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AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman in Denver, Colorado, with Juan González in Chicago.

Ahead of Israeli elections Tuesday, the Israeli military has launched major new military operations in the occupied West Bank. This follows the shooting deaths of two Israeli soldiers Friday in an attack on a military checkpoint by two gunmen who were also killed. Israeli leaders announced there would be swift retribution, and the military announced a, quote-unquote, “full siege” of the city of Hebron. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he ordered a full closure of the West Bank ahead of elections, before walking that back to a cordon around Hebron in the neighboring town of Halhul.

This is Netanyahu speaking Friday near Hebron.

PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: [translated] First of all, we will act to destroy this place, to change it completely, but to do something that has not been done until now. We are going to implement the successful and aggressive model we used in the refugee camps, which are essentially terror strongholds. That is exactly what we will do here, inside a neighborhood in Hebron, from which the terrorists emerge.

AMY GOODMAN: Forced evacuations and demolitions began Friday afternoon. Municipal officials say about 86 acres of homes and buildings have been destroyed by Israel or marked for demolition. About 300 Palestinian families, roughly 1,500 people, have been forced from their homes so far. While Hebron’s population of a quarter of a million people has been sealed off by checkpoints, the Israeli military has installed concrete blocks and earth mounds on major roads leading into and out of the city. Palestinian authorities in Hebron declared a state of emergency.

This is the Hebron Mayor Yousef al-Jabari.

MAYOR YOUSEF AL-JABARI: [translated] These actions by the Israeli occupation are driven by the elections. We are days, or even hours, away from the Israeli elections. Netanyahu and the radical ministers in his government are trying to win as many votes as possible from the settlers. The Israeli response is disproportionate, and there is no justification for these actions. They have closed off the city of Hebron and ordered the evacuation of an entire neighborhood in a major Palestinian city. There is no justification for these measures.

AMY GOODMAN: Tuesday’s elections in Israel will determine whether Benjamin Netanyahu, the country’s longest-serving leader, will remain prime minister or if a new government takes power. The outcome of the Israeli election may partly depend on Palestinian Arab parties and turnout by the Palestinian minority, which represents 20% of Israeli citizens.

For more, we’re joined now by Diana Buttu. She is a Palestinian human rights attorney, former adviser to the negotiating team of the PLO, the Palestine Liberation Organization, regular contributor to Zeteo, where she has a monthly column, joining us today from Haifa.

Diana Buttu, thanks so much for being with us again. Can you talk about the significance of this — first, they said it was going to be a closure of the occupied West Bank, then a cordon — and what’s taking place? The significance of this leading up to tomorrow’s, Tuesday’s election?

DIANA BUTTU: Well, what Netanyahu is doing — and by the way, it’s incorrect when they say that they’re closing off the West Bank, because what they really mean is that they’re closing the West Bank to Palestinians, but, of course, Israeli settlers can move freely, including those illegal Israeli settlers who are living in homes inside the city of Hebron itself. So, it’s incorrect when he says that they’re closing off the West Bank. They’re really just locking it down for Palestinians.

But the reason that they’re doing this is because this entire election is about who is going to be tougher on Palestinians. And Netanyahu spent his entire career showing Israelis that all he can do is be tough on Palestinians, on Lebanese, on Syrians, on Iranians, on you name it. And so, what he’s trying to do in the lead-up to this is say to Israelis that “I’m the only person who can provide you with security.” So, while lighting the place on fire, he’s also selling water to Israelis to say that he’s the one, that he can do the job.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Diana Buttu, what about this, the issue of the Palestinian Arab parties, the Joint List, and the Ra’am? They are crucial to the anti-Netanyahu bloc being able to get a majority in parliament, yet the opposition doesn’t want to unite with them?

DIANA BUTTU: Yes, because the opposition doesn’t want to unite with them, because the opposition is very much like Netanyahu. These are parties that are Zionist parties, and because they’re Zionist parties, they believe in the genocide that they’re taking place in Gaza, that they’re perpetrating in Gaza. They believe in the ethnic cleansing that they’re carrying out inside the West Bank. They believe in colonization. They believe in the occupation. None of the major political parties, Zionist political parties, has expressed any opposition to this. In fact, they all do not believe in Palestinian freedom.

And so, because of that, they don’t want to deal with any of the Palestinian citizens of Israel and the very important concerns that they have, everything from the demolition of homes — Israel has demolished 5,500 homes of Palestinian citizens — to the fact that they’ve been engaging in race-baiting, to the fact that we’ve seen that this is now the highest crime rate just about anywhere in the world, because the Israeli government has been flooding the streets with weapons. And so, rather than them looking to Palestinians and saying, “Yes, we need to deal with these issues,” they instead want to continue to hold on to their Zionism, meaning that they want to continue to hold on to the colonization, to hold on to the genocide, to be pushing for these things.

And the real question is, is that: Why are these the choices that Israelis are facing? And it’s because they’ve never faced any sanction. The fact that you have all of these parties that are advocating major war crimes and nobody is blinking says something very deep about Israeli society, but also about an international community that has fostered this and that has allowed this to brew for all of these years.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And meanwhile, the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has postponed a legislative election scheduled for this year until next year. Could you talk about that and the inability of the Palestinian Authority to really have any impact on what is happening there?

DIANA BUTTU: Well, I think it’s important for people to keep in mind that the Palestinian Authority is nothing more than really a municipal government. It really only controls — “controls,” and I’m saying this very loosely — a very small portion of the West Bank, which is really about 18%, and that’s it. It doesn’t have the ability to do anything. It doesn’t have the ability to control security, to control resources, to control anything. And so, this idea that somehow this president, even though he has the name of a president, can actually serve as a president is laughable. At the same time, I — and so, I don’t believe that having these elections under occupation is going to do much.

At the same time, I do believe that Palestinians should be able to choose their own representatives. And under this Palestinian leader, under this president, we’ve seen that he’s been pushing off these elections. He’s been in office now for more than 20 years. In less than a month’s time, he’s going to be 91 years old. And so it’s time for him to really step down, to hand over leadership to a brand-new generation, and that generation to be thinking of ways that they’re actually going to be able to address this occupation, rather than the way that he’s done it, which is to just stay back and let Israel do whatever it wants to do.

AMY GOODMAN: Netanyahu and his Likud party are facing a challenge from former military chief Gadi Eisenkot and a coalition of opposition parties. Eisenkot has backed expanding Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, opposes Palestinian statehood. However, he has criticized the government’s plan to build in the controversial E1 area of the West Bank as a mistake, citing concern about international backlash, and pledged to crack down on settler violence, which he’s explicitly called “Jewish terrorism.” On Thursday, he vowed to end Hamas’s rule over Gaza within 18 months of taking office. This is what he said.

GADI EISENKOT: [translated] Hamas remaining in power is an Israeli loss, a reality we must not accept. I will not allow it. I am making a public commitment today. From the moment I enter the prime minister’s office, within 18 months, Hamas will no longer rule the Gaza Strip. It will be an official goal of the government I lead, and I intend to deliver on it. This will happen, whether through action based on President Trump’s framework, which was accepted by the Netanyahu government, or through the deployment of military and operational capabilities, resourceful and creative, operations that will lead to the destruction of Hamas’s military wing. I know how to do this. I have done it before.

AMY GOODMAN: So, Diana Buttu, we have less than a minute. Your response?

DIANA BUTTU: Well, when it comes to Eisenkot, what we’re seeing right now in Hebron is the result of Eisenkot’s plan. He’s the person who came up with this idea that the more that you collectively punish people, the better off you are. And so, I suspect that what he’s going to do is, yet again, another policy of collective punishment. That’s why this idea of somehow changing the leadership is going to change the policies is false. And at the same time, it’s important to get rid of these fascist elements who’ve made Palestinian life nearly impossible.

AMY GOODMAN: Diana Buttu, we want to thank you so much for being with us, Palestinian human rights attorney, former adviser to the negotiating team of the Palestine Liberation Organization, or PLO.

And that does it for our show. I’ll be at two screenings of Steal This Story, Please! while here in Colorado, today at the University of Colorado Boulder, CU Boulder, 3:30 at the Dal Ward Athletic Center event space at the north end of the football field, of Folsom Field. I’ll be doing a Q&A after the screening with the film’s Oscar-nominated director Tia Lessin. On Tuesday, I’ll be in Fort Collins, where the screening is part of the Colorado State University’s Democracy Summit in the Lory Student Center at 6:30 p.m. Again, I’ll be joined by Tia Lessin. The event will be moderated by Colorado State University President Amy Parsons. Check our website at democracynow.org. That does it for our show. I’m Amy Goodman in Colorado, with Juan González in Chicago.