The Israeli Knesset's Anti-Democratic Agenda - by Stephen Lendman

 

An earlier article discussed the Mossawa Center calling the current Knesset the most racist in history, accessed through the following link:

 

http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2010/04/alarming-racism-in-israel.html

 

It reviewed 2008 and 2009 legislation violating Israeli Arab rights, Mossawa saying "almost every day" they're victimized by racist actions, and as a result, they face disruptive social, economic and cultural futures.

 

The upcoming winter Knesset session promises worse, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel's Debby Gild-Hayo (ACRI) reviewing what's expected in a report titled, "Harming Democracy in the Heart of Democracy." Ahead of the upcoming session, it addressed expected anti-democratic legislation, including:

 

-- free expression political protest rights;

 

-- equality before the law;

 

-- verbal and physical abuse of minority MKs;

 

-- efforts to delegitimize and infringe on legitimate human rights and social change organizations; and

 

-- attempts to weaken academic freedom.

 

In sum, it represents extremist efforts to weaken Israeli democracy, or what passes for its current system, by destroying civil liberties, silencing minority views, and characterizing groups holding them as state enemies. In fact, "We are witnessing a reality of increasing tyranny against social, political, and national minorities, which harms their" rights and everyone's. Perhaps more disturbing is that surveys of the past two years show public support, mainly among Israeli youths.

 

The Knesset's 2010-11 Winter Session

 

Begun on October 10, the Knesset will address some previous session's unapproved legislation and expected new ones to be introduced. They include:

 

(1) The Nakba Bill

 

As first written, anyone commemorating Nakba Day faced prison. It was then softened to deny observing persons or groups public funds, yet still threatens freely expressed minority views. The bill passed the preliminary reading, and may be addressed by the Constitution, Law, and Justice Committee ahead of its first reading.

 

(2) The Anti-Incitement Bill

 

Amending existing law, it calls for arresting anyone denying the existence of Israel as a Jewish, democratic state. In other words, it criminalizes minority or opposition political views. It passed its preliminary reading and may be addressed by the Constitution, Law, and Justice Committee ahead of its first reading.

 

(3) The Nationalization, Pledge of Allegiance Bill

 

It requires all Israeli citizens to pledge loyalty to Israel as a Jewish, democratic, Zionist state, and perform military or some form of national service. The government didn't endorse the bill. In May 2010, a ministerial committee rejected it, and in July the cabinet did as well so far. However, efforts to reintroduce it are expected.

 

(4) The Admission Committees of Communal Settlements Bill

 

Its provisions let admission committees reject communal settlement memberships for anyone "fail(ing) to meet (its) fundamental views," its social fabric, and other aspects of how they're run. Its real purpose is discriminatory - to exclude unwanted members based on their ethnicity, religion or political views. ACRI petitioned Israel's High Court opposing the bill. It passed its first reading and will be address by the Constitution, Law, and Justice Committee ahead of its second and third ones.

 

(5) The Funds from Foreign Political Entities Bill

 

In original form, individuals or groups receiving foreign funding must register with the party registrar and immediately report each contribution amount and its source. They must also publicly state they are funded by foreign nations and includes strict penalties. The bill tries "to delegitimize and impair on the activities of organizations that receive" outside funding, even though Israeli law already requires such reporting be made. 

 

However, the new legislation expands on existing law to force "certain civil organization to mark their activities as subversive and illegitimate." It also focuses human rights groups (not others in favor) as a way to delegitimize and incriminate them unfairly. ACRI wrote the foreign minister warning against this type intervention. The Constitution, Law, and Justice Committee endorsed the amended bill. It will be presented for a first reading and addressed by the Committee ahead of its second and third ones.

 

(6) The Infiltration Bill

 

Among other provisions, it stipulates that infiltrators based on their country of origin and persons assisting them are subject to from five to seven years imprisonment. "This bill follows" the same delegitimizing trend against "human rights and aid organizations and individuals who help refugees and labor immigrants." The bill failed earlier, but key points will be reintroduced in the new measure, currently being drafted by the Justice Ministry.

 

(7) A Bill Against Boycott

 

It states that persons who initiate, promote, or publish material that might serve as grounds for an imposed boycott against Israel may be criminally charged. They're also ordered to compensate parties economically harmed, including fixed 30,000 shekels reparations, freeing plaintiffs from the need to prove damages. 

 

Further, if the accused is a foreign citizen, he or she will be prohibited from entering or doing business with Israel, and if a foreign nation is involved, whatever debt it's owed may not be paid. The funds instead will be used to compensate aggrieved parties, and the country may be banned from further business dealings in Israel. In addition, the provisions "apply one year retroactively."

 

Again, the bill's purpose is discriminatory. It targets certain internal political groups, and it aims to "neutralize the (ruling coalition's) political opposition." It mainly rejects legitimate settlement product boycotts (including BDS ones)." It thus impedes "legitimate, legal, and nonviolent protest(s)," as well as Israeli free expression and assembly rights, what real democracies never prohibit.

 

The bill passed its preliminary reading. The Constitution, Law, and Justice Committee will next address it ahead of its first reading. Importantly, a ministerial committee rejected provisions pertaining to foreign citizens and states, fearing adverse outside reactions. It remains whether that consideration will hold.

 

(8) Bill on Revoking the Citizenship of Persons Convicted of Terrorism or Espionage

 

Israel's Penal Code already deals with these issues, so why something new? This bill "infringes on the basic rights of Israel's citizens" because when citizenship is revoked, other rights also are unfairly lost. The Interior Committee addressed the bill ahead of its first reading.

 

Two additional bills may also be submitted:

 

-- An Associations Bill, banning suits filed abroad against Israeli politicians or military officers. Groups formed to file overseas suits are prohibited, and those established will be shut down; and

 

-- a bill banning veils in public under penalty of imprisonment.

 

The attitude of coalition MKs is discriminatory, racist, and intolerant of minority members' views. After the Gaza Flotilla slaughter, it became painfully evident, including verbal and physical abuse against Balad Party's Hanin Zuabi for her participation. 

 

Hostile MKs wanted her expelled, others prosecuted, and some set up a Facebook group calling for her execution, no matter that her action was humanitarian and lawful. The Palestinians' Higher Monitoring Committee chose her to represent 1.5 million trapped Gazans. So targeting her vilifies and endangers all Palestinians, Israeli Arabs and supportive Jews. An August 18 Zuheir Andreus Haaretz article said "We are all Zuabi," meaning everyone for democratic freedoms is threatened.

 

ACRI filed a petition with Israel's High Court against  revoking her parliamentary rights. However, the prevailing Knesset attitude isn't changing, for sure not in the current session in light of so-called peace talks, ongoing settlement construction, and hard-liners pushing a reactionary agenda overall.

 

Additional Winter Session Issues Affecting Human Rights

 

(1) Planning and Housing Reform

 

A new law will have "far-reaching implications" for all Israelis by impairing public participation in activities regarding the protection of popular interests.

 

(2) The State Budget and Arrangements Act

 

Israel's biannual 2011-12 budget will be addressed, containing "numerous resolutions and amendments that impair on human rights (on) a wide range of issues." They include:

 

-- courts accessibility; 

 

-- rights of the unemployed and persons seeking state allowances;

 

-- labor rights;

 

-- public housing residents' rights; and

 

-- other related issues.

 

(3) Bills dealing with immigration and civil status.

 

(4) An ACRI initiated amendment seeks to ban discrimination in public services "that will not allow further selection at club entrances."

 

(5) A National Health Act amendment, "adding a standing mechanism for updating the medications basket."

 

(6) An ACRI initiated measure seeks to replace the Wisconsin Plan, aimed at eliminating welfare by privatizing social services.

 

A Final Comment

 

ACRI is concerned that "Anti-democratic tendencies in the Knesset are gaining momentum," the Winter Session expected to advance them, though some initial proposals were modified and made softer. The previous session was notable for "laying the foundations for anti-democratic legislation," but many proposed measures await consideration and final action. As a result, the Winter Session will be defining and trying if repressive laws are enacted, hardening tyranny over democratic freedoms. The threat is real and all Israelis are at risk, not just opposition minorities.

 

As things now stand, "Israeli democracy (has) already sustained a serious blow, Arab Israelis and human rights activists mostly harmed as enemies of the state," their status subject to the whims of a hostile majority. ACRI and other activist groups will keep working to save what's fast eroding, "doing everything (possible to promote) equality, social justice, and human rights," without which free societies die.

 

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

 

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.Israeli repression

 Boston University's Islamophobic Pro-Israeli Conference - by Stephen Lendman

 

A personal note. I grew up in Boston from the mid-1930s - mid-1950s through college. Then after military service and summer courses at BU, out-of-town grad school followed in the fall. 

 

It was a different time, good and bad. Eisenhower was still president. Unemployment was low. Anyone wanting work found it. Most years the economy grew during a post-WW II expansion. Inflation was low. The average new car cost $1,500, a typical home under $10,000. College was affordable. Harvard's 1952 full year tuition was $600. Four years later it was $1,000 - for a full, two-semester year. During the period, anyone could attend evenings at $5 a course and get a Harvard degree for about $175, the way my mother did it, graduating with me in the same class, the first ever mother and son to do it.

 

America was unchallenged economically, its manufacturing base offering high paying/good benefits jobs. Union representation was high. The South and US northern cities were segregated. They still are, all 1960s civil rights gains lost plus most good jobs and benefits. Alaska and Hawaii additions grew America to 50 states.

 

The Korean War left an unsettled armistice. Cold War politics settled in. Developing "mutually assured destruction (MAD)" and accommodation prevented WW III. Censure ruined Joe McCarthy, and by May 1957 he was dead at age 48. The CIA's first coup deposed Iran's Mohammad Mosaddegh. A generation of terror followed. A year later, another toppled Guatemala's Jacobo Arbenz Guzman, fueling decades of genocide against its indigenous peoples. 

 

Throughout the decade, few followed Vietnam events, its defeat of France, America's growing involvement, what became three decades of war. Palestinian Territories weren't occupied, and during the period Israel was young, growing, but mostly out of the news and public mind. With today's one-sided Western support, times indeed have changed, for the worse, not better, including in academia.

 

For example, noted professors like Norman Finkelstein, Joel Kovel and Canada's Denis Rancourt, among others, lost jobs for supporting Palestine, universities tolerating no Israeli opposition no matter how justified. Moreover, Zionized Yale, among other activities and curricula studies, has an Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Antisemitism (YIISA) at a time evidence shows it at a historic low. 

 

Nonetheless, it holds regular seminars and conferences, including last August for three days on campus, featuring pro-Israeli zealots, omitting Palestinian supporters, and letting hatemongers rail on topics like radical Islam, genocidal antisemitism, the Iranian threat, and much more throughout a 72 hour hatefest.

 

Boston University's (BU) Pro-Israeli Conference

 

Not to be outdone, on October 10 and 11, BU hosted its own. Sponsored by the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA), a Boston-based pro-Israeli media lobby, it bogusly claims to be "non-partisan....regard(ing)....American or Israeli political issues, (taking no position) regard(ing)....ultimate solutions to the Arab-Israeli conflict."

 

In fact, by shamelessly supporting Israel, it monitors media reports globally for one purpose - to combat all "anti-Israeli bias." CAMERA tolerates none, no matter how justified, targeting journalists, editors, producers and publishers, demanding "distorted or inaccurate coverage" be retracted and replaced by "factual information to refute errors." For CAMERA, it means uncompromising Israeli support, or be hounded, condemned or replaced. With considerable funding and thousands of members, it has plenty of lethal firepower and no reluctance to use it ruthlessly.

 

Its conference theme was "War By Other Means: The Global Campaign to Delegitimize Israel," referring to growing initiatives like the Global BDS Movement, the International and Palestine Solidarity Movements, and others. They're gaining strength after incidents like Cast Lead, the May Gaza Flotilla massacre, the Gaza siege and isolation of Palestine's legitimate Hamas government, and daily assaults against Palestinian civilians - unpunished crimes of war and against humanity by any standard.

 

With global outrage growing, CAMERA says "Israel faces a convergence of global forces that may undermine its legitimacy in the eyes of the world community." So it sponsored a two day conference, featuring notorious pro-Israeli Islamophobes and other extremists, spreading hate-filled propaganda for the price of admission - $50 per day or a flat $25 for students, those helping out attending free, including lunches. What a deal to be indoctrinated free of charge.

 

CAMERA and twenty other organizations co-sponsored the event, including campus Hillels, Hadassah, local synagogues, the Israeli New England consulate, and Zionist Organization of America, the oldest and one of largest US pro-Israeli groups with over 30,000 members throughout the country - a coalition of pro-Israeli zealotry, intolerant of opposing views.

 

CAMERA's Speaker Lineup from Hell

 

Beginning early on Sunday, October 10, Maxine Wolf and Rabbi Joseph Polak delivered opening remarks. Wolf is a member of CAMERA's executive board, Polak a BU-based Hillel director.

 

Lead speaker was Alan Dershowitz, a notorious bigot, an earlier article calling him:

 

-- a purveyor of myths, canards, false logic, and hate;

 

-- a misinterpreter of fundamental law standards;

 

-- a believer in unique Jewish suffering, mindless of all others;

 

-- an advocate of torture, targeted assassinations, land theft and dispossessions; and

 

-- a committed Zionist and Israeli apologist, legitimizing its aggression, its worst crimes and abuses, believing that "international law, and those who administer it, must understand that (in times of war) the old rules" don't apply against "fanatical foes."

 

He also defends preemptive wars, no matter how lawless, calling the UN Charter's 51 (limiting attacks to self-defense) "anachronistic, (a) mid-twentieth century view of international law" inapplicable to today's threats. In other words, on matters affecting Israel, no law applies, threat or no threat.

 

Yigal Carmon was next, president and founder of the Middle East Research Institute (MEMRI), its board and advisors including a rogue's gallery of pro-Israeli zealots like Elliot Abrams, Ehud Barak, James Woolsey, John Bolton, John Ashcroft, Michael Mukasey, and Elie Wiesel, a man Norman Finklestein calls "vain, arrogant, gullible, naive about international affairs, (and defender of) the worst excesses of previous Israeli governments."

 

Daniel Pipes followed Yigal, a man Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) included in its October 2008 report titled, "Smearcasting: How Islamophobes spread fear, bigotry and misinformation."

 

Founder of the Middle East Forum, an extremist think tank promoting US Middle East interests, including "fighting radical Islam; working for Palestinian acceptance of Israel....combat(ing) lawful Islamism," and other hard right positions, he preaches hateful zealotry. Besides writing op-eds for The New York Times and other major publications, he's interviewed often on mainstream radio and television from CNN to PBS and NPR. He defends racially profiling Arab-Americans, and once said in a National Review article (11/19/90) that:

 

"Western European societies are unprepared for the massive immigration of brown-skinned peoples cooking strange food and maintaining different standards of hygiene....All immigrants bring exotic customs and attitudes, but Muslim customs are more troublesome than most."

 

Dershowitz, Yigal, and Pipes set the tone for like-minded participants to follow, including:

 

-- Andrea Levin, a CAMERA director;

 

-- Philippe Karsenty, Media-Ratings founder, doing the same type monitoring in France that CAMERA does globally;

 

-- Anne Bayefsky, a right-wing pro-Israeli zealot, senior fellow at the neocon Hudson Institute, associated with UN Watch devoted to attacking anti-Israeli criticism, and member of the Israel-based Ariel Center for Policy Research, a Likud Party-affiliated group supporting hardline writers in the Middle East, North America and Europe;

 

-- Gerald Steinberg, president of NGO Monitor, a notorious pro-Israeli group;

 

-- Melanie Phillips, an extremist journalist, author, and defender of pro-Western "values" over others she disdains;

 

-- Manfred Gerstenfeld, chairman of the Board of Fellows at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, a pro-Israeli think tank, publishing material like "The Rise of Nuclear Iran: How Tehran Defies the West." He's also an Institute for Global Jewish Affairs director, supporting the myth of worldwide antisemitism and various pro-Israeli initiatives;

 

-- Mark Steyn, a Canadian writer, political commentator and cultural critic, supporting a pro-Israeli agenda;

 

-- Irwin Cotler, a Canadian MP and former Minister of Justice and Attorney General;

 

-- Yaakov Kirschen, a Jerusalem Post cartoonist and drybonesblog.blogspot.com creator, saying on May 18, 2009 that: "Palestinians are not prepared or able to build a modern, democratic state that could live in peace with a Jewish State of Israel," among other hateful comments;

 

-- Kenneth Levin, a Harvard Medical School instructor and writer on Israeli/Arab issues, supporting the former over the latter;

 

-- Alvin H. Rosenfeld, a professor of English and Jewish Studies and director of the Institute for the Study of Contemporary Anti-Semitism at Indiana University, promoting the myth of its resurgence, saying a "phenomenon of this scope and consequence demands sustained scrutiny at the highest scholarly levels;"

 

-- Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, a Hebrew and Jewish Studies lecturer, board member of the pro-Israeli Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, and chairman of the Simon Wiesenthal Center Campus Outreach Advisory Council, involved in "combatting the rise of campus anti-Semitism;"

 

-- Alex Safian, CAMERA's research and associate directors; and 

 

-- Bret Stephens, a hard right Wall Street Journal deputy editorial page editor and foreign affairs contributor; earlier, he was editor-in-chief of the right wing Jerusalem Post.

 

Conference Topics

 

They included:

 

-- Israel and the Case for Moral Clarity;

 

-- Radicals and Reformists: Trends and Challenges;

 

-- The Islamic Background;

 

-- Examining Israel: From The New York Times to Aftonbladet and The Huffington Post;

 

-- Pallywood and Mumammad al-Durah;

 

-- The United Nation's War on Israel;

 

-- NGO Biases, the Halo Effect and Israel;

 

-- The British Hijacking of Reason;

 

-- Is a New, Criminal Europe Emerging?

 

-- The City Besieged: Israel and the War on the West;

 

-- Countering the Legal Assault on Israel;

 

-- Fighting on the Front Lines: Responding to Campus Anti-Semitism;

 

-- What Walt and Mearsheimer Hath Wrought;

 

-- Jewish Defamers of Israel: Roots and Branches;

 

-- Jews at Sea: Reflections on Israel's Jewish Detractors and Defamers;

 

-- A Cartoonist View of Jewish Defamers;

 

-- Making Israel's Case, the Smart Way;

 

-- Mainstream Churches and Israel;

 

-- Blogging, Social Media and Israel;

 

-- Getting Published in the Mainstream Media and Making an Impact On-Line; and

 

-- The Spanish-Language Media and Effective Activism.

 

A Final Comment

 

On October 10, BU Students for Justice in Palestine, American Jews for a Just Peace, ItisApartheid, and other local pro-Palestinian groups protested against CAMERA's conference.

 

In front of BU's Metcalf Hall in the George Sherman Union, the conference venue, they simulated a mock apartheid wall, symbolizing Israel's Separation Wall, surrounding and isolating West Bank communities, as well as stealing 12% of their land when completed.

 

They also chanted "BU, US, it's time for BDS," "Hey BU you've been had, Dershowitz is WICKED bad," and the politically oriented Brass Liberation Orchestra accompanied protesters as they sang, held banners, and distributed fliers.

 

Like Yale last August, BU lent its name to a two day hate fest, featuring Islamophobes supporting apartheid, lawlessness, aggressive wars, isolation, land theft, dispossessions, mass imprisonment, torture, targeted assassinations, and decades of slow-motion genocide of Palestinian civilians. For 48 hours, truth, equity and justice were nowhere in sight. Complicit BU was the venue for the worst of hatemongering viciousness.

 

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

 

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/. US anti-Islamic raging

 Israel's New Loyalty Oath - by Stephen Lendman

 

Since inception, Israel's democracy was illusory, but of late it's further eroded. The Cabinet's October 10 adopted Law of Citizenship amendment requires all non-Jews wanting it to pledge loyalty to "the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state," its latest anti-democratic measure.

 

Voting 22 - 8, it evoked protests from Israeli artists, writers and intellectuals in front of Tel Aviv's Independence Hall against "the continuous erosion of Israeli democracy." Actress Hana Maron quoted Israel's Declaration of Independence saying:

 

"I will read this again: '(the state of Israel) will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex.' This makes me want to cry. What has become of us?"

 

Author Sefi Rachlevsky said:

 

"a country that invades the sacred space of the citizen's conscience, and punishes him for opinions and beliefs that are not in line with the authorities ceases to be a democracy and becomes a fascist state."

 

Defying the Cabinet's edict, Rachlevsky read excepts from a document titled "the declaration of independence from fascism," stating:

 

"We, citizens of Israel....have gathered here to announce that we shall not be citizens of the country purporting to be the state of Israel."

 

Professor Gavriel Solomon compared today's Israel to 1935 Germany, saying:

 

"the idea of Judenrein (Jew free zone) or Arabrein is not new....Some might say 'how can you compare us to Nazis?' I am not talking about the death camps, but about the year 1935. There were no camps yet but there were racist laws. And we are heading forward toward these kinds of laws. The government is clearly declaring our incapacity for democracy."

 

Solomon referred to the Nuremberg Laws, explained in a previous article, accessed through the following link:

 

http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2010/07/deteriorating-conditions-for-israeli.html

 

Among other provisions, they:

 

-- protected "German Blood and German Honour;"

 

-- prevented marriage or sexual relations between Jews and Aryans;

 

-- denied rights and citizenship to anyone with Jewish blood;

 

-- banned Jews from holding professional jobs to exclude them from education, politics and industry;

 

-- segregated Jews from Aryans; and

 

-- effectively denied Jews all rights, in what became a prelude to genocide, what Palestinians (and to a lesser degree Israeli Arabs) have incrementally endured for decades by racist laws, persecution, land theft, dispossession, exclusion, isolation, mass imprisonment, torture, targeted assassinations, violence, and slaughter.

 

Israel's direction mirror's 1930s Germany, especially under a Netanyahu/Lieberman/Shas coalition and most extremist ever Knesset, flouting democratic freedoms one law or edict at a time. Lieberman and other extremists called the new measure a first step to loyalty legislation they want enacted as well as other anti-democratic laws to be considered in the Knesset's winter session. A forthcoming article addresses them.

 

On October 11, Haaretz writer Carlo Strenger headlined, "Stranger than Fiction/Loyalty oath is not about Arabs, it's about hatred of liberal values," calling the measure "bad, harmful and useless," Labor Party Minister Isaac Herzog warning that it moves incrementally toward fascism.

 

Legal expert Mordechai Kremnitzer said it accomplishes nothing except to make Israeli Arabs feel unwanted. Others stressed Israel's deteriorating image in world opinion. Supporters, however, see the measure as a step "toward ensuring loyalty to the state by legislation," singling out Arab citizens "whom Avigdor Lieberman is alienating and insulting almost every day, and Palestinians who want to gain Israeli citizenship."

 

Others (including MKs Benny Begin and Dan Meridor) noted the "strange alliance" between Lieberman's Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel is our home) secular ultranationalists and Shas, the major ultra-Orthodox party. Why are they cooperating and allied with other hard right parties? Perhaps it's less fear of Israel's enemies and more about: 

 

"a visceral hatred for the Western values and the liberal ethos. They all hate freedom; they all hate the idea of critical, open discourse, in which ideas are discussed according to their merit. They keep criticizing what they see as the liberal bias of the media and academia, and they have sustained attempts to curtail freedom at the universities."

 

Lieberman is a notorious racist, representing Israel's most extreme hard right, a man critics denounce as espousing hatred for Arabs, democracy, and the rule of law. A previous article on him can be accessed through the following link:

 

http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2010/10/avigdor-lieberman-profile-in.html

 

For decades, Shas only pretended to support democracy, believing, in fact, that citizens have no right to think freely and critically. "(T)hey believe that only their spiritual leader, Ivadia Yossef, must determine what is right and what is wrong."

 

Moreover, secular and religious extremists want Israeli Arabs and Palestinians denied all rights; that is, what few remain, most others aren't allowed by a nation affording them solely to Jews.

 

As a result, Strenger says Minister Herzog is wrong believing "fascism lurks at the fringes of Israeli society. It is now in the mainstream. After all, even the majority of Likud ministers" backed the outrageous amendment.

 

"Israel is now facing a fateful question: will it remain a liberal democracy, or is it on the way to becoming a totalitarian ethnocracy?"

 

In fact, Israel was never a democracy, granting rights solely to Jews. A more accurate consideration is whether Israeli extremists will erode all freedoms, demand universal unquestioned loyalty, ban free expression and dissent, suppress all civil liberties by edict, and perhaps usurp dictatorial powers with no elections except the kinds despotic states hold.

 

Strenger is right, however, saying "Israel has embarked on a slippery slope; and we cannot know where it will end....It is a truly terrible tragedy" that enlightenment ideals and liberal values are being "gradually erase(d).." Growing fascism is "burying" what remains of Israeli democracy, so flawed it may easily be toppled.

 

Discussing the Citizen Law amendment, a Haaretz October 10 editorial sharply criticized Labor chairman Ehud Barak, saying he's turned the party into a "weak, crumbling entity devoid of any of its own staked-out positions....It has become nothing more than a tool of the extreme right" and is now irrelevant.

 

A same day Gideon Levy article headlined, "The Jewish Republic of Israel," saying the Cabinet measure risks it becoming a "theocracy like Saudi Arabia....Remember this day. It's the day Israel change(d) its character." It may also change its name, affecting all Israeli citizens.

 

"From now on, we will (openly) be living in a new, officially approved, ethnocratic, theocratic, nationalistic and racist country." Calling Labor a "doormat" and Netanyahu Yisrael Beinteinu's leader, a virtual Lieberman stooge, today's loyalty oath will be tomorrow's law, "threatening to drown the remnants of democracy" for a new Israel "no one really understands, but it certainly won't be a democracy."

 

The Netanyahu/Lieberman/Shas cabal deplores it. But who can explain "the complacency of the masses," minority protests notwithstanding. In contrast, public opinion shows "almost no one....feel(s) affected."

 

Real democracies don't demand loyalty oaths. "Only Israel. And it is being done either to provoke the Arab minority more and push them (toward less) loyalty so one day (it will be easier to) get rid of them," as well as scuttle any chance for peace, though practically none exists anyway. One way or other, Israel's current direction endangers everyone, including Jews who'll end up losers like Arabs.

 

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

 

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.Israel on a fast track to despotism

 Avigdor Lieberman: A Profile in Ultranationalist Extremism - by Stephen Lendman

 

Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Lieberman represents the worst of Israel's lunatic fringe, sort of a combination Dick Cheney/John McCain/Joe Lieberman, too extremist to be entrusted with power, but he's got it. 

 

On March 18, 2008 in the London Independent, Robert Fisk headlined, "Why Avigdor Lieberman is the worst thing that could happen to the Middle East," saying:

 

"....Israelis have exalted a man....who out-Sharons even Ariel Sharon. A few Palestinians (said) the West will see the 'true face' of Israel. (He's) talked of drowning Palestinians in the Dead Sea or executing Israeli Palestinians who talked to Hamas. (His) incendiary language (promotes) executions....drownings....hell and loyalty oaths," perfect for the role he's assumed, allied with Israel's most extremist ever Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who also out-Sharons Sharon, no easy feat by any means.

 

On September 20, Haaretz writer Akiva Eldar headlined, "Freeze Lieberman," referring to his opposition to a settlement freeze, telling Israeli Radio that his party (Yisrael Beiteinu) has enough power to stop it and much more, including obstructing meaningful peace talks. 

 

Eldar's conclusion - "There is no excuse for Netanyahu to keep the man and his party" as part of his coalition government. He's an embarrassment, but for that matter, so is Netanyahu and Israel's most extremist ever Knesset, a topic earlier writing addressed.

 

On August 2, 2009, Haaretz writer Gideon Levy headlined, "Kahane won," referring to extremist Rabbi Meir Kanane and his racist Kach Party, banned by Israel in 1988 under a law passed to disqualify him and his zealots. Later in 1994, after the Cave of the Patriachs massacre (committed by Kach member Baruch Goldstein), it was the first Jewish organization in more than 40 years to be called a "threat to security" and outlawed.

 

Levy said he "can rest in peace." He's been resurrected. "His doctrine has won....Kahanism has become legitimate in public discourse....racism and nationalism (have been transformed) into accepted values."

 

If Kahane ran for office today, "not only would (he and others in his party) not be banned, (they'd) win many votes....the ostracized is now accepted, the detestable has become the talented - that's the slippery slope down which Israeli society has skidded over the past two decades."

 

In his youth, Lieberman was a Kach party member. He "was and is a Kahanist. The differences between Kach and Yisrael Beiteinu are miniscule, not fundamental and certainly not a matter of morality." 

 

For example, Lieberman demands Israeli Arabs declare loyalty to a "Jewish, Zionist, and democratic state," its emblems and values, and to perform military or equivalent service as a condition for a national identity card signifying citizenship. Kahana wanted unconditional annulment. Lieberman wants them transfered to a "Palestinian state." Kahane wanted them deported. 

 

Israel under Netanyahu/Lieberman institutionalized racism in its worst form - potential expulsion or extermination, a "nightmare (that's) here and now. Kahane is alive and kicking - is he ever - in the person of his thuggish successor."

 

His extremism promotes "hatred for Arabs, hatred of democracy and the rule of law, and the stink of nationalism, racism and bloodthirstiness. (He's) the voice of the mob, and the mob craves hatred, vengeance and bloodshed." He's a malignancy on the body politic, a "cancerous growth (throughout) society, (a dangerous, embarrassing) abomination," one step removed from being Prime Minister.

 

Who Is Avigdor Lieberman?

 

Hebrew University Professor Yitzhak Brudny said his "model is not very democratic. He doesn't like balancing government with checks and balances. He wants a kind of imperial presiden(cy), an executive authority. This is why he is dangerous."

 

Hebrew University Professor Zeev Sternhell calls him "perhaps the most dangerous politician in the history of the state of Israel."

 

Rabbi Eric Yoffie, President of the Union for Reform Judaism, describes him as "outrageous, abominable, hate-filled, (and) brimming with incitement that, if left unchecked, could lead Israel to the gates of hell."

 

David A. Harris, the American Jewish Committee's Executive Director, says he "define(s) an entire class of Israelis as suspected traitors," a fifth column.

 

Der Spiegel's Christoph Schult called him a "virulent racist," and for the Guardian's Daphna Baram an "arch" one.

 

An unnamed Meretz party member said "If you liked Mussolini, if you were missing Stalin, you'll love Lieberman." During the 2009 political campaign, Meretz released an internal memo comparing him to "Jean-Marie Le Pen in France, (Jorg) Haider in Austria, and (Vladimir) Zhirinovsky in Russia."

 

Known for racism, bullying and belligerence, Le Pen's views were hard-right. So were Haider's for praising Nazism and Zhirinovsky's ultranationalism.

 

Even ultra-Zionist peace process critic Martin Peretz, editor-in-chief of The New Republic, called Lieberman "neo-fascist....a certified gangster....the Israeli equivalent of Jorg Haider."

 

Others call him offensive to basic ethics and morality, and a threat to the rule of law and democratic freedoms. In a word, he's bad news for Israel, Palestinians, and the region.

 

Lieberman's Roots and Background

 

Born Evet Lvovich Lieberman in Moldova (a former Soviet Republic) in 1958, he studied at a local agricultural institute, worked as a nightclub bouncer, and later as a Baku, Azerbaijan broadcaster, before moving to Israel with his parents in 1978.

 

He got a Hebrew University social science degree, served as an IDF corporal, then began a political career. In the 1980s, he helped found the Zionist Forum for Soviet Jewry, and was also a member of the Board of the Jerusalem Economic Corporation and Secretary of the Jerusalem branch of Israel's "national workers union," the Histadrut Ovdim Le'umit.

 

From 1993 - 1997, he was Director General for the Likud party and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's chief of staff during his first term. In 1999, he established the far-right, ultranationalist Israel Beiteinu Party (Israel is Our Home), the same year he became a MK. He's also held other positions, including Minister of National Infrastructure, Minister of Transportation, and is currently Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister.

 

Across the board, his positions are over the top to put it mildly. On September 5, he called peace with the Palestinians unattainable, "not next year and not for the next generation....Our proposal is: No to unilateral concessions, no to continuing the settlement freeze (a fake moratorium, in fact, never frozen, and), yes to serious negotiations and mutual gestures of good faith," though he offers none of his own.

 

"The peace process," he said "is based on three false basic assumptions. That the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the main fact of instability in the Middle East, that the conflict is territorial and not ideological, and that the establishment of a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders will end the conflict."

 

On the contrary, he says. Give up some land and they'll demand more. Never mind that all of it belongs to them. For over 43 years, Israel has been an illegal occupier, what Lieberman other Israeli politicians omit from their rhetoric, important truths too disturbing to admit.

 

Deploring peace, he says those for it "should prepare for war and be strong." He also believes "tensions within the Muslim world are 95 to 98 percent of all the problems of the Middle East, (the) Israeli-Palestinian conflict account(ing) for two percent."

 

He, his party, and the Netanyahu government want all valued West Bank and Jerusalem Judaized, confining Palestinians to isolated, resource poor cantons, surrounded by hostile settlers, free to commit violence with impunity.

 

Conflict for him is "about values and vision, and is part of a world wide collision between the West or the free world, and the radical Islamic world. Israel represents the free world, and the Palestinian Authority and Hamas represent the Islamic radical world."

 

His solution - "separation, like in the Balkans. The best model is Cyprus: before 1974, Greeks and Turks lived together and there was friction and terror." After separation, "we haven't seen a peace agreement, but there is security. The same we must see in our region."

 

His racist extremism is also well known. Besides demanding a "loyalty oath" as a condition of citizenship, he wants a separate Palestinian entity, excluded from majority Jewish areas, what Americans enacted 1960s civil rights legislation to ban. 

 

In February 2007, he said "Israel is under a dual terrorist attack, from within and from without. And terrorism from within is always more dangerous (than) from without." Earlier in the Knesset, he wanted Palestinian MKs hanged as collaborators, saying:

 

"World War II ended with the Nuremberg trials. The heads of the Nazi regime, along with their collaborators, were executed. I hope this will be the fate of the (Arab MK and other) collaborators."

 

In March 2002, he said:

 

"I would not hesitate to send the Israeli army into all of Area A (under PA control) for 48 hours. Destroy the foundations of all the authority's military infrastructure and all of the police buildings, the arsenals, all the posts of the security forces....not leav(ing) one stone on another. Destroy everything."

 

He also wanted air strikes on all Palestinian commercial areas and other parts of its civilian economy. In 2003, when Sharon (for political, not magnanimous, reasons) suggested 350 Palestinian prisoners get amnesty, he responded:

 

"It would be better to drown these prisoners in the Dead Sea if possible, since that's the lowest point in the world," adding his willingness, as Transportation Minister, to load up busses and take them there.

 

In January 2009, he compared Cast Lead to America's 1940s war in the Pacific, saying Gaza should be "treated like Chechnya," and Israel "must continue to fight Hamas just like the United States did with the Japanese in World War II," suggesting ending it the same way with weapons of mass destruction.

 

He also believes pandering to international opinion is a mistake, showing weakness, not strength. He's so ultranationalist and hard-right, many call him fascist. Under investigation for alleged fraud, accepting a bribe, money laundering, embezzlement, and obstruction of justice, others say he's corrupt. In addition, on May 24, 2010, Israeli police recommended indicting him for Breach of Trust for receiving classified information about his criminal investigation. 

 

Earlier, on September 24, 2001, in Jerusalem District Court, he admitted attacking a 12-year old boy in December 1999 in the Nokdim settlement who'd hit his son. Charged with assaulting and threatening him, he was convicted, but copped a plea to pay a fine and avoid harsher punishment.

 

Jamal Zahalka, an Arab MK Balad Party head, says Israel lurched to the right after Yitzhak Rabin's 1995 assassination. The 2000 Camp David failure, followed by the second Intifada, Hamas' January 2006 election, the Lebanon summer 2006 war, and Cast Lead solidified hardline views. "Lieberman didn't suddenly appear like Minerva from the head of Jupiter. He rode the wave and he's not alone."

 

Hassan Jabareen, founder and director of the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, agrees, saying: 

 

"He didn't establish racism in Israel....This product wasn't shaped by him. He just got the fruits of the others," using them for his own advantage. Israel is in crisis, he believes, caused by a lurch to the right. "They try to suppress our identity. But the state won't be more Jewish if we stop commemorating the Nakba (or) stop criticizing Zionism. When segregation becomes ideology, (it) has only one place to be translated - (into) law. Here in Israel, segregation (has become) ideology. The Jews want to live alone without Arabs."

 

Lieberman is their most prominent spokesman. He's not a traditional "Greater Israel" right-winger. He's more pragmatic, opportunist, and secular, but unbending in his views like Netanyahu. As long as they're in power, Palestinians and Israeli Arabs face persecution of the worst kind short of total expulsion or outright extermination. But those possibilities can't be ruled out.

 

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

 

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.a rogue Israeli politician

AFP Identifies Palestinian Abuse Victim in YouTube Video, Twitter Does the Rest

 

 Israel's Persecution of Ameer Makhoul - by Stephen Lendman

 

At any time, from 7,000 - 12,000 or more Palestinians are politically persecuted and imprisoned, including young children. The Addameer Prisoners' Support and Human Rights Association explains that for over 43 years under military occupation, over 650,000 Palestinians have been illegally detained for wanting freedom on their own land in their own country, what Israel won't tolerate, nor have its leaders ever wanted peace. Saying so is a lie.

 

What Avi Shlaim once said about Ariel Sharon, applies to virtually all other Israeli leaders, past and present; namely, that "Bargaining, accommodation, and compromise (were) alien to his whole way of thinking." 

 

Sharon earlier, and Netanyahu today, share like-minded views; namely, that "relations with the Palestinians (are) a zero-sum game" in which Israel intends to gain at their expense, including its own Arab citizens. Both leaders spurn concessions, Sharon once saying, "This is our land, and we'll settle it and build on it in order to prevent the creation of a Palestinian state. We'll never give up this area." As a result, Palestinians have been ruthlessly persecuted, imprisoned, or slaughtered in gross violation of international laws.

 

Ameer Makoul is one of many victims, a previous article about him accessed through the following link:

 

http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2010/05/israeli-persecution-of-human-rights.html

 

An Israeli citizen, human rights activist, and head of the internationally recognized Ittijah NGO for Palestinian empowerment, he also chairs the Public Committee for the Defence of Political Prisoners within the Arab Higher Monitoring Committee in Israel. Besides championing human rights, he also supports the global BDS movement, what many believe is perhaps the most effective nonviolent tactic against Israeli lawlessness, and another reason for his targeting. 

 

An earlier article on Palestinian Political Prisoners can be accessed through the link below:

 

http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2010/03/palestinian-political-prisoners.html

 

Makhoul's Ordeal

 

In May, Makhoul was arrested on spurious charges of spying for Hezbollah, Israel's way to silence a respected Palestinian. At the time, attorney Hussein Abu Hasin said accusations were so vague and wide-ranging that emails, Internet chats or phone conversations with anyone about anything could be used as a pretext to prosecute for communicating with a "state enemy," whether or not true and regardless of the right to speak freely with anyone. 

 

At the time, Mohammed Zeidan, head of the Human Rights Association of Nazareth said:

 

"We are used to our political leaders being persecuted, but now Shin Bet is turning its sights on the leaders of Palestinian civil society in Israel, and that's a dangerous development." Based on suspicions, circumstantial evidence, or none at all, Shin Bet's likely to target anyone "unwittingly....meet(ing) a relative of a relative of someone in Hezbollah, (Hamas, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Islamic Jihad, or the Iranian government as) grounds to arrest you." Activist leaders are notably threatened, especially Israeli Arabs seen by hard liners as a fifth column existential threat essential to crush.

 

Zeidan believes that persecution of Israeli Arab society is the best way to expose Israeli racism and discrimination against anyone not Jewish. "Markhoul's arrest should be understood in that light."

 

On May 6, his ordeal began when about 20 Israeli police and security forces arrested him at 3:10AM, ransacked his apartment, confiscated his computers, cell phones, various documents, maps, and other possessions. At the same time, his Haifa office was also raided for other potentially "incriminating" evidence, a Shin Bet warrant saying only that "secret information" justified it for "security reasons," when, in fact, none whatsoever existed.

 

On May 9, Ynetnews.com writer Sharon Roffe-Ofir headlined, "Security scandal angers Arab sector," saying:

 

Despite a gag order, aroused Israeli Arabs freely discussed Israeli "police persecution of (the) Arab community....In Facebook, a protest group has already been set up, and (days earlier) an emergency conference was held by the Mossawa Center and the Adalah Center, both of which are among the most prominent organizations working for Arab rights," along with many others expressing concern. Wide distribution of information followed through newspapers, blogs, and word of mouth.

 

Mossawa's director, Jafar Farah, called "the steps taken by (Israel's) security establishment....an extreme right wing policy. In democratic countries," this type lawlessness is prohibited. The Popular Committee for the Defense of Freedoms said Israel's attack on freedom "is at its height." MK Masud Ganaim (of United Arab List-Ta'al) sent thousands of emails calling the affair:

 

"police terror and silencing. What is happening is clear proof of racism. Whoever claims Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East gets new evidence to the contrary every day, in the steps taken by the government and its institutions against citizens, parties and organizations of the Arab sector."

 

Makhoul was detained incommunicado at Petah Tikva for interrogation. Under gag order (now lifted), the Israeli media couldn't write or discuss anything about his case. 

 

He endured 12 days of brutal interrogation, including torture and sleep deprivation. After three weeks, he was charged with espionage, helping an enemy (Hezbollah) in time of war, contact with a foreign agent, and other spurious charges, all of which he denied.

 

On June 14, prosecutors claimed "secret evidence" against him, withheld from his lawyers for "security reasons." In addition, all attorney conversations were wiretapped, and despite requesting medical help from the Association of Physicians for Human Rights, it was repeatedly denied.

 

He remains imprisoned, a Committee for the Defense of Ameer Makhoul established on September 8 to defend him. Comprised of dozens of Jewish and Arab figures, it took collective responsibility because:

 

-- his arrest signifies what he represents, not just himself, and it was done to warn other activist Israeli Arabs; and

 

-- charges against him are entirely unfounded and spurious, his targeting to silence a respected, powerful, effective political voice for all Arab Israeli citizens.

 

He's represented them globally as an internationally recognized human rights advocate, and as a member of world and regional coalitions and networks. Speaking publicly or in any other way to anyone is protected speech, yet accusations against him violate his legitimate right to communicate freely with Arab colleagues.

 

On September 16, he was charged in Haifa District Court, even though Israeli prosecutors said his home and office computers, cell phones, other possessions, and transcripts of about 30,000 wiretapped phone conversations revealed no evidence of espionage.

 

On September 14, his lawyers got the Nazareth District Court to uphold his right to direct and confidential counsel access, what he previously was denied in violation of Israeli and international law. Earlier in 2009, Shin Bet said they'd "tailor a file for this disappearance and prolonged separation from his family" unless he softened his outspoken activism, including his denunciation of Cast Lead war crimes.

 

Human rights groups, including Amnesty International have been outspoken for him, AI signaling it may declare him a "prisoner of conscience" because his arrest "smacks of pure harassment, designed to hinder his human rights work."

 

Ahead, the Committee for the Defense of Ameer Makhoul needs help to raise funds, mobilize international legal and medical help as well as observers for his trial. Some tactical victories have been won, however, including disseminating information globally on his case and defeating Israel's gag order. Remaining tasks include building a solid defense team, challenging prosecutorial use of "secret evidence" unavailable to counsel, as well as bogusly incriminating anyone for using protected speech to communicate freely with anyone.

 

A Final Comment

 

Ahmad Sa'adat is another prominent Israeli political prisoner, an earlier article on him accessed through the following link:

 

http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2010/07/ahmad-saadat-palestinian-prisoner-of.html

 

He's the General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), sentenced in 2002 to 30 years imprisonment for supporting Palestinian liberation heroically.

 

On October 4, an International Campaign for the Release of Kidnapped Palestinian Legislators press release said he's spent over "500 days in solitary confinement under the most inhumane conditions....to break (his) will and steadfastness."

 

Brutal torture, abuse and humiliation are longstanding Israeli longstanding practices, including against children. In mid-October, Sa'adat will challenge his isolation in court, as well as his overall inhumane treatment, denying his basic rights, including:

 

-- virtually no family and legal visits;

 

-- isolation from other prisoners;

 

-- only 30 minute daily prison yard access, in painful handcuffs and ankle shackles; 

 

-- little reading material and no personal books;

 

-- brutal interrogations, including physical and psychological torture;

 

-- no canteen purchases; and

 

-- like other political prisoners, no proper food, medical care, proper ventilation and sanitation, adequate clothing, or virtually all other basic necessities for health and well-being, in violation of fundamental international laws, including Geneva's Common Article 3 requiring:

 

"humane treatment for all persons in enemy hands, specifically prohibit(ing) murder, mutilation, torture, cruel, humiliating and degrading treatment (and) unfair trial(s).

 

Israel, like America, flouts the rule of law. As a result, Palestinians have been victimized for over six decades, denied any measure of justice and freedom. Makhoul and Sa'adat are two of thousands enduring Israeli savagery, its longstanding practice against Muslim Arabs.

 

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

 

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.a prominent Israeli political prisoner