ISRAEL-PALESTINE, January 27 —What’s the reward for a politician who takes $155,000 in bribes and spends two years in prison? A promotion! Aryeh Deri has been appointed as the interior ministry for the Negev and Galilee regions. He is the leader of the Shas party, known for its fundamentalist nationalism. Deri’s main task will be to prevent undocumented immigrants from crossing the border, increasing deportations, and redefining city boundaries for property taxes. The Shas party is important to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition.
Similar to the U.S., racist violence and deportation of undocumented immigrants and refugees will increase. Whereas in the U.S., they are mainly from Latin America, these refugees are mainly from war-ravaged regions like Eritrea, Sudan, and Egypt. Deri’s predecessor, Eliyahu Yishai, was also virulently racist and led brutal attacks on asylum seekers from eastern Africa and deported many of them to the Holot concentration camp in the Negev (southern desert). In 2014, Holot was an international focal point for racist Israel’s treatment of the 50,000 African refugees.
Deri, who tries to paint himself as a “social” candidate, remained in the government when it sold off Israel’s massive natural gas deposits to local and foreign tycoons. Combining religion, racism, and graft, he is a loyal servant for the billionaires.
Israel does not have a separation of religion from the state. To the contrary, the government cynically uses religion as an excuse for its racist policies of segregating Black migrants, Palestinians, and white Jewish workers. Candidates like Deri leverage religion and racism to get re-elected as the faithful servants of big financial capital. Capitalist rule cannot exist without racism and fraud.
There is no such thing as a “clean,” “fair,” or “tolerant” capitalist government. Deri and the whole capitalist system has got to go. The international working class must build a society without politicians and capitalists. We need the leadership of those locked in Holot, brutalized in the West Bank, and exploited in Israel to fight back!