Zionist Union

File photo of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Education Minister Naftali Bennett. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

The right keeps winning in Israel because Israelis are right wing

The political map in Israel hasn’t fundamentally changed since a decade ago, when left-wing voters migrated to the center and centrist voters moved right. The last week has seen feverish speculation about the possibility of early elections in Israel, primarily against the backdrop of infighting about how to handle Gaza. Defense Minister Liberman resigned and…

By Dahlia Scheindlin November 19, 2018

Members of Kibbutz Amir, June 30, 1940. (Zoltan Kluger/GPO)

Even inside Israel, colonialism is far from over

The attempt to bar Arabs from buying land in one of the wealthiest, more liberal towns in Israel is a disturbing reminder of Israel’s colonial past — and present. It keeps happening over and over again. A Jewish town somewhere in Israel finds a way to prevent Arab citizens from buying homes, using its swimming…

By Edo Konrad March 18, 2018

Head of the Zionist Union party Avi Gabbay with Opposition Leader Isaac Herzog. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Explained: Why many on the Left are furious at new Labor leader Avi Gabbay

From vowing never to join forces with Arab political parties to saying there’s no reason to remove settlements, Labor’s new leader has alienated many on the Left in recent months. His latest move, supporting the deportation of asylum seekers, is different. Last July, Avi Gabbay was elected chairman of the Labor party on the promise…

By Joshua Leifer November 23, 2017

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Thousands of Palestinians and Jews march in Tel Aviv against home demolitions and in support of equality for all, February 4, 2017. (Tohar Lev Jacobson)

If Israeli Jews want change, they must refuse to be masters

The fact that the occupier declares his refusal to be ‘the enemy’ of the oppressed is simply not enough. Israelis must go one step further and refuse to lord over Palestinians. A few hours before Saturday evening’s Arab-Jewish protest in Tel Aviv, the town of Qalansuwa held a conference to mark the international day of solidarity with…

By Orly Noy February 5, 2017

Labor chairman Isaac Herzog (Photo by Activestills.org)

Go ahead Herzog, join the coalition

The fact that the head of Israel’s opposition could soon join forces with Netanyahu may actually bode well for the Israeli Left and Palestinian citizens alike. The Israeli media has been beside itself this week with the possibility that the head of the opposition Isaac Herzog, leader of the Labor Party cum Zionist Union, may…

By Dahlia Scheindlin May 18, 2016

Labor chairman Isaac Herzog (Photo by Activestills.org)

We need a center-left political alternative in Israel

This is not a time for ideological purity. There is an overriding goal and that is ending the Occupation. By Jeremiah Haber Since the election of Ehud Barak as prime minister in 1999, if not earlier, there has been no center-left in Israel. Of course, there has been something referred to as “center-left” but that…

By +972 Magazine January 25, 2016

Joint List chairman Ayman Odeh walk into a polling station in Haifa, March 17, 2015. (Photo: Akrm Drawshi/Activestills.org)

Mr. Odeh Goes to Washington (and not everyone’s happy about it)

Joint List head Ayman Odeh headed to the United States this week, prompting mixed reactions from Israel’s Palestinian citizens. Odeh: ‘I am here to tear the mask off of Netanyahu’s lies.’ Perhaps I am foolish and do not understand the ambush of the Palestinian people that awaits Joint List head Ayman Odeh when he visits…

By Samah Salaime December 4, 2015

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (Photo: Haim Zach/GPO)

Why the ‘hijacking’ of Israeli democracy is a myth

We often hear that that Israeli democracy is being ‘hijacked’ by a group of right-wing extremists. Too bad the alternatives aren’t any more appealing. Labor MK Stav Shaffir, darling of the “pro-Israel, pro-peace” crowd, recently implored progressive American Jews to do what liberal Zionists have been attempting for the better half of the past decade: reclaim…

By Edo Konrad November 8, 2015

Opposition leader Isaac Herzog addresses the annual Herzliya Conference, June 7, 2015. (photo: Erez Harodi/Herzliya Conference)

Who needs the Right when we have Isaac Herzog?

What is the difference between warning about Arab hordes heading to the polls and warning of Arabs being democratically elected to parliament? A few days after Benjamin Netanyahu swept the elections — partly attributed to his election-day racist warnings about Israel’s Palestinian minority — I wrote a piece about his rival, Isaac Herzog, who was…

By Edo Konrad June 8, 2015

Benjamin Netanyahu. (photo: Activestills.org)

The paranoid ramblings of a leader who’s lost his grip

Days before national elections, incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lays out an elaborate plot to unseat him, which he claims is being run by foreign liberals who want peace. ‘They’ll withdraw to the 1967 boundaries and they will divide Jerusalem — just as Tzipi and Buji promised they would do. They know that unlike Tzipi and…

By Lisa Goldman March 14, 2015