In early October 2023, at a conference in Mexico, Israeli Communist and parliamentarian Ofer Cassif raised the alarm. He warned that the right-wing Israeli government, led by Benjamin Netanyahu and backed by the fascist Bezalel Smotrich, was preparing to consolidate a system of fascist governance over both Israel and Palestine.
According to Cassif, the regime was preparing to unleash what he called “the unholy trinity of genocide in Gaza, ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, and an assault on the democratic rights of Palestinian citizens of Israel and their elected officials.”
At the time, this plan was encountering resistance due to mass protests against Netanyahu’s so-called “judicial coup.” But only days later, on Oct. 7, Hamas launched an attack on Israeli towns surrounding Gaza. The protests against fascism went silent, and Israel unleashed its genocidal war on Gaza.
Nearly two years later, the accuracy of Cassif’s warning has, tragically, become undeniable.
For almost two years, Israel has been slaughtering the people of Gaza. Officially, the death toll stands at nearly 60,000—mostly women and children—but many experts estimate the true number is closer to 100,000, or even more.
Gaza’s cities, hospitals, and universities lie in ruins. The Israeli government is now openly working to concentrate the remaining two million residents into a concentration camp that it calls a “humanitarian city.” This is widely seen as a stepping stone toward implementing the so-called “Trump Plan” to empty Gaza entirely of its Palestinian population.
While international attention remains focused on Gaza, the Netanyahu regime is simultaneously carrying out ethnic cleansing in the West Bank. Palestinians there are living under increasingly intense military rule and enduring unrelenting violence from fanatic Kahanist settlers. Entire villages have been forced to flee, replaced by expanding Jewish-only settlements.
According to a United Nations report, since the launch of “Operation Iron Wall” in January 2025, over 30,000 Palestinians have been displaced from the northern West Bank alone. That same report documents 964 Palestinian deaths at the hands of the Israeli military and settler violence since Oct. 7, 2023. In 2025 alone, the Israeli military demolished 933 homes and other civilian structures across the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem. According to UNRWA, at least 7,000 Palestinian families have been forcibly displaced in the West Bank.
Meanwhile, within Israel’s internationally recognized borders—the so-called “only democracy in the Middle East”—Palestinian citizens are being intimidated into abandoning their democratic rights. Their elected representatives face mounting repression from an increasingly authoritarian and overtly fascist government.
The Democratic Front for Peace and Equality (Hadash), a joint Palestinian-Jewish electoral coalition led by the Israeli Communist Party, reports that since Oct. 7, 2023, at least one of their elected parliamentarians has been under suspension at any given time. Just this month, the Knesset attempted to impeach Hadash leader Ayman Odeh, while Ofer Cassif was suspended for two months.
Cassif had already faced two prior suspensions: one for six months in November 2024, and another for 45 days after Oct. 8, 2023. Hadash and Communist Party member Aida Touma-Suleiman was suspended for two months in November 2023. Odeh himself was suspended for two weeks as part of the failed attempt to expel him.
At an international meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties earlier this month, Cassif explained that the Netanyahu government—partnered with Kahanist ministers Smotrich and Ben-Gvir—is systematically working to silence Arab voices in Israeli political institutions. The aim is to demonstrate to Arab citizens of Israel that their elected representatives are powerless, constantly under suspension, and incapable of defending their communities.
The short term goal is to disillusion Arab voters into abstaining from future elections. This would allow the Israeli government to maintain the façade of democracy—pointing to the existence of Arab citizens as proof—while effectively excluding them from representation. Of course, to believe this claim, it requires one to forget that millions of Palestinians live under direct military rule in Gaza and the West Bank, without even the pretense of democratic rights.
The Israeli Communist Party warned that the long term goal is to ban all Arab and non-Zionists from running for election. Hadash and the ICP are the central focus of this anti-democratic attack.
Cassif reiterated his original warning: Israel’s fascist coalition is waging a coordinated, three-pronged assault on Palestinians and their progressive Jewish allies. Netanyahu and his Kahanist partners are executing the vision of a Jewish ethno-state long dreamed of by Meir Kahane, Ze’ev Jabotinsky, and other Zionist fascists—a state in which all non-Jewish minorities are either expelled, exterminated, or permanently reduced to second-class citizenship.
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