BENJAMIN NETANYAHU'S racist outbursts as Israelis went to the polls yesterday must act as a warning

For decades Israeli leaders, including Netanyahu, have told the world that they share the aims of the so-called Middle East peace process - the creation of a viable independent state of Palestine to exist alongside an independent and secure Israel

Israeli actions have long given the lie to this stated goal. Year on year, the illegal colonisation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem has continued.

Overwhelming military superiority to Palestine's divided resistance groups and the United State's consistent willingness to shield Israel from UN resolutions condemning its flagrant breaches of international law have allowed this to happen.

The territories remaining to the Palestinians are a shrunken, fragmented rump, criss-crossed by settler-only roads, starved of agricultural land and water resources and patrolled by Israeli troops.

No viable independent state could possibly be built on these shifting sands.

It is hardly surprising that trust in the "peace process" among Palestinians is near non-existent, or that support for a two-state solution is shrinking all the time.

So the Israeli prime minister's remarks while campaigning in the illegal settlements on Monday - that any evacuation of the Occupied Territories or establishment of a Palestinian state is off the cards - have the ring of authenticity. 

True, he was pitching for settler votes. But everything Netanyahu has done in office backs up his words while exposing his previous statements of support for an independent Palestine as empty rhetoric, designed to ward off international criticism rather than contribute to peace in the Middle East.

Monday's comments alone unmask the Likud leader as having double-crossed not just the Palestinians but every one of Israel's international allies to whom he has repeatedly promised negotiations in good faith.

But yesterday's vile Facebook rant about "Arab voters going to the polls in droves" show him up as not just a cynical land-grabber but a racist to the core.

These are citzens of his own country he is talking about. Not even Ukip's Nigel Farage would dare to use such language.

It was an acknowledgment of that zionism's critics have long alleged - that Israel is not just a systematic abuser and denier of the national and human rights of Palestinians, but also an apartheid society in which people's rights are contingent on their ethnicity.

The one-fifth of Israelis of Arab origin are castigated as illegitimate, unwanted, somehow cheating by using one right they do have - to vote in the country's elections.

As the Star goes to press we do not know who topped the polls yesterday, still less who will form a government - which will depend on negotiations between different political parties.

We may hope that Netanyahu's politics of hate are rejected, that a new Israeli administration will recognise that the long-term security and freedom of Israel are dependent on justice for the Palestinian people.

A strong showing for the united list of Arab parties, which includes the Communist Party-led Hadash - the only party in Israel which counts both Jews and Arabs among its members - would help bring about such an outcome.

And whatever government is elected will need international pressure, especially from Tel Aviv's allies, bank-rollers and top trading partners in the US and EU, to bring it to the negotiating table with Palestine's representatives.

But a win for Netanyahu after such comments would need to be a wake-up call. This is not, to echo Thatcher, "a man we can do business with." It would require strengthening the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement and maximising pressure on Western governments through every channel possible to force Tel Aviv into compliance with international law.