Yet Another Day In the Life of The Light Unto The Nations (A Continuing Series, Extended Indefinitely)

Five stories from Haaretz, January 24, 2012

*The Rule of Law.

An editorial reports that Israel's High Court of Justice has ordered the government to evacuate a West Bank settler "outpost"--actually, permanent homes--built on privately-owned Palestinian land.  Three years ago, this same outpost, Migron, rejected a deal offered by the Israeli government to move into a nearby (presumably "legal") Jewish settlement, at government expense: "Then, too, the squatters and their political supporters not only rejected the generous offer but threatened to settle accounts with the prime minister and 'set the territories ablaze.' This is the price paid by the State of Israel for supporting - through action as well as inaction - the takeover of Palestinian lands while at the same time undermining the two-state solution and reconciliation with our Palestinian neighbors."

The editorial continues:  "The story of Migron is not only a story of contempt for the law, the legal system and justice; it is also a slap in the face to the international community....In 2003 the government of Ariel Sharon (in which Netanyahu was a senior minister) adopted the road map peace plan, which required Israel to "immediately dismantle" all outposts established after March 2001 - including Migron." The editorial concludes that despite the High Court order and Israel's international commitments, the Netanyahu government is again "conducting humiliating negotiations" with the settlers.

Any bets on the outcome?

*An Unbelievable Comparison: But You'd Better Believe It.  Haaretz columnist Sefi Rachlevsky writes:      "When the Nazi regime set out to create the image of the enemy, it was found in the image

of the Jew, the intellectual, the liberal, the socialist, the communist, the modernist, the homosexual. Years later, the circles from which Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's murderer, Yigal Amir, came also invoked the image of an enemy with the very same features that adulterates the race and is a traitor to his country. …Somewhat surprisingly, all of them actually found the non-dangerous leftist Jewish intellectual scattered around the world as their demon....The spirit of the comments of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as related by the editor of the Jerusalem Post, Steve Linde, are of the same realm. That Haaretz and the New York Times are Israel's must dangerous enemies follows the comment that the left has forgotten what it means to be Jewish."

"Even more serious," continues Rachlevsky, "It is coming from the government of a people that escaped the terror of Nazi racism, a government that is dealing obsessively with racial distinctions....It's a government that continues to fund and subsidize municipal rabbis under its auspices who called on Israeli Jews not to rent or sell apartments to Arabs. It's a government of a people who were refugees themselves that in the dead of night at Netanyahu's direction passed a law providing for the detention for three years without trial of African refugees."

Rachlevsky concludes: "Fascist regimes have been marked by… racism and internal violence and external gambles in defiance of the outside world. To the amazement of those looking on, the Netanyahu government is embracing this entire package."

 

*"It's About Time Somebody Made Things Clear to the Lebanese," says Moshe Arens

Moshe Arens, a former Defense Minister, Foreign Minister, and Israeli Ambassador to the U.S, continues to be a major figure on the Israeli right.  What he wants to make clear, in his words, is that Israel "intends to do something about" the alleged influx of "tens of thousands" of missiles that Iran has sent to Hezbollah.  These "terror weapons in the hands of a terrorist organization...[are] a ticking time bomb" that threaten Israel and "Middle East stability," Arens writes.

He continues: "The Lebanese should not forget that it also represents a threat to the physical existence of Lebanon and the people of Lebanon. The Hezbollah missiles are deployed throughout Lebanon and have been deliberately emplaced in the midst of Lebanon's civilian population centers, in the vicinity of schools, mosques and hospitals....The Hezbollah missiles will have to be removed. When the time comes for Israel to neutralize this missile threat...there is bound to result wholesale destruction all over Lebanon. Hezbollah's missiles are a suicidal invitation to the destruction of Lebanon." (emphasis added)

 

*Religion, the State and "Modesty," Israeli-style. 

"It seems like insanity and ignorance have reached a new low point," begins a column by Uri Misgav, reporting that a rightwing "Center for Jewish Studies," funded by the government--including by the Education Ministry, no less--is distributing a picture of five family members who were murdered a year ago in a terrorist attack on a West Bank settlement; the picture of the mother,  however, is intentionally blurred, the Center explains, for reasons of "modesty."

Puzzling?  Misgav explains:"So here you have a woman who was murdered a year ago with her husband and young children, prevented from appearing with them now in a family picture for fear that the viewer will see her as a sex object, a source of immorality and the evil inclination." (emphasis added)

Misgav continues that there has been shock and "public fury" over the incident, but he is not impressed by it: "This shock, as justified and natural as it may be, also entails a significant amount of hypocrisy and willful blindness. The Jewish religion, like all the monotheistic religions, was invented by men....it was constructed thousands of years ago in the prevailing conditions of ancient human society, and therefore perpetuates and preserves male paternalism. Believing Jewish men say a blessing every morning to thank God 'for not making me a woman.' When he nevertheless decides to marry one of them, he estimates her worth in cash by means of a marriage contract, and then becomes her ba'al, a Hebrew word that means both "owner" and "husband."

Misgav then makes his main point: "But the real issue is not religion, but the status it is granted. There is no other country in the Western world where the supremacy of religion is as blatantly enshrined in law, including the Basic Laws that comprise a de facto constitution, as it is in Israel. From birth to burial, and in matters of marriage, divorce, food, the day of rest and daylight savings time, Israeli citizens are subject to religious regulations and to the religious establishment.... Many Israelis do not have the strength and decency necessary to confront it. They are too hopeless, or too frustrated, or too obtuse, or too blind. What is left for them is the occasional attack against incidents of "extremism," as though the everyday situation were not extreme.  The state, with its ongoing weakness and the cynical and irresponsible coalitions that rule it, is perpetuating this craziness."

*However, The News Is Not All Bad--Sort Of.

Akiva Eldar reports on a new Israeli academic study that found that "more of the Israeli mainstream than previously thought has adopted a critical approach on 1948"--meaning the Nakba, or the Israeli killing or expulsion of some 750,000 Palestinians from what became the land of Israel.

"The study argues that by the end of the 1970s," Eldar writes, "most media and scholarly articles in Israel used the critical approach. Virtually all newspaper articles and research studies from the end of the 1980s to 2004 referred to the critical narrative on the Palestinian exodus. The same is true in about a third of books written by veterans of the 1948 battles....The paper shows that the vast majority of studies recognized that Israel had expelled Palestinians in 1948."  And in the most surprising finding, "all history textbooks authorized by the Education Ministry since 2000 have replaced the old Zionist narrative with the critical approach." Eldar comments: "This is a ground-breaking finding on a change in Israel's official collective memory. In effect, it's a rejection of the Zionist narrative that 'there was no expulsion in 1948.' The willingness of key Jewish-Israeli institutions to alter their attitudes on such an important and sensitive issue casts a positive light on Israeli society. It's a sign of maturity." Unfortunately, the news is not all good.  Eldar cautions that "Politicians [still] think that the evasion of any responsibility for the Palestinian catastrophe appeals to most Israelis," and as a result "Politicians from all Zionist parties refuse to acknowledge a right of return for the Palestinian refugees, " and even "vehemently reject a more modest demand by the Palestinian side--that Israel accept partial responsibility for the Palestinian exodus of 1948."

What is Zionism?

A small but growing number of Israeli and American Jewish critics have come to regard traditional Zionism as an anachronism and a major obstacle to a just settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In the future I will be making an argument about this issue, but for now I wish simply to define, explicate, and clarify the distinctions between different forms of Zionism. If I have made any errors, I would be very grateful to hear from the true experts on the nature of Zionism.

Anti-Zionism.

The most radical critics of Zionism are probably best described as “anti-Zionists,” for they argue not only that Zionism should be cast aside today but that because of the inherent conflict between Zionism and the rights of the Palestinians, the creation of a Jewish state in a land belonging to another people was never justified, not even in the aftermath of the Holocaust. The anti-Zionists favor a “one-state solution” of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, meaning a democratic binational state of all its citizens (Jews, Israeli Arabs, and Palestinians in Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza), irrespective of whether the Jews continue to constitute a majority. Indeed, anti-Zionists tend to support the Palestinian “right of return” to Israel itself, which if realized would certainly guarantee that the new binational state would have an Arab majority.

Post-Zionism

A second position is that of “post-Zionism,” which holds that while Zionism and the creation of Israel was initially justified because of the Holocaust and previous periods of murderous anti-Semitism, it is no longer either necessary or desirable that Israel continue as a Jewish state—meaning a state in which Jews are a large majority and have political sovereignty, which is heavily Jewish in culture and religion, and which allows, as a matter of right, unlimited Jewish but not non-Jewish immigration. Post-Zionists believe that Zionism has become an anachronism and an unbridgeable obstacle to a just settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and they therefore join with the anti-Zionists in supporting the concept of Israel as a fully democratic state of all its citizens, with no special privileges for the Jews, and irrespective of whether the Jews continue to constitute a large majority (currently, as in most of its history, about eighty percent).

The position of post-Zionism on the nature of an Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement is less clear—to my knowledge, there is no single position. My understanding of post-Zionism is that most Israelis who identify themselves with that position favor the one-state solution, a democratic binational state. On the other hand, it apparently does not necessarily follow that most post-Zionists also favor a large-scale Palestinian right of return to pre-1947 Palestine—that is, before creation of the state of Israel and the subsequent expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. In the absence of such a return of the Palestinian refugees and their descendents, a binational Israel would almost surely remain predominantly Jewish. Even so, post-Zionists oppose all measures and practices that compromise full democracy and are designed to ensure that there will always be a large Jewish majority.

Liberal Zionism

There is no one definition of “liberal Zionism.” However, most Israelis who identify themselves as liberal Zionists—or are so considered by others—share a number of characteristics. First, liberal Zionists believe that the creation of the Jewish state of Israel was justified because of the Jewish right and demonstrable need for a refuge. Secondly, however, most liberal Zionists reject traditional Zionism’s other arguments for a Jewish state in the land of Palestine on the basis of religious claims, Biblical mythology, ancient territorial “rights,” or colonial impositions (i.e. the Balfour Declaration).

Third, all liberal Zionists are adamantly opposed to the occupation and to the settlements, favor a fair two-state peace agreement with the Palestinians and generally share the international consensus of what such an agreement should comprise (the main components of which include the end of the Israeli occupation and the withdrawal of most of the Jewish settlements over the 1967 lines; the creation of a Palestinian state in some 95-98% the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem, which will become the capital of the state; Palestinian or Muslim sovereignty over the Haram al-Sharif (Temple Mount) mosque and other religiously important Islamic sites; strong limitations on the size and armaments of a Palestinian army, but with international peacekeeping forces stationed along the state’s boundaries, to help guarantee the security of both Israel and Palestine against military attacks, from whatever quarter).

Fourth, liberal Zionists certainly oppose the demand that the Palestinians must formally recognize Israel as a Jewish state as a precondition for negotiations, and most of them would not even insist that a final settlement must include such Palestinian recognition. Even so, there is a certain tension, or perhaps a potential internal contradiction, in the liberal Zionist position. On the one hand, in principle liberal Zionists wish Israel that to be regarded—and become— a truly democratic state of all its citizens. On the other, for both political and cultural reasons, most liberal Zionists continue to wish to live in a state that remains heavily Jewish, and support the continuation of an Israel that can serve as a potential refuge against a revival of severe anti-Semitism elsewhere in the world—which means privileging Jewish immigration into Israel and perhaps other measures that are designed or would have the consequence of maintaining a large Jewish majority in Israel.

Thus, the implicit—and sometimes explicit—premise of liberal Zionism is that Israel will and should remain a state in which the Jews are a large majority, and that is one of the most important distinctions between liberal and either anti- or post-Zionism. The fullest and most sophisticated statement of the liberal Zionist position is that found in a major book by a distinguished Israeli legal and moral philosopher, Chaim Gans A Just Zionism; On the Morality of the Jewish State (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008).

Gans argues that while many components of traditional Zionism are unpersuasive, and that the Zionists undoubtedly committed crimes against the Palestinians, especially in expelling or killing hundreds of thousands of them in 1947-48, the Holocaust proved (made “indisputable,” in his words) the need for a Jewish state. Moreover, Gans contends, the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, leading to an Israeli sense of insecurity, continues to justify the retention of a Jewish majority in Israel and Jewish control over the army and other security institutions, although only temporarily and “circumstantially,” pending the end of the conflict is settled.

The unavoidable implication of the liberal Zionist position—but not that of the anti-Zionist or post-Zionist arguments--is that its commitment to genuine democracy and to viewing Israel as a state of all its citizens would be put to a severe test if the Jews were, for whatever reason, to lose their large majority in Israel

Traditional Zionism

Most traditional Zionists, by far the overwhelming majority of Israelis, adhere to all the Zionist arguments justifying the creation of Israel in Palestine as well as the standard mythology about Israeli innocence in the ongoing conflict with the Arab world in general and the Palestinians in particular. However, there are differences over what to do about the Israeli occupation, the expanding Jewish settlements, and an end to the conflict with the Palestinians.

Centrist traditional Zionists tend to be uneasy about the continued occupation and support a two-state settlement with the Palestinians—in theory. However, when it comes down to the necessary specifics, in practice even the centrists typically oppose the Israeli concessions that are a sine qua non of a two-state settlement, especially over sharing sovereignty in any part of Jerusalem with the Palestinians and even a minimal Palestinian right of return to Israel.

Rightwing traditional Zionists, especially but by no means exclusively the settlers, are opposed to ending the Israeli occupation of the West Bank; on the contrary, they want to take over more and more of “Judea and Samaria,” including formerly Arab East Jerusalem. Therefore they oppose a two-state settlement and any compromise with the Palestinians, for their true goal is a one-state solution--not a binational one, however, but an expanding Greater Israel over as much of Biblical Palestine as feasible and with as few Arabs as possible, using force or other means to make life miserable for the Arabs in order to induce them to move elsewhere.

Another Day--Just One--In the Life of Our Very Own Jewish State, the Only Democracy in the Middle East

Ten stories from Haaretz, December 26, 2011:

*Akiva Eldar, "Netanyahu's On the Way to Kosovo."  Haaretz's diplomatic correspondent notes the close parallels between the recent speeches of Benjamin Netanyahu and those of Slobodan Milosevic, in which "the two leaders used familiar myths, stressed the past suffering of their peoples and sowed fear of the threats the future poses, based their stances on the 'historic rights' of their people and ignored the national and territorial aspirations of the neighboring people. Netanyahu pointed to extreme fundamentalist Islam as the enemy of the Jews, Americans and the West; Milosevic recalled....the background to the Kosovo confrontations between the Serbs and Albanians, who are mostly Muslim."

*Nurit Elstein, "Partial democracy."  The writer, a former Knesset legal adviser and currently a lecturer in parliamentary law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, notes that about a year ago Shlomo Avineri (one of Israel's most prominent political scientists) wrote that Israel could not be viewed as a fascist state.  Elstein quotes Avineri: "In a fascist state the regime monitors citizens, imprisons them without trial, restricts movement and runs a propagandistic education system."

Elstein then observes: "This year the Knesset pushed through the Boycott Law, which delivers a mortal blow to basic principles such as freedom of speech and freedom of assembly....it punishes anyone who calls for boycotts. The imposition of sanctions on a call for action, a call that constitutes free speech, is stunningly anti-democratic. The law's operating assumption is that it is forbidden to disrespect the state. This is a dangerous thought….Such developments in the history of political thought provided inspiration for the totalitarian state."

"Politicians do not operate in a vacuum. They are well aware of the public's mood. Any public-opinion survey will find that there is widespread support for restricting civil rights. Public discourse is fraught with extremist statements denouncing Arabs, leftists and others. Knesset legislation converts cultural trends into legal norms."

"Israel prides itself on being a democracy, but it lacks a constitution and a democratic tradition. Was there ever a democracy in this state? There was a partial democracy for some of the state's Jews. With the increase in violence in the public square, the left is now experiencing what Arab citizens have endured for years."

While Elstein does not comment on the other components in Avineri's definition of fascism, all of them--regime monitoring of citizens, imprisonment without trial (the preferred euphemism is "administrative detention"), restrictions of movement, and a propagandistic education system-- are becoming increasingly common in Israel.  And it is hardly uncommon for Israeli dissidents and commentators to point out the parallels with fascism.

*Asaf Weitzen, "Until Our Hearts are Completely Hardened."  The writer, an official responsible for refugees at the Israeli Center for Assistance to the Community of Foreign Workers, charges that growing number of Africans seeking to find refuge in Israel from deadly civil wars in Eritrea and Sudan have been classified by the Israeli government not as refugees--which under international law would require Israel to accept them--but as "migrant workers," which means they can be deported.

Weitzen notes that in order for the fleeing people to be granted refuge until they can safely return to their countries, they must first apply to the Israeli Interior Ministry to be officially recognized as refugees.  However, Weitzen dryly observes,  the ministry "refuses to examine the asylum requests of Eritrean and Sudanese citizens [so] the government claims that they are not refugees because they have not been recognized as such."

Weitzen continues: "The only reason is that the claim that they are migrant workers is aimed at hardening our hearts against the distress of these people, who have fled their homes in all kinds of ways. It's the kind of distress we should be well aware of [emphasis added]. When our hearts are completely hardened - and the mood shows we're near that - [the Interior minister] and his cronies will be able to do with the refugees and asylum seekers whatever they wish, including locking them up for years and deporting them back to hell. The High Court of Justice will not dare intervene and the public will remain silent. That must not be allowed to happen; certainly not in a country that was set up as a country of refuge." .

*Amira Hass, "Israel Allows Gaza Athletes To Cross Into West Bank, But Bars Outstanding Academics."  Haaretz's award-winning chief correspondent on Gazan affairs observes that Gazan athletes are routinely allowed to participate in sports in the West Bank, but that students are not allowed to study there.  There are two reasons, Hass writes: the Israeli government considers students to be potential terrorists--"students around the world are of the rebellious type," an Israel official tells her.  Nor is the effective ban on Gazans moving into the West Bank for any extended period a result of the Hamas takeover of Gaza; as Hass observes, the Israeli "policy of de facto disconnection...began 15 years before Hamas took power in Gaza."

       Hass continues: "the second pillar of the segregation policy, which is not declared openly, is the 'fear of settling down,' as defined for me by the same official of the system's implementing arm. After all, universities across the world are also hotbeds for making new acquaintances, falling in love and even getting married. And then, the fear of the Israeli system is that residents of Gaza will move their 'center of life' to the West Bank, find work there, have children and settle down."

        That's the real problem, of course: Israel is not interested in taking over Gaza but it intends to further its expansion into, and control over, the West Bank--for which, the fewer the Palestinian residents, the better. 

*Oz Rozenberg, "News Crew Assaulted By Ultra-Orthodox Rioters."  A television news crew was assaulted, a camera newsman was thrown to the ground, and a soundman was grabbed by the throat "when they attempted to record footage of a sign that instructs women not to walk past a synagogue."

*Ilan Lior, "Israeli Textbook Slammed For Calling Homosexuality a Disorder."  Lior writes: "Mental health experts, educators, and members of Israel's gay community are protesting the use in the mental health curriculum in a number of academic institutions of a textbook they say presents anti-homosexual positions."  In some cases, homosexuality is presented as an "emotional disorder" that should be treated by psychotherapy, or a "symptom of a borderline personality."

      The story further notes that the textbook was published by a university press and was compiled by four leading Israeli psychiatrists.  In the words of a dissenting psychiatrist: "the chapter on homosexuality not only constitutes a declaration of homophobia, but it educates future therapists and educators to be homophobic."

*Anshel Pfeffer, "Right-wing U.S. Group Holds Hanukkah Party at IDF Base."  The Israeli army officially approved a "Hanukkah party" held by United With Israel, a far rightwing U.S. group that, in Pfeffer's words, "organizes events in support of the Jewish settlement in Hebron and in Jerusalem-area settlements, and also conducts pro-Israeli public relations."

In addition to the stories above, on the same day Haaretz published a number of articles about the discrimination against women in Israel, prompted by two recent events: the insistence by Haredim (ultra-orthodox) Israeli men that women on buses that largely serve their communities must ride in the back, and Haredim cursing of, and even spitting at, seven and eight year old Israeli school girls whose dress is deemed by them to be immodest. 

The most recent incidents of this kind have caused an uproar in Israel, especially among the secular majority--but three columns by Israeli women point out that women have long been excluded from top positions in all fields.

*Lital Levin, "Beyond the Bus."  Levin writes: "It's only been a few weeks since the phrase "exclusion of women" became a staple of the news pages... Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu [and other government officials] have condemned the phenomenon. It almost seems as if the exclusion of women were a specifically ultra-Orthodox hang-up, that in Israel, full equality exists between the sexes, threatened only by sex-segregated bus lines. But many of the women protesting the discrimination reject Netanyahu's statement that it is a 'limited phenomenon that does not reflect the entire population'....The true exclusion is in the law and the economic and social structure, not least in its most liberal outposts."

"If we focus the fight on the ultra-Orthodox alone," said a clinical psychology student, "we're liable to forget that women are excluded from all public arenas."

*Tsafir Saar, "Not Only the Ultra-Orthodox Discriminate Against Women in Israel."  Saar writes: "What everyone nowadays is calling exclusion of women is nothing less than ...sexism that's deeply rooted. And this sexism, this widely practiced and multilayered discrimination, is not the purview of the ultra-Orthodox alone....It's so easy to condemn and be horrified by 'those benighted Haredim' and at the same time nonchalantly ignore the sexual violence that is the lot of women of all stripes, secular and religious; the wage gaps between men and women; the fact that most of the poor are women, and many other social phenomena that prove the depth of the problem..." *Merav Michaeli, "'Exclusion of women' in Israel is Nothing New."  Michaeli writes:

"What has changed? I mean, the exclusion and discrimination are far from new. Not on the buses, not on the billboards, not in the streets of ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods or in secular and perfectly Tel Avivian spaces - in the army, in the Knesset, in the government, in the print media and television, on various public committees and in the workforce. It is exhausting to bring up time and again, as part of the ongoing struggle of decades, the income gaps, the low status of housework and raising children, the poor representation of women in the public arena, the stereotypical portrayals of women in the media, the sexual exploitation, the small number of female representatives in the Knesset and the even smaller number of female cabinet ministers, the physical oppression, and the number of women who are murdered by abusive partners every year."

 

Well, at least the rightwing Christian fundamentalists--and every Republican candidate for the presidency--still adore us.  However, as David Ben-Gurion famously said, "What matters is not what the goyim say, it's what the Jews do."