By Ms. Manal Ramadan Al-Safadi
When I deconstruct the political discourse that precedes any electoral entitlement in the occupying entity, I do not see merely a traditional parliamentary struggle, but rather an exposed scene of what I call "engineering political survival on the ruins of Palestinian existence."
All the boundaries separating tactical party calculations from the most extreme version of Zionist replacement ideology have completely eroded; thus, displacement—which was once managed behind closed doors—has become the ruling program and the main driver of any electoral rally.
From my analytical perspective, this phenomenon is based on four political and conceptual pillars that govern the mentality of both the ruling coalition and the opposition.
- The shift of the political center of gravity towards "institutional fascism"
The issue of demographic cleansing is no longer an isolated marginal idea; it has become the sole criterion for legitimacy within the Israeli right. This transformation reflects the predicament of the ruling elite; the troubled leadership no longer has a societal or economic project to present to its voters, so it resorts to "investing in extermination and displacement" as the quickest way to unify the internal front and gain the votes of the most extreme settlement bases, turning the ballot box into a referendum on the demographic and geographical erasure of Gaza.
- The policy of "creating a life-repelling environment" as an alternative to official declaration
The occupation understands the complexities of international law and the consequences of criminal accountability; thus, we witness a qualitative shift in military doctrine towards targeting infrastructure, destroying educational and health institutions, polluting water sources, and transforming the spatial area into an unlivable zone. This systematic destruction is not arbitrary or a security necessity as they claim, but rather an undeclared executive tool for the displacement project, allowing them to maneuver later under the banner of voluntary migration "escaping the legal characterization of ethnic cleansing."
- Exporting military failure through illusions of "demographic resolution"
In every security crisis, brute force fails to break the will of resilience or impose political surrender. Here specifically, the function of the displacement card emerges as a forward escape tactic; instead of acknowledging the futility of military solutions and the impossibility of breaking national identity, politicians sell their audience a dangerous illusion that absolute security is achieved by emptying the land, forgetting the established strategic truth that geography does not create stability if it is stripped from its legitimate owners.
- Blackmailing the deep state and imposing conditions on future coalitions
Betting on displacement is not directed solely at the individual voter; it is an early attempt to impose red lines on any incoming government. The far-right solidifies the file of resettling Gaza and emptying it as a non-negotiable condition for entering any political coalition, thus cutting off the road to any future political settlements and closing the door definitively on any prospect of establishing a geographically connected Palestinian state.
In conclusion: What this colonial mindset overlooks in its numerical calculations is that cancellation does not automatically translate into reality merely by making a political decision. Selling the illusions of "transfer" in the Israeli election market reflects a bankruptcy in managing the conflict and an inability to impose real solutions, resorting instead to exporting the crisis through the desire to rid itself of the entire Palestinian existence.
We fully recognize, without any evasion or denial of reality, that the price people in Gaza are paying today is enormous; exhaustion has reached its peak, and living conditions have become harsh and unbearable with the absence of the simplest components of human life. Survival here has become a daily exhausting battle, not just a mere theoretical stance, but the political paradox lies in the fact that all this pain has not opened for the occupation the door of resolution promised to its audience, and even amid this fatigue and field deadlock, forced displacement remains a project besieged by regional and international complexities resistant to solution and with a weary and steadfast human mass, yet in the end, it has no realistic alternative but to cling to its place above this rubble, making the electoral promises of politicians merely a political gamble on an impossible reality.
