EDITOR: Democracy? What is that?
The latest rush of racist and fascist legislation in Israel has started the few people of left or liberal bent thinking, though it is now too late for any real action, and the fact that most of the (Jewish) population agree fully with the right-wing drift, is making any action either impossible or ineffectual. Like in 1933 Germany, enough of the population are fascists and racists, and the rest, like in Germany, are either frightened or in denial. The result is that the right can now pass just about any legislation it wished to, so bye bye to any pretense of democracy, Jewish or other…
Does Israel still need democracy?: Haaretz
The individual has ceased to be at the core of Israel’s democracy, with the right-wing majority aggressively pursuing legislation that turns the country’s non-Jews into second-class citizens. Anyone who allows this to happen will be complicit in the country’s fate.
By Zeev Sternhell
What makes the Israeli right unique is not its ideology, bully tactics or the diverse forms of terror it employs against its opponents. What sets it apart is the fact that it is Jewish. It is chilling to comprehend that a people that in the not-too-distant past was the most significant victim of tribal ritual that ran wild in Europe and led to right-wing extremism, is the very same people that in our era is creating a power-driven national movement, negating human rights, and rejecting universal rights, liberalism and democracy.
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As has occurred elsewhere, the right acts through two arms: the violent arm − that of the settlements, which enjoy territorial autonomy, is equipped with arms, and imposes its terror on the army and police − and the respectable arm, which carries out the work in the Knesset. The crude violence that runs wild on a daily basis in the territories, but has already trickled down to the Israeli street, is in many respects less dangerous than the quiet and consistent parliamentary work, which is gradually undermining the values of democracy.
In this context, it ought to be recalled that striving against the intellectual and ethical principles of the liberal and democratic order began in Europe about 40 or 50 years prior to the official passage of German, Italian and French race laws. Several decades passed between the daily attacks on “traitors” who fought for the attainment of principles such as equality and human rights − including those of Jewish army officer Alfred Dreyfus − and the passage of legislation that abolished the civil rights of anyone who was not counted among the dominant nationality or an adherent of the Christian faith. Once the Jews’ civil rights were rescinded, the Jews were abandoned and there was no longer anything to prevent their deportation.
Process of elimination
Making non-Jews into second-class citizens is the objective aspired to by the right-wing majority in Israel. Acting on behalf of this movement are the ministers of justice and foreign affairs, who have the backing of the entire parliamentary elite of the right, except for the Speaker of the Knesset, Reuven Rivlin. Even when the activity is conducted within the framework of the law, it is stridently opposed to the foundations and spirit of democracy, and to the intellectual values of liberalism.
Yaakov Neeman is bringing disgrace to the office of the Justice Ministry. Through his manipulative and heavy-handed actions, Neeman is showing us that it is permissible to distort and violate all of the rules of the game that were set over the decades and that served an unblemished Israeli democracy well. Members of the right would be wise to consider the old-school Revisionists. Upon joining the government, Menachem Begin and leaders of the Herut movement (the right-wing precursor to Likud) took meticulous care of the liberal and democratic values of the government administration in Israel. Human rights, division of authorities, freedom of expression, independence of the media, and independent status of the Supreme Court as a watchdog of civil freedoms were all, in their eyes, the inalienable assets of Zionism and of the young state. With the change in government when Likud assumed power in 1977, for the first time since independence Israel became a Western democracy that proved itself. These achievements are now in a gradual process of elimination.
Nevertheless, the core of democracy’s existence is the assurance of human rights and individual freedoms. Majority rule is the means to that end, not a goal in itself. Majority rule came into the world as an alternative to rule of the individual or of the few, in order to prevent arbitrariness and to guarantee equality for all. Therefore, majority rule is limited by the purpose for which it was created: Rule of the majority loses its legitimacy the moment it harms human rights and denies universal norms of equality. Through majority rule, democracy can also terminate itself.
Against the background of legislation that has been, or is destined to be, passed by the Knesset, one should bear in mind that if Israel wishes to remain democratic, it can define itself as the nation-state of the Jewish people in only two senses: It is a state in which the Jews constitute a majority, and it is a state that was founded and that exists not only for those who live in it but also so as to assure a safe haven for Jews liable to need it sometime in the future. Conversely, if the state expresses an ethical partiality for Jews that would necessarily evolve into political, if not social and financial, partiality, then it has ceased to be a democratic state.
Another consensus
In order to understand the seriousness of the war now being waged in the Knesset, including attempts to eliminate the Supreme Court as a body that restrains the majority, we must ask the elementary question: Who needs democracy, and why is liberal democracy considered a desired form of regime? Really, why not replace it with the method known as “guided democracy,” without any division of authorities, without a supreme court to conduct judicial oversight of decisions by parliament and government, without an investigative and critical press? Why not opt for a regime that imparts governmental authorities to the executive branch without disruption by other elected institutions or by the courts?
Really, who needs a regime of checks and balances? Why not decide that in a state in which two or more nationalities are living, the dominant nationality will have control and to that end it will be determined that the national community has ethical priority over the civil community? And why stick to the consensus that we inherited from progressive Europeans of the late 18th century, due to which Jews and blacks became citizens with equal rights in the days of the French Revolution? Why not create another consensus?
The truth is there is nothing holy about democracy. The democracy that places the free and sovereign individual at the center of the world is based on nothing more than consensus. In other words, our rights and freedoms as autonomous creatures are anchored in a fiction that says that at any time and at any place, by virtue of his essence, the individual is a rational creature, and therefore also a free creature who is equal to all other human beings.
As such, he can and should manage his own life. All of the free regimes of the West are built upon this simple infrastructure. They guarantee equality to all their citizens and do not distinguish between members of various nationalities, races or religions. All are viewed as citizens possessing equal rights.
This perspective is being challenged by both the secular and religious wings of the Israeli right. The right is revolted by the principles of liberal democracy and detests the rules of the game. The function of the constitutional revolution of the right is to secure absolute supremacy for ethnic and religious identity over political and legal identity. In this outlook, it is the tribe that is the objective of every social and political action, not the individual.
Therefore, the state is not conceived as a device to ensure the well-being of all its citizens, but as a framework that facilitates the enforcement of supremacy of the Jews over those who are not Jews. One should not misunderstand the intentions of the right. The seriousness of the current antidemocratic legislation derives from the fact that it is anchored in an inclusive outlook, that it serves a clear objective, and is nothing but the first stage in the major war to change the character of the state and society in Israel.
There were also a host of defects and flaws in the Ben-Gurionesque concept of democracy, but they stemmed from his adherence to the idea of precedence of the state, as opposed to the tribal ritual. David Ben-Gurion was far from being a liberal and more than once sought to expand the authorities of the state as much as possible. He viewed the state as taking precedence over both the individual and civil society. But he did not think it was permissible to mortgage the Supreme Court to the will of the parliamentary majority, or to carry out ugly manipulation of the makeup of the Judicial Selection Committee. The first prime minister established and maintained the military administration of Israel’s Arab citizens for reasons of administrative ease, but he knew that it was a time-limited transition period, and therefore he did not legislate Basic Laws that would ensure Jewish supremacy.
The founding father was thrilled by the revival of statehood; he realized that establishment of the state constituted a colossal revolution in the lives of the Jewish people. For the first time in their history, Jews became citizens in their own state. He knew there was great significance to the normalization of Jewish existence. Citizenship required equality between all those who lived within the boundaries of the new state. He would have preferred that there would be no Arabs in Israel, but as they were here it was forbidden to legislate discriminatory laws, as these would constitute a lethal blow to Israel’s existence as a modern state. The Law of Return was meant to protect Jews around the world, and was not an excuse for establishing a permanent legislative norm that would have resulted in two classes of citizens.
As opposed to both the Ben-Gurion legacy and that of the Revisionist right, which was also zealous to uphold the authority of the state and the rule of law, the revolutionary right of present times views the institutions of state − starting with the government, Knesset, Supreme Court, army and police − as tools for ensuring Jewish tribal supremacy. This is the perspective that guides lawmaking in the Knesset, it is what obligates the army and police to cooperate with the bullies on the hilltops in the territories, and it is what now calls for a dramatic shift in the makeup of the Supreme Court.
In contemporary European terms, the Israeli right in general − with the exception of Revisionist remnants like Moshe Arens and Reuven Rivlin − is an even more extreme right than that darling of Israel’s Foreign Ministry, Marine Le Pen, the leader of France’s National Front. Compared to Avigdor Lieberman, Neeman, Yariv Levin and David Rotem, the European right of Nicolas Sarkozy, Angela Merkel and David Cameron is a bunch of dangerous leftists.
Without perspective
At this point, it seems proper that Israelis take stock of their situation. What would we say if the legislation now making its way through the Knesset were to be passed in one of the European countries? What would we be saying if documents were publicized there − akin to the statements and rulings of Israeli rabbis − demanding that apartments not be rented to non-Christians, or forbidding girls from dating non-Christians, even though the reference is to other citizens of that country? Without a doubt, a loud outcry would arise here: The monster is again raising its head. So it would be worthwhile to consider the fact that the monster is already walking, head held high, through the hallways of the Knesset, and proudly displaying its accomplishments.
The Dichter Law (officially known as Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People) substantially modifies Israel’s character as a state trying to maintain the delicate and difficult balance between universal norms of equality and particular norms of Jewish nationhood. The proposed law essentially states that citizenship is artificial, that it is merely a convention that can at any time be abolished or supplanted by another consensus.
Therefore, the status of the citizen is inferior, by virtue of its inferior standing vis-a-vis the status of a member of the national tribe. Any person can receive any passport, but he cannot choose for himself the tribe to which he will belong, in the same way that he cannot choose for himself the color of his eyes. In order to be Israeli in the full sense of the word, citizenship is insufficient: Nationalism trumps citizenship, in the same way as it was in Europe, not only in Germany but also in Vichy France, in Italy (following the passage of the Manifesto of Race in 1938) and in numerous other countries. The race laws constituted a direct and logical outcome of the differentiation between national identity and citizenship.
Most Israelis would not consciously want to go that far, but they would allow things to evolve on their own. Most of them apparently endorse a policy anchored in a principle that posits that what distinguishes one person from another is more significant than what unites them. Supporters of the Dichter Law well know that emphasizing the differences creates a hierarchy, and a hierarchy creates fear and hostility.
To be sure, these are the objectives of the legislation that will be coming up for vote in the weeks to come: A protective wall must be erected around the Jewish people, relations with the neighbors should be exacerbated, and close association with aliens should be prevented. The Arabs in Israel must come to terms with their subordinate status, just as the Arabs in the territories must recognize the Jewish people’s sole ownership of the Land of Israel.
These are symptoms of a disease that is increasingly spreading through Israeli society. The foundations of a historic and cultural determinism that could easily evolve into an ethnic determinism are being laid once more in Israel, as if World War II never happened, as if none of the persecutions and catastrophes that struck the Jewish people ever occurred. In the past, ethnic nationalism led all too easily to various forms and stages of racism, and there is a real danger that events in Israel will develop no differently. Those who stand and watch from the sidelines must be aware that their responsibility for the approaching collapse will be no less than that of the instigators.
The writer is a professor of political science, an Israel Prize laureate and a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities.
Israeli journalists hold urgent meeting on defending freedom of press: Haaretz
Haaretz editor-in-chief and leading media personalities take part in emergency conference aimed at ‘stopping the sweeping attacks on the media’.
By Revital Blumenfeld
Top reporters, editors and representatives from the Israeli media convened on Sunday for an emergency conference aimed at defending freedom of the press in the country.
The conference, held at Tel Aviv’s cinematheque, was called in response to a recent downsizing in Israeli media outlets, the pending closure of Israel’s second commercial television channel, Channel 10, and a bill toughening Israeli libel laws.
Some of Israel’s leading journalists and media personalities spoke at the event, including Haaretz editor-in-chief Aluf Ben, and top journalists Yair Lapid and Ayala Hasson.
This is the first event of this kind, uniting Israeli media to counter what they view is an assault on free press. Conference organizers promise event will be “opening shot to a series of steps, planned for the upcoming weeks, aimed at stopping the sweeping attack on the media.”
The Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee last month approved an amendment to the current libel law that, if approved by Knesset, would result in a substantial hike to the maximum damages paid and would loosen the criteria for slander and libel. Criticis of the amendment believe this will hamper freedom of expression and the independent press.
In addition to amendments and legislation being tossed around Knesset, recent action taken against journalists seen as highly critical of the government has caused many to fear an organized silencing of dissenting voices.
Keren Neubach was dismissed from her position as anchorwoman of “Mabat Sheni” (Second Glance), Channel One’s news magazine show. Neubach who held the position for three years, is considered highly critical of the government and many view her dismissal as politically motivated.
“I am concerned with the connection between the assault on the press and that on the judicial system,” veteran investigative journalist Ilana Dayan told participants of the conference. “Someone is afraid of dogged press and a critical Supreme Court.”
Channel 2 News anchor Yair Lapid warned: “An incompetent government is silencing dissenting voices.”
Raviv Druker, of Channel 10, said. “Both the government and the rich are a threat to free press.”
NGO bill aims to create a democracy for Jews only: Haaretz
We must not dismiss the NGO Bill – it truly intends to create a democracy for Jews only; if it were passed, no Arab – whether resident of the territories or Israeli citizen – would have access to the law.
By Yitzhak Laor
The NGO culture is part of globalization: Money flows from financial centers to all kinds of corners, in a mixture of philanthropy and business, idealism and cynicism. The left is being destroyed by this culture, which dictates a rupture between the community in whose name it acts and its coterie of professional activists, whose funding comes from abroad.
The separation between the professional activists and the grass-roots kind and the need to show donors a “return” on their money have given rise to all kinds of fake activity – demonstrations whose participants are activists in or employees of “neighboring” nongovernmental organizations, or, alternatively, free-of-charge “mass” Internet petitions, which no one reads except the signatories (in place of the old-fashioned method – signing people on a petition to the newspaper that involved real communication and raising money from the signatories; in short, genuine political activity ).
The culture of “Europe will pay” has also intensified a kind of nihilism on the left. For instance, from time to time, the Zochrot organization used to put out a journal, Sedek, which was extremely extravagant in its use of color plates. Aside from its political material, it consisted mainly of colorful (and apolitical ) plastic art, thanks to “generous funding,” in the journal’s words, from a Danish organization for… eradicating hunger.
This is also the background to the rise of the executive director, who is chosen via a “human rights” tender. Today, it’s refusing to serve in the army; tomorrow, it’s torture; but it’s all part of the same status quo. That is equally true of the “campaign managers,” aka “media experts” – which means they have a lot of numbers in their cell phone’s memory.
But the epitome is the use of journalists in place of grass-roots activity in the streets. Success is measured by being “mentioned on television” – a reflection of the world of advertising.
Peace Now provides an excellent example of this transformation from a mass political movement into an NGO focused on monitoring: Instead of grass-roots activity, it monitors settlement expansion (though this is important ). This is one of the reasons for the right’s success. The government does as it pleases, while opposition from the left is becoming commercialized, because the left has too many NGOs (to obtain more and more donations ). It has a lot of generals and very few soldiers.
Why nevertheless is the government attending to these NGOs? Because the most important of them represent the Palestinian people in the cellars of the military dictatorship.
B’Tselem is the most noteworthy of these NGOs. It tries to represent the occupied population, which has been without representation during almost 45 years of occupation, against the jackboots. Other NGOs try to find breaches in the law, and, in addition to mobilizing public opinion, take them to the High Court of Justice (which has proven to be a broken reed as far as the territories are concerned ). This is the only representation the Palestinians have in Israeli politics, in which, ostensibly, all are represented, since it is democratic.
This is also the context in which one must view the so-called NGO Bill: It isn’t necessarily an attempt to suppress the left, but rather an attempt to eliminate representation for residents of the territories. And that is why bills to change the composition of the High Court have flowed in the wake of this legislation: Because the destroyers of the constitutional court aren’t concerned over its ethnic make-up, but over the manner in which, on rare occasions, it defends the Palestinians, thanks to B’Tselem, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, Yesh Din or the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel. It’s a kind of broken telephone amid the lawlessness that the Palestinians inhabit, in the absence of the rule of law.
Nor does the work of destruction stop there. In the current fight over various bills relating to the High Court, both sides have tended to forget the most important fact of all: Israel has no constitution that would impede the tyranny of the majority.
It has no constitution because the state continues to deny its Arab citizens equality before the law. They, unlike residents of the territories, can expect help from the High Court from time to time. Yet, ever since the 1995 Katzir ruling, which for the first time told this state without a constitution that communities for Jews only are unconstitutional – or in other words, that apartheid is illegal – the war on this ruling has gathered speed, first in academia, then in the cabinet and Knesset.
Therefore, we must not dismiss the NGO Bill, even if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reportedly come to his senses and opposed it. This bill truly intends to create a democracy for Jews only. If it were passed, no Arab – whether resident of the territories or Israeli citizen – would have access to the law.
And, therefore, we also shouldn’t make light of the drowning of Begin-style liberalism in the Likud. The goalposts of the right-wing torrent will continue to move. Its horizon also includes annexing the territories; it even has a vision of denying Arab citizens the right to vote in Israel. And at the entrance to this hell – if not beneath it – Meir Kahane and Avigdor Lieberman are waiting.
Lieberman: Demolition of illegal West Bank outposts will end Netanyahu cabinet: Haaretz
Foreign Minister tells Yisrael Beiteinu party that planned demolition of Givat Assaf, Migron or handover of Palestinian tax money would result coalition’s dissolution.
By Yossi Verter
The coalition of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will unravel if Israel goes ahead with either the planned demolition of two illegal West Bank outposts or the handover of Palestinian tax money to the Palestinian Authority, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said on Monday.
Earlier this month, the cabinet postponed the planned demolition of the illegal Givat Assaf outpost by half a year, with settlers pressing to halt the demolition of another outpost, Migron.
Speaking at the weekly meeting of his Yisrael Beiteinu faction, Lieberman said that he had made it clear to Netanyahu that “Migron is not an illegal outpost,” adding that it was a settlement established with then Defense Minister Moshe Arens and chief of GOC Central Command standing near the cornerstone.”
“How did it become all of a sudden illegal?” Liberman asked, dismissing the 2005 Talia Sasson report on illegal outposts over the latter’s later involvement in the left-wing Meretz party.
“That’s the reason we should tear down a whole settlement? [A settlement] in which 30 percent of the residents are security officials, and which has since brought forth children who went on to serve in the army?” the FM added.
Lieberman added that he held the same position regarding Givat Assaf, saying that the demolition of one or both of the outposts would be a cause to break up the cabinet. “Yisrael Beiteinu won’t be the only one to leave, several Likud members would find such a situation impossible.”
Another condition presented by the foreign minister is the transfer of Palestinian tax money collected by Israel to the PA, saying that such a move would be crossing a “red line.”
On Sunday, Netanyahu and his forum of eight senior ministers decided continue Israel’s freeze on the transfer of the Palestinian Authority’s tax money, due to the latest moves by Fatah and Hamas aimed at establishing a unity government.
Israel’s security establishment had been pushing for the handover, arguing that, faced with dwindling funds, the PA would not be able to pay its security officials, which could weaken Palestinian control of the West Bank.
However, speaking to fellow party members on Monday, Lieberman made it clear that recent unity talks made it impossible for Israel to transfer the tax funds.
“[The PA] is going to join a Hamas government, their pushing out [Palestinian] Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, who is a moderate and reasonable man. They’ve given a $5,000 grant to everyone of the terrorists freed in the Shalit deal, and they want to build an apartment for each one of them,” Lieberman said, adding: “Say each apartment costs a few thousands dollars, multiply that by a thousand.”
“Where is the money going to come from? From the money we give them. No way are we going to agree to the money’s transfer under these conditions,” he added.
MAD ISRAELIS: From the horse’s mouth!
Back by Popular demand!
EDITOR: You don’t have to be off your rocker to work at Bar Ilan University, but it helps…
Top professor: Bar-Ilan University ‘only Zionist’ institution in Israel: Haaretz
Efraim Inbar says Tel Aviv University, Hebrew University house many ‘Bolshevik post-Zionists,’ adding: An evil wind is emanating from these places.
By Chemi Shalev
“Bar-Ilan University is the only Zionist university left in Israel,” – this was the bald assertion made by Professor Efraim Inbar, Director of Bar-Ilan’s Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, at a gala dinner of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) held Tuesday night in New York.
Contacted by Ha’aretz, Inbar stood by his claim, saying that Tel Aviv University and the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, for example, were “not Zionist” in his opinion. “There are many Bolshevik post-Zionists at these universities, who pack their faculties with similar-minded lecturers. The Israeli universities are overflowing with post-Modernists who undermine not only Zionism but academic truth itself.”
Inbar said that although he knows that there are also Zionist lecturers at the various Social Studies faculties, they are outnumbered. “An evil wind is emanating from these places,” he said.
Inbar’s comments, made during a short introduction of one of ZOA’s principal donors, were received warmly by the 800-strong audience that came to the Grand Hyatt Hotel in midtown Manhattan to honor controversial conservative talk-show host Glenn Beck, who received the “Dr. Miriam & Sheldon Adelson Defender of Israel Award” as well as US Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), who received the ZOA’s “Dr. Irving & Cherna Moskowitz Award for Promoting Strong US-Israel Relations.” Adelson and Moskowitz are both renowned donors to right-wing and other causes.
In her rousing pro-Israeli speech, Ros-Lehtinen, chairperson of the influential House Foreign Relations Committee, attacked the Administration’s policies towards Israel and the “dangerous Palestinian scheme” of achieving independence at the UN, asking: “A Palestinian state? What is that, anyway?” Ros-Lehtinen introduced two women in the audience from the West Bank settlement of Kedumim, saying that such places “are not an impediment to peace – but a solution for Israel’s survival.”
Also on hand was Republican presidential contender Michele Bachmann, (R-MN) who thrilled the crowd with her pledge to move the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem “on the day that I am sworn into office” and her assertion that “Israel will never be up for grabs – not one inch, not one acre, not one square foot will ever be on the chopping block.” Bachmann said that “Israel needs a friend, but when it looks at the White House, it does not see one.”
Asserting that Iranian President Ahmadinejad was “striving for a second Holocaust” Bachman said that “once again millions of Jews are at the precipice of losing their lives today”. She called for the US Navy to impose a complete naval blockade on Iran, for the US to deploy comprehensive ballistic missile systems “on land, sea, air and in space” and for the Pentagon to prepare “war plans” in order to counter Iran’s nuclear threat.
Ahmadinejad, she said, “will seek to use nuclear weapons against the US as well – and the US will learn what it is to be Israel if it does not act quickly.” She said that the US Secretary of Defense, Secretary of State and CIA director must all support this “freedom policy” and that those in the bureaucracy who fail to do so – “especially in the State Department” – should be replaced.
Beck, for his part, delivered an apocalyptic address which lasted for more than an hour which interwove the Holocaust with current affairs. He said that the situation is worse today than when Hitler was threatening to annihilate the Jews, because today the world is “aiding and abetting” the ranting of madmen who are out to destroy Israel and the Jewish people.
Beck said that “there is an 18 month window” left in which to save the world – “and I believe I know how to do it”. He pledged to announce on December 8 where he is headed – “there is a vacuum and I intend to stand in its place”, he said – but gave no details what he was referring to.
Beck, who was lauded by Prime Minister Netanyahu in a video address as a “courageous defender of Israel” launched repeated and harsh attacks against liberals and the left, comparing “Occupy Wall Street” activists to Nazi SA Brownshirts in Germany band saying that “many times you cannot tell the difference any more between peace activists and the terrorists and fascists they claim to stand against.”
Also delivering a lengthy address was ZOA National President Morton Klein, described by Adelson as “the greatest Zionist in the world.” In a blistering attack on the Palestinians and on US policy, Klein listed unjust accusations hurled against Jews since the time of the Crucifixion, drawing parallels to the current situation of Israel and the Jews and summing up with a sentence that seemed to encapsulate the attitude of most of the evening’s participants: “The whole world the wrong, and the Jews are right.