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Posts Tagged ‘israeli-democracy’

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Israeli Police Silence Peace Radio Station

Saturday, November 19th, 2011
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All for Peace Radio's comment on its silencing by the Israeli police

Israeli police have just succeeding in murdering peace (Hebrew)–or at least the voice of peace that Israelis and Palestinians can hear on the radio.   Police summoned the Radio Kol HaShalom (“All for Peace” Radio, which is a play on Kol HaShalom, Abie Natan’s radio station which was called “Voice of Peace”) station director to a three-hour interrogation under warning (anything he said could be used to build a criminal case against him), during which they demanded that he sign a statement agreeing to cease broadcasts to Israel (not I presume to Palestinians, though it would be hard to beam a signal that reached one but not the other).  They also demanded that he call the station and direct the radio engineer to take the station off the air.  If he refused, he was told that police would raid the station and do it themselves.  Presumably, they’d confiscate the radio equipment which had taken months and months to arrive from abroad due to delays imposed by, you guessed it, the Israeli police, who didn’t want the station to go on air to begin with.

The blog post I linked to notes that staff of the station met a number of times during the seven years it was on air with officials of the ministry of communication, including the minister Eli Attias.  Not once did any civilian official complain about the station or threaten to take it off the air.  Now, all of a sudden, the ministry has decided that the “law” must be upheld.  It should be noted that the station has sought a license from Israel for years to broadcast and the government has never approved one.  This conveniently has allowed the authorities to do precisely what they did.  This is freedom of expression and a free press, Israel-style.

The station has been off-air since November 17th.  It had broadcast a mix of talk shows, interviews, and pop music.  I’ve listened to and been interviewed by the station and it wasn’t incendiary or politically radical at all.   It had a feel-good self-help orientation and attempted to promote fairly innocuous values of brotherhood and tolerance without engaging in political advocacy.  It did, however, explicitly endorse a two-state solution.  Apparently, that isn’t a political program endorsed by the Israeli police.

The station also endorsed freedom of speech and democratic values for both societies.  Apparently free speech and democracy are also threatening to the government censors otherwise known as the police.

Among the issues the station addressed was women’s rights and sexual violence, a criticism the pro-Israel crowd loves to point up as a “deficiency” of “Arab culture.”  The police never stopped to think that All for Peace might actually encourage Palestinians to believe that Israelis want peace.  Or perhaps that’s what threatened them because the police don’t believe in peace, but rather prefer constant tension and conflict.  After all, this would mean a career of full employment and high budgets for them.

In Palestine, All for Peace broadcasts legally and the PA has never had a problem with its programming.  One can presume though that if an East Jerusalem kindergarten can be shuttered by the police because its founders are alleged terrorists, that pop music that could be heard by both Israelis and Palestinians would be considered equally subversive.

The Israeli blog reporting this story closed with this passage:

It seems that during these days in which the Israeli Knesset is beset by a wave of anti-democratic legislation, the authorities saw fit to stop the broadcast of the sole station which enabled, in an open studio, deliberations on behalf of democracy.

All for Peace Radio was a small media fry in the Israeli pond.  It was no Channel 10 or Haaretz.  But it was the canary in the coal mine.  As went All for Peace so will go Channel 10.  Bibi Netanyahu prefers to control the media to the extent he can.  That is why all he may need to do is silence these media outlets for the others to get the message if they cross they line they’ll be punished as well.

The station will continue to fight for its right to broadcast and appeal the decision.  The next time you hear Abe Foxman and Alan Dershowitz crowing about Israeli democracy, remember posts like this.  On a related matter, I’m also tickled by Gershon Gorenberg’s new book which also touts Israeli democracy, according to this Amazon blurb:

Refuting…strident attacks [against Israel], Gorenberg shows that the Jewish state is, in fact, unique among countries born in the postcolonial era: It began as a parliamentary democracy and has remained one. An activist judiciary has established civil rights. Despite discrimination against its Arab minority, Israel has given a political voice to everyone within its borders.

To be fair, something Gorenberg wasn’t to me when he lied in calling me an anti-Zionist, Gorenberg does criticize Israel and its democracy.  But clearly he’s a liberal throwing a sop to all those classical Zionists who can’t bear the thought that they’ve lost the cherished Zionist dream of an exclusivist Jewish state.  He allows liberal Zionists to clear their conscience by conceding there are things wrong with Israel, while desperately clinging to the concept that Israel, as expressed in contemporary terms, remains fundamentally sound.

For those in the hasbara crowd who go through this blog with a fine tooth, these comments are not meant to be construed as a denunciation of Israel as a nation, but rather a criticism of the current undemocratic ways in which it is governed.  Contrary to Gorenberg (at least as represented in this blurb), Israel does not give a political voice to “everyone” within its borders.  It gives full voice to Jewish citizens and a muffled voice at best to Palestinian citizens.  That is why Gorenberg, Ethan Bronner, and the liberal Zionists do such a disservice to Israeli political reality and their readers beyond its borders.

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Netanyahu Gags Shabak Director, Subverts Knesset Oversight Regarding Eilat Attack

Sunday, September 4th, 2011
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Yoram Cohen, Shabak chief, usually gags others; this time he is gagged

For those of you who harbor quaint notions about Israeli democracy, tonight’s post should further disabuse you of your illusions.  In most western democracies, the legislative branch of government exercises some oversight of military and intelligence functions.  In the U.S., this includes House and Senate committees charged with reviewing, approving and funding the U.S. military and various intelligence agencies, both overseas and domestic.  Though there is always a tenseness in this relationship and the executive branch at times resists such oversight, the legislative bodies have ultimate authority and can use their subpoena power if their rights to oversee their charges are rejected.

Not so in Israel, where civilian bodies, including both the Knesset and even the prime minister, often exercise nominal control of these government functions.  I’ve reported in the recent past, that Defense Minister Ehud Barak refused to allow chief of staff Benny Gantz to testify to a Knesset committee about Israel’s covert programs to contain Iran.  Now, none other than the prime minister himself has directed the Shabak chief to refuse to appear before the same committee to address questions about the Eilat terror attack.  Yoram Cohen, Shabak director, sent an underling in his place who also refused to discuss the terror attack when asked point-blank by the committee, which is chaired by former chief of staff Shaul Mofaz.

Haaretz has only reported the latter fact, that a Shabak officer refused to answer questions about Eilat.  In truth, my own well-placed source confirms that Netanyahu refused to allow Cohen to even appear before Mofaz’ committee.  Perhaps one should even question the Israeli media itself as to why it hasn’t reported that Netanyahu actually refused to allow Israel’s most senior intelligence officer to testify before the Knesset.  Is my source the only one who knows this happened?  Or do other reporters know the truth and can’t or won’t report it?  Frankly, I don’t know the answer.  I only know that Haaretz and other outlets reporting the story are only reporting half of it, which in turn does a disservice to the Israeli public and Israeli democracy (or what’s left of it).

Ynet indirectly affirms the report of my source by quoting Avi Dichter, himself a former Shabak chief and now Knesset MK, as saying that when he was its director he appeared before the Knesset committee Mofaz chairs.  Maariv quotes Dichter using extremely harsh language, labelling the decision a “gag order” placed upon the Shabak director and chief of IDF intelligence.

Clearly, this is an attempt, so far quite successful, by the prime minister to deny a legitimate legislative body oversight of the IDF and intelligence bodies and to review failures when they occur.  If such a thing happened in America, there would be immediate subpoenas filed to compel Cohen to testify and the matter would end up in court.  Eventually, even if the president dug his heels in hard (which rarely happens, these things are usually ironed out), the court would likely find the executive would have to bend to Congress’ will–at least in terms of appearing and answering questions, if not changing policy.

What is truly poisonous about this is that it leaves the executive to police itself and learn from its own mistakes without the benefit of the people’s elected representatives being able to intercede and learn what happened in events like Eilat and how to avoid them in future.  A society whose legislators are bound and gagged when it comes to exercising this function is a society in which the blind lead the blind.  And it’s no surprise that such a nation will repeat its mistakes over and over because no one can come forward from the legislature and say: No, that didn’t work, you’re not going to try that again.  You’re going to try something else.

I’ve posted here that the Israeli approach to the Eilat attack was a fashlah of massive proportions.  When things like this happen you need legislative oversight to uncover what went wrong and prevent it from happening again.  Such activity by the Knesset would reassure the people that someone, somewhere is concerned about the welfare of the nation.  When the prime minister prevents this, it will only erode confidence that the military and intelligence circles can learn from their mistakes.

Can you imagine the aftermath of 9/11 and Pres. Bush refusing to coöperate with the 9/11 Commission?  This is something like what Bibi has done in this case.  He’s thumbed his nose at Mofaz and told him: I don’t owe you nuthin’.  Losing sight, of course, of the fact that in a true democracy the leader does in fact owe a great deal to the legislature.  In a real democracy, the legislature could turn around and reject the next appropriation bill for the agency refusing to coöperate.  The only problem is that in Israel this type of independent behavior is unheard of.  No Knesset member would dream of rejecting an IDF or intelligence appropriation.  In fact, these budgets are so hush-hush that there are hardly any members who know what’s in them.  They ratify them in a pro forma manner with hardly any discussion or debate.

Of course, there are calls for cutting the defense budget heard when belts need to be tightened.  But invariably, all it takes is one terror attack for those voices to be quashed, but good.

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J14 Tent Protest Movement Israel’s Wave of Future?

Saturday, August 6th, 2011
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NOTE: Thanks to readers who’ve expressed concern about not hearing from me for the past week.  No fear.  My family went away for a week to the Oregon high desert where we enjoyed a rafting trip, hiking, and swimming near Bend.  I found it too difficult to both enjoy a vacation and give the undivided attention that is necessary in writing blog posts.  Not to mention that it’s frustrating trying to use an iPad to do all the technical things you must do when you blog.  The world seems to have muddled along while I was away.  But there are important issues to talk about and so I return to the fray.

*  *

For decades I have thought (along with a number of other observers of Israeli society) that the impact of the existential threat faced by Israel in its battle with its neighbors has created an artificial sense of unity within the country.  The result is that citizens who might ordinarily have little in common politically, band together out of a sense of national solidarity.  This distracts the populace from the profound inequities and flaws that lie at the heart of the country’s identity.  As long as there is a perceived security threat, most Israelis are content to ignore the nation’s flawed democratic system, the oppression faced by Israeli Palestinians, the huge income gaps between the wealthiest and poorest, and the ethnic tension between Mizrahi and Ashkenazi Jews.

I’ve always believed (and indeed feared) that Israel could never resolve the social, economic and political problems with which it is riven until it could make peace.  It’s one of the reasons I’ve always supported the peace movement.  It’s also one of the reasons I’ve always despaired that the most basic of Israel’s problems might ever be addressed because the chance of making peace has always seemed impossibly remote.

j14 tent protest movement

Israel's J14 tent protest movement which began on Tel Aviv's chic Rothschild Blvd. (Uriel Sinai/Getty)

That’s why the J14 tent protest movement that began last month in Tel Aviv and spread to all of Israel’s major cities and towns has given me renewed hope.  Not that I believe all the issues of social justice it reflects (decline in standard of living, education and health, high housing costs, poverty, etc.) will necessarily be resolved by this protest; but rather that Israel’s young people who started this movement influenced by the Egyptian youth of Tahrir Square, understand too that their country needs justice internally for its citizens as much as it needs peace externally with its neighbors.

It has “only” taken the foreign media a month to begin to sense to importance of the J14 phenomenon.  Dimi Reider and Aziz Abu Sarah achieved a breakthrough, publishing an op-ed in the NY Times a few days ago, which was the first murmur from the Gray Lady on the issue.  This too stirred the Great Leviathan, Ethan Bronner from his slumbers, impelling him to write a story about the movement in today’s paper.  As usual, his report veers every which way and never provides a coherent narrative framework within which to understand the social movement.  But at least he’s made a foray, no matter how flawed it may be.

All of this, reinforces how critical it is that Israel proceed on a path that addresses both a domestic social agenda and one that achieves long-term peace and security.  As long as there is a threat from the outside, there can never be peace inside.  Once there is peace, there must be a profound examination of the meaning of the State: what is its purpose?  Who does it serve?  How does it operate?  If we think that the violence Israel faces in its battles with its enemies is great, this may be dwarfed by the monumental struggle that is bound to take place inside Israel over the shape of the future state after peace.

I hope against hope that this great struggle to re-define Israel will result in a democratic state which embraces all its citizens equally regardless of ethnicity, religion or class.  This is more or less what happened in the U.S. during the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s.  It moved a country that was mired in Jim Crow, segregation, poverty and injustice and transformed it into one that began to transcend the barriers of race.  It was Martin Luther King who helped make American a more democratic and more just society.

Unfortunately, in Israel similar leaders face even greater forces of reaction and repression.  Azmi Bishara, one of the most formidable leaders of the Israeli-Palestinian community was hounded out of the country by the Shabak on trumped-up charges which were never proven.  Whenever a leader arises who might take on a mantle close to the one worn by MLK, the security forces find ways to sabotage him or her.  In a way, this is what the FBI tried to do against King and Malcolm X.  But the Shabak seems far better at the job perhaps because it faces fewer obstacles in the form of democratic guarantees and civil rights.

One senses that Israel’s leaders like Bibi Netanyahu understand the danger they face in retaining power, which is why they would rather fight wars with Arabs than address the domestic ills which lurk just beneath the surface and threaten something like a civil war when they finally are addressed.

Conversely, the leadership of the tent protests senses perhaps unconsciously how fraught the national security issue is and so far has been content to allow it to sit on the periphery of consciousness.  The injustice of Occupation, the enormous economic burden it places on the Israeli economy, settlements, ultra-Orthodox entitlements, all these issues are present but not central to this social justice movement.  For this reason, J14 leaves some Israeli progressives a bit discomfited.  They realize that a movement that addresses only one of these issues and ignores the other, is doing a grave disservice to political reality.  But many of these same progressives also realize that a movement that blazes away at both issues simultaneously might sentence itself to political oblivion.  It’s a very fine line you walk in Israeli politics.

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Israeli Ministers, IDF Commander to Honor Racist Rabbi

Monday, July 4th, 2011
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Rabbi Dov Lior, 'Beloved of the Settlements,' honored by ministers Eli Yishai, Bogie Yaalon and IDF commander (Flash90)

Just yesterday I wrote a post in which I called the police interrogation of Rabbi Dov Lior for incitement a “charade,” since the authorities cannot nor will not do anything meaningful to address the savagery and violence of his views against Palestinians and Israeli democracy.  He supports the murder of Palestinian children and yesterday Yisrael HaYom quoted him as calling Israeli democracy, the “idol worship of our time.”  The article quoted a supporter attacking the “Bolshevik government” which “kidnapped” the holy rabbi for questioning.

Now comes news (h/t to Dena Shunra) that the Hebron settler council will honor Lior (Hebrew) with the “Beloved of the Settlements” award.  That’s certainly nothing unusual.  But who will be guests of honor at this glorious simcha?  None other than deputy prime minister and former chief of staff Bogie Yaalon, Interior minister and Shas party leader Eli Yishai, and the current IDF commander for the West Bank.  Not only will they appear, but they will speak in the rabbi’s honor.

This is either a country in the midst of a schizoid identity crisis or else it’s a country that’s only fooling itself when it says it embraces liberal western values of democracy and human rights.  These are mere words.  By their actions, the power loci of the Israeli elites show what they really “cherish” and value.

Though Bibi may use his most grave voice when proclaiming that “no Israeli is above the law” in claiming to support such police questioning, who does Israel think it’s fooling?  This moral munchkin and spiritual mentor of the Jewish terror underground, is an exemplar of not just the Israeli rabbinate or the settler movement, but he figuratively dances at the weddings of the Israeli élite.  He is their darling.

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Rabbi Dov Lior: ‘Democracy, Idol Worship of Our Time’

Saturday, July 2nd, 2011
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1,000 well-wishers greeted Rabbi Dov Lior on his release from police custody

For those of you not privy to the vicissitudes of daily Israeli politics, you may not have heard of the long-running charade involving Rabbi Dov Lior, one of Israel’s leading extremist settler rabbis.  Keep in mind that he, and hundreds more Jewish clerics with the same or similar views, are on the public payroll with salaries paid for by Israeli taxpayers most of whom are secular and revolted by their homicidal political-theological views.

Rabbi Lior wrote a forward endorsing the book, Torat Hamelech, which promotes the murder of Palestinian children on the theory that they’ll all grow up to kill Jews anyway.  He was then “asked” to show up for interrogation by the police on charges that he was promoting incitement.  Lior angrily refused.  This went on for months bouncing back and forth.  Only recently has he been forced to appear to answer for his views.

It should also be noted that Nahum Barnea, Israel’s most popular columnist, says Lior played an instrumental role in either directly abetting or inspiring other more flamboyant crimes like the Baruch Goldstein massacre and Rabin assassination.  Of course, he’s never been made to answer for any of that since the Israeli settler movement has the government by the cajones.

Today, Yisrael Ha-Yom quotes (Hebrew) Lior as equating himself to Father Abraham, saying “they investigated him too.” He may be referring to Abraham’s father who interrogated him after he destroyed the idols of his uncle.  The only difference is that Abraham didn’t advocate killing the children of idol-worshippers or anyone else for that matter.  So the self-flattering analogy falls a bit flat.

Among the choicest of his statements in the article is that Israeli democracy (i.e. the democracy that would force a righteous rabbi like him to undergo the effrontery of police interrogation) is the:

“Idol worship of our time.  Once there was Baal and Ashtera [Biblical pagan gods worshipped by Israelites and their neighbors], now there is democracy.  Instead of being a form of government, it’s become a value in itself.  This is fine for people who live a life of licentiousness, because they want no limit on themselves or their appetites.”

Yeah, when the [Torah] revolution comes, he’ll line up all the Jewish democracy advocates and shoot us.  On second thought, there’s no provision for shooting as punishment for a capital offense in Torah, so we’d be drawn and quartered or hung or stoned.

Lior also, in the article, calls for Israel to “send the terrorists around us back to their countries of origin.   Only then can we have peace here.”  So where would he propose sending indigenous Israeli Palestinian citizens?  Back to Africa, since if you go back far enough, that’s where we’re all from??

The article quotes a Yair Lior, likely a son or relative, as saying about the Rabbi’s arrest and detention:

Because the authorities kidnapped him, we have to make sure he has a proper security detail of at least two to accompany him against the Bolshevik [i.e. the police and prosecutor] government.

Do NOT make the mistake of believing these homicidal Jewish terrorists and their rabbinic enablers are marginal or aberrant.  They and their views are not only at the heart of the settler movement, they’re at the heart of the ruling Likud party and its governing coalition.  This is Israel, at least Israel at the present moment.  Though it pains me to say so.

Also keep in mind that Dov Lior is welcome in Britain anytime, while Sheikh Raed Salah, who’s never advocated killing anyone, is in a British prison appealing an order banning him from the country.  And Dov Lior is likely welcome in the U.S. as well where his supporters probably raise tons of tax-deductible dollars to support his holy works.  With Israel now added to the enhanced terror watch list, what’s the likelihood that we’ll ban someone like Lior from our shores?  I know, don’t hold your breath.

H/t to Rechavia Berman.

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Bibi Set to Name Amidror National Security Advisor

Friday, March 4th, 2011
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National security advisor candidate, Yaakov Amidror (Maya Levin/JINI

No sooner did the Bibi-Yvet show give us the public defenestration of Uzi Arad, whose appointment to be Israel’s next ambassador to Britain was confirmed and rejected all in leaked news stories within a single week, than Bibi has given us an even better show.  While Arad was the real thing, a genuine Mossad spy who’d run spies and been instrumental in the Rosen-Aipac spy episode, Amidror seems a parody of Dr. Strangelove; a Maj. Gen. who’s never had a field command, and who sees the troops as little more than ideological cannon fodder.

Peace Now’s Ori Nir calls him an “ultra-hawk” and “National-Religious icon.”  It’s hard to believe that anyone can be worse than Arad, but Amidror really and undoubtedly is:

Amidror…told a conference last year that soldiers should kill anyone who gets in the way of completing their mission – and that soldiers who refuse to attack should be shot, too.

“A soldier who won’t attack when they tell him ‘forward’ because he says, ‘Two soldiers to my right and two to my left have been killed, so I won’t move’ – any normal military system should put a bullet in his head, and a liberal system should put him in jail,” Amidror said, speaking at a conference organized by the Israel Democracy Institute on “National Values in the Israel Defense Forces.”

“The education we give soldiers is an education of risking or being willing to sacrifice one’s life … of knowing that some of the soldiers won’t return, but still, everyone goes. And anyone who doesn’t go should get a bullet in the head or be in jail.”

…When journalist Haim Yavin, a fellow panelist, noted the army’s orders during the first Lebanon war were to “fight carefully,” Amidror responded: “That’s a totally illegal order. What should be said is ‘kill more of the bastards on the other side, so that we’ll win.’ Period.”

He also criticized the IDF code of ethics drafted by Prof. Asa Kasher. “I said this should remain unwritten, so there wouldn’t be anything written, as [then] it would become technical,” Amidror said.

…Yesterday Amidror…told Haaretz that in some countries soldiers who won’t attack are executed…

This guy would’ve been right at home at the Wansee Conference.  You’ll recall that’s where the Nazis devised the Final Solution, while writing down almost none of their plans because they were wise enough to understand that if they did and anyone found out about it they’d be in mighty hot water.  To be clear, I’m not accusing Amidror of planning a genocide against anyone (expect perhaps Arabs or Palestinians if given half a chance).  But I’m noting an absolute similarity of thought and mindset.

As Bibi prepares for his ersatz peace offensive, let the world keep in mind that his incoming top security advisor said the following about the peace process:

Earlier this month, Amidror wrote that “negotiations with the Palestinians and even an agreement with the Palestinians (…) will not benefit Israel in any way…

Ori also notes the ultra-hawk’s “vicious attacks on the New Israel Fund.”  He has derided the Obama administration’s “naive” policies.  Politically, he was the public face of the far-right religious, Jewish Home party.  He’s not just a settler, but a supporter of the most radical and messianic among them.  He believes, in other words, that Israeli sovereignty over the entire greater Land of Israel will hasten the coming of the messiah.

Amidror espouses a stridently anti-Arab strategic doctrine which attributes annihilationist views to all Muslism and Arabs.  Further, his own views are completely out of touch with the developments of the Arab democratic revolutions sweeping the Middle East:

His approach to Israel’s national security attributes little value to political accords between Israel and its neighbors. In Amidror’s view, Israel’s chief national security asset in its relations with its neighbors is deterrence…Amidror wrote that…the Arab world “does not accept the very presence of a sovereign and independent Jewish state in the heart of the Middle East and will do its best to annihilate it.” Any other basic assumption, Amidror wrote, is “self deception.” Amidror repeated…that Israel’s goal should not be to change the minds and hearts of its Arab neighbors – such attempts would be in vain – but to deter them by force. “The processes taking place in the Middle East are leading it toward becoming more fundamentalist, less tolerant and less democratic.”

…[In his recent essay] The Chief Lesson – Security is Preferable to Peace…Amidror argues that because Israel lives “on the edge of a volcano,” it must always be ready for the worse. “The main lesson is that we must emphasize Israel’s security needs and its ability to defend itself over any other requirement, including the lofty dream to reach political agreements [with its neighbors].

This guy is a troglodyte.  A Curtis LeMay.  A Gen. Jack D. Ripper.  Is this what Israel and the Middle East needs right now?  An ideological flamethrower who wants to cast oil on the fire that is the Israeli-Arab conflict?

Clearly, it seems that Amidror’s appointment is meant to be red meat to those coalition partners farther to his right (yes, there are, I know it’s hard to believe).  Perhaps Bibi means for the arm-chair general to be little more than a figure-head with no influence over policy.  But the guy scares me and should scare anyone who has even a scintilla of faith that the conflict can and should be settled sometime by someone.

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The Israel Project on Arab Revolutions: ‘Good for the Jews?’

Monday, February 28th, 2011
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The Forward brings to us one of the most unintentionally funny articles of the week exploring how the Israel lobby is trying to get the Arab democratic revolutions to work for Israel, rather than against it.  Jennifer Lazlo-Mizrahi, one of Israel’s premier enablers in the nation’s capital, as usual espouses some wonderfully outrageous views:

“We need to look at the opportunity and the promise,” said Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi, founder and president of The Israel Project, which has been among the very few groups to engage in outreach to the Arab world. “We need to ask how can we make it good for the Jews.”

In the meantime, pro-Israel activists are getting used to a new language when communicating with the Arab world. It includes stressing the financial benefits of peace and the shared value of freedom. At the same time, it ignores the ongoing conflict with the Palestinians. Israel, in this new public diplomacy reality, is no longer referred to as the “only democracy” in the Middle East, but rather as the “most stable democracy” in the region, pro-Israel activists said.

You should never underestimate the Lobby’s tendency toward irrelevance when it comes to having anything real or probitive to say on any issue concerning Israel.  And they haven’t disappointed here either.  When facing the most momentous development in world history since 1989, all Mizrahi can ask is whether it’s good for the Jews.

And isn’t the new slogan “most stable autocracy” er, democracy in the Middle East a howler?  I am glad though they’re finally giving up the “only democracy” slogan since it’s been a lie since Turkey and Lebanon elected democratic governments.  Do you think if The Israel Project is finally giving up this hoary old piece of hasbara that commenters here will too?

One should ask though what a “stable” democracy means when said democracy presides over 40+ years of illegal Occupation of the lands of another people and refuses to compromise with this people in order to allow each to live in peace with the other.  Is this what stable democracies do?

UPDATE/CORRECTION: Laszlo Mizrahi apparently discovered another website which republished this post and she published the following comment there.  I’m sorry to find that she’s deeply hurt by the mean, mean things I said about her and TIP above.  This grieves my heart so.  I really, definitely plan on begging her forgiveness sometime very soon.

Here’s her comment:

Your work is so careless that you can’t even seem to spell my name correctly or figure out who I am married to (hint — NOT an Israel OR a diplomat). Time and again you belittle our peace work. Mean, mean, stuff — that is devoid of facts. Well, feel free to poke at us again and again. It will not sway us from working day and night for peace and a better future for BOTH sides! Don’t believe me? Go to theisraelproject.org/peace.

And btw — when was the last time YOU were in Ramallah or any other part of the West Bank? I go and I care.

Let’s correct a misimpression first.  I spelled her name correctly in the above post, but the blogger who republished it introduced the error in spelling her name.  Not my fault.

I did write in an earlier version of this post that Laszlo Mizrahi is married to Israel’s deputy chief of mission in the Washington DC embassy.  Actually, Laura Kam, TIP’s “senior advisor for European Affairs” is married to Jeremy Issacharoff, the paid-hasbarist–er, diplomat in question.

I would really, really like to know the last time Laszlo Mizrahi was in Ramallah and I’d really, really, really like to know when she plans to get to Gaza.  That should be quite a event.  They’ll roll out the red carpet for her I’m sure.  And since she’s SO dedicated to peace “for BOTH sides!” I’m sure she plans on visiting soon.

As for me, I don’t have big, fat moneybags bankrolling my propaganda efforts as she does, so it’s a bit hard for me to get out and about and halfway around the world.  But I’ll make her a deal, if she springs for it I’ll arrange a wonderful visit to Gaza where we can both go and study peace efforts and a “better future for BOTH sides!”  I’ll even throw in a visit to Bilin for a Friday demonstration for good measure!

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Israel and the Misrule of Law

Tuesday, December 14th, 2010
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azmi bishara

Punitive 'Bishara law' criminalizing living-while-Arab

As far as its minority Palestinian citizens are concerned, there is no rule of law in Israeli society.  That’s why I use the term “misrule” in my post title.  There is no democracy for them.  As Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Kotsk used to say in a different context: “there is no justice and there is no law.”

Two shocking developments transpired today in the Knesset.  A new bill passed its first reading, named for that despicable traitor (though neither charged nor convicted) Azmi Bishara which would strip a member of all pension, salary and other financial benefits if suspected or convicted of supporting terrorism.  Let me single out the salient phrase: if suspected of supporting terror.  How the hell do you strip an elected Knesset member of a benefit provided to them by Israeli law based on a suspicion?  If this isn’t one of the more outrageous travesties to be discussed in that Hall of Jackals called the Knesset, I don’t know what is.

And the hate of Jewish members isn’t reserved for Bishara, who is erroneously described in this Ynet article as having “escaped” from Israel (he left with full knowledge of the Shabak).  A Likud member cast derision on a sitting member, Haneen Zoabi and warned her ominously that she would be next:

MK Miri Regev (Likud) answered Zoabi in the same manner she used after the Gaza flotilla: “Go to Gaza you traitor”

…”Bishara is travelling on the axis of evil between Iran, Syria and Hezbollah, he gives them instructions on how to attack us with missiles – and we need to pay him money. There is no country in the world that pays traitors a salary. Our work will not be done until the traitor who took part in the Gaza flotilla isn’t here.”

Far be it from a Knesset member to express thoughts that have any basis in reality.  At the time, there were vague claims in the Israeli media attributed to unnamed Shabak sources that Bishara had aided Hezbollah during the Lebanon war.  One of the really clever inanities they suggest is that Bishara actually scouted out targets and coordinates for Hezbollah gunners.  But there was never so much as an indictment brought against Bishara, let alone a conviction.  He is uncharged and yet this idiot gets to scream utter rubbish from the most august hall in the nation.  Of course, she can get away with this nonsense because she has parliamentary immunity, the very protection she wishes to strip from Bishara and Zoabi, and frankly all Palestinian legislators.

The bill’s sponsor even had the temerity to utter this outright lie in characterizing it:

Sanctions must be taken against every person, without religious racial and sexual or national discrimination who is suspected of breaking the law – and who does not present himself to law enforcement authorities.

What nonsense.  Every Israeli knows for whom this law is intended.  Indeed, Bishara’s name “graces” it.  And we all know who and what he is: Arab.

Though I often find myself disagreeing with Meretz, its leader made a statement that contained what was missing in the entire Knesset debate, common sense:

Meretz party chairman Chaim Oron stood out for saying: “A rapist, a murderer of children and thieves don’t get their pensions taken away. Of all the injustices in the world, the harshest must be the one carried out by Azmi Bishara?

Note, the reporter’s comment that Oron “stood out” for having an ounce of common sense and decency.  The Knesset, I’m afraid to say, has become a house of ill-repute, filled with hatred and racism.  A place in which a majority bays for blood.  Yes, I know a few readers will point out that this is just a first reading and the bill faces many obstacles before final passage.  All I can is thank God for that.  But why does it even have to come to this?

Sorry to say, I’m not done yet.  Anyone here remember taking those Civics or American History classes in high school in which you learned the basics of the constitution?  One of the fundamental rights was the right to an attorney, right?  Not in Israel.  If you’re a security suspect (that is, not even indicted, just jailed under suspicion), Shabak can routinely deprive you of the right to consult your attorney.  Sure, the prohibition has a time limit.  But it is routinely extended, unless lawyers make a big stink as they did in Ameer Makhoul‘s case, which led to him having the unusual privilege of actually meeting his attorney before his conviction.

Well, now there’s a new bill proposed by those wonderful inmates of the House of Misrule better known as the Knesset.  Not content with the Shabak’s ability to run roughshod over the few rights a Palestinian Israeli has, they want to prevent a suspect from being denied access to an attorney for A YEAR!  But it gets worse.  The Public [In]Security minister in this wacky government actually believes that allowing a suspect to meet with his attorney will aid and abet further crimes:

The bill, introduced by Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch, aims to keep lawyers from helping their clients “carry out offenses that endanger the security of the public or the state from within jail.”

In other words, the purpose of lawyers isn’t to fulfill the State’s obligation to protect the rights of the accused; rather, the purpose of lawyers is to promote criminality!  I swear, sometimes I feel as if I’m looking over the railing at the inmates of an insane asylum as they throw food, chairs, whatever at each other.  And I say this will great sorrow and no sense of glee whatsoever.  Israel is a country that is near to my heart.  But look what these imbeciles are doing to it.  To paraphrase Jeremiah: how does the nation sit alone that was once welcome among the nations?   A nation of such high hopes and dreams come crashing down amidst hate, fear and authoritarianism.

Remember that quaint concept: the rule of law?  You can kiss it goodbye.  Yoni, we hardly knew ye.

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