Culture and Art - The Monopoly of the Right?

David Grossman, Edit from a image from flickr, see below en wikipedia: David Grossman he wikipedia: דויד גרוסמן (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Amos Oz (b. 1939), Jewish writer (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Over the last few weeks, the right wing Government has been labelling various left wing-oriented NGOs (Breaking the Silence, B'tzelem, Peace Now and New Israel Fund) as moles (traitors), who are accused of spreading falsehoods against Israel and doing much damage to Israel's image and working for the interests of Israel's enemies. 

This phenomena has know spread to culture in Israel. It all began with the Minister of Culture and Sport threatening to withhold state subsidies to cultural activities such as theatre productions that do not tow the "patriotic" line of thought and are viewed as hostile to Israel's existence in the widest possible interpretation. This is one stage before censoring theatre productions that do not tow the ruling right wing coalition line. This is happening in the education system under the auspices of the Minister of Education, Naftali Bennett, who has an agenda of dovetailing education to suit his right wing views on religious National Zionism and the settler movements encouraging settlement in the occupied territories. The civics textbook "To be a Citizen of Israel" that is in draft form and will become the "Bible" of civics education of pupils is apparently full of inaccuracies tailored to suit the world view of Naftali Bennett.  This is the trend that one finds in dictatorship ruled countries and not in democracies. 

Some Artists Blacklisted by Im Tirtzu

In dictatorships, culture and education is dovetailed to suit the ruling political party outlook. They change history, ideology as well as educational values in order to prolong their power by brainwashing with party propaganda. Culture and education become political and the property of the dictatorship in power. Some examples of this in history were in Communist and Fascist States. It is hoped that Israel's democracy will not change towards soft-serve totalitarianism and witch-hunt techniques as was in the US under the influence of McCarthyism. Education must be truthful and not be influenced by politics of ruling parties. The same must be applicable to culture. The right to criticise is part and parcel of democracy. Diversity in vibrant culture patterns, even avant garde ideas should be encouraged provided that they are not racist or insulting to the kaleidoscope of cultures existing in Israel. Society is always evolving and not static. This should apply to education and culture as well.

A worrisome trend is the ideology of an extremist right wing organisation or NGO, Im Tirtzu, that is obsessed with the idea of "moles" undermining Israel in the left wing NGO's and is encouraging hatred of those who do not hold their extremist, fascist, nationalistic world view. They have now attacked Israeli artists, who are the backbone of Israel's artistic talent in writing and theatre. Im Tirtzu accuses them of being "left wing moles" working against Israel. They published a Blacklist of Israeli artists and intellectuals.

                                       Im Tirtzu is what Netanyahu supports

Miri Regev and Naftali Bennett have both opened the Pandora's Box and Im Tirtzu, the pseudo-fascist organisation, jumped out, spewing their hate and paranoia towards those that do not hold their world view in Israel's cultural world. Amos Oz, David Grossman (whose son was killed in the last Lebanese war), A.B. Yehoshua are viewed by this organization as traitors. In the theatrical world, Gila Almagor, Rivka Michaeli and a host of others, who are the backbone of Israel's culture, have been accused of being traitors.The root of this shocking organization comes from the ruling right wing Israeli government. This organization became an embarrassment to the "Netanyahu - Bennett - Regev Triumvirate" that they condemned Im Tirtzu.  This is perhaps to their credit. The most outspoken statement against this nefarious organisation came from the Likud Member of Knesset, Benny Begin. These Israeli artists are a credit to Israel, and have worldwide recognition for their contributions to culture. Israel would have been poorer culturally if not for these Israeli artists whose love and concern for Israel is unquestionable.

Who is Im Tirtzu? A miserable, hateful, pseudo-fascist, racist organisation that does much damage to Israel. The sooner they disappear from Israel the better for Israel and its citizens.Their tactics of hate for those, who do not hold their McCarthyite world view, has exploded in their faces, even more so because of condemnation from those right wingers in the Knesset, who are also responsible for their creation. This shocking organisation is no credit to Israel or to the Jewish People.  

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Dilemma - Possible Human Rights Abuse or anti-Israel Activity?

Lately there have been a lot of emotional discussions as to whether the NGO - Breaking the Silence - is investigating soldiers’ testimonies on human rights abuses of the IDF on a defenseless, innocent Palestinian population and using these testimonies to bash Israel internationally. There are people, who define the activities of Breaking the Silence as treasonable or treacherous. Those who do so have no understanding of the word “treason”

This word has been used colloquially in Israel to label anybody who does not agree with the Netanyahu Coalition Government line. Netanyahu Coalition pundits are giving “treason” a very wide definition, encompassing those who oppose the government line. Labeling Breaking the Silence and weakening their activity by passing laws that are close to outlawing them is detrimental to Israel’s vibrant democracy.

Breaking the Silence does pose a problem as it can be viewed in two ways:

1. It can be viewed as a watchdog for upholding human rights of innocent Palestinians in a war situation where Israeli soldiers enter Palestinian homes with search warrants for weapons or signs of hostility and prevention of looting by IDF.
2. It can be viewed as an NGO whose main purpose is to gain testimony from soldiers, who had served in the various campaigns in Gaza, claiming human rights abuse that are made public, even to countries who seek every opportunity to bash Israel on these issues. Hostile countries do wait for opportunities like this.  

Testimonies of soldiers made public are also available to those, who are hostile to Israel. This, unfortunately, is the price that is paid by a democratic country - the price of openness. This does not negate the importance of watchdog activity by an NGO such as Breaking the Silence. It is no less important that the IDF does examine itself in this sphere, despite the problems, and establish a committee to investigate the authenticity of these soldiers’ testimonies. It is not enough to say that “The IDF is the most moral army in the world.” The function of human rights NGO is to ensure that this statement remains true. This does not mean that all those, who serve in the IDF, have committed crimes against innocent Palestinians.  

If high ranking generals in the IDF, who had served with distinction, such as General Amiram Levin, support Breaking the Silence, we must bear in mind that they know what they are talking about. I do respect the high ranking officers’ decision in supporting Breaking the Silence. If these generals feel the importance of this NGO, who are we to question.   These high ranking generals are not traitors to Israel. They held responsible positions in the IDF and in the intelligence service as well as being entrusted with state secrets. In an ad in the liberal Haaretz daily titled “I too am breaking my silence,” former Shin Bet security service director and navy commander Maj. Gen. (res.) Ami Ayalon, and retired Northern District police chief Deputy Commissioner (ret.) Elik Ron wrote that Breaking the Silence, which is at the center of a fierce debate on the limits of free speech in Israel, strengthens the IDF and its morality.

Most human rights NGOs receive funds from the EU, US and some countries who have a political agenda against Israel. The NGOs involved in pro-Israeli government activities such as Im Tirtzu and other pro-settlement activity beyond the green line, receive funding from private donors (or “philanthropists” such as Irwin Moskowitz) as well as government subsidies. (In 2009, Im Tirtzu’s largest donor was the John Hagee Ministries (JHM) via the Christian-Zionist organization Christians United for Israel (CUFI). Im Tirtzu received US$100,000 from JHM and $34,000 from other sources. In 2010, The Jerusalem Post reported that JHM "expressed deep displeasure" with Im Tirtzu after its campaigns against the New Israel Fund and Ben-Gurion University and announced the cessation of its funding. A JHM spokesman said that Im Tirtzu "misrepresented its focus when they told us their mission was strictly Zionist education."^[55]

The group's spokesperson, Erez Tadmor, was found guilty of embezzling munitions from the Israeli military.^[56]

The organization was accused of acting in an Anti-Semitic fashion, including emulating Nazi propaganda, in its criticisms of U.S. Ambassador Martin Indyk and of the New Israel Fund.^{[57][58]  From Wikipedia )}

All NGOs, irrespective of political leanings, accept donations from any source sympathetic to the causes they represent. They are not concerned with the origin of donors’ funds. The main point is that the sources should be transparent and be held accountable for the amount of money they donate.

Another evil, racist organization, Lehava, is also involved in preventing assimilation of Jews in Israel with Arabs. They are more militant in contrast to Bayit Hayehudi of its leader, Naftali Bennett, and now the Minister of Education. The latter wants to instil a religious right wing Zionist education in the Department of Education and prevent students from gaining access to books or novels that are about intermarriage between Arabs and Jews. Here the similarity to the Lehava ideology is blatant.

In a democratic country, education should be non-political. Healthy discussion with responsible, objective moderation should be encouraged. The same is true of Breaking the Silence. There should be NGO monitoring of activities (not concerned with security secrets) in the IDF as well as the government law-making process to ensure that democratic values and transparency remains paramount. 

Right Wing Attacks on Democracy in Israel

Over the years, Israel has been condemned unjustifiably in the UN and by the EU for violations of Palestinian rights. There are so many anti-Israel resolutions passed in the UN as well as the time allocated discussing Israel’s human rights infringements in the occupied territories. I have written many articles on this in my blog. There is no doubt that those, who support anti-Israel resolutions in the UN, have their own political agendas that are not human rights- oriented. The human rights infringements, cruel murders; torture in the name of so-called Islam is hardly an issue in this impotent world body. IS (Daesh) and the various terrorist movements responsible for the heinous acts of terror all over the world for spreading their cause of establishing an Islamist Caliphate, is not even discussed in this “prestigious”, impotent world body called the UN.

Having said that, we must also be introspective, examining ourselves in Israel and cease justifying attacks on those who think differently to the paranoid right wing extremists within our midst. The siege mentality is affecting many Israelis, who are now moving towards the right and extreme right. Israel is now “blessed” with the most right wing coalition in its history as a knee-jerk reaction.

Of course, the various Palestinian terrorist groups, the head of which is Hamas, followed by Islamic Jihad and the Al Aqsa Brigades with their uncompromising attitude of not recognizing Israel’s right to exist, have closed the door to any form of negotiations for peace and a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. This uncompromising attitude by the Palestinians has been prevalent for many years.

Even under the Rabin Government there was no real progress towards peace. There is no denying that Hamas, which is the deciding factor on peace negotiations, and not President Mahmoud Abbas, who is weak and has no power base or Palestinian support. How can Israel conduct any form of negotiations with any Palestinian representative that does not recognize Israel’s right to exist? That is such a basic condition for any negotiations.

Israel’s strength is its democracy. At the same time, even in the tense situation that Israel finds itself, we must ensure that human rights abuse does not occur. Israel faces individual terrorist attacks almost every day. Lone Palestinian terrorists infiltrate into Israel armed with knives and cars. Stabbing of innocent Israelis or car ramming them is considered an honor and is encouraged by Hamas. Those Palestinian terrorists who commit these violent acts must be dealt with by the full arm of the law, even if it means killing them when caught stabbing innocent people.

Despite all these horrifying and tragic terror attacks that we as Israelis face every day and none of us is guaranteed immunity from these attacks. We must ensure that vigilante, extremist right wing groups do not take the law into their own hands and go on the rampage by killing innocent Palestinian citizens in revenge or carrying out acts of vandalism.  It is unacceptable!

We have to maintain our moral standards and find ways to prevent human rights abuse and violence against innocent Palestinian People committed by overzealous individuals in the security forces, whether they are soldiers or policemen. This has nothing to do with politics. It has plenty to do with human decency, irrespective of one’s political views. It is in this sphere that it is necessary that there are watchdogs that ensure that there are no incidents of human rights abuse of innocent people in the course of IDF and Police duty.

The NGOs such as Breaking the Silence, B'tzelem, New Israel Fund and Peace Now are active in this area. Their activities should be encouraged and not condemned. They do have a positive role to play. There is nothing treacherous or treasonable in what they do in ensuring that the IDF remains “the most moral army in the world”. There may be disagreements in their research methods of maintaining transparency, but this must always be open for inspection of validity and accountability.

Their findings are published and the right wing maintains that groups, such as BDS, the EU and countries hostile to Israel, use their findings to bash Israel. It is unfortunate that this does occur. These human rights Israeli NGOs are on record condemning BDS. Their published findings are on the web and open for all interested parties to read. We cannot choose those who read them and there will be those who will use these find

Meet Lehava, the Israeli Fascists Mounting a Vicious Crusade
 to Keep their Women Away from Arabs

ings to bash Israel. This does not make these NGOs treasonable if they publish the truth. They do not harm Israel’s security and they do have the support of many army and former combatants, who had played their part in defending Israel from its enemies in war. This includes former officers and Mossad heads. These people have played a greater part in defending Israel than Price Tag, Im Tirtzu and Lehava, who are stoking the flames of fascism against those who do not hold their world view. Im Tirtzu is a right wing organization that does have the support of Bayit Hayehudi (the party of Naftali Bennett and Ayelet Shaked in the Government coalition).

Im Tirzu activists demonstrate during a rally
 marking the Nakba anniversary at the Tel Aviv University

The task of ensuring that innocent Palestinians are not abused by the IDF is a difficult challenge and the battle for maintaining Israel’s vibrant democracy goes hand in hand. The accusations of the right wing against the moderate left in Israel by accusing them of treason is not constructive and threatens Israel’s democracy.

An end to the occupation can only occur if there is a desire to end it on both sides. Non-recognition of Israel’s right to exist is a non-starter for any form of negotiations, irrespective of whichever government is in power.

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Is Israel Slipping into McCarthyism?

Nobody denies that Israel is going through a tough time internationally. The UN passed many resolutions against Israel that are unjustified. The amount of time devoted to condemning Israel at every Security Council or General Assembly meeting is ludicrous. At the same time, the slaughter of innocent people in the Middle East and in many parts of the world by Radical Islamist groups is not even discussed, let alone an international military coalition being built to eradicate this cancer. Israel is constantly bashed for human rights abuses. The UN is an impotent useless organization with many members having double standards with selective agendas when it comes to overlooking human rights abuses and Radical Islamist terrorist groups.

This clip is in Hebrew

Having said this, we must make the differentiation between the Israel bashing and its credibility which all reasonable people should view as contemptible and unjust. Israeli citizens’ have the democratic right not to agree with the ruling right wing Government Coalition, which is the most right wing coalition in Israel’s history.

Israel’s true strength is its democracy and with that the right for us, as Israeli citizens to criticize the government when it shows a 

tendency to erode our right to criticize when we feel that it is necessary.  

The right wing in Israel - the Bibi-Bennett Cartel, ruling the country (as is the common habit of right wing rulers all over the world to seek enemies within the country that they rule and do not share their world view) goes on a witch hunt. They accuse those of different viewpoints, especially those who are sensitive to human rights abuses in the IDF of innocent Palestinian civilians (many of those who are supporters of “Breaking the Silence” have held senior positions in the IDF as well as in the Shin Bet, are being accused of treason and working for the enemy). The IDF is a citizen force composed of soldiers of different viewpoints ranging from right to left.

The IDF is not the "Holy Cow" as one wishes to believe. There are soldiers, who do not always carry out orders according to IDF Protocol and tend to abuse their positions of authority. This does NOT mean that all soldiers do that. In totalitarian-ruled countries, those criticizing the army or government are viewed as traitors. It is a wonderful tactic used for instilling fear into the electorate for gaining power, so much so, that even the President of Israel is viewed as being treacherous. Why? He shared a platform with the NGO “Breaking     the Silence” at Haaretz Q Conference in New York. In a democratic country, transparency is important provided security issues are not. President Ruby Rivlin is a Revisionist of the old Ze’ev Jabotinsky School and opposes the Two-State Solution. At the same time, he is a democrat and is prepared to share a platform with all people in the political spectrum, irrespective of their political views. He views himself as President of all Israel’s citizens irrespective of their race, color, creed or political views and correctly so. This is not acceptable to Im Tirtzu and their allies in the right wing government. They went on a campaign of besmirching him with a hate campaign, tainting him with the treacherous brush.

                   
Reservists and Israelis, who served in the IDF, are coming out in the open admitting their experiences, which in no way compromises on Israel’s security. They are dehumanized and singled out as “traitors” and “implants” (shtulim) serving Israel’s enemies. They even brought out a video clip dehumanizing them. An Israeli NGO that cares about Israel and criticizes human rights abuses DOES NOT mean that it is working for the enemies of Israel, BDS is not influenced by “Breaking the Silence”, the latter are on record of condemning BDS. Attacking me and saying that I am having a "chronic lefty relapse" is not helpful. It is a gut reaction because of my non-political attitude and sensitivity to human rights abuses and cover-ups of those abuses of innocent people. If Israel's enemies see that there is transparency and those responsible for human rights abuses are brought to justice, it only strengthens Israel's credibility and does not weaken it as self-righteous supporters of the Bibi-Bennett cartel believe. There is nothing left or right wing about that. The Bibi-Bennett Coalition attitude of attacking those who do not share their worldview and fear-mongering is similar to the notorious McCarthy era in the US. Hopefully we are not sliding into a similar era. So what if these right wing maligned NGOs get funded by overseas. Im Tirtzu is also getting money from oversea sources such as Christian Evangelists and Sheldon Adelson. The latter also moneybags the Israel Hayom news rag that is Bibi's mouthpiece.

It is irrelevant as from where the overseas donations come. The right wing rulers always need enemies in order to survive. If they cannot find them then they create them and these “enemies” are subjected to witch hunts and imprisonment without trial in extreme cases. In our case the imagined traitors and enemies are banned from addressing schools, which are today under the auspices of a very right wing Education Department, and the IDF in case, “God Forbid”, questions on human rights of innocent civilians are raised.

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