The solution is a new joint list.. Bringing down Netanyahu’s government is a national necessity: Who, how, and why?

Before answering the question in the title of this article, I imagine that some will immediately ask: Will the alternative government that will come be better than this government?! A legitimate question without a doubt, but the courage to answer it is a national and legitimate necessity as well. When we talk about overthrowing a government like the current Netanyahu-Smotrich-Ben Gvir government, and replacing it with another government, we are not choosing between a bad government and a good one. All the options are bad, but some governments may - I say may - be less bad than others. Is this fact worth risking the effort to overthrow this government? The answer: Yes, most definitely. Overthrowing this most fascist government in the history of Israel - see the most fascist, meaning that others are less fascist, and this means that they both share this characteristic - has become after it committed the crimes it has committed against our Palestinian people, and continues to do so. And we, as an Arab Palestinian community living on our homeland under Israeli rule, and holding its citizenship, have become an inseparable duty, and failure to achieve it - as much as possible - is tantamount to neglect that I do not think history will forgive us for.

(Who) will undertake this national mission par excellence? The answer: The Palestinian Arabs in Israel: people, leadership, parties, movements, and national institutions! As for how? Through a large-scale mobilization that includes no less than 90% of the Arab community’s electoral power behind a new joint list that can bring more than 15 members into parliament/Knesset, established on the basis of the minimum that can be agreed upon, and whose primary goal is to bring down the Netanyahu-Smotrich-Ben Gvir government, and to pressure to establish an alternative government over which the Arab representatives will have influence in a manner that will be agreed upon in its form and manner.

This great challenge, in light of this dangerous circumstance that we and our Palestinian people are going through, requires the active forces in Arab society to rise above trivial differences, whether personal or partisan, in order to achieve a breakthrough in the Israeli reality that will establish a new phase, perhaps halting the state of deterioration in our Palestinian reality, here in Israel, and there in Palestine occupied in 1967, and preparing for a breakthrough in the state of fragmentation that we are living as an Arab society that is being crushed between the hammer of racist government policies and the anvil of internal conflicts and the bloody violence and crime!

As for why? Here are the details:
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The ongoing deterioration in the relationship between “Jewish-democratic” Israel and the indigenous Palestinian Arab citizens who are the legitimate owners of the land, which has become increasingly dark under Netanyahu’s governments since 1996, and the dangerous decline in the course of the Palestinian cause, which Netanyahu is about to deal a fatal blow to in light of the Arab collapse, American support, and Palestinian division, all “herald!” a new phase that is the most dangerous in the history of the state and the region. This deterioration should shine a dangerous red light before us.

It is clear that Netanyahu and his allies from the extreme right and the "Kahanese" (named after Meir Kahane, founder of the most racist and anti-Arab party "Kach", who was assassinated in New York in 1990), have reached the conviction that all their projects to "domesticate" the Palestinian Arab masses on the one hand, and to remove the Palestinian cause and all its files from the agenda of global interest on the other hand, have failed miserably despite all the surrounding circumstances that serve the Zionist project in an unprecedented way. Therefore, this right-wing alliance led by Netanyahu has moved to implement the new version of Plan D/Dalet (a plan drawn up by the Zionist Haganah organization in Palestine between the fall of 1947 and the spring of 1948, the goal of which was to effectively end the Palestinian presence in Palestine by all means, including destruction, killing and terrorism, which ultimately led to the Nakba with all its tragic chapters). The new Plan D aims to achieve the same goals as the first, but in a new, more modern way, but it is equal to the first in ugliness, racism, hostility and barbarism.

The war of extermination that Israel has been waging against the Gaza Strip since October 7, 2023 (and before that, of course), which has been continuing with all brutality and ugliness for about ten months, and the war of extermination - albeit to a lesser extent - that it is waging against the West Bank, the Holy City of Jerusalem, and the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, are a symptom of this new plan that the Israeli government is actually implementing on the ground, disregarding 57 Arab and Islamic countries, and disregarding all relevant international charters and resolutions, and ignoring all the decisions of international courts (the Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court) that these courts have taken recently, all of which call for: 1. Stopping the war of extermination, 2. Ending the Israeli occupation immediately, as it is a violation of international law, and calling on the governments of the world to take the necessary measures to enable the Palestinian people to achieve their freedom and independence, 3. Arresting and prosecuting the Israeli political and military leadership for the war crimes and crimes against humanity they have committed. This is in addition to Netanyahu and his ministers’ blatant challenge to the US president and administration (see Netanyahu’s speech before Congress in which he criticized the American people for rejecting his crimes against the Palestinian people, and his accusation of all demonstrators against him of anti-Semitism and supporting terrorism! He also considered America to be nothing more than a servant of Israel), and his rejection of Biden’s initiatives and appeals to stop the war, and his placing obstacles in the way of any opportunity to stop the bleeding and end the dangerous state of deterioration, which even angered the leaders of his security services: the Minister of Defense, the head of Mossad, and the head of the Shin Bet.

Netanyahu rejects any agreement to stop the war

Netanyahu refuses to conclude any agreement that includes: an immediate cessation of the war, an exchange deal on the basis of all for all, a complete Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, the return of the displaced to their areas of residence in the Strip, lifting the siege, and reconstruction, demands that the international community agrees are legitimate. Netanyahu is fully convinced that the continuation of the war has nothing to do with Israel's security and future, but it serves his personal political interests (continuing his rule, postponing the procedures to end his political role, and the procedures for his trial on corruption charges currently pending in Israeli courts), and it also serves the interests of his extremist partners who are explicitly seeking to completely erase the Palestinian issue, impose actual Israeli sovereignty over the land of Palestine occupied in 1967, and present the world with a new reality that it has no choice but to accept and recognize its legitimacy, even if it violates international law and resolutions.

Netanyahu has long been convinced, since he was in power in 1996, that no matter what crimes he committed, no matter how much he threatened international security and stability, and no matter how much he violated Palestinian human rights, the hand of international justice would not reach him, and he would remain safe from bearing the consequences of his crimes.

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No one can deny that the Palestinian Arab community in Israel has made great progress in more than one vital area, despite all the policies of racial discrimination and national oppression practiced by the Israeli governments since its establishment in 1948 until today. It has achieved qualitative leaps, all of which indicate that our Palestinian community enjoys a distinct vitality that enabled it - with God's help - to triumph over Israel's plans related to existence. The battle is still ongoing to wrest rights, starting with recognition of our national identity and not ending with our collective national rights. We have succeeded to a relatively large extent in combining our national project, which adheres to religious and national identity and reference to the core, with the necessity of paying attention to daily concerns without compromising any of the religious and national constants.

The battle of the Arab community inside

From this standpoint, our Palestinian Arab community within the Hebrew entity succeeded in waging its battle on more than one path simultaneously, starting with strengthening popular awareness, unleashing the will, challenging the Zionist reality, not compromising on the constants, and strengthening religious and national pride, passing through building national institutions such as the Higher Follow-up Committee for the Arab Masses, which is the parliament of our Arab masses that brings together under its roof all spectrums of Arab society and its activities, and the National Committee for Mayors and Arab Councils (local government), and building highly specialized civil society organizations in all fields, and building a party life and a distinctive political/religious/cultural movement, and not ending with investing in all paths of struggle: popular, legal, and media, local and international, in order to strengthen our internal movement and our legitimate struggle against the policy of successive Israeli governments, and in support of the struggle of our Palestinian people to achieve freedom, independence, and the final sweeping away of the occupation.

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As a Jew, raised in a family with an extremist Zionist-Jewish nationalist ideology, Netanyahu's personality traits began to take shape early on, and these traits began to take their final shape with the beginnings of his entry into the political arena as a representative of his country at the United Nations, and as a member of the Israeli delegation headed by Shamir to the Madrid Peace Conference (1991), and later as Minister of Finance in Ariel Sharon's government. Netanyahu did not hide his views on the issue of Israel and Palestine, in the part related to us as Arab masses who have remained attached to their homeland under Israeli rule since 1948, or in the other part related to the national rights of the Palestinian people to liberation and self-determination. I still remember his words at the annual strategic "Herzliya Conference" years ago, which expressed his hostile position towards us as an Arab Palestinian community inside Israel, as he said: "The problem of democratic Israel is its Arabs, not the Arabs of Palestine," warning that our reproduction rates will cause Israel to lose its identity and its Zionist Jewish majority within a few decades. His positions were not limited to the thresholds of strategic fears, as he calls them. Rather, as Minister of Finance, he began implementing a plan aimed at harming our rights as Arabs, such as harming the National Insurance allocations, opening the file on the phenomenon of having many children, specifically in the Negev region, and its causes, and other measures that are internationally classified as “racist” without dispute.

Concessions to fundamentalist allies

Netanyahu has clearly defined his domestic, regional and international goals since assuming the position of Prime Minister in 2009 until now, in order to achieve these goals without “annoyances” or “obstacles”. He chose his allies carefully, and they were a mixture of the fundamentalist religious parties (Haredim) and the religious Zionist nationalist parties, the latest version of which (Smotrich and Ben-Gvir) is considered the most extreme, the most violent and the most brutal.

Netanyahu has shown a willingness to go far in making concessions to his religious ultra-Orthodox allies domestically, overstepping the status quo that has governed relations between the state and the religious since the establishment of the state, to the point that it has angered his former secular allies, such as Avigdor Lieberman, and even members of his own party, who saw Netanyahu’s wholesale selling campaign as a threat to the Likud party and its credibility among broad circles of secular Israeli supporters. Externally, Netanyahu has surrendered completely—except for tactical differences—to his settler allies, who have pushed him to work hard and methodically to close the Palestinian file. Netanyahu's allies' statements this week about the need to extend Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank (Areas B and C), including the Jordan Valley, the northern Dead Sea, and the entire Jerusalem area, as well as the settlement blocs, in addition to his plans regarding Hebron, which he recently stormed, declaring the "eternity" of Israeli sovereignty over the holy city, as he put it, are the clearest evidence and truest witness to what will happen if Netanyahu wins the position in any upcoming elections.

racist legislation

As for us as a Palestinian Arab community inside Israel, the last ten years of Netanyahu’s rule have witnessed a dangerous escalation in racist legislation, which has reached hundreds, the most important of which are: First, the “Nationality Law” which declares that Israel does not recognize any religious, national, or ethnic connection between us as Palestinian Arab masses and our homeland Palestine, and considers us merely “subjects” who must be “grateful” to Israel for the crumbs it gives us, which is not based on law but rather on the “charity!!” of the “Israeli master!!” “the owner of the homeland!” who shares this homeland with no one else. The Nationality Law is a fascist law by all standards, as it shifts the relationship between us and the state whose citizenship we have held (unwillingly) since 1948 from demanding that we “respect” the laws, no matter how racist they are, to demanding that we “respect” the Zionist ideology that denies our existence and does not recognize any national or ethnic right we have in our homeland or upon it. It also moves the reality of the Middle Eastern conflict from a border conflict to an existential conflict, whereby the Zionist side does not recognize the Palestinian narrative in all its details, nor does it recognize a homeland called Palestine, nor a people called the Palestinian people.

The law only recognizes the Zionist narrative, and one people, which is “the Jewish people!!” Secondly, the “Kaminetz” law, which in turn came to complete what the Nationality Law came with, by targeting all the components of our Palestinian Arab society in terms of land, housing, economy, areas of influence, building areas, services, and the ability to develop naturally, similar to the Jewish society, which is developing at an astronomical speed, leaving behind our Arab society as slums attached to cities that are light years ahead of us in progress, development, and prosperity.

It has now become clear under the Netanyahu-Smotrich-Ben Gvir government that the actual and deeper implementation of these racist laws on both the internal Palestinian level (the Arab community inside) and the greater Palestinian cause has taken a new, unprecedented turn that heralds a new phase that will witness a very dangerous escalation. This government is exploiting the international and Arab silence - except for some timid statements of condemnation - and the world's governments' disregard for the enormity of the crimes committed by the Israeli government, and even the world's rush to help Israel and provide it with all kinds of military, political and economic power, despite its crimes in the event of any threat, even a theoretical one, to its security. It is exploiting all of this in order to move forward with its violations that threaten international security and stability.

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Racist laws constitute the legal cover that gave the ministries of Netanyahu's government the unlimited space to oppress our Arab society, especially in issues related to the vital areas of this society, and at the forefront of these issues: First, personal and collective security in the face of violence and crime fueled by Israeli security circles and others, with direct support or turning a blind eye, and deliberately not taking legal action against them, as is the case with Jewish society. It is important to note here that the current Minister of Internal Security (Ben Gvir) is considered by all standards to be one of the most heinous Ministers of Internal Security who have ever passed through Israel, and the most extremist and hateful of all things Arab. This is clearly reflected in his policies that disregard the interests of Arab citizens and their blood, and his disdain for all the security challenges facing our society. Second, land and housing, which is one of the hot issues that has begun to constitute a pressure factor that may lead to the emigration of the younger generations from the country, which is what Netanyahu seems to be seeking.

The insistence of the Netanyahu government on the policy of demolishing and destroying hundreds of Arab homes and shops annually, instead of engaging in systematic planning to develop Arab society, approving its structural maps that respond to the real and not imaginary needs of this society, and keeping its service, industrial and commercial infrastructure lagging behind its counterparts in Jewish society, is clear evidence of the decadence of the ideology that he holds towards us as Arabs.

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As for the Palestinian issue, it has become clear that Netanyahu and his allies are completely reassured that the way is now open for them to achieve their dream of establishing the state of "Greater Israel" on the entire territory of historical Palestine from the sea to the river, and granting the Palestinians only self-rule, without political, national or sovereign rights. The collapsed Arab situation, the complete bias of the Biden administration, and the Palestinian division have helped Netanyahu to proceed in an unprecedented manner to achieve complete Israeli control over the entire Palestinian national territory and end the illusion of the two-state solution, and distance himself from the illusion of the one-state solution, which paves the way for the establishment of a new apartheid regime that is actually practiced on the ground, born again after the fall of the apartheid regime in South Africa.

Netanyahu has convinced a significant percentage of Israelis, even his opponents, that Israel does not need peace that would force it to make strategic concessions in order to live in peace. It only needs to impose a fait accompli policy that would force the world to accept this reality, as an alternative to legitimacy and international resolutions related to Palestine and other issues such as the Golan Heights, for example.

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Finally, anyone who follows Netanyahu’s statements against us as a Palestinian Arab community in recent years, ranging from: “Bibi is good for the Jews,” to “they are flocking to the ballot boxes,” to “the Arabs rigged the elections,” to “the Arabs are stealing the elections,” and last but not least, “the Arabs want to eliminate the state,” will reach a full conviction that the region under the government of “crazy people” has become a real danger that must be confronted by all legitimate means. The inability of the Arab and Islamic worlds to defeat this government and remove it from history, so that we, the Arab community, may succeed in what they failed to do! Is this possible?! The answer: Yes, it is possible, but it requires a new religious-national spirit that will lead to the birth of an Arab-Palestinian political system that organizes our Arab masses in a unified crucible that places the supreme national interest above all other interests, and pushes the collective interest above personal and factional interests!

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How can some of us, after this and other things, not come out "drawing" our voices (which are currently our sharp swords) in defense of our existence and as punishment for our executioners?!


Netanyahu has convinced a significant percentage of Israelis, even his opponents, that Israel does not need a peace that would force it to make strategic concessions in order to live in peace. It only needs to impose a fait accompli policy that would force the world to accept this reality, instead of international legitimacy and resolutions.