LAST Friday evening saw an informative and lively education meeting, co-hosted by the Marx Memorial Library (MML) and Liberation, at which Dr Ofer Cassif — a member of the Israeli Knesset and representative of the Hadash/Ta’al alliance — addressed the audience at the MML, as well as those watching via a live feed.

Cassif is well-known in Israel for his campaigning against the policies of the Israeli governments for decades.

During the First Intifada (December 1987 to September 1993), he was the first person to refuse to serve in the Occupied Territories, for which he was imprisoned in total four times.

Haaretz newspaper, on April 18 2021 quoted him saying: “I object to the ideology and practice of zionism … it’s a racist ideology and practice which espouses Jewish supremacy.”

Cassif delivered a hard-hitting overview of recent developments in Israel and warned of the very real dangers that now lie ahead, with the return to office of Benjamin Netanyahu, who now leads one of the most extreme right-wing governments.

The parliamentarian, a member of the Israeli Communist Party, warned that Netanyahu’s new government comprised elements that would have hitherto been regarded as the extremist fringe, even by the relative standards of current political discourse in Israel.

Cassif also pointedly labelled the new government as “fascist” in nature. He said the term was, in his view, perfectly applicable and one that could not be dispelled merely by references to the suffering of Jewish people in the Holocaust.

It is his conviction, he said, that it is in fact in honouring the memories of the victims of the Holocaust, including many members of his own family, that he has taken his political stance against the government in Israel.

The speaker warned that the new government’s “vision” for Israel is the establishment of an exclusively Jewish state, and one that would subjugate the individual rights of every Israeli citizen to the designs of the nation state.

To this end, the government, which already controls the legislature, has in its sights the last remaining arm of the state outside of its control — namely the judiciary, which it would turn into a pliant organ and thereby make the challenging or overturning of the increasingly malign acts of the Israeli state all but impossible.

Cassif made clear his continued unequivocal support, as well as that of his progressive allies both in Israel and Palestine, for the two-state solution — which he referred to as the only viable solution, one demanded under international law, and which gives effect to the Palestinian people’s legitimate calls for complete and unfettered national self-determination.

He referred to the one-state solution as essentially the projection of an outsider’s vision, however well-intentioned, but not grounded in the reality of the current balance of forces.

He continued that Palestinians would likely be second-class or even third-class subjects, despite their demographic majority, in an arrangement that would see a continuation of an apartheid system.

To underline this point, Cassif referred to his past discussions with two major progressive figures in the Palestinian struggle — Bassam al-Salhi, general secretary of the Palestinian People’s Party (PPP), and Nayef Hawatmeh, leader of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) — who, despite the differing positions of the organisations they represent, agreed that a two-state solution is an integral part of the struggle even for those who ultimately envisage a single state.

He further warned that the new Israeli administration would have no problem exploiting regional tensions between those reactionary Arab governments with which Israel has recently reached accord and the equally reactionary Islamic Republic of Iran, with the very real risk of a catastrophic war erupting as a result.

Cassif went on to urgently call upon all those valuing peace, democracy, human rights and the rights of nations to self-determination to closely follow the developments in Israel and the occupied territories of Palestine; not to be cowed by the “terms of the debate” as dictated by the Israeli state, which serve to afford it complete impunity in its crimes; and make their voices resound to bring about international political pressure to bear on the authorities in Israel.

He reiterated that without Israel being reined in and brought to account soon, there would likely be an unimaginable bloodshed.

The event was both well-attended and warmly received, especially given that it had been arranged at very short notice.