A Young Communist League of Israel mural in Nazareth on May Day; in Arabic and Hebrew the red banner reads: "Long live the 1st of May, the international day of popular solidarity with the working class."

Communist Youth Leader: “This Government of Netanyahu is a Betrayal of the People’s Mandate”

The Communist Party-led front, Hadash (The Democratic Front for Peace and Equality), has emerged as a major force among Leftist groups in Israel. In the recently concluded elections for the Knesset, Hadash displaced the exhausted Zionist left bloc of the Labor and Meretz. Last week Peoples Dispatch talked to Arafat Bdarny, Secretary-General of the YoungCommunist…

"Tough guys": Body language trumps all – MKs from Yamina during the tour they conducted in the Negev, last Thursday, June 11; Don't let the macho poses confuse you – these people are dangerous. Smotrich is second from right with arms folded. Yamina's leader, with even a more aggressive pose, is MK Naftali Bennet (third from left), Defense Minister in the previous government. Today, Yamina is in the opposition, in part because, with Netanyahu's hyper-inflated cabinet, they couldn't get the portfolios they sought; in part to outflank the Likud from the right. In the center, wearing the green blouse and brandishing a less "in your face" stance is MK Ayelet Sheked, a former Justice Minister who was and is committed to delimiting and weakening the status of the Supreme Court (High Court of Justice), so that the Knesset can be absolutely sovereign in fomenting ultra-right legislation that undermines universal human rights… Whose lives matter? According to Yamina's ideology, certainly not those of the Bedouin, let alone those of ay Arabs.

MK Smotrich from Racist Yamina: “Arab-Bedouin are a Time Bomb”

On Thursday, June 9, a racist far-right lawmaker called the birthrate among Arab-Bedouin women in the Negev desert a demographic “time bomb” that Israel needs to defuse. MK Bezalel Smotrich, Transportation Minister in Netanyahu’s previous government, made the remark during a tour of the Negev with fellow members of the Yamina (“Rightwards”) alliance. “This is the…

Demonstrators from the "Crime Minister" movement block the entrance to the offices of Israel's Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem, the venue of the weekly cabinet meeting, Sunday, June 7. The banner paraphrases a passage from a Jewish High Holiday prayer that speaks about "removing evil government" from the world.

Anti-Corona Law Protesters Block Entrance to Weekly Cabinet Forum

Pro-democracy demonstrators from the “Crime Minister” group sat down and blocked the entrance to the headquarters of Israel’s Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem on Sunday morning, June 7, prior to and during the cabinet’s weekly meeting. The protesters formed a human chain to protest the proposed “Corona Bill” and far-right Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, accusing him of…