“ISRAEL is a fascist regime. It’s not a process any more, towards fascism — Israel is already under a fascist regime.”

The term fascist is bandied about a lot on the left but when that assessment comes from a Jewish member of Israel’s own Knesset — the Communist Party of Israel’s Ofer Cassif, one of three MPs from the Hadash coalition — we ought to sit up and listen.

Cassif recently hit the headlines when he, together with Hadash leader Ayman Odeh, was expelled from the parliament chamber for a silent protest during US President Donald Trump’s address. They held up signs reading “Recognise Palestine.”

He’s suspended from the Knesset for the next two months. Because of that protest? “No, no. There are other complaints calling for me to be suspended again because of that protest, and because of some things I said in the last couple of days about the new head of [Israeli security agency] Shin Bet.

“I’ve been suspended three times, altogether for 10 months in the last two years… solely because of our activities against the genocide. The first time was because I used the word ‘genocide.’ The majority of complaints against me are because of my vocabulary… and then I was suspended because I joined the petition supporting South Africa [when it brought a charge of genocide against Israel before the International Court of Justice] and now I’m suspended again because I used the term genocide again, and also because I sent a letter to The Hague demanding they investigate [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu.

“That’s the democracy, the freedom of speech we’re talking about in Israel!”

There are Bills going through Israel’s parliament that could ban Hadash, as well as parties representing the fifth of Israel’s citizens who are Palestinians, from standing at the next election: but as Cassif says, “we are already half banned” given the lengthy suspensions handed to its MPs for challenging Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine and its war crimes in Gaza.

The three Hadash MPs account for 92 per cent of all suspensions from the 120-seat Knesset (by number of days suspended) since the start of the parliamentary term.

The dismantling of democratic rights is part of the descent into fascism he describes. Whether Hadash is banned or not “it’s very clear, there was even a big article in Ha’aretz two months ago about it, that the coalition has plans to bias the elections, turn them into a total sham. For instance, using the police and armed fascist mobs or militias to terrorise Palestinian and leftist voters, to stop them getting to the polling booths.”

Police violence against protests has become routine: the force has been “conquered by the government and turned into a private militia in the hands of [Itamar] Ben-Gvir,” the far-right National Security Minister, he charges.

And police do little or nothing to rein in violence by fascist mobs. “Ayman Odeh and myself were almost lynched at a demonstration against the genocide two or three months ago. The police were there and didn’t do anything.

“None of us can leave the house alone or walk freely in the streets.

“There has been a tent right by the Knesset for the last two years, put up by the father of a man who was killed on October 7. There are always people at the protest there, from the left of the political spectrum, like the father of the deceased, who is a friend of mine.

“They were attacked viciously by a fascist mob a few weeks ago. They called the police, who didn’t come for 90 minutes.

“A synagogue was attacked! It was screening a memorial ceremony for Palestinian and Israeli victims of the conflict. Every year the Families Forum [representing relatives of slain Palestinians and Israelis] puts on an alternative ceremony remembering all the dead at the same time as the official one that commemorates only Israelis, mainly soldiers.

“This year there were so many participants that there was no room for everybody, so they put huge screens in different places in the country, and one was in a synagogue in the city of Ra’anana. And it was attacked by a fascist, Jewish mob who broke the synagogue windows. The irony! The police didn’t arrest anyone.”

The intensified political violence within Israel is inseparable from the occupation, he says.

“It’s a by-product of overlooking the crimes [in occupied Palestine]. It’s like a disease: if you don’t stop it, it spreads.

“In the West Bank, the pogroms and terrorist attacks on Palestinians are a daily issue. I sent a letter to the minister of defence and the attorney-general back in March 2023 after a fire ignited by settlers in a Palestinian West Bank village.

“There is an official group on WhatsApp, called News from the Hilltops. It’s a terrorist WhatsApp group. They co-ordinate terrorist attacks, including murders of Palestinians.

“Two, three days ago settlers broke the skull of a 53-year-old woman while she was harvesting olives on her own land. All fully videoed. It’s harvest season: a very volatile time of year.

“To go back to March 2023, I had written to the attorney-general saying this group encourages and co-ordinates attacks and celebrates afterwards. Close the group and investigate and charge the activists — who are all known. Nothing was done; they continue because they know they can do whatever they like.

“It’s backed by the apparatus of the state. The killers are protected by the occupation forces. A Palestinian friend of mine was murdered a few months ago by a settler; it was videoed too. He was shot dead for no reason; everything is filmed.

“After a few hours of interrogation the killer was released, given his weapon back. He continues harassing the people of the village where he killed him.

“The victim’s family were arrested. The funeral was prevented for two weeks, then they allowed it but the army blocked the whole village off to prevent other Palestinians, Israelis or international vistors from attending.”

The attorney-general hasn’t done anything, so Cassif has taken the issue up at the Supreme Court. “We’ll see where it goes.” The day after I spoke to him he was due to visit other victims — this time Israeli citizens of Palestinian ethnicity, whose homes have been demolished.

“Israel wages war against the Palestinian people wherever they are. I’m going to the Negev, in the south, to visit some Arab citizens whose houses have been demolished by the government as part of the ethnic cleansing that goes on within Israel, against its own citizens, and not just to the Palestinian subjects who live in the apartheid occupation zone.”

As in East Jerusalem, a consistent refusal by authorities to licence any building to house Palestinian families leads to severe overcrowding. When younger generations build unauthorised structures to house themselves, “the bulldozers come with the police.” Far-right mobs show up too, to celebrate the house demolitions.

It’s a bleak picture, but despite all the repression, Cassif says the peace movement has grown stronger in the last two years.

“About a year-and-a-half ago we, Hadash, the Communist Party together with about 70 other groups — civil society organisations, anti-occupation and anti-genocide campaigns, feminist groups — formed an umbrella movement called the Peace Partnership.

“We are still very active. We’ve held our own demonstrations, and sometimes we demonstrate as a block within the general demonstrations” (against Netanyahu).

The enormous protests against Netanyahu, demanding a ceasefire and the return of the hostages, represented a huge swathe of Israeli opinion — quite possibly a majority.

Most participants protested “because they cared about the hostages and the Israeli soldiers. Less so because of what was happening to the Palestinians, but we as a block within the protest got stronger through those months, and we are not any longer a tiny, marginalised minority. We’re still a minority. But our voice against the genocide is heard and accepted much more widely than it was.”

“The wind at our backs,” he says, “was the international solidarity movement.” The huge demonstrations across the world, including in Britain, helped raise awareness in Israel of how isolated it was becoming: something Cassif is sure prompted Trump to order Netanyahu to agree the ceasefire.

Though he acknowledges it has been repeatedly violated, he believes the US is currently keen to see it last and that Vice-President JD Vance was dispatched to Israel this week to make that clear to Netanyahu, who will foil it if he can.

Will the protests continue? “As far as the activists are concerned. A rally on Saturday addressed by hostages’ families said ‘we are not going to stop, our task now is to get rid of the government and form a committee of inquiry that will focus on Netanyahu’s role in the massacre of October 7.’

“But I’d guess there will be less people on them. I hope I’m wrong.”

Because opposition to what Israel has become is essential for both Jews and Palestinians, he stresses. The recent invitation to British far-right activist “Tommy Robinson” by Israel’s Diaspora Minister Amichai Chikli is an indication of Tel Aviv’s political orientation, a front-line state in the international far-right bid to usher in an age of violence, domination of the weak by the strong and resurgent racism.

“Chikli goes all over the world to meet the most vicious racists — including anti-semites — making links with the scum of the Earth. These are now the heroes of the Israeli government. It’s disgusting. My ancestors who were killed by the Nazis are turning in their graves.”

Cassif welcomes the respite the ceasefire means for the people of Gaza, but stands by his decision to protest during Trump’s speech. “He has not brought peace. You cannot speak about peace and ignore the two-state solution — the right of the Palestinian people to statehood in their own homeland.

“Justice necessitates Palestine’s liberation from murderous occupation and colonisation.

“We need the international community — we are doomed without you. Fight with courage — do not bow before the smears and lies that solidarity with Palestine is anti-semitism.

“Continue the struggle for justice in Israel and Palestine, to end the occupation. That’s not against Jews — exactly the opposite.”