Elections no, constituent assembly yes!
The Arab representation in the Knesset only represents a huge public relations advantage for Israel, and allows it to present itself as a democracy before global public opinion. In practice the Arab Knesset members have no influence on legislation and they are outside of the colonial-Zionist politics. Letting go of Arab representation in the racist Knesset will represent an important and effective message to the world, a message whose practical cost is minimal and its advantage tremendous.
The elections to the “Knesset of Israel” will not solve any essential question affecting the entire population living in the territory that was historical Palestine and which is now entirely under Israeli control. They do not signal a change for the better in any sphere: not economic, not social and not political. Moreover, these are elections for the apartheid establishment which is constructed against democracy. Not only against the Palestinians, but also against Jews who don’t belong to the wealthy class. The political and governmental system to which we are supposed to vote is one of lies, deceit and a smokescreen behind which all parties cheat their voters. All Zionist parties intentionally prevent discussing the real questions on the political stage. All of them cooperate in order to preserve the Jewish apartheid state and the capitalists’ rule. The negation of the rights of the Palestinian people, the wars, the occupation, the privatisation system and contracted workers, the social polarisation and the privileges of the Jewish religion - all of these are an inevitable result of the current political system, regardless of its political party composition. One who rejects today’s reality cannot participate in the elections. The state of Israel is a product of colonisation in historical Palestine via a tremendous and ongoing ethnic cleansing which created an apartheid state reaching from the Mediterranean sea to the Jordan. Its fake parliament controls not only the lives of its citizens, not only the lives of its Palestinian subjects who lack rights, but even the lives and deaths of thousands of Palestinian refugees for whose exile it is responsible, as well as their inability to return to their homeland. This fake parliament acts on the basis of an emergency situation which it inhereted from the British colonial system. It attempts non-stop to reduce and even eliminate the few rights remaining the non-Jews living in Israel. Ongoing discrimination in all areas of life, exclusion and marginalisation of the Palestinian population, who are formally citizens of Israel, and even of the Arab elected officials. They have become the punching bag of the Jewish apartheid state, they are persecuted and humiliated, and serve solely as a fig leaf in the apartheid Knesset. The Arab representation in the Knesset only represents a huge public relations advantage for Israel, and allows it to present itself as a democracy before global public opinion. In practice the Arab Knesset members have no influence on legislation and they are outside of the colonial-Zionist politics. Letting go of Arab representation in the racist Knesset will represent an important and effective message to the world, a message whose practical cost is minimal and its advantage tremendous. As a replacement for this unnecessary process, it is essential to immediately begin establishing a national constituent assembly whose role will be to create a democractic constitution of equality, human and civil rights, to act for the realisation of the refugees’ right of return and to ensure full equality of every resident in the territory between the Jordan and the sea, with no relation to their origins or religion. As a first step in this process local frameworks must be established – i.e. elected committees of all parts of the population living between the Jordan and the sea, including the refugees from this territory. They will begin to establish a basis for Arabs and Jews who are willing to live as equal citizens in a democratic Palestine. We must build together a mass political power, which can present an alternative to the apartheid state. The constituent assembly will act first and foremost to create a democratic constitution, which will include: return of the refugees, equality in civil rights, freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, freedom of movement, freedom of religion and freedom from religion, which are the primary basis for self determination of the modern nation on a territoral basis. A constituent assembly is what connects between all of the points raised here on the way to a secular and democratic state. The committee for a secular and democratic state for all residents in historical Palestine.