Josh Fried

Looks like Israel is set to have its first Mizrahi prime minister. Some things to hope for: 1. Oct 7th inquiry and corruption trial finally fucks Netanyahu into his political grave 2. Raam joins the government and Arab participation in Israeli politics becomes a constant feature. It can’t be the case as it is now where so many Israelis spend half their time boasting about Arabs having voting rights, and the other half dreading the thought of those Arabs ever getting any power 3. The police and finance department (which Smotrich has used to fleece West Bank tax payers for years) will be out of the hands of fascist terrorists who should never have been allowed near a government position to begin with (fun fact, even AIPAC once condemned the government for bringing in Ben Gvir and Smotrich lol) 4. The E1 settlement project should be ended and Western allies should make a priority of aggressively holding Eisenkot to this if he allows it to continue 5. Palestinians in Gaza might finally be presented with a future that is neither the suicide cult of Hamas nor the colonial dystopia that Trump and Bibi were championing 6. There’s some evidence that the recent election has led to a growing interest among Palestinians in East Jerusalem to pursue Israeli voting rights. This would entail them applying for citizenship - a lengthy, humiliating and sometimes dangerous process - but one that would force Israeli leaders (including Eisenkot) to reckon with the fact that the status quo there is an unsustainable delusion. If they really don’t want their actions to look like ‘apartheid’ or ‘ethnic cleansing’, the only options left are to give voting rights or to leave. Of course, none of these are set in stone. Eisenkot is by no means a left winger, even by Israeli standards, but his coalition will be one that will be more receptive to Palestinian leaders and to fair criticism from Western allies. Palestinians and Israelis have needed better leaders for a long time and maybe this can be a small start