Mawlana Jalaluddin Rumi once said, "The friendship of a wise man is good; a wise man's enemy is better than a fool's friend." I don't know if this applies to the current Israeli political elite, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. One of the things that caught my attention when I read the biographies of Ben Gurion and Golda Meir, Israel's former prime ministers, was their dedication to their cause.

One story that remains etched in my memory is when Ben Gurion tried to enter Palestine when it was under Ottoman rule, through the port of Beirut. Due to an epidemic, Ottoman authorities were required to keep new arrivals in quarantine for ten days. Corrupt officers offered them the easier option of paying a small bribe. But Ben-Gurion preferred to stay in quarantine and not waste the Jewish Agency's money. Something similar happened with Meir when she was appointed Israel's first ambassador to Moscow. In order not to waste the embassy's money, she would buy cheese from the local wholesale market and keep it cold at the window.

Of course, from my personal perspective as a Palestinian refugee, nothing they did can compensate me, my family and my people for all the suffering their actions have caused. Still, they were the kind of enemies you might respect. Certainly, they were different from Netanyahu and his cohorts. Bribery, fraud, and breach of trust are some of the charges leveled against Netanyahu, the "King of Israel," by Israel's attorney general in the draft indictment.

Netanyahu's biggest blow to the Zionist dream was his systematic undermining of the two-state solution and his relentless pursuit of the infamous "Basic Law" (nation-state law) in parliament, which exposed Israel's undemocratic, reactionary, and racist nature to the world.

He has worked to undermine the Palestinian Authority in every way possible, depriving the Palestinians of anything useful, while at the same time closing any way out for Israel. Instead of offering political solutions to the situation in Gaza, he intensified the 12-year blockade and killed 186 peaceful protesters at the border under the eyes of the international media, and the only excuse he gave for this crime against humanity was that Israel is the "only democracy in the region," as if that's what democracies do. He also worked hard to spread Islamophobia everywhere, so much so that he became an Islamophobia guru. He allied himself with Arab and African authoritarian regimes and conspired against the Arab Spring, all in the name of protecting democracy.

Not only did he embrace ultra-nationalist ideology, he also embraced extremists in Israeli society, such as the Kahanists, and tried to bring them into parliament. "The fact that Otzma Yehudit [Jewish Power] is a party with its ideological roots in the United States has drawn the ire of American Jewish organizations, including AIPAC and the American Jewish Congress," wrote Yael Batir, director of J Street's Israel program and the American Jewish Congress, which usually avoid criticizing the policies of the Israeli government and its prime minister." For the first time in the history of American pro-Israel lobbying, AIPAC, which is considered a Likud-leaning organization, has leveled harsh criticism against a sitting Israeli prime minister. The level of racism espoused by Netanyahu has dismayed American Jews and caused a sudden drop in support for Israel, not only among American Democrats, but Republicans as well.

Having transformed Israel into the perfect embodiment of an apartheid state, Netanyahu has engaged in a vicious war against anyone who dares to criticize or question this shameful situation, promoting them as "anti-Semites," using his connections with his American and European allies and his pressure on the mainstream media to encircle and destroy them. His attack on BDS shows that this man does not understand what is really happening. For the first time in the history of the Zionist movement, Islamists and leftists, previously considered antithetical to each other, are working together against Israeli hegemony and propaganda. Muslims, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, atheists, and Jews, including some Israeli Jews, are rejecting his racist endeavor. Despite his numerous attempts to characterize Palestinians and Muslims as terrorists, he has failed, and fingers are pointing at Israel as a state involved in "possible war crimes" and "crimes against humanity."

His arrogance, stubbornness, selfishness, and high level of narcissism will lead not only to his doom, but to the doom of the entire Zionist project. This is not just a prediction by Arabs or far-leftists, but a logical hypothesis, expressed by people like the well-known Israeli historian Benny Morris a few weeks ago.

Let the Palestinians get ready. It looks like it's time to go home.
Source: Middle East Monitor