The Israeli ‘Justice’ system demonstrates once again why it is institutionally
racist as Lod’s District Court endorses plea bargain
In July 2015 18 month Ali Dawabshe
and his parents, Saad and Reham were murdered in their beds when settlers threw
petrol bombs inside their house. Only 4 year old Ahmad survived, albeit with
60% burns to his body.
Weeks later Israel’s ‘hilltop youth’ ‘celebrated’
their deaths in a wedding where they were pictured stabbing at pictures of Ali Dawabsheh.
Palestinian policeman investigates arson at Dawabshe's home
A 19 year old Israeli was convicted
at Lod District Court last week, not of murder
but arson. In fact, because the
murderer has already served 3 years on remand he will go free. The prosecution agreed to a plea deal which
allowed the crime to be reduced from murder to arson. Israel’s colonial court
had to agree to the plea deal, which of course they did.
Nasr
Dawabsheh, a spokesperson for the family, said
that "This deal is unfair and
encourages the settler gangs to commit more crimes," The Court threw out several of the accused’s
confessions because of torture. If he had been a Palestinian then there is no
doubt that his confession would be accepted.
Israel’s military courts in the West Bank have a 99.7% conviction rate
because confessions are accepted without question.
The 3 murdered Dawabshe family members
This comes on top of the decision of
the Israeli authorities to refuse
any ‘anti-terrorist’ compensation to the surviving child, Ahmad. Only Jewish settlers, being citizens, receive
such monies and as Ahmad is not Jewish and therefore not a citizen he is not
entitled to any compensation for the appalling burns and torment that he
suffered. Yoav Mordechai, the IDF coordinator of activities in the West Bank did
however deny
reports that Israel’s Health Ministry had served the family with a NIS 2
million bill for treatment. Mordechai apparently said that Israel would foot
the bill.
Of course if this Israeli teenage
killer had been an Arab all would have been different. When Ahmad Manasra was convicted
of attempted murder, he was held on remand until he was 14 years of age in
order that he could receive a prison sentence. He was initially sentenced to 12 years,
reduced
to 9.5 years imprisonment. The two Israelis stabbed did not die and it was
his cousin who had inflicted the wounds.
Ali Saad Dawabsheh
There is a surprisingly good article
on the Times of Israel blog, Kill at
Will. The Duma Dilemma by Esor Ben-Sorek, a retired professor of Hebrew and Biblical
literature who describes himself as a follower of Trumpeldor, Jabotinsky and
Begin – all symbols and leaders of Revisionist Zionism. the article is
reprinted below.
The graffiti daubed on the walls of the Dawabsheh home
As Labour MPs indulge in attacks on fake
‘anti-Semitism’ Israel moves to the ultra-Right
In 1984 Rabbi Meir Kahane of Kach (Thus) entered the Knesset with over 25,000
votes.Kach stood on a programme which,
as The Times of Israel’sMichael
Aarenau notedeven members of Likud likened to the
Nazis’ 1935 Nuremberg Race Laws.
Smotrich, Netanyahu and Itamar Gvir - the difference between them is one of semantics
In 1988, when polls suggested that Kach could get
between 4 and 12 seats, Kahane was banned from standing by the Supreme Court.
The reason that Kach was banned had nothing to do with opposition to racism but
a fear that the image of Israel would be damaged. In the four years that Kahane
was a Knesset member, when he spoke all the other 119 members would walk out.
But yesterday what was trefa (unclean) has now become kosher.
What used to be Zionism’s forbidden fruits have now become its delicacies. But
even in 1984, what Kahane said openly the other Zionist parties muttered behind
closed doors.
Fearing defeat by the Centrist Right bloc of Benny
Gantz’s Resilienceand Yair
Lapid’s Yesh Atid partiesNetanyahu openly pressurized the
far-Right Jewish Home-National Union
religious settlers’ parties to unite with Otzma
Yehudit, the direct descendants of Kahane’s Kach.
One can get an idea of Otzma Yehudit’s politics from its leader Michael Ben Ari, who was a
member of the 18th Knesset for the National Union between 2009 and 2013. Apart from instigating a pogrom against Black African refugees in South Tel Aviv Ari
is famous for tearing up a copy of the New Testament that a missionary sent
him and putting it in a trash bin.
In
September 2010 in response to being told that for every Israeli killed, six
Palestinians had died, he remarked that "For
every one dead on our side, we need to kill 500 and not six." This was
five times the number of hostages that the Nazis murdered in Yugoslavia for
every German soldier killed. Ben-Ari holds left-wing Jews and human rights
organisations in particular contempt, referring to them as “germs”
that need to be eradicated. During the 2012 Operation Pillar of Defence he
stated that “there are no innocents in
Gaza…mow them down! Kill the Gazans without thought or mercy!” This is who Netanyahu
has gone out of his way to ensure will be a member of the next Knesset.
Netanyahu - it would seem there is no one on the Right with whom he won't get into bed with
It would be
wrong however to simply concentrate on Otzma
Yehudit. Habayit Hayehudi (Jewish Home), which had 6 members, including the Education and
Justice Ministers in the last government, is no slouch when it comes to racism
and bigotry.Bezalel Smotrich, who
described himself as a ‘proud
homophobe’ distinguished himself by advocating separate
maternity wards for Jewish and Arab women on the grounds that his wife didn’t
want to give birth next to a woman whose child might become a ‘terrorist’.
However, despite the outrage these comments provoked, it is a fact that 5 of
Israel’s 7 major hospitals allow Jewish women to give birth in Arab free wards.
Habayit Hayehudi members vote to unite with Otzma Yehudit
In 2013, the
Deputy Defence Minister Rabbi Eli Dahan openly stated
of Palestinians that ‘To me, they are like animals, they
aren’t human.’
Despite considering gays an abomination he held that “A Jew always has a much higher soul than a gentile, even if he is a
homosexual.”
Whereas Menachem Begin, the first Likud Prime Minister
would have nothing to do with Kahane and his brand of Jewish messianic fascism,
there are no waters too polluted for Netanyahu to fish in.
The reasons for Netanyahu’s decision to invited Otzma Yehudit into the Knesset and the
governing coalition were that the far-Right in Israel today commands at least 250,000
votes. The problem is that they are split between at least 4 parties meaning
that these votes could be wasted. When Kahane was elected in 1984 Israel’s
proportional representation system meant a party which gained 25,000 votes (1%)
was guaranteed a seat but in the 2013 Knesset the threshold was increased from
2% to 3.25%.The idea behind this was to
exclude the Arab parties but instead the Arabs parties united to form the Joint
List, becoming the third largest party in the Knesset with 13 seats.
In the words of YNet ‘A dynasty of racism and provocation is on its way to the
Israeli parliament’. Yet Israel’s
Arab population will ask what is new? Whether it was Labour or Likud
governments they suffered ongoing violence and institutional discrimination.
What we are seeing today is Zionist ideology and practice catching up with each
other.Whereas Israeli Labour governments
spoke the language of collectivism and social democracy, they practised ethnic
cleansing and exclusion. The new, openly fascist Right has taken the hypocrisy
out of Zionism and in the process left Labour Zionism high and dry.
When Meir Kahane preached that Israel could be a Jewish
state or a Democratic state he was stating a truth that generations of ‘left’
Zionists preferred to ignore. Labour Zionism spoke of a Jewish democratic state
which was always an oxymoron. What happens if the Arabs’ higher birth-rate
meant they become the majority?Would
the Zionist parties acquiesce in a non-Jewish state or would there be a new
round of ethnic cleansing like in 1948?
In other words which is more important, a democratic or a
Jewish state? For Zionism a Jewish state was always the most important goal. which
was why a majority was gerrymandered by the new Israeli state in 1948 through
the expulsion of 90% of the Arabs. In the words
of one of the key organisations of Israeli Apartheid, the Jewish National Fund,
‘over 70% of the Jewish
population in Israel opposes allocating KKL-JNF land to non-Jews, while over
80% prefer the definition of Israel as a Jewish state, rather than as the state
of all its citizens.’
Successive Zionist governments, beginning with the
Israeli Labour governments of 1949-1977 were opposed to mixed marriages and
sexual/ personal relationships between Jews and Arabs. That was why marriage
between a Jew and a non-Jew was made impossible. As Hannah Arendt noted at the
time of the Eichmann trial in 1961:
But what Labour and Likud whispered under their breath
Kahane and the thugs of Lehava openly practiced. During his four year stint in
the Knesset Kahane proposed a series of laws which outlined what a Jewish
theocratic state would look like: As Bradley Burston noted in Ha'aretz this included:
- Revocation of non-Jewish citizenship.
- Expulsion of non-Jews from
Jerusalem and eventually Israel.
- The eventual imposition of
slavery on Arabs and other non-Jews.
- Prohibition of contact
between Jews and Arabs, including sexual relations.
- Segregated beaches.
- Prohibition of non-Jews
living in Jewish neighborhoods.
- Forced dissolution of all
intermarriages.
Not only did much
of this come straight from the 1935 Nazi Nuremburg Lawbut much of it
merely codified existing practice.
For example the
prohibition of non-Jews living in Jewish neighbourhoods is already existing
practice.Hundreds of Jewish communities
in Israel are Jewish only. That was the purpose of the 2011 Admissions Committees Law, to keep out
Arabs (and also Black and Sephardi Jews). This was reinforced by the Jewish Nation State Law 2018 which
advocated Jewish Settlement as a ‘national value’. The JNF has been practicing
Jewish only settlement since the early 20th century but Israel’s
far-Right wishes to make explicit that which was always implicit. What was
previously normal but not written down in law is now becoming codified and
rigid.
If the idea of
Arabs as slaves seems far-fetched we should remember that the Sephardic Chief
Rabbi of Israel, Ovadia Yosef ruled that non-Jews
would be expelled from Israel apart from a few who ‘will be allowed to remain in the land and fulfil roles
reserved for gentiles in the service of Jews.’ That role was made
clear in a sermon in 2010.“Goyim (non-Jews) were born only to serve us.
Without that, they have no place in the world – only to serve the People of
Israel,”
What Kahane represented was the face that Zionism itself
could not bear to see.However even
though Kahane died at the hands of an assassin in 1990 his ideas have lived on.
The present Israeli elections are likely to see the demise of Labour Zionism.Meretz, which as the ‘Marxist’ Zionist Mapam
was the second largest party in the 1949 Knesset, may be wiped out entirely.
The Israeli Labour Party which until 1977 formed every single government is
presently forecast to gain less than 10 seats (down from 24 in the present
Knesset).
‘These are the David Dukes and the Richard Spencers of the
Jewish State, people who believe that Jewish sovereignty depends on the
oppression, ethnic cleansing and even murder of Israel’s Arab population.’
To listen to Ungar-Sargon
you would imagine that ethnic cleansing, murder and oppression are novelties
for the Palestinians.
American Jews, who have
been shaken by the recent murder of 11 of their compatriots at Pittsburgh, are
the most liberal part of America’s white population. They are especially
sensitive since the Trump Administration combines white supremacy, demonisation
of refugees and a not-too-hidden anti-Semitism with ardent support for Israel
and Zionism. They are looking aghast as Israel moves off the political radar.
The American Jewish establishment
is also shaken, not by the open association of with fascists and racists but by
Netanyahu’s brazenness. For decades these leaders have turned a blind eye to
all sorts of racist atrocities and provided cover for Israel’s repeated massacres.
But what they cannot stand is that Israel no longer seems to care what others
think of it. They know Trump will support them regardless. As Susie Gelman, a
major Zionist philanthropist asks
‘Is there any line of decency and
morality that he (Netanyahu) will not cross?” complaining that “Netanyahu’s
actions are feeding the estrangement of
young American Jews from Israel’ which is her real concern before assuring
her interlocutors that ‘I still feel
committed to the Israeli people’ making a fatuous distinction ‘between the Israeli government and the
people of Israel.” Perhaps it has not occurred to Ms Gelman that the reason
why Netanyahu can get away with what he does is that the Israeli people support
and vote for him?
As Ha'aretz notes the main
concern of America’s Jewish Establishment is not the fact of Israeli racism
and ethnic cleansing but that ‘Netanyahu's
move will hurt Israel's image and create rift with Jewish Americans.’
It is hard to stifle a smile when the CEO of the
Anti-Defamation League Jonathan Greenblatt whines that "There should be no room for racism & no accommodation for
intolerance in Israel or any democracy," Where, one wonders, was
Jonathan when the Chief Rabbi of Safed Shmuel Elihayu issued
an edict in 2011 that Jews were forbidden to rent rooms and apartments to
Arabs? When criticized Eliyahu was backed by hundreds of Israeli rabbis. To
this day Eliyahu is a paid Israeli
state official.
Zionism is coming full circle. The
old hypocrisies have become redundant. Ideology and practice are coming into
line. The logic of a Jewish state, like all ethno-nationalist states is that
non-Jews do not belong. Just as Jews were not welcome in similar states in the Europe
of the 1930’s.
Today there are large elements in
Israel, in particular amongst the religious Zionists for whom the Palestinians
represent the ancient foe of the Hebrews, the Amalekites. In Exodus 17:14, God
told Moses that ‘I will utterly blot out
the memory of Amalek from under heaven.’ Yeah every man, woman, child and
infant was to die. For those who are aware of the biblical story
of Esther, Netanyahu is indeed the Jewish Haman.
Tony Greenstein
Meir Kahane addresses a
gathering at the Silver Springs Jewish Center in Maryland, October 27, 1988.
(AP Photo/Doug Mills)
"Without unity the left will
win." Page 4 and 5 of Israel Haiom newspaper, on Tuesday 19,019.Israel Haiom screengrab
Meir Kahane in 1984Daniel Rosenblum
See below for articles about
Netanyahu’s invitation to Kahane’s students:
Likud’s Triumph Emphasises the
Irrelevance of Labour Zionism
When all the pundits predicted that Netanyahu and the Right would be defeated in the Israeli General Election, this blog stood alone in predicting that the Zionist Right would triumph once again.
The Israeli Labour Party, running with Tsipi Livni’s Hatnuah, has high hopes of forming the next government. It is likely to be disappointed.
Netanhayu addresses Congress
I did not, and do not, possess a crystal ball. Nor was it, as I posted to Antony Lerman's blog a hunch or guess. It is based on an analysis that Zionism has no need today of the appearance of a 'socialist' cover. A nakedly free market society adapts ideologically and in Israel's case it jettisons the old rhetoric of collectivity. State capitalism as represented by Histadrut, which until the late 1980's and early 1990's was the second largest employer in Israel after the state itself, has given way to massive privatisation. The welfare state has been progressively dismantled.
Herzog - the Zionist Union (Labour) leader - Gaza should have been hit harder and earlier
The Israeli Labour Party, which pioneered the confiscation of Arab land, the military rule over the Arabs and the creation of an apartheid state, is now redundant, a left-over from the past. In its wake there is a hysterical nationalist xenophobia that binds the settler majority and treats the Arab minority as a fifth column. Arabs play the same role as the Jews did in Nazi mythology. They are the traitors within, waiting to perform the 'stab in the back'. This is my post: Tony Greenstein
Antony says that he guessed that Netanyahu would win the election. Perhaps he did but in an article for the Weekly Worker I was one of the few who put their cards on the table with an article The Right & Far Right Will Almost Certainly Win the Israeli Elections (unexpurgated).
Israel's fascist foreign minister Lieberman - taking an axe to Israel's Arabs. Leader of the Zionist ISIS
But it's not a question of who was right but why I predicted that the Right would win. It was not a question of guessing. Labour Zionism, to which Antony had a childhood attachment and still has a fondness for, is a busted flush. It has served its political purpose. It laid the basis for Begin's victory in 1977 and as Ze'ev Sternhell wrote, it is difficult to identify one social grouping that enthusiastically supports it.
Netanyahu celebrates
I agree with Ali Abunimah when he says that Netanyahu's victory is the best outcome. It means that the West has to confront its support for the war criminals in Tel Aviv. The election of Livni and Herzog would have clouded that, raised hopes but have done nothing for those who need it most - the Palestinians. Consider: Livni is also the war criminal behind the attack on Gaza in 2008/9. Some 1400 civilians were killed. In the peace talks (see the Palestinian Papers, Clayton Swisher) she repeatedly proposes swapping Arab towns and areas of Israel for the settlements. She is as much a devotee of a Jewish state as Netanyahu. What of Herzog? Is he just a traditional social democrat? Hardly. He campaigned on social issues but kept well clear of the settlements which he has vowed to maintain. His party voted to support the banning of Haneen Zoabi. He criticised Netanyahu in a video for going soft on Hamas and not hitting Gaza hard enough or early enough. 2,200 dead in Operation Protective Edge was not good enough for him. http://mondoweiss.net/2015/02/leader-attacks-netanyahu I know Antony does not like the comparisons but when you see Israeli mobs chanting 'death to the Arabs' or a demonstration of hundreds of Israelis outside a wedding reception of an Arab male and a Jewess you are reminded of Europe in the 1930's and Germany in particular. Zionism is playing itself out in Lieberman's remarks about taking an axe and beheading Israeli Arabs. Ayelet Shaked speaks for many when talking of exterminating Palestinian women so that they won't give birth to 'little Palestinian snakes'. All this accompanised by frightening military power. We should be grateful that Netanyahu's victory has at least provided clarity.
Lest We Forget – Israel’s Support for South Africa
As true today as when Mandela spoke
For decades Israel supported the “A-word” regime and its military with advanced weapon systems at a time when Western sanctions meant no one else would. According to Haaretz editor Aluf Benn, the cooperation reached its peak in the late 1980s, the twilight of the apartheid regime
In the summer of 1988, Benn says, Israel reportedly sold South Africa 60 Kfir combat planes in a hushed-up deal worth $1.7 billion. The planes were upgraded and renamed Atlas Cheetah and Israel’s involvement was played down because the US was party to the sanctions regime
Accused of enacting 'apartheid' itself, in the past Israel aided the South African regime
The lame excuses made up by Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu for failing to go to Nelson Mandela’s memorial on Tuesday have raised eyebrows and wry smiles all over the world. Having insisted on a £150,000 refit of the plane he and his wife took for the five-hour flight to Lady Thatcher’s funeral in London earlier this year, the trip to Johannesburg would, he claimed, be “too costly”. This from a man who spends thousands a year – from the public purse - on pistachio ice-cream
Netanyahu could not afford the price of a ticket to South Africa
Peres also couldn't go to South Africa - he had flu!
However, it is quite possible that Mr Netanyahu may have been less than ecstatically welcomed in the new South Africa anyway, following revelations that the country’s apartheid regime was the Israeli defense industry’s biggest customer and sponsor.
Begin, Rabin and Moshe Dayan entertain John Vorster, hardline supporter of Apartheid and an ex-Nazi interned during the wary
For many years it was virtually a capital offence to use the word “apartheid” as an analogy to policies of the Israeli government in the Occupied Territories. In 2007 my friend Danny Rubenstein, the venerated Arab Affairs analyst of Haaretz newspaper, was invited by the Zionist Federation of Great Britain to address an event. On his way he stopped to address a UN committee in Brussels, and used the word “apartheid” to describe Israel’s attitude towards the Palestinians.
In response, he was unceremoniously dumped by the ZFGB and left high and dry in a B&B in Golders Green on a Friday night. He was eventually rescued by the New Fund for Israel and invited to a crowded gathering in a North London Reform synagogue.
Israelis nuclear co-operation with Pretoria
But while Rubenstein was mainly concerned to warn the audience of the dangers of Israel following in the footsteps of the Afrikaaners, his interviewer – and most of the questioners - kept harping on what was constantly, if coyly, referred to as “the A-word”.
Yet it now emerges that for decades Israel supported the “A-word” regime and its military with advanced weapon systems at a time when Western sanctions meant no one else would. According to Haaretz editor Aluf Benn, the cooperation reached its peak in the late 1980s, the twilight of the apartheid regime.
In the summer of 1988, Benn says, Israel reportedly sold South Africa 60 Kfir combat planes in a hushed-up deal worth $1.7 billion. The planes were upgraded and renamed Atlas Cheetah and Israel’s involvement was played down because the US was party to the sanctions regime, according to Haaretz.
Israel joined the international sanctions in 1987 but said it would honour existing contracts so the deal went ahead anyway. A few weeks later, the Israelis launched the first Ofek reconnaissance satellite which Benn claims could only have been developed with South African funding. And only in 1991 was the US able to force the Israeli government to stop selling SA short and midrange missiles.
Maps which were only revealed in the past few days show how the Israelis plan to create bantustans for the Nomadic Bedouin in its southern Negev region. Tens of thousands of them would be forced into ghettoes to make way for new Jewish towns and military zones. A-word, anyone?
