On September 8, 12 countries, led by the UK, announced plans to restrict trade in settlement goods, with the UK, France and Canada announcing that they would introduce national bans on imports from illegal settlements. The countries cited “unprecedented levels of settler violence and settlement expansion” and said the measures were intended to protect the possibility of a two-state solution.This follows targeted sanctions on far-right activists and organisations. British foreign secretary Ed Miliband also announced measures intended to prevent further settlement expansion.But given the rapid deterioration on the ground, the accelerating ethnic cleansing, the scale of the destruction, injuries and deaths resulting from policies amounting to crimes against humanity, and the dramatic changes in Israel’s political system and society, any attempt to freeze an illusory status quo until there is a political possibility of establishing a Palestinian state is doomed to fail.The victory of Kahanism in IsraelIsrael’s Declaration of Independence, proclaimed on May 14, 1948, included a commitment to “ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex.” It was drafted in particular to secure international legitimacy and conform to United Nations resolutions.There has always been a gap between the declaration and reality. The establishment of Israel was accompanied by the ethnic cleansing of most of the Palestinian population within its territory and military rule over Palestinians who remained until 1966. In 1967, Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza Strip and established an apartheid regime there. Within Israel’s internationally recognised sovereign territory, a process of liberalisation and recognition of human and civil rights developed until the beginning of the 2000s, but it was implemented only partially and discriminatorily toward Arab citizens.Yet Israeli society and politics still contained different currents that gave the international community hope. Many Israeli Jews have always held right-wing views, while the far right has enjoyed consistent support, and racism has also been prevalent throughout Jewish society to varying degrees. Nevertheless, segments of the public and influential leaders sought equality and integration and opposed the Kahanist ideology of Rabbi Meir Kahane – the expulsion of all Arabs between the sea and the Jordan River and a rigid system of racial separation for those who remained under a system of Jewish supremacy.Leader of the Kach right wing movement Meir Kahane speaking before his followers in his office in Tel Aviv in 1984. Photo: Wikipedia (CC BY 4.0).Over the three and a half years since the Netanyahu-Ben-Gvir government was formed, these currents have almost entirely disappeared, replaced by shades of yellow – the color of Rabbi Kahane’s Kach movement. The far-right government and the war that began on October 7 transformed Jewish Israeli politics and society. The fringe became mainstream, and the view took hold that Israel does not need international legitimacy and that anyone who criticizes it is an antisemite.Thus, while Kach was barred from running for the Knesset in 1988 and Kach and Kahane Chai were declared terrorist organizations in 1994 following the massacre at the Cave of the Patriarchs, Kahanism can no longer be viewed as the ideology of a small, defined and marginalized minority. It is now a spectrum encompassing large segments of the Israeli public and all the Jewish parties that represent them except the Democrats.For example, the Jewish Power and Religious Zionism parties, extremist members of Likud, and their supporters occupy its hard-core end. Many others hold “soft” Kahanist positions or fall somewhere in between. Some now feel public legitimacy to “come out of the closet” with racist views; others attribute their embrace of these views to a personal “awakening” following the October 7 massacre.In 1984, Knesset member and Rabbi Meir Kahane felt the need to submit a bill proposing that “claims of differentiation, separation or distinction between peoples shall not be considered racism.”Such a bill would appear unnecessary in Israel in 2026. Nor are the words spoken by finance minister and Religious Zionism leader Bezalel Smotrich to Arab members of the Knesset in 2021 shocking today: “You are here by mistake – because Ben-Gurion did not finish the job and did not throw you out in ’48.”Across the Kahanist spectrum, there is consensus that the goal should be a reality in which there is no physical Arab presence between the sea and the Jordan River, or at least one in which that presence is significantly reduced or concentrated in small areas. The disagreement concerns how to achieve this: some support Kahane’s position that Arabs should be forcibly expelled, while others support encouraging “voluntary migration.” There are also disagreements over the legitimacy of violence and who should employ it – state forces or private citizens organized into “private” militias of Jewish terrorists. In any case, there is agreement that a sense of despair should be created among Israel’s Arab minority and Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.It is therefore hardly surprising that most Jewish Israeli parties support, remain indifferent to or merely pay lip service in response to the accelerating ethnic cleansing in the West Bank through pogrom-like attacks by Jewish terrorist militias, with the participation or assistance of Israeli security forces, as well as the ethnic cleansing and killing carried out by the IDF across most of Gaza.In both areas, Israel is concentrating Palestinians into densely populated areas, contrary to international law prohibiting forcible transfer even within occupied territory. Many Jewish Israelis view this concentration as a necessary first stage, followed by violent expulsion or “voluntary migration” to other countries.An opposition victory in the ballot box will not change the realityIn Europe, the electoral success of far-right parties has also been linked to a strategic mistake by centrist parties: adopting their “talking points” on immigration and asylum seekers. Similarly, Israel’s Jewish opposition parties may pay a price in the October 27 election after three and a half years of adopting racist “talking points” about the Arab minority, failing to show solidarity with it, doing little to curb incitement and violence, and agreeing with Netanyahu that an alternative government should not be formed with Arab elected representatives.By refusing to form a government with Arabs, most Jewish opposition parties, except the Democrats, have – whether they admit it or not – in practice adopted or legitimized Rabbi Kahane’s words in the Knesset plenum on March 16, 1988:“The problem threatening to annihilate us, God forbid, to destroy the Jewish state, God forbid, the cancer eating away at us is the Arabs of the State of Israel, the equal-rights citizens, the voters, sitting here in the Knesset, making the decisions, and above all multiplying and outnumbering us threefold in birth rates. That is the problem. A hostile people living among us that hates Zionism and the Jewish state and the people ruling over the lands of Palestine, as they see it… The problem is not Arafat or George Habash, but rather Knesset members Tawfiq Ziad, Tawfik Tubi, Mohammed Miari, Muhammad Watad and Abdel Wahab Darawshe.”The opposition parties thus prefer Kahanist ideology to political pragmatism, even if this enables Netanyahu to form a government or head caretaker governments until he secures a majority of 61 seats.Also read: How Murder in Arab Society Is Exploited to Entrench a Kahanist Apartheid Regime in IsraelSince consistent Israeli polls show that the opposition cannot form an alternative coalition without Arab parties, it cannot attract voters from Netanyahu’s bloc. Even those disappointed with Netanyahu and blaming him for October 7 will not want to risk having Israel governed jointly, directly or indirectly, with Arab parties. Avigdor Lieberman’s presence in the opposition bloc, despite his long-standing public support for the transfer of Arab citizens of Israel, is not enough to change this.If these are the positions of most Jewish parties, even an opposition victory offers little hope for positive change in the territories Israel occupies in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Lebanon and Syria, or in Israel itself.Palestinians walk past a food-aid warehouse damaged in an Israeli airstrike that targeted a nearby house in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, Wednesday, Aug. 26, 2026. Photo: AP.Correct the status quo, don’t freeze itFor years, the international community accepted Israeli governments’ claims that they lacked domestic political support to establish a Palestinian state or take significant steps to restrain and reduce the settlement project. If the opposition forms a government, it is likely to tell the international community that pressure on the Palestinian issue would undermine its stability and return Netanyahu to power.But today, the question is no longer only whether a Palestinian state can be established, but whether Palestinians will physically remain in the territory at all, given the accelerating ethnic cleansing.The international community is naive to believe that the status quo can be “frozen” despite the enormous changes of the past three and a half years. IDF forces are shrinking the living space of millions of Gaza residents, who have survived the killing and destruction, and tightening the siege, while residents of hundreds of outposts and farms established in the West Bank since the Netanyahu-Ben-Gvir government was formed are driving a rapid process of ethnic cleansing in Areas C and B – as defined by the Oslo Accords – threatening countless Palestinian communities and families.Also read: The Racist Rules of Engagement in the West Bank are Designed to Leave Palestinians DefencelessWhatever government is formed in Jerusalem after the election, the international community must change its strategy and act proactively to remove Israel from the occupied Palestinian territories and defeat Kahanism within Israel. Otherwise, ethnic cleansing in the West Bank and Gaza Strip may soon be carried out against the Arab minority inside Israel itself.Individual sanctions against far-right organisations and activists, particularly violent “farms,” bans on settlement products, or sanctions against those who assist in establishing new ones are not enough. What is needed is a package of proactive sanctions against senior Israeli officials in the Knesset, government, state authorities and security forces, with a clear escalation ladder if they fail to carry out specific tasks within defined deadlines. The goal should be to force Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories and protect the rights of its Arab minority.For example, sanctions are urgently needed against officials who fail to evacuate West Bank outposts within a set timeframe and allow Palestinian communities to safely return to their villages and rebuild their lives without interference. The same should apply to officials who fail to withdraw IDF forces from areas of Gaza within a designated timeframe and immediately allow the unrestricted entry of goods and humanitarian aid. Sanctions should also target leaders of parties, institutions and organisations that promote Kahanist policies and discrimination against Israel’s Arab minority, as well as those who enable or cooperate with them.Israel’s senior officials, public figures, public servants and society bear primary responsibility for Kahanism’s victory. But that victory was also made possible by the immunity extended to them by the international community in pursuit of various interests. The Jewish Israelis who oppose Kahanism, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity are too weak and too few. The international community must therefore act to defeat Kahanism, apartheid and ethnic cleansing without further delay.Eitay Mack is an Israeli lawyer and human rights activist.