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Peace and democracy losers in Israel’s 2019 elections

The major losers of the 2019 elections are clear before a single ballot is cast: peace with the Palestinians and the Arab world, public trust in the institutions of government, freedom from religion, and co-existence between Jews and Arabs.
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As Israelis prepare to go to the polls on April 9, predicting the winner would be a fool's errand. A series of major losers, however, are already evident: peace with the Palestinians and the Arab world, public trust in the institutions of government, co-existence between the Jewish majority and Arab minority, and freedom from religion. Israel’s 35th prime minister, whoever he is, will find himself bound by social and geopolitical realities that will sap his ability to affect change in each of these important areas. Various considerations dictated by the need to forge a coalition with smaller, disparate parties will shrink any remaining room for maneuver.

Hopes for peace: The overriding agenda throughout the election campaign, the Zionist parties’ candidates, opinion poll results and the political parties' discourse all reflect attitudes deeply ingrained in Israeli society over the past decade under the leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu. It is far easier to spread fear, injected continuously and skillfully into Israelis’ brains, than to deconstruct it. It is far easier to sow hatred, spread abundantly throughout Israeli society for years, than to uproot it. Conducting realistic peace negotiations based on the 1967 borders with certain adjustments, on the evacuation of settlements and recognition of East Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state would now be even harder, if not impossible, given the sheer weight of fear and hatred of the “other” amassed over the Netanyahu decade.

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