Israeli Elections.. and the Policy of Suffocating Palestinians

As the Israeli elections, scheduled for the end of next October, draw near, the Israeli government's policies of suffocation and restriction against the Palestinian people are escalating. This is a clear attempt to boost its electoral standing and regain the trust of Israeli voters, especially the far-right public. Regardless of the differences between Israeli parties and their political programs, available indicators suggest that the electoral competition will push the current government to adopt more escalatory policies. In this context, the West Bank appears to be the most exposed arena to this escalation, through unleashing settler gangs and providing them with political and security protection, in addition to displacing Palestinian communities and imposing further restrictions on citizens' lives, all aimed at establishing new facts on the ground that serve the settlement project. This escalation is not limited to security and field aspects but extends to deepening the systematic economic suffocation policy aimed at undermining the foundations of Palestinian resilience. Israel has fully withheld clearance revenues for 15 months, after years of partial deductions. As a result, the Palestinian funds held by Israel have exceeded $6 billion, an amount greater than the total value of the Palestinian general budget for 2026. This is accompanied by escalating threats to end the banking relationship between Palestinian banks and correspondent Israeli banks, which prompted the Palestinian Monetary Authority to warn of reaching a "point of no return." The shekel accumulation crisis continues, and the majority of Palestinian workers are still denied return to their jobs inside the Green Line, in addition to the continued fragmentation of the West Bank through checkpoints and closures, restrictions on farmers, and the expansion of pastoral settlement as a tool to control more Palestinian lands. These combined policies have led to an unprecedented reality of economic and social suffocation, reflected in the deepening psychological and social pressures weighing on Palestinians in all aspects of their daily lives. These measures are no longer limited to managing the conflict or exerting political pressure; rather, they have become a systematic policy aimed at weakening the foundations of Palestinian survival and creating an environment hostile to life, in line with Israeli orientations seeking to impose new demographic and geographical realities on the ground. Although these facts have become widely known, the real concern lies in the likelihood of these policies escalating further as the Israeli elections approach, where the competition to attract far-right votes turns into a race to adopt more stringent measures against Palestinians. Therefore, the coming period may witness more economic, political, and security pressures, necessitating a shift from a crisis management policy to adopting a comprehensive national strategy based on proactive planning and strengthening resilience. Based on this, there is a need to approve an integrated national strategy to enhance the resilience of the Palestinian people, based on a genuine partnership between all components of the Palestinian spectrum, ensuring the unification of efforts and integration of roles in confronting escalating challenges. The importance of launching a broad international campaign to mobilize support and solidarity with the Palestinian people, and to expose the humanitarian and economic repercussions of Israeli policies, also emerges, in parallel with working to launch an international emergency fund to support the Palestinian general budget, in light of a crisis whose financial dimensions have exceeded to touch existential dimensions that require urgent action. On the internal level, the current stage requires strengthening the internal front, supporting citizens' resilience, strengthening the national economy, and expanding the private sector's contribution to social responsibility. The stage also necessitates expanding social protection networks, empowering local bodies as they are closest to citizens and their needs, and restoring the national role played by political parties and civil society organizations in consolidating values of solidarity and mutual support and strengthening the resilience of Palestinian society. In conclusion, national experiences have proven that relying on individual survival cannot provide a future for a people facing a colonial project that targets their existence and identity. Therefore, collective resilience, based on unity of position and integration of roles, remains the most capable option to protect the Palestinian entity and enhance its ability to withstand Israeli policies aimed at uprooting Palestinians from their land and undermining the foundations of their survival.