Right-wing MK: Let Palestinians vote for Israeli parliament

By Noam Sheizaf February 11, 2014 | Edit

Knesset Member Zvulun Kalfa, of the pro-settlement Jewish Home party, is calling for Israel to annex the West Bank and allow Palestinians to participate in Israeli general elections.

“Palestinians should get full citizenship rights, equality, investment in infrastructure [in their] communities and voting rights to the Knesset,” Kalfa told the Israel Hayom daily. According to Kalfa, this is the only way to dismiss for good the claim that Israel is discriminating against Palestinians or that it is an Apartheid state. “I am for a single state for everyone.”

Kalfa estimates that Jews will be able to remain a majority in the greater state. He is not, however, calling to annex Gaza.

Other members of the Jewish Home party reject the single state idea. Party chairman Naftali Bennett has previously called for Israel to annex Area C, leaving the majority of the Palestinian population in the West Bank without full rights.

However, Kalfa is not the first far-right public figure to call for a single-state solution. Four years ago I did a feature for Haaretz Magazine exploring support for the idea among right-wing ideologues and politicians – you can read it here. An interview I did with then-Knesset speaker Reuven Rivlin in which he also endorses one state can be found here.

The Israeli Right’s one-state solution is different from the Left’s or the models explored by Palestinian and international scholars and activists. According to the Israeli Right’s idea, the state will absorb roughly 2 million Palestinians from the West Bank but remain the same in every other aspect.

At the time, Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat hinted that Israelis are deluding themselves if they think that new demographic realities won’t result in fundamental changes in the character of the state. “I am not afraid from the talk about an Israeli ID,” he told me. “Give me one and we will see what happens.”

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TEST TEST GAL Our team has been devastated by the horrific events of this latest war. The world is reeling from Israel’s unprecedented onslaught on Gaza, inflicting mass devastation and death upon besieged Palestinians, as well as the atrocious attack and kidnappings by Hamas in Israel on October 7. Our hearts are with all the people and communities facing this violence. We are in an extraordinarily dangerous era in Israel-Palestine. The bloodshed has reached extreme levels of brutality and threatens to engulf the entire region. Emboldened settlers in the West Bank, backed by the army, are seizing the opportunity to intensify their attacks on Palestinians. The most far-right government in Israel’s history is ramping up its policing of dissent, using the cover of war to silence Palestinian citizens and left-wing Jews who object to its policies. This escalation has a very clear context, one that +972 has spent the past 14 years covering: Israeli society’s growing racism and militarism, entrenched occupation and apartheid, and a normalized siege on Gaza. We are well positioned to cover this perilous moment – but we need your help to do it. This terrible period will challenge the humanity of all of those working for a better future in this land. Palestinians and Israelis are already organizing and strategizing to put up the fight of their lives. Can we count on your support? +972 Magazine is a leading media voice of this movement, a desperately needed platform where Palestinian and Israeli journalists, activists, and thinkers can report on and analyze what is happening, guided by humanism, equality, and justice. Join us.

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