Neo-liberal and right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and fascist Foreign Minister Ivette (Avigdor) Liberman have agreed to join forces for a general election in the new year. Netanyahu and Liberman said Thursday they will present a joint list for the January 22 election without merging their respective parties, Likud and Yisrael Beitenu. Foreign Minister Liberman calls for expelling, by means of a land swap, hundreds of thousands of Israeli citizens simply for being Arab. He ran an election campaign highlighted by the slogan, “Only Lieberman understands Arabic.” He was a member of Kach in the late 1970s, which he understandably denies but which Kach veterans from that era swear to. He’s fantasized aloud in the Knesset about executing Arab MKs and threatened to bomb Egypt’s Aswan Dam. He has been under Israel Police investigation for corruption for nearly 15 years, and could face indictment pretty soon.

Hadash and Communist Party of Israel demonstrators in Tel-Aviv, June 2012: “For Peace and Social Justice.” (Photo: Hadash)

Thursday’s union between the Likud and Yisrael Beytenu parties has resulted in a tie between the rightist and the centrist-leftist blocs, a preliminary poll released after the announcement found. The centrist-left, however, includes Hadash (Democratic Front for Peace and Equality – Communist Party of Israel) and two Arab parties. Hadash leader Dov Khenin said that a Netanyahu-Liberman government, would open three war fronts: “One on Iran, a second against the Arab-Palestinians in Israel and another on democracy.” Therefore, Khenin continued, “the coming elections are about fighting for equality, social justice and against the occupation and for a just peace with the Palestinian people.”