correspondent Ties Brock looks back

• Holds Brock

  correspondent Israel/Palestinian territories

It was my fourth Israeli election this month as a correspondent, but really only my first clear result succumbed. A resounding achievement or, depending on your political affiliation, a godsend: Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right bloc has finally secured a majority. It seems like a result that has been around for some time.

Because Israel is moving more and more to the right. This was now mainly reflected in Itamar Ben-Gvir’s good match score, one convicted extremist. Netanyahu’s right-wing religious bloc won a majority thanks to its spectacular electoral victory. At Ben-Gvir’s appearances, I had already noted how popular his ultra-nationalist party is with many Israelis. “We want the Jews to stay in charge here,” summed up the sentiment one party insider.

It’s a sentiment that has gained more traction after last year’s violence between Israeli Arabs and Jews. But the shift to the right also has demographic causes: Israelis on the right, and ultra-Orthodox Jews in particular, have on average far more children than those on the left. And what remains of the left-wing parties is hopelessly divided.

Furthermore, peace with the Palestinians, or lack thereof, has not been a major political issue for many years. Conflict is hardly a problem for many Israelis in their daily lives. Many people around me in Tel Aviv live a life away from violence. They go to work and to the beach, have seen living standards rise in recent years and feel the fear of bus attacks ebbing. And once the rockets arrive from Gaza, the Iron Dome anti-aircraft system will launch the greatest dangers from the sky.

Yet all the contradictions and traumas of the past are never far away. This is also the case in my neighborhood in Jaffa near Tel Aviv where I have been living for the past two years. I reported a trivial but symbolic fight over cockcrow. Luckily, it also led to a report where neighbors from different backgrounds drank a cup of coffee together at the end.

In other places, the conflict is more raw, as in Palestinian city of Jenin in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where I was last month. And especially in the refugee camp, where many residents are descended from refugees from the area that is now Israel. A guy selling lemonade by the side of the road told me he witnessed a military raid that morning.

There, ten meters away, he pointed out, a Palestinian militant fired an automatic weapon at passing Israeli soldiers and then shot himself in the head. The blood was still on the road. The boy told me how he dragged the body away, took the gun and started shooting at the soldiers. A violent history, I said. But he shrugged: business as usual.

This is the feeling of many Palestinians: nothing is changing, and certainly not for the better. In their eyes, this is obviously mostly due to the Israeli occupier, but their own leaders are so possible quite unpopular. His face is Mahmoud Abbas, the 87-year-old president and dictator who opposes any form of rejuvenation. And even Hamas, which remains firmly in power in Gaza, rules with an iron fist and he seems reluctant to moderate his radically anti-Israel stance. The end of the Israeli occupation is certainly not in sight.

In the Masafer Yatta area, where I was this summer, residents are confronted with this occupation on a daily basis. Hundreds of Palestinians risk expulsion to make way for the Israeli army.

Not only the Palestinians, but also the Israelis continue to pay the price for the ongoing conflict. This year, more than 20 Israelis have been killed in the worst series of attacks in years. Remind Israel that peace and security are never guaranteed here. Something young people also notice when they have to do military service for just under two or three years after secondary school.

And every now and then the ever-flickering flame flares up into a blowtorch. As in May last year, during a escalation both in the Palestinian territories and in Israel. Violence broke out between Jews and Arabs in mixed cities.

Those infighting between civilians in their own country was even more shocking to many Israelis than yet another war with Hamas, in which rockets were fired on Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. A war in which, as usual, the hardest blows fell in the Gaza Strip, with more than 250 Palestinians killed by Israeli shelling, including dozens of children.

During that escalation, the entire world once again took a look at the disputed Holy Land. But across the board, the Israeli-Palestinian issue is declining on the agenda. Israel – once a forbidden word – is embraced by many Arab countries as an ally against their common enemy Iran. It’s a big diplomatic boost for Israel.

And that’s how I was two years ago on the first flight by the Israeli company El Al in Dubai, which was unimaginable until recently. “It’s great to be in a Muslim and Arab country as a Jew and as an Israeli,” tour guide Itzik Tahari told me in Dubai. “I would not have ever expected.”

What remains is the delicacy of reporting from this area. Virtually every topic is politicized, even by pressure groups and interest groups, and reactions such as “anti-Semite”, “liar” or “friend of the Zionists” are commonplace. Luckily a blooper turned out to be the most triggering: I’ve never received so many messages as during a live broadcast a lamp fell.

Now I give way to my successor Nasrah Habiballah. I’m leaving an area where I now have many special memories, where people like to open their doors to you and tell their story. And the weather and the food are good, as I always say when they ask me about my experiences and I don’t feel like discussing politics.

And cultures have their good sides too. Israeli bluntness, awkwardness if you will, so you know quickly what you have in people and not much time is wasted on lame chatter. And Palestinian hospitality, invitations to eat or drink at people’s homes.

But despite those wonderful experiences, I haven’t grown more optimistic about the years ahead. If Israel gets the far-right government it seems to be coming, one can expect an even tougher stance against Palestinians, who already have few rights. And the position of Israeli Arabs, who often feel like second-class citizens, will also come under further pressure.

The battle between Orthodox and liberal Jews also threatens to escalate further. How fierce that fight is already. I have seen at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem where Orthodox Jews rule. For example, women are not allowed to carry a Torah scroll to pray. Anyone who protests against this is mocked and attacked. Striking in the video is the role of far-right politician Itamar Ben-Gvir, who has only become more popular since then and now hopes to become a minister.

Also on his way back to the center of power is former Prime Minister Netanyahu, who is suspected of corruption and fraud. With his expected return as prime minister, there are serious concerns about the rule of law in the country. His allies have already suggested limiting the power of the Supreme Court or amending the law to keep “King Bibi” out of reach of judges. Netyanyahu himself? He has been talking about a politically motivated witch hunt against his person for years.

Someone who took the turn towards authoritarianism much earlier is the former Palestinian president Abbas. What will happen when he dies? Will a younger generation have a chance, will Hamas take over, or will chaos erupt in the West Bank? Or will a new authoritarian leader arrive and everything will remain as before? Those are all serious possibilities.

One possibility that is becoming less serious is the internationally cherished two-state solution, with a viable Palestinian state besides Israel. The last failed round of negotiations took place more than a decade ago, and in the meantime the number of illegal Israeli settlers in the area has only increased, and Palestinians have become further divided and marginalized. A solution is increasingly hidden.

Activists sometimes advocate a one-state solution, with equal rights for all, though it’s hard to imagine it not ending in civil war. For Western countries, including Holland, the adage remains: two states for two peoples, even if by now it is little more than an empty slogan.

Public opinion in the West now seems to be moving slowly in the direction of the Palestinians, and questions are increasingly being asked about Israeli actions, for example around the journalist’s death. Shireen Abu Akleh. The question is whether this will translate into long-term foreign policy.

Meanwhile, the reality is one and a half states, with the Palestinian territories divided geographically and politically as well as Israel. Abbas in the West Bank, Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Day-to-day administration rests with the Palestinians themselves, supreme military power rests with the Israelis, in the case of Gaza at a distance. It’s a reality that could prove very persistent for years to come.