the few existing forces on the left, the general tendency is to adapt to the status quo by dangerously obscuring messages, both in relation to the \u2018Change Bloc\u2019 \u2014 including aligning themselves with it, as suggested by the Standing Together movement and its \u2018A Place for All\u2019 list, which stood at around 0.1% in the polls<\/a> before withdrawing \u2014 and in relation to the depth of transformation required to resolve society\u2019s crises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Joint List<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

\u2018The Joint List\u2019 \u2014 comprising Hadash on the left, together with the Palestinian national-liberal parties Ta\u02bfal and Balad \u2014 is being built primarily as a political voice for Palestinian citizens of Israel, advancing a national-democratic platform with basic support for a \u2018welfare state\u2019, while seeking to mobilise votes from a sympathetic layer of the Jewish population. From the standpoint of its organisers, the list is not intended also to serve as a lever for advancing a cross-community, class-based struggle<\/strong> against the war, the occupation and national oppression, the crisis of gang violence, the cost of living and the rule of capital \u2014 an approach that is necessary, from a long-term perspective, to build a political alternative capable of offering a path towards taking power and replacing the capitalist governments of occupation.<\/strong> It does not aspire to build a pole of attraction on the left that would give expression to the interests, struggles and potential power of the working class. Thus, it does not advance a necessary programme of socialist change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among eligible voters in the Arab-Palestinian population, half<\/a> of whom did not vote in the 2022 election, there are indications<\/a> of a potential rise in turnout under a sense of danger. This is despite scepticism and pessimism, also shaped by disappointment following years of protest voting that was not connected to a perspective and long-term plan of action for building a struggle aimed at changing the balance of forces in society. Among the Jewish population, the Joint List probably draws support amounting to less than one seat, chiefly from Hadash supporters. Chauvinist incitement is the decisive reason for its isolation, but the Joint List, in its various past iterations, has made scarcely any attempt to become relevant to new layers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hadash, the left-wing and largest component, is focused on promoting the Joint List\u2019s common platform. In line with a \u2018popular front\u2019 approach, it has regarded nationally based democratic organisation as the necessary common denominator in confronting the Netanyahu bloc and the far right since the 2015 election. It therefore also supported the participation of Ra\u02bfam, although the latter has stood independently since 2021. In Hadash\u2019s view, the Joint List should provide \u2018strong, clear and responsible representation for the Arab public and democratic Jewish circles\u2019<\/em>, in the words of<\/a> the list\u2019s chair, Yousef Jabareen (Hadash and CP). Its appeal to a Palestinian audience is made primarily on the basis of national identity, and to a Jewish audience chiefly around a democratic platform, alongside general slogans such as \u2018there is another way\u2019. The campaign has raised criticism of the enormous sums allocated<\/a> to the war and has put forward a plan to tackle the cost of living. Yet, as with every other issue, the emphasis is not on struggle around broad class interests, including a challenge to security demagoguery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A campaign that, including after the election, mounts a challenge from a class standpoint and connects with mass revulsion at the state of war, the cost of living and the social crises will not immediately break through the wall of chauvinist demonisation. Over time, however, it would be more effective in gaining a hearing and charting a path for struggle. Greater involvement by militant Palestinian and Jewish representatives from the ranks of organised labour, from working-class community struggles, and from the left wing of the protest movements against the war of extermination and the abandonment of the hostages, against gang violence in the Arab-Palestinian community, against the \u2018judicial coup\u2019 plan and against Netanyahu\u2019s rule could assist in this. There is a political vacuum in the representation of the working class\u2019s interests and plight, and Hadash in particular, with its faction in the Histadrut, should assist in pointing the way forward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is positive that, following a demand from Hadash supporters, the Hadash Council corrected its candidate list by removing a candidate, Ja\u02bffar Fara\u1e25, against whom detailed complaints of sexual harassment had been raised over the years \u2014 and this matter deserves to be subjected to further serious inquiry. However, the controversy also followed a weakness in the integration of women on the list. Indeed, unlike the parties of war and the rule of capital, some of which boast around 50% women on their lists while representing a pro-capitalist policy that perpetuates discrimination, the left-wing agenda of the Joint List aligns much more closely with the interests of the struggle for women\u2019s equality, however, a prominent and combative representation is required. There is now an opportunity to strengthen demands for the rights of women and LGBTQ+, which are being trampled under the auspices of the war. We note that a directive distributed in the Joint List\u2019s campaign to keep on low profile references to LGBTQ+ oppression so as not to alienate a \u2018conservative\u2019 vote is a fundamental mistake of principle. LGBTQ+ and women\u2019s rights are not a privilege to wait for \u2018convenient\u2019 circumstances, and the Joint List must be demanded to stand unapologetically at the forefront of the struggles against gender-based and sexuality-based oppression, as part of the struggle to transform society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Striving to change the balance of forces<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Despite its weaknesses, the Joint List is the only<\/strong> list that gives political expression to a consistent struggle against the \u2018forever war\u2019, including the war of extermination in Gaza, and against the occupation, even in the face of political persecution. It is the only<\/strong> list that seriously challenges chauvinist incitement, national \u2018divide and rule\u2019, militarism and imperialism. And it is the only<\/strong> list that does not present a capitalist government of occupation as the solution. It is therefore the only<\/strong> list relevant to a perspective and preparations for building a militant opposition from the left.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moreover, although this aspect is less central to its campaign, it is the only<\/strong> list whose programme for tackling the cost of living, poverty and inequality does not confine itself to minimum demands for budgetary investment in social services and higher taxation of capital. It raises the more substantive question of control over society\u2019s resources \u2014 without which slogans about \u2018welfare\u2019 and \u2018social justice\u2019 remain hollow \u2014 and demands the reversal of privatisation, the return to public ownership of public assets that have been privatised, and the transfer of state-owned companies to democratic management.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Joint List rightly argues that it will need to exhaust every available political means of obstructing the Netanyahu bloc from positions of power. It is important to warn that any parliamentary blocking manoeuvre, insofar as one proves possible, must be connected to the building of an active opposition from the left, in the Knesset and on the streets, to any alternative capitalist government of occupation<\/strong>, alongside systematic efforts to weaken and split the social base of support for right-wing populism and the forces of the far right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Joint List chair Jabareen responded<\/a> ambiguously to the idea of providing a \u2018safety net\u2019 for an Eisenkot-bloc minority government: \u2018We want to be a safety net for the Arab public and the democratic Jewish public \u2026 after the election, we will know how to take the responsible decision required of a leadership, one that will protect both our public and our values\u2019<\/em>. In Arabic-language written campaign material and a video<\/a>, the Joint List emphasised its commitment to bringing down Netanyahu\u2019s rule and declared that it would not give the centre-right bloc a blank cheque. As an Arabic-language leaflet put it: \u2018Those who want us to provide a safety net must provide our people with a safety net against home demolitions, violence and crime, and discriminatory policies, and must protect our national and civil rights, alongside ending the war and the policies of transfer and annexation, and opening up a genuine diplomatic horizon\u2019<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A government headed by Eisenkot will not provide this, although it is positive to challenge and expose the \u2018Change Bloc\u2019. It would, however, be better to broaden the message into a demand for a \u2018safety net\u2019 for working people and to help make clear that the Joint List should become a relevant address across communities. If the \u2018Change Bloc\u2019 fails to form a government, the left will not be responsible. The Joint List will need to act to obstruct the Netanyahu bloc and the far right, in the Knesset and on the streets. But there can be no question of promising any general, binding arrangement for \u2018industrial peace\u2019 to any capitalist government of occupation, even if confined to the Knesset. Is it conceivable to support the passage of a budget imposing economic attacks in the service of the capitalists and the occupation? Even tactical votes on specific measures in the Knesset must be accompanied by a warning that they are not the key to change. There is no solution at the ballot box without a struggle to build an alternative from the left.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Such an alternative will emerge from struggles that change the social balance of forces against right-wing governments. It will need to develop into a political megaphone for building a cross-community struggle by working people and by young people growing up in a society facing a dystopian future. The Joint List should use its positions in the Knesset as a cross-community platform for strengthening the struggles that will develop in the coming period among the Arab-Palestinian public and, more broadly, across the working class, over living conditions and democratic freedoms and against the forever war and the occupation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The vote follows on from struggles against the war of extermination and gang violence, as well as from mass protest movements in Israeli society that remained shackled to establishment leaderships \u2014 led by generals and capitalists, these leaderships diverted the movements away from a programme corresponding to aspirations for profound change in people\u2019s lived reality. The vote must serve as a prelude to building action against the cost of living, against the next war budget and against military escalation, for an end to the war, and against the occupation and the rule of capital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Socialist Struggle Movement is working to focus its efforts during the final stretch of the election campaign on strengthening a protest vote for the Joint List against the forever war, the occupation and the rule of capital; preparing for struggle after the election, and for putting forward a socialist, class-based left alternative to both blocs of establishment parties responsible for the historic crisis of bloodshed of recent years.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Socialist Struggle Movement shares the aspiration to mobilise a mass vote to remove Netanyahu and the far right\u2019s capitalist government of death. We will work to strengthen a protest vote for the Joint List, as a voice against the \u2018forever war\u2019 and the occupation, and against austerity and privatisation, while calling for the advancement of a socialist and class-based […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":598,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,85],"tags":[86,89,103,87,93,9,94,92,88],"class_list":["post-597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ssm","category-israeli-politics","tag-elections","tag-hadash-aljabha","tag-israeli-supreme-court","tag-knesset","tag-lesser-evilism","tag-netanyahu","tag-raam","tag-the-democrats","tag-the-joint-list"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/socialiststruggle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/socialiststruggle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/socialiststruggle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/socialiststruggle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/socialiststruggle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/socialiststruggle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/socialiststruggle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/socialiststruggle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/socialiststruggle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/socialiststruggle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}