Right - Wing Threats to Democracy in Israel

Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked in Knesset, June 27, 2016. Olivier Fitouss

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District Six Memory Plaque at the Moravian Church in District Six, Cape Town, South Africa. It commemorates the victims of apartheid-era forced removals through the racially divisive Group Areas Act. Picture by Henry Trotter, 2000. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It is rare for me to write something about my personal experience in the 1960s and early 70s in South Africa where I was born, brought up and educated. It was in the era of apartheid when people, who opposed the evil white apartheid government, were placed under detention for 90 days, 180 days, and house arrests with no recourse to a lawyer. The criteria for everything were skin colour. Separate and inferior facilities for those who were not white - separate entrances in public buildings, buses and trains and separate beaches for blacks and whites.

The Group Areas Act, Immorality Act, and much other heinous legislation were the order of the day Those were chilling days, our phones were tapped by security police as my family opposed apartheid. The definition of a “communist” under the Suppression of the Communist Act of 1950 was very wide to include those opposing apartheid. Democracy in apartheid South Africa was thoroughly compromised. The Black people were disenfranchised. The list went on and on.

Demonstrators protesting in solidarity with ‘Breaking the Silence’ and other left-wing NGOs, after the Israeli government proposed a new law governing the financial disclosure of NGOs, in Tel Aviv, Israel, 19 December 2015. Photo activesills/Flickr

I had made up my mind in 1974 that I had to leave South Africa as the noose was tightening against those who opposed racism and apartheid in all its evil forms. I chose Israel as my country where I could start a family eventually. Israel is the only democratic country that I felt I could live and be free from the restraints of racism and hate for people of colour.

If we are to discuss the right wing threat to democracy in Israel, it is unavoidable not to use the apartheid South Africa comparison.

Today over forty years later, and after much water had flowed under the bridge, we are reaching a stage where the similarities between the present Israeli Government Coalition and the apartheid government of the old South Africa are becoming evident when it comes to enacting legislation weakening the law courts in as far as a citizen’s right to address a legal problem is concerned if it is not in line with the ruling government agenda. This is the case when the justification of theft of Palestinian land is concerned.

Countless articles have been written on the evils of the occupation since the June 1967 Six Day War on my blog as well as the history of the conflict.

There is a growing trend in the Coalition Government to try and pass laws that emphasize Israel as the Jewish State as if we are not aware of it. Perhaps there are Israelis who need reminding by having a law enacted to leave them with no doubt! Is this really necessary? Even the ultra-Orthodox coalition partner, Yahadut Hatorah, opposes this bill for their own partisan, political reasons. The innuendo of this bill is to ensure that non-Jewish citizens of Israel will remain inferior. The status of Arabic as one of Israel’s official languages will also drop. Why?

A very good friend of mine said that we, the secular, progressive citizens of Israel, who happen to oppose the present right wing Government Coalition of Israel, are caught up in a trap that is a two-edged sword. We are ostracized by BDS (that is anti-Semitic as well as being anti-Israeli) and Palestinian terrorist organizations such as Hamas that fail to recognize Israel’s right to exist on the one side, and we are viewed as traitors to Israel by the right wing supporters of the Israeli Government Coalition. We are caught in between and get the flack from both sides. The latter is another symptom of the erosion of democracy in Israel, where having a left of centre viewpoint is synonymous to treachery. This gives a feeling of déjà vu for many of us, who grew up under apartheid in South Africa and now live in Israel.

There are accusations that any singling out of Israel is anti-Semitic: so, for example, calling for boycott, divestment, and sanctions in Israel's case but not in others is prima facie evidence of anti-Semitism, as is using the word apartheid to characterize any aspect of Israeli society 1.

South African parliamentarian, Kenneth Meshoe, who suffered under the apartheid regime, said the comparison of Israel to apartheid South Africa “betrays the memory of those who suffered through a real apartheid” and those who draw such comparisons “are minimizing the suffering that black South Africans endured.2

I have written articles on how wrong and inaccurate it is to compare Israel to South African apartheid. While this may still be true in many respects, today under the present right-wing Likud Coalition Government, the similarities, unfortunately, are becoming more poignant.

Adam and Moodley argue that notwithstanding universal suffrage within Israel proper if the occupied Palestinian territories and settler presence are considered part of the entity under analysis, the comparison between a disenfranchised African population in apartheid South Africa and the Palestinians under Israeli occupation gains more validity.3

In recent years we have witnessed a disturbing trend toward the erosion of democratic values in Israel and the promotion of anti-democratic initiatives. There is a move to silence those NGO watchdogs on human rights. Some examples are Breaking the Silence, B’tzelem and even Peace Now. Another example is the hegemony of the Orthodox Chief Rabbinate on freedom of choice of which religious Jewish stream a Jewish person wishes to adhere. Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist Judaism have no religious rights at all to marry couples and are not recognized. There is no civil marriage or divorce. There Is no separation of Synagogue and State in Israel.

Donations to Israel from naive Reform and Conservative Jews to the Orthodox establishment are always accepted. Of course to the Chief Rabbinate of Israel, donations are always Kosher no matter from where it comes! Non-Orthodox observant Jews are viewed as “goyim” by the Orthodox Rabbinical Establishment. It will only get worse:

The State Comptroller's 2017 report:

a searing religion-state indictment

The security problem adds to the similarity. The lack of progress on both sides makes a solution to the conflict more complicated and impossible. Israel wishes to increase settler occupation in Palestinian lands beyond the Green Line. Naftali Bennett, Leader of Bayit Hayehudi and Coalition partner, has made this one of his mantras for remaining in the Netanyahu Coalition. He opposes the Two-State Solution. The only other solution is the One-State Apartheid Solution which is gaining more support as the Israeli Electorate moves further towards the right and at the same time viewing the left wing in Israel as traitors. In a recent poll, the young people are moving increasingly towards the right and becoming more religious.

So Israel — in the words of its most loyal benefactor — is moving inexorably “towards cementing a one-state reality of perpetual occupation” that is anti-democratic: i.e., the equivalent of apartheid.4

The upsurge of religious observance in Judaism and right wing Zionist religious ideology with its increased power over law court decisions on issues of increased Israeli settlement on disputed Palestinian lands is a threat to Israel’s reputation as being a democratic state. The trend to delegitimize NGOs such as Breaking the Silence, B’tzelem and Peace Now is threatening democracy in Israel.

1. . 2 May. 2017, https://www.opendemocracy.net/richard-kuper/apartheid-references-in-israel. Accessed 21 May. 2017.
2. 17 Mar. 2017, https://www.algemeiner.com/2017/03/17/the-lie-of-israeli-apartheid-2/. Accessed 23 May. 2017.
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_and_the_apartheid_analogy. Accessed 21 May. 2017
4. 6 Oct. 2016, https://theintercept.com/2016/10/06/u-s-admits-israel-is-building-permanent-apartheid-regime-weeks-after-giving-it-38-billion/. Accessed 23 May. 2017.

Futility of a Solution to the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict

English: Palestinian territories (West Bank and Gaza Strip) showing Israel's 1948 and 1967 borders (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Palestinian-Israeli Conflict has defied solution since the establishment of the State of Israel.

Everybody talks about intransigence on both sides with the larger portion of the blame laid on Israel. However, many forget that the problem of the occupation is not the core issue that needs to be resolved. The core issue is Israel's existence since its establishment in 1948 and not the occupation of territories since the Six Day War of June 1967 as most Palestinian pundits claim. After all, the Hamas Charter states this clearly and Hamas is the organization that has no desire to recognize Israel's right to exist. Capture of the West Bank, Gaza and the Golan Heights occurred as a result of the Six Day War. We must remember that this was not the start of the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict. The conflict began with Israel's establishment in 1948.

Wars were fought between Israel and the and the Arab states even before 1967.The occupation is the result of the preemptive strike in June 1967 when Israel's shipping was blocked by President  Nasser of Egypt. There was no occupation then nor was there occupation prior to the Sinai War of 1956. Yet wars were fought.

Since the occupation of the West Bank, Golan Heights, Gaza and East Jerusalem, Israelis have built settlements in these areas and this resulted in colonization of the Palestinians reducing them to a people with limited human rights and a bleak future. This settlement activity had continued unabated with human rights abuses committed by the Israeli settlers over the years.

There is no justification whatsoever for settlers living in the occupied territories abusing Palestinians and denying them human rights. Many cases of abuse or even murder of Palestinians by settlers has not led to any arrests and the Security Establishment of Israel must share the blame for this. Having said that, violence against innocent people on both sides must be condemned unequivocally.

Now this brings us to the two intifadas and today’s stabbing attacks. As bad as the Palestinians had it under Israeli occupation, the excuses for savage Palestinian behavior towards innocent people can never be justified under any circumstances. The anti-Israel NGO funded double standard “humanists” (bearing in mind that money for the NGOs come mostly from the EU) are seeking a psychological explanation and justification for Palestinian savagery, whether by stabbing innocent

Medics evacuating an Israeli man injured in a stabbing attack on a Tel Aviv bus,

people, running them over by cars or suicide bombers. Added to this is the sympathy for Palestinians living under occupation with no future, which according to many “humanists” justifies their use of violence against innocent peoples, no matter what cruel methods they use to demoralize and kill innocent Israelis. These  "humanists" also promote BDS in order to delegitimize Israel.

Even if there was no occupation of the territories, there is no doubt that this violence would still occur if we examine the history of Israel from 1948 until 1967. Wars between Israel and the Arab States were continuously occurring. Incursions and murder was always on the Palestinian leadership agenda. The fact that there was never peace between Israel and her neighbors, including the Palestinians, further drives home the point that the Palestinians want Israel destroyed as Israel is occupied Palestine since 1948 and not since 1967. No matter what leader is in power in Israel, left or right, the Palestinians want Israel wiped off the face of the earth. Maps drawn up in Palestine do not even mention Israel. The school curriculum in occupied Palestine also brainwashes young Palestinians to hate Israel and Jews.  It has nothing to do with the occupation of Palestinian lands since 1967. This is an added excuse. This is the reality unfortunately.

Under these circumstances, with more uncompromising Palestinian players in the field, it is very difficult to perceive if any solution to this tragic conflict will ever be found.

Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian President, has no power base or Palestinian support. He will not be able to sign a peace agreement of any kind with Israel. If he does, his Islamist Hamas and its allies will assassinate him. He will continue to be involved in anti-Israel rhetoric in the UN to save his own skin. This does not increase his support among the more radical Palestinians. He is just hanging in there powerless and ineffectual if not totally impotent.