WHENEVER Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approaches a general election, it’s a safe bet that his administration will fan conflict with the Palestinians and with neighbouring states to frighten Israelis into believing that they face an existential threat.

The poll, set for March 17, is no exception as Netanyahu’s Likud outfit is running neck and neck with the Labour-led opposition, which has chosen the campaign label Zionist Camp.

Palestinian National Council member Hanan Ashrawi spoke out on Friday against the Israeli government’s issuing of 450 tenders of housing units on the occupied West Bank.

“With the escalation of its illegal settlement activities, the Israeli government is once again exposing its true intentions of creating Greater Israel at the expense of the strategic requirements for peace,” she said.

This blatant act to raise tension on the West Bank followed the Israeli drone massacre of Iranian General Ali Allahdadi, a senior adviser to the Syrian army, along with five other Iranians and six Hezbollah officers in Quneitra on January 18.

Far from these military officials posing a threat to Israel, they had been inspecting Syrian government defences against the jihadi opposition that has expanded into Syria’s Golan Heights area.

Both Iran and Hezbollah swore vengeance, which duly arrived last Wednesday when an Israeli military convoy in Lebanon’s occupied Shebaa Farms area was hit by Hezbollah anti-tank missiles, killing two soldiers and wounding several more.

Israel launched a retaliatory artillery barrage into Lebanon that killed a Spanish soldier in a UN peacekeepers’ base in Abbasiyeh village, but did no damage to the Lebanese resistance movement.

The Israeli PM blamed Iran for the attack on the convoy, taking the opportunity to criticise Israel’s closest allies for opting to negotiate with Tehran over its nuclear programme rather than wielding the big stick.

He is scheduled to go to Washington to address Congress on the “threat” posed by Iran, even though his visit is a direct snub to President Barack Obama and may presage more difficult future relations with the White House should Netanyahu be re-elected.

The hostilities served Netanyahu’s purpose of raising fears in northern Israel of a fresh war, since he gambles that voters have greater confidence in him to defend Israel militarily than the opposition.

However, his swaggering boastfulness plumbed new depths when he pledged a “forceful” escalation of the conflict.

“To anyone trying to challenge us, I suggest looking at what happened in the Gaza Strip. Hamas was dealt its heaviest blow ever,” Netanyahu gloated.

In truth, Hamas emerged from the summer war with its reputation enhanced for the courage of its fighters in resisting Tel Aviv’s onslaught, but the major cost was borne by Gaza’s civilian population, which accounted for 1,600 of the 2,500 fatalities — nearly 600 of them children.

Despite Netanyahu’s rhetoric, it beggars belief that he would seek a full-scale war with Hezbollah, especially since the Lebanese resistance has proved a hard nut to crack in the past.

Nor would heightened conflict appeal to Hezbollah, whose forces are engaged in support of the Assad regime in Syria.

Hezbollah spiritual leader Hassan Nasrallah told a commemoration rally in Beirut for the victims of the Israeli air strike: “We do not want a war but we are not afraid of it and we must distinguish between the two — and the Israelis must also understand this very well.”

To the Palestinian government and Israel’s neighbours can be added the fifth of Israeli citizens who are Palestinian Arabs and are increasingly restive over the discrimination they suffer at the hands of the state.

Israel’s apologists portray it as a democracy with an independent judiciary, free media and full civic rights for the Arab minority.

However, there are over 30 laws that discriminate directly or indirectly against the Israeli Arab population.

While every Jew on the planet has the right to full Israeli citizenship simply by arriving in the zionist state, there is no right of return for the millions of Arabs driven from their land since 1947.

Nor do Israeli Arabs who marry fellow Palestinians from the West Bank or Gaza have the right to live together in Israel.

Over 93 per cent of land is state-owned or administered by NGOs, such as the Jewish National Fund, that discriminate against non-Jews.

Many Palestinian villages are unrecognised by the state, find no place on official maps and are denied access to services such as power and water — in contrast to West Bank land occupations by Jews in settlements deemed illegal even by the government but which receive all services, including military protection.

Palestinians deemed guilty of assaults on Jews have their family homes demolished, while this fate is never applied to Jewish property after far-more-frequent anti-Arab attacks.

Last summer’s murder of three young Israelis near Hebron was marked by the collective punishment of Palestinians in a government seizure of more land on the occupied West Bank, assisting Tel Aviv’s creeping colonisation of what it calls Judea and Samaria.

Police and criminal investigation services are also biased against Israel’s Arab minority, with swift recourse to lethal violence that is never replicated against Jewish “price tag” terrorists (perpetrators of random violence against Palestinians) who lead a charmed and undetected existence even when their crimes are committed in full view of security forces.

Israeli Arabs showed their anger and frustration on January 20 in backing a general strike from northern Galilee to the Negev desert, closing schools, shops and businesses in protest against the police killing of two men.

Officers shot dead a suspect during what they claimed to be a drugs raid in Rahat and then rained down tear gas on his mass funeral procession, causing another fatality.

Three Arab parties — the secular Balad and Ta’al organisations and the Islamist Ra’am, backed widely by Bedouin communities  — had already expressed their intent to pursue a united list in the March election, especially in view of the bar for representation being raised from 2 per cent to 3.25 per cent.

But this was enhanced by the agreed involvement of the Communist Party-led Democratic Front for Peace and Equality, known as Hadash by Jews from the Hebrew acronym and al-Jabhat (the Front) by Arabs.

The Israeli CP is largely Arab but it also includes significant numbers of non-zionist Jews.

Hadash showed its courage last summer by organising large demonstrations against the Gaza war in Tel Aviv, Haifa, Nazareth and other cities, despite being pelted with stones and bottles by far-right mobs who also attacked coaches bringing protesters to the rallies while chanting “Death to the Arabs!”

The unity list is headed by new Hadash leader Ayman Odeh and includes representatives from all participating parties.

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who represents the racist Yisrael Beitenu (Our Israel) party, said that he would petition the Central Election Committee seeking disqualification of the united list on the grounds that their common goal is to destroy Israel as a Jewish state.

However, the agreement should maximise Arab turnout and increase anti-zionist representation in the Knesset.

Leading Hadash member and former Nazareth mayor Ramiz Jaraisy said: “We have a lot of ground in common that is larger than our differences.

“We are forming a partnership, but each party will still be independent in its social stances, its own ideology and politics.”

Balad leader and Knesset member (MK) Dr Jamal Zahalka sees the achievement of a united list as a historic event, noting that “this is the first time Islamists, communists, nationalists and leftists unite in one single coalition.”

Islamic Movement MK Massoud Ghanayem urged all Arabs to back the unified list.

“Do not disappoint us. Support the new birth. The newborn is you, is unity. To those who say we cannot unite, I say we are united,” he declared.

“We urge you to march in your thousands to vote, to slap Lieberman who fears our unity. Let us act on ensuring a large Arab representation.”

Their cause will have been assisted by Labour’s decision to designate its alliance as the Zionist Camp, enraging many Arabs who have previously voted Labour.

Arab Labour activist and current MK Ghaleb Mejadla said that, “if it turns out that the Labour Party disengages from its historic alliance with Israeli Arab voters, everything is open from our perspective.

“I do not know what magic wand makes hundreds of thousands of Arabs into zionists overnight.”

No-one has unrealistic expectations of the unity list, but its goals of defending democracy, protecting Arab rights and backing a just peace can provide a useful international focus.

It could also serve as a valuable reminder to the Hamas and Fatah factions that their long-sought Palestinian national unity remains both vital and achievable.