Elias Feroz<\/p>\n
Recent polls indicate that Benjamin Netanyahu may be on course to lose power. However, his government\u2019s policies toward Palestinians have been supported by a much broader political establishment. If Netanyahu loses the election, what would actually change for Palestinians?<\/p>\n
Diana Buttu<\/p>\n
I think there are several ways of looking at politics inside Israel. In some ways, one can say that it\u2019s all the same, and, in part, it is. But we also need to look at who is going to be around Netanyahu and who is going to be prime minister. Over the past three years, people like Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir have pushed some of the worst policies toward Palestinians. I\u2019m not under any illusion that a new prime minister would stop the settlements. But I do think that the extreme harm and this path of evil they have created could change, even if only slightly.<\/p>\n
In particular, I\u2019m looking at people like Itamar Ben-Gvir, who has normalized torture, the arming of Israelis, and the killing of Palestinians. Recently, he posted this concentration-camp-like video on his social media account [the video has since been deleted from Ben-Gvir\u2019s account on X]. People like Ben-Gvir, Smotrich, Netanyahu, and Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu, who said Israel \u201cmust find ways for Gazans that are more painful than death,\u201d are fascists. They must go. We have to do what is necessary to prevent them from continuing to have the immunity to carry out these crimes.<\/p>\n
Elias Feroz<\/p>\n
Do you intend to vote in the upcoming elections in Israel?<\/p>\n
Diana Buttu<\/p>\n
Yes, I do. I can only speak for myself, but I know that Israelis are always going to find someone to represent me. So why not choose my own representative? That doesn\u2019t mean I believe in the Israeli system or in Israeli democracy. I don\u2019t. The system is racist and designed to try to get Palestinians out.<\/p>\n
But if I have the opportunity to vote, I will. I want to be represented. Our struggle as Palestinians living here is to survive and remain on our land. We are the survivors and descendants of those who survived the Nakba. When you see that 75 percent of the population was ethnically cleansed, and that so many more remain under Israeli military rule, you understand that our struggle is simply to remain in our country and on our land.<\/p>\n
Elias Feroz<\/p>\n
What does political representation mean to you personally?<\/p>\n
Diana Buttu<\/p>\n
I was born and raised in Canada because my parents left Palestine. They left because they could no longer cope with living under a racist system.<\/p>\n
Other members of my family also left, looking for a better education and a better life. Many of them never came back. That is exactly what I don\u2019t want to happen to the next generation.<\/p>\n
Today our students have more opportunities to study in Jordan, the West Bank, and elsewhere, in their own language, with degrees that are recognized. I want my children to be able to get an education in their own language and live in Palestine. That is what I believe our representatives should be doing: increasing our sumud [Arabic for \u201csteadfastness\u201d]: our ability to remain in our country, on our land, with our identity, rather than constantly thinking about leaving. I believe people will only stay when they have someone representing their interests.<\/p>\n
Elias Feroz<\/p>\n
You have Israeli citizenship and the right to vote, but you\u2019ve said that you don\u2019t believe in Israeli democracy. Why is that?<\/p>\n
Diana Buttu<\/p>\n
Because there are different classes of citizens within the country. Any Jewish person from anywhere in the world can immigrate to Israel. What does that tell you? It tells you that Israel is first and foremost a Jewish state. If it was truly a democracy, my aunt\u00a0\u2014 who was born and raised in Palestine, married there, and had her first child there\u00a0\u2014 should have had the same right to return as any Jewish person. But in 1948, she became a refugee. She could never return and eventually died in a refugee camp in Jordan. I\u2019m a citizen. My father is a citizen. Why couldn\u2019t she return then? That\u2019s where the contradiction becomes clear. They try to reconcile Israel being both a democratic and a Jewish state, but they know that the two cannot have equal priority. At some point, one has to come first.<\/p>\n
They try to reconcile Israel being both a democratic and a Jewish state, but they know that the two cannot have equal priority. At some point, one has to come first.<\/p>\n
Israelis usually say that there are democratic elements, but they recognize that the system itself is not democratic. The fact that I can vote doesn\u2019t change that. It simply means I get to choose a representative. It doesn\u2019t change the fact that the state privileges Jewish citizens over everyone else. My right to vote does not make me fully equal. If I were fully equal, I would be able to purchase land anywhere in the country. I wouldn\u2019t be excluded from places because I\u2019m considered undesirable or not part of the community. That\u2019s what democracy would mean: full equality. Dropping a ballot into a ballot box doesn\u2019t undo the racist apartheid nature of the state.<\/p>\n
Elias Feroz<\/p>\n
After nearly two decades without national legislative elections, Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem are due to vote for a new legislative council on November 28. What do you expect these elections to change in Palestinian politics? And how realistic are these elections, given Israel\u2019s control over East Jerusalem and the devastation and displacement in Gaza?<\/p>\n
Diana Buttu<\/p>\n
First, I don\u2019t know if the elections will actually happen. The last elections were in January 2006, and parliament stopped meeting in March 2007. Since then, President Abu Mazen [i.e., Mahmoud Abbas], who can hardly be called that at this point, has been ruling by presidential decree, even though his term expired a long time ago. If the elections happen, I hope that his ability to rule by decree will be challenged. Presidential rule without checks and balances is effectively a dictatorship.<\/p>\n
Elections could give new life to the idea of leadership and representation. And when I say new life to leadership, I mean a very limited framework. I\u2019m only talking about the small percentage of land and the small percentage of people [that are under the administration of the Palestinian Authority (PA)].<\/p>\n
I\u2019m well aware that you can\u2019t have real democracy under occupation. But at the same time, I think it\u2019s also important for us to once again be able to choose our own leaders.<\/p>\n
Elias Feroz<\/p>\n
If Palestinians elect a new government, what power would it actually have? Israel continues to control large parts of the West Bank, while settlement expansion is accelerating. And with the planned construction in the E1 corridor, which would effectively cut through the West Bank and further isolate East Jerusalem, how much political authority would a Palestinian government be left with?<\/p>\n
Diana Buttu<\/p>\n
There are different levels that we\u2019re talking about here. So first, again, it\u2019s easy to say there\u2019s nothing left. I\u2019m well aware that the Palestinian Authority\u2019s territory has always been very limited in size. But the issue today is also about representation.<\/p>\n
Abbas was elected in 2005 for four years. He\u2019s been in office now for twenty-one years. If we have elections, he\u2019s going to be ninety-one. I do think it\u2019s important for us to be able to choose a next generation that isn\u2019t in their nineties. So let\u2019s look at the alternatives. What if we don\u2019t have elections? Do we just wait for him to die? I think this election is going to be about the people and about what the future looks like.<\/p>\n
Is it going to be a future in which the Israelis choose our leaders for us? One in which Abu Mazen chooses who the next person is? Or is it going to be us who choose? I don\u2019t think there\u2019s anything the PA can do on the ground. We know they\u2019re not going to be able to send an army to protect us from violent settlers. They don\u2019t have the army or the territorial jurisdiction, and we know they would be gunned down. But isn\u2019t it their duty to at least speak out, to try to get international attention and support, while the Israelis are carrying out an active campaign to get rid of the Palestinian Authority?<\/p>\n
Israel also doesn\u2019t want any elections in Palestine. They\u2019re happy with Abu Mazen being in power because he does exactly what they want him to do.<\/p>\n
Look at these past three years of genocide. Do I think that the Palestinian Authority has done a great job when it comes to this genocide? Absolutely not. I think their one job over the past three years has been to be the voice of the people who are going through genocide.<\/p>\n
The other thing, however, is that Israel also doesn\u2019t want any elections to happen. They\u2019re happy with Abu Mazen being in power because he does exactly what they want him to do. He doesn\u2019t push back. He\u2019s viewed as weak, and they can point to him and blame him whenever anything happens.<\/p>\n
Elias Feroz<\/p>\n
In the past, you have described the Palestinian Authority as a \u201csecurity subcontractor\u201d for Israel and argued that Oslo created a Palestinian government responsible for maintaining internal security but without sovereignty.<\/p>\n
Diana Buttu<\/p>\n
I wrote that in 2017 and it\u2019s only gotten worse. One of the reasons I said the PA had to throw in the towel was because they weren\u2019t doing what they were supposed to do, which is represent Palestinians. Instead, they were going down the path of thinking the only way to represent Palestinians was effectively giving in to whatever the Israelis told them to do. That hasn\u2019t changed and that\u2019s why I say it\u2019s time for a change in leadership.<\/p>\n
Now, to be absolutely clear, one of the main problems is that Abu Mazen has now set up an electoral system in which he is effectively the one who chooses who can run and who can\u2019t, because he has changed the electoral laws. There are going to be some political parties who will abide by that and go along with it for pragmatic reasons, because they view his removal as being very important.<\/p>\n
Elias Feroz<\/p>\n
If Palestinians elect a new legislative council in November, do you believe the Palestinian Authority can still be transformed into a genuine instrument of Palestinian self-government?<\/p>\n
Diana Buttu<\/p>\n
Yes, but it requires active participation and a lot of thinking. It requires creating a different way of thinking that goes beyond the Palestinian Authority. Until now, nothing has happened, in part because the PA has crushed every attempt to create something new.<\/p>\n
Elias Feroz<\/p>\n
Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, the Netherlands, and Norway, together with Canada, have strongly condemned Israel\u2019s decision to move ahead with the E1 settlement project, warning that it would drive a wedge through the West Bank and undermine the possibility of a viable Palestinian state. What do you make of this condemnation? Does that represent a meaningful shift in European policy toward Israel?<\/p>\n
Diana Buttu<\/p>\n
When I first moved to Palestine, almost twenty-six years ago, I started noticing a pattern of condemnation after condemnation. Back then in 2000, there were around four hundred thousand settlers in the West Bank. We\u2019re now talking about close to eight hundred thousand settlers. You mean to tell me those condemnations did something? No, they did nothing. They could have stopped the number of settlers from doubling over those twenty-five years if they had taken action.<\/p>\n
It got to the point, around 2007, where I noticed they were effectively copying and pasting the same condemnations. If you look at a condemnation from 2010 and one from 2018\u00a0\u2014 they\u2019re practically the same, almost word for word. Amid the genocide, around forty thousand settlement units have been in the planning process over the past two years, from 2023 to 2025.<\/p>\n
So all these countries condemning Israel doesn\u2019t have any impact. Israel can handle the condemnations. What it can\u2019t handle is action: cutting off trade relations, boycotting it, imposing sanctions, and not sending weapons.<\/p>\n
Elias Feroz<\/p>\n
Another subject that has sparked criticism is Israel\u2019s new death penalty law. It primarily affects Palestinians in the occupied territories who, unlike you, do not possess Israeli citizenship and hence are subject to Israel\u2019s military justice system, without having a vote or political representation in Israel. At the same time, Israeli settlers who kill or expel Palestinians in the West Bank are often protected by the military.<\/p>\n
Diana Buttu<\/p>\n
To be clear, under the military court system the death penalty has always been an option. It has been part of the military law since it came into effect in 1967. But very early on, Israel made a policy decision not to seek the death penalty. That has now changed. They have removed that policy and made the death penalty mandatory for people convicted of what they call \u201cnationalistic crimes,\u201d while at the same time they have significantly limited the appeals process.<\/p>\n
Elias Feroz<\/p>\n
What are \u201cnationalistic crimes\u201d according to the new law?<\/p>\n
Diana Buttu<\/p>\n
The law targets killings committed as part of what is defined as a \u201cnationalistic\u201d or \u201cterrorist\u201d crime, particularly where the perpetrator denies the existence of the State of Israel. Then there\u2019s the other track, which is the civil law under the Israeli system. This system applies both to Israelis and Palestinians who have an Israeli citizenship. Hence, Israeli settlers are prosecuted under the civil system. Let\u2019s take the example of Israeli settlers killing Palestinians. Even if these acts are considered acts of terror, they would not fall under this law because the settlers are not acting against the [Israeli] state. In fact, they are acting in its name. What the law is really targeting, then, are cases in which the person killed is Israeli. A Palestinian living in the West Bank who tries to resist settler attacks will be punished by death. The law is criminalizing resistance to occupation, which is a right enshrined in international law.<\/p>\n
I know there are lawyers who are going to challenge the law, and I wonder how successful those challenges will be.<\/p>\n
Elias Feroz<\/p>\n
Despite the so-called ceasefire, over a thousand more Palestinians have been killed and thousands injured; the seizure of UNRWA [United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East] facilities in East Jerusalem was celebrated by Ben-Gvir; Israel is threatening to expand its attacks in Gaza over kites and balloons in the sky; and an Israeli Knesset member even destroyed a Palestinian monument in the West Bank. As a lawyer, how do you explain this apparent disregard for international law?<\/p>\n
Diana Buttu<\/p>\n
The international legal system takes a very long time, and it\u2019s reluctant to act unless it deems something to be a threat to peace and security. Even though it\u2019s supposed to get involved and act to stop genocide, it doesn\u2019t, because its wheels are too slow. And when it comes to Palestine, I\u2019ve noticed that the world waits for a critical breaking point, and even then, they\u2019re not willing to act. On top of that, we\u2019re dealing with a crazy man in the White House, and the whole world seems to be caught up with him. All of this creates a recipe for continued genocide.<\/p>\n
The other thing is European guilt over the Holocaust. Don\u2019t get me wrong, Europe should feel guilty about it. But this guilt shouldn\u2019t come at the expense of the Palestinians. We have report after report: How many more reports do we need about genocide? How many more scholars? How many more UN accounts? How much more does Israel need to do before the world recognizes that this is genocide?<\/p>\n
Elias Feroz<\/p>\n
South Africa has now asked the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to address Israel\u2019s noncompliance with its orders in the Gaza genocide case. What, in your view, can the court actually do if Israel continues to ignore its orders?<\/p>\n
Diana Buttu<\/p>\n
International law is very different from domestic law. Under domestic law, the law applies to everybody within a territory, whether you\u2019re in Canada, Germany, or the United States. There\u2019s a parliament that passes the laws, there are enforcement mechanisms, and you can be thrown in prison if you violate them.<\/p>\n
The problem is that this final ICJ case is going to take years. And by then, it\u2019s going to be too late.<\/p>\n
The international system works very differently. It\u2019s about relations between states. There is no parliament and no general enforcement mechanism. The main enforcement mechanism that exists is when there is a threat to international peace and security. The closest thing to a parliament is the system of treaties, where countries sign on and give their consent. But the Genocide Convention is considered one of those treaties that applies to all countries. It\u2019s not simply a matter of whether a country chooses to consent\u00a0\u2014 all countries are bound by it. Israel, in any case, has also consented to the Genocide Convention. What does that mean? It means that countries around the world have an obligation to make sure that genocide does not occur. And they have various ways of doing that: they can cut off trade, boycott, impose sanctions, or even seek to exclude Israel from the UN. The most basic thing is to cut off arms supplies.<\/p>\n
However, countries are unwilling to go down that path, even though it\u2019s very clear what Israel is doing. Instead, they\u2019re waiting for a judicial determination. In other words, they\u2019re waiting for the ICJ. The problem is that this final case is going to take years. And by then, it\u2019s going to be too late. By then, the world will say, \u201cAll right, too bad. But it already happened. Let\u2019s move on.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Elias Feroz Recent polls indicate that Benjamin Netanyahu may be on course to lose power. However, his government\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":655916,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43],"class_list":["post-655915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=655915"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655915\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/655916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=655915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=655915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=655915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}