The Last Fig Leaf Hiding the Nakedness of Israeli Democracy Has Been Stripped Away

The very idea of a Jewish state is a violation of the rights of its non-Jewish citizens

One of the few things that Zionists use to uphold the pretence that Israel is a democracy is the fact that the Arabs/Palestinians can vote in elections for the Knesset.  Now even this is no longer true.

it all began with this book published in 1896

 And it is true.  At the May 2015 elections the Joint Arab List which included the Communist Party (Khadash) and Balad the secular Arab Nationalist Party gained 13 seats making it the 3^rd largest party in Israel’s Knesset.

There is just one problem.  In Israel’s nearly 70 years of existence no Arab party has ever been part of the Israeli government.  The only Arabs to become Ministers are seen as collaborators in their own communities.  It is an unwritten rule in Israeli politics that no government must rely on the votes of the Arab parties.  It was this that most incensed the Zionists when Yitzhak Rabin relied on Israeli Arab votes, who were not of course coalition partners, to defeat the right-wing parties led by Netanyahu.  This more than anything else was the cause of his assassination.

Now however even the fig leaf is being stripped away.  Hot on the heels of the Expulsion Bill passed last year which allows 90 MKs to expel another MK, something already being used to try and expel Basel Ghattas, a Balad MK, who apparently committed the heinous offence of passing mobile phones to Palestinian prisoners serving 30+ years in Israeli prisons.  No Jewish MK, however racist ever stands a chance of being disciplined.  All 3 Balad MKs last year were suspended by the Zionist Jewish majority for visiting the relatives of Palestinians who had been killed after attacking Israelis.  A particular target has  been Haneen Zoabi, a secular woman Palestinian Israeli MK who went on the Mava Marmari ship which tried to break the blockade of Gaza.  She has been subject to a tirade of hate and vitriol.  [See Haneen Zoabi: 'Israel is the only country not shocked by or afraid of Trump']

In an ethnocracy, which Israel is, where people vote according to whether they are Jewish or Arab, the power to expel the representatives from the minority can only be symptomatic of a dictatorship for that minority.  Israel doesn’t have class parties of  both Arabs and Jews.  The Labour Party is a racist part for Zionists.  Indeed it was the original party of Zionist racism.

Israel already has the attributes of a police state as far as Arabs are concerned – censorship, overt discrimination in every area of life, segregation in schools, towns –[the Access to Communities Bill overturned the decision of the Supreme Court in Kadan that it was forbidden to discriminate in land allocation policies and that the Israeli Land Authority and the Jewish National Fund could not refuse to sell land to Arabs].  Arabs are regularly arrested and gaoled under incitement to hatred laws.  Jews never are.  We even had the spectacle of Palestinian poet Dareen Tatour being jailed for putting poetry on social media talking about resistance to Israeli racism. Dareen Tatour, Palestinian poet imprisoned by Israel for social media posts, shares her story

despite the headline Gopstein was not arrested whereas Sheikh Raeed Salah of the Northern Islamic Leagues has been gaoled for 10 months for defending the Mosque of Al Aqsa and the Golden Dome

However the fascist Lehava organisation whose leader Benzi Gopstein justified setting fire to churches and mosques is at liberty.  There is no attempt to arrest or gaol him because he used a religious justification for setting fire to non-Jewish religious institutions and that is an exemption in Israel’s anti-racist laws.  Burning of Christian churches in Israel justified, far-Right Jewish leader says

I have also included a very interesting article by Joseph Levine on questioning the Jewish State.  It is published in the New York Times of all papers.

I agree with it almost in its entirety.  Perhaps the only lacuna is that  Levine doesn’t mention that there is no Israeli nationality, just a Jewish nationality and a myriad of other, quite nonsensical nationalities in Israel.  In other words there is only one important nationality, that of the dominant ethnic group or race – those who are Jewish.

But his main thesis, that a Jewish state in which nationality and self-determination pertains only to one ethnicity in a state is bound to be racist is correct.  Britain is a Christian state but it is a state of all its peoples.  Christianity is a constitutional adornment, it has no effect on my rights as a Jewish citizen of Britain.  But in Israel being Jewish means real privileges – access to land, the best schools, grants to universities, better employment, political privileges etc.  That is why a Jewish state must be an apartheid state.

Tony Greenstein

Knesset Votes to Ban Palestinian Parties, Destroy Israeli Democracy

March 16, 2017 By Richard Silverstein 13 Comments

MK Basel Ghattas speaking in the Knesset, a body from which he may soon be expelled by his Jewish rightist colleagues  (Hadas Parush/Flash90)

Yesterday, the Israeli Knesset voted to ban Israeli Palestinian political parties from participating in future elections.  It accomplished this evisceration of Israeli democracy in the dead of night with only 29 members voting in favor (20 brave souls voted against, the rest were apparently asleep at the switch).  The means used was quite ingenious: the Basic Law was amended to read that no MK could sit in Knesset unless he or she affirmed that Israel was both a “Jewish and democratic state.”  Jewish MKs have no trouble affirming both of these claims.  But Palestinian MKs believe that Israel is not democratic and that it shouldn’t be Jewish (alone).

The amendment passed also notes that MKs may be found to have violated it not only by their deeds, but by their public statements.  This means that if a Palestinian MK exercises his right to free speech, he may be expelled from the Knesset.

So with a few strokes of a fountain pen or keyboard, the most extremist of Israeli governments has effectively destroyed Israeli democracy.  No self-respecting Israeli-Palestinian would be willing to affirm that Israel is and should be a Jewish state.  It’s the equivalent of an American Jew affirming the U.S. should be a Christian nation; or an African-American affirming the U.S. should be based on Christian white supremacy.  And without Palestinian representatives, the Knesset will become a Jewish-only body.

In the past, every single Palestinian MK has been subjected to criminal investigation or other form of persecution by the Knesset itself.  So the new law is further evidence of the Israeli Jewish campaign to render Israeli politics Arab-rein.  It is part of a longer term initiative to “disappear” Palestinians both physically and politically from Israel.

One must ask why only 20 MKs voted against this travesty?  Their number included the Joint List and Meretz.  Notably, it excluded virtually every other Jewish MK, including those from the supposedly liberal Labor Party.  Do I hear the “A-word,” anyone?

Coincidentally, today a UN body issued a report finding that Israel had become an apartheid state.  It further urged that the UN reactivate the methods, resolutions and commissions it used to ostracize South Africa, when it too faced international opprobrium for its racist policies.  The new version of the Basic Law further strengthens such findings.

In truth, this is all a bit of political theater, since the Israeli elections commission decisions to expel Party lists or individual MKs must be ratified by the Supreme Court.  This body, which has grown increasingly rightist, has in the past routinely overturned such rulings by the commission.  It’s likely it will continue to do so.  But as settlers are added to the Court it becomes increasingly likely it will eventually rubber stamp the anti-democratic racism of the legislative body.

On Questioning the Jewish State

By Joseph Levine 

NY Times

March 9, 2013 7:30 pm

Joseph Levine

I was raised in a religious Jewish environment, and though we were not strongly Zionist, I always took it to be self-evident that “Israel has a right to exist.” Now anyone who has debated the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will have encountered this phrase often. Defenders of Israeli policies routinely accuse Israel’s critics of denying her right to exist, while the critics (outside of a small group on the left, where I now find myself) bend over backward to insist that, despite their criticisms, of course they affirm it. The general mainstream consensus seems to be that to deny Israel’s right to exist is a clear indication of anti-Semitism (a charge Jews like myself are not immune to), and therefore not an option for people of conscience.

What does it mean for a people to have a state “of their own”?

Over the years I came to question this consensus and to see that the general fealty to it has seriously constrained open debate on the issue, one of vital importance not just to the people directly involved — Israelis and Palestinians — but to the conduct of our own foreign policy and, more important, to the safety of the world at large. My view is that one really ought to question Israel’s right to exist and that doing so does not manifest anti-Semitism. The first step in questioning the principle, however, is to figure out what it means.

One problem with talking about this question calmly and rationally is that the phrase “right to exist” sounds awfully close to “right to life,” so denying Israel its right to exist sounds awfully close to permitting the extermination of its people. In light of the history of Jewish persecution, and the fact that Israel was created immediately after and largely as a consequence of the Holocaust, it isn’t surprising that the phrase “Israel’s right to exist” should have this emotional impact. But as even those who insist on the principle will admit, they aren’t claiming merely the impermissibility of exterminating Israelis. So what is this “right” that many uphold as so basic that to question it reflects anti-Semitism and yet is one that I claim ought to be questioned?

The key to the interpretation is found in the crucial four words that are often tacked on to the phrase “Israel’s right to exist” — namely, “… as a Jewish state.” As I understand it, the principle that Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish state has three parts: first, that Jews, as a collective, constitute a people in the sense that they possess a right to self-determination; second, that a people’s right to self-determination entails the right to erect a state of their own, a state that is their particular people’s state; and finally, that for the Jewish people the geographical area of the former Mandatory Palestine, their ancestral homeland, is the proper place for them to exercise this right to self-determination.

The claim then is that anyone who denies Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state is guilty of anti-Semitism because they are refusing to grant Jews the same rights as other peoples possess. If indeed this were true, if Jews were being singled out in the way many allege, I would agree that it manifests anti-Jewish bias. But the charge that denying Jews a right to a Jewish state amounts to treating the Jewish people differently from other peoples cannot be sustained.

To begin, since the principle has three parts, it follows that it can be challenged in (at least) three different ways: either deny that Jews constitute “a people” in the relevant sense, deny that the right to self-determination really involves what advocates of the principle claim it does, or deny that Jews have the requisite claim on the geographical area in question.

In fact, I think there is a basis to challenge all three, but for present purposes I will focus on the question of whether a people’s right to self-determination entails their right to a state of their own, and set aside whether Jews count as a people and whether Jews have a claim on that particular land. I do so partly for reasons of space, but mainly because these questions have largely (though not completely) lost their importance. 

The fact is that today millions of Jews live in Israel and, ancestral homeland or not, this is their home now. As for whether Jews constitute a people, this is a vexed question given the lack of consensus in general about what it takes for any particular group of people to count as “a people.” The notion of “a people” can be interpreted in different ways, with different consequences for the rights that they possess. My point is that even if we grant Jews their peoplehood and their right to live in that land, there is still no consequent right to a Jewish state.

However, I do think that it’s worth noting the historical irony in insisting that it is anti-Semitic to deny that Jews constitute a people. The 18th and 19th centuries were the period of Jewish “emancipation” in Western Europe, when the ghetto walls were torn down and Jews were granted the full rights of citizenship in the states within which they resided. The anti-Semitic forces in those days, those opposing emancipation, were associated not with denying Jewish peoplehood but with emphatically insisting on it! The idea was that since Jews constituted a nation of their own, they could not be loyal citizens of any European state. The liberals who strongly opposed anti-Semitism insisted that Jews could both practice their religion and uphold their cultural traditions while maintaining full citizenship in the various nation-states in which they resided.

But, as I said, let’s grant that Jews are a people. Well, if they are, and if with the status of a people comes the right to self-determination, why wouldn’t they have a right to live under a Jewish state in their homeland? The simple answer is because many non-Jews (rightfully) live there too. But this needs unpacking.

First, it’s important to note, as mentioned above, that the term “a people” can be used in different ways, and sometimes they get confused. In particular, there is a distinction to be made between a people in the ethnic sense and a people in the civic sense. Though there is no general consensus on this, a group counts as a people in the ethnic sense by virtue of common language, common culture, common history and attachment to a common territory. One can easily see why Jews, scattered across the globe, speaking many different languages and defined largely by religion, present a difficult case. But, as I said above, for my purposes it doesn’t really matter, and I will just assume the Jewish people qualify.

The other sense is the civic one, which applies to a people by virtue of their common citizenship in a nation-state or, alternatively, by virtue of their common residence within relatively defined geographic borders. So whereas there is both an ethnic and a civic sense to be made of the term “French people,” the term “Jewish people” has only an ethnic sense. This can easily be seen by noting that the Jewish people is not the same group as the Israeli people. About 20 percent of Israeli citizens are non-Jewish Palestinians, while the vast majority of the Jewish people are not citizens of Israel and do not live within any particular geographic area. “Israeli people,” on the other hand, has only a civic sense. (Of course often the term “Israelis” is used as if it applies only to Jewish Israelis, but this is part of the problem. More on this below.)

So, when we consider whether or not a people has a right to a state of their own, are we speaking of a people in the ethnic sense or the civic one? I contend that insofar as the principle that all peoples have the right to self-determination entails the right to a state of their own, it can apply to peoples only in the civic sense.

After all, what is it for a people to have a state “of their own”? Here’s a rough characterization: the formal institutions and legal framework of the state serves to express, encourage and favor that people’s identity. The distinctive position of that people would be manifested in a number of ways, from the largely symbolic to the more substantive: for example, it would be reflected in the name of the state, the nature of its flag and other symbols, its national holidays, its education system, its immigration rules, the extent to which membership in the people in question is a factor in official planning, how resources are distributed, etc. If the people being favored in this way are just the state’s citizens, it is not a problem. (Of course those who are supercosmopolitan, denying any legitimacy to the borders of nation-states, will disagree. But they aren’t a party to this debate.)

But if the people who “own” the state in question are an ethnic sub-group of the citizenry, even if the vast majority, it constitutes a serious problem indeed, and this is precisely the situation of Israel as the Jewish state. Far from being a natural expression of the Jewish people’s right to self-determination, it is in fact a violation of the right to self-determination of its non-Jewish (mainly Palestinian) citizens. It is a violation of a people’s right to self-determination to exclude them — whether by virtue of their ethnic membership, or for any other reason — from full political participation in the state under whose sovereignty they fall. Of course Jews have a right to self-determination in this sense as well — this is what emancipation was all about. But so do non-Jewish peoples living in the same state.

Any state that “belongs” to one ethnic group within it violates the core democratic principle of equality, and the self-determination rights of the non-members of that group. 

If the institutions of a state favor one ethnic group among its citizenry in this way, then only the members of that group will feel themselves fully a part of the life of the state. True equality, therefore, is only realizable in a state that is based on civic peoplehood. As formulated by both Jewish- and Palestinian-Israeli activists on this issue, a truly democratic state that fully respects the self-determination rights of everyone under its sovereignty must be a “state of all its citizens.”

This fundamental point exposes the fallacy behind the common analogy, drawn by defenders of Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, between Israel’s right to be Jewish and France’s right to be French. The appropriate analogy would instead be between France’s right to be French (in the civic sense) and Israel’s right to be Israeli. 

I conclude, then, that the very idea of a Jewish state is undemocratic, a violation of the self-determination rights of its non-Jewish citizens, and therefore morally problematic. But the harm doesn’t stop with the inherently undemocratic character of the state. For if an ethnic national state is established in a territory that contains a significant number of non-members of that ethnic group, it will inevitably face resistance from the land’s other inhabitants. This will force the ethnic nation controlling the state to resort to further undemocratic means to maintain their hegemony. Three strategies to deal with resistance are common: expulsion, occupation and institutional marginalization. Interestingly, all three strategies have been employed by the Zionist movement: expulsion in 1948 (and, to a lesser extent, in 1967), occupation of the territories conquered in 1967 and institution of a complex web of laws that prevent Israel’s Palestinian citizens from mounting an internal challenge to the Jewish character of the state. (The recent outrage in Israel over a proposed exclusion of ultra-Orthodox parties from the governing coalition, for example, failed to note that no Arab political party has ever been invited to join the government.) In other words, the wrong of ethnic hegemony within the state leads to the further wrong of repression against the Other within its midst.

There is an unavoidable conflict between being a Jewish state and a democratic state. I want to emphasize that there’s nothing anti-Semitic in pointing this out, and it’s time the question was discussed openly on its merits, without the charge of anti-Semitism hovering in the background.

Joseph Levine is a professor of philosophy at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where he teaches and writes on philosophy of mind, metaphysics and political philosophy. He is the author of “Purple Haze: The Puzzle of Consciousness.”  

Why Israel is not a Liberal Democracy

Israel is the most racist and right-wing state on Earth

Introduction

The recent Home Affairs Select Committee Report on Anti-Semitism, [see Manufacturing Consent On ‘Anti-Semitism - Modern Day Alchemy - Home Affairs Select Committee Transforms Anti-Zionism into Anti-Semitism] whose primary purpose was to conflate criticism of Israel and Zionism with anti-Semitism, started from the basis that ‘where criticism of the Israeli Government is concerned, context is vital. Israel is an ally of the UK Government and is generally regarded as a liberal democracy, in which the actions of the Government are openly debated and critiqued by its citizens’. (para. 23)

However the Committee was happy to assure people that ‘It is not antisemitic to hold the Israeli Government to the same standards as other liberal democracies, or to take a particular interest in the Israeli Government’s policies or actions, without additional evidence to suggest antisemitic intent.’  (para 24) In other words, as long as you treat Israel as you would say The Netherlands, then without further evidence you are probably not anti-Semitic.  But if you treat Israel for what it is, a racist settler colonial state founded on ethnic cleansing, you will be in danger of being classified as anti-Semitic and further you may be liable to prosecution for a hate crime if your criticism of Zionism is in an ‘accusatory or abusive context’. (paras. 5 and 32)

This myth that Israel is a oasis of liberal democracy in a Middle East of appalling dictatorships is just that – a myth – as this article will demonstrate.Israel a Settler Colonial State

The first and foremost reason why Israel is not and never has been a democracy is that it is a settler-colonial state.  In order to achieve the appearance of democracy, Israel had to expel, in 1948, ¾ million Palestinians in what was called the Nakba.  Thanks to research by Israeli historians such as Benny Morris and Ilan Pappe, who based their research on the opening of the haganah archives, the myth that the Palestinian refugees evacuated their villages in order to allow the Arab armies to conquer Israel are no longer tenable.  First hand witness testimony from those who took part in the destruction of Arab villages and the massacre of their inhabitants for example Liz Tcharansky’s On the Side of the Road are conclusive. 

Because Israel, unlike South Africa, was particularly dependent on political support in the West came up with the concept of a Jewish Democratic state.  For the Jews it was to a certain extent democratic, but for Israel’s Palestinians who spent the first 18 years of the state under military rule it has always been a Jewish state.  Whenever there has been a clash or contradiction between the two then the Jewish prevailed over the Democratic.  As the Jewish National Fund explained, after the Supreme Court ruled in Kadan in 2000, that the JNF and Israeli Land Authority could no longer refuse to allow Arabs to rent or lease land:

To the Jewish National Fund, which owns 13% of Israel's land and controls another 80% what is more important is a Jewish rather than a democratic state - 

'A survey commissioned by KKL-JNF reveals that 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'

Origins of Zionist Colonialism

The process of colonisation began in 1882 with the First Aliyah, (wave of emigration).  Although Zionists today are fond of describing Zionism as a movement of ‘national self-determination of the Jewish people’, when the first Kibbutzim were established, they were called colonies and those who lived in them were known as colonists.  [See Ben-Gurion’s Rebirth & Destiny] 

When Theodore Herzl, the founder of Political Zionism, wrote to the white supremacist founder of Rhodesia, Cecile Rhodes, in 1903 he remarked:  ‘How, then, do I happen to turn to you since this is an out-of-the-way matter for you? How indeed? Because it is something colonial… [Diaries of Theodor Herzl, p.1194]

Today of course colonialism is not popular so Zionism adapts to the zeitgeist and adopts the language of the left to disguise its origins.  Herzl sought what Chaim Weizmann achieved in 1917, an alliance with British imperialism, the Balfour Declaration, which promised to sponsor a Jewish settler colony in Palestine against the wishes of the indigenous population. 

Zionist colonisation of Palestine first involved buying the land from a absentee landlords and then evicting the peasant population.  At first settlements like Petah Tikvah and Rishon Lezion which were established in 1878 and 1882 survived because of the support they received from Baron Edmond de Rothschild.  Later the Jewish National Fund, established in 1901, took over the purchase of land and the subsidisation of the colonies.

The difference between the first and subsequent aliyah was that the settlers behaved like traditional colonists and were content to sit back and let the Arabs do the work.  The Second (Labour) Aliyah from 1904-1914, spearheaded by the Ben-Gurion’s ‘socialist’ Poalei Zion, insisted that it was Jewish workers who were to do the work.  The colonies and the Kibbutzim were to be Jewish only. 

It was the Labour Zionists, not their Revisionist opponents who sought to create a wholly Jewish economy as a precursor to a Jewish state.  They campaigned on the policies of Jewish Labour, land and produce. 

David HaCohen, a former Managing Director of Solel Boneh, the wholly owned building company of Histadrut, explained what this meant:

‘I had to fight my friends on the issue of Jewish socialism, to defend the fact that I would not accept Arabs in my Trade Union, the Histadrut; to defend preaching to housewives that they should not buy at Arab stores; to defend the fact that we stood guard at orchards to prevent Arab workers from getting jobs there... to pour kerosene on Arab tomatoes; to attack Jewish housewives in the markets and smash Arab eggs they had bought... to buy dozens of dunums from an Arab is permitted but to sell God forbid one Jewish dunum to an Arab is prohibited; to take Rothschild the incarnation of capitalism  as a socialist and to name him the 'benefactor' - to do all that was not easy.’ [David Hirst, The Gun and the Olive Branch, p.63].

Unsuprisingly this caused mass resentment which culminated in the 1929 riots when some 100, mainly Orthodox religious Jews were massacred.  The Hope Simpson Report which reported into the causes of the riots was clear as to the reasons behind the riots.  It observed:

Haneen Zoabi is physically escorted from the podium of the Knesset because the Zionist members disapprove of what she is saying

The effect of the Zionist colonisation policy on the Arab.— Actually the result of the purchase of land in Palestine by the Jewish National Fund has been that land has been extraterritorialised. It ceases to be land from which the Arab can gain any advantage either now or at any time in the future. Not only can he never hope to lease or to cultivate it, but, by the stringent provisions of the lease of the Jewish National Fund, he is deprived for ever from employment on that land. Nor can anyone help him by purchasing the land and restoring it to common use. The land is in mortmain and inalienable. It is for this reason that Arabs discount the professions of friendship and good will on the part of the Zionists in view of the policy which the Zionist Organisation deliberately adopted. (para. 54)

Israel’s Open and Increasing Racism

It is the settler colonial nature of Israel and the definition of Israel as a Jewish supremacist state where Jews must always retain a majority of at least 80% that lies at the root of Israeli racism.  The ‘demographic question’ which is unknown in all western democracies, is ever present and manifests itself in the policy of ‘Judaisation’ of the Galilee, the Negev and Jerusalem.  The Koenig Plan and the Prawer Plans are based on the need to secure Jewish majorities in both the former areas of Israel.  The fear that Arabs will one day become a majority is responsible for Israel being the most racist and right wing state on Earth. 

In Netanyahu’s governing coalition, Ministers are openly racist in a way that would be unheard of  in Europe.  For example the Deputy Defence Minister Rabbi Eli Dahan is of the opinion that Arabs are not human but beasts.  In an interview when asked what he would do if a law for single sex marriages was proposed in the Knesset responded ‘“No, under no circumstances. A Jew and a goy [non Jew] can also not marry.”  He went on to explain the racial hierarchy of souls:  “We don’t recognize either of them. In any case, a Jew always has a much higher [level] soul than a goy, even if he is a homosexual’.

But lest it be thought that Dahan is an exception, we should remember that Prime Minister Netanyahu, when declaring that Israel was proposing to erect a fence all around itself, explained that its purpose was to keep the ‘“wild beasts” i.e. neighbouring Arabs out.  Racism is the handmaiden of colonialism and occupation.   Almost every government minister has made comments which would, in a liberal democracy, be considered beyond the pale. 

For example ‘Culture’ Minister Miri Regev, who spends most of her time threatening Israeli arts groups with a loss of funding if they don’t play in settlements, described the 60,000 African refugees who made their way to Israel in the past decade, as a ‘cancer’ in Israeli society.  When people protested Regev apologised to cancer victims for comparing them to refugees!  Regev made these remarks at an anti-refugee rally in South Tel-Aviv and it resulted in a pogrom against individual refugees.

When the Peace Index conducted a survey a majority of Israeli Jews (52%) supported Regev and 33% condoned anti-migrant violence.  [52% of Israeli Jews agree: African migrants are ‘a cancer’]  By way of contrast only 19% of Israeli Arabs agreed with Regev’s statement.

All Surveys of Israeli Jews find a Majority Adopt Overtly Racist Attitudes

Every opinion poll finds that a majority of Israelis display what in the West would be considered virulently racist opinions.  If a similar percentage of Britons had the same attitudes to Jews then anti-Semitism would indeed be a problem in this country.  Whereas people with what might be called anti-Semitic prejudices in this country number around 5-6%, in Israel a large majority of Israeli Jews are, to be  blunt, racist bigots.

In a survey earlier this year, Israel’ Religiously Divided Society by the Pew Research Centre, 64% of Arabs disagree with the statement that Israel can be Jewish and a democracy at the same time.  This rises to 72% amongst Christians with 20% disagreeing.

Just 8% of Israeli Jews identify with the Left compared to 37% for the Right and 55% for the Centre.  In practice Israel's centre is on the right and the Right is the far-Right

Amongst Jews 79% say that Jews deserve preferential treatment in Israel.  An overwhelming majority such as this can only be caused by the perception that Jews already receive preferential treatment.

When it comes to the question whether the respondents favour the physical expulsion of Arabs a plurality, 48%, agree and 46% disagree.  In 3 out of the 4 religious cohorts, there is majority agreement with this proposition.

This opinion poll is consistent with all other polls in Israel.  YNet, the online English version of Israel’s widest circulation paper, Yediot Aharanot found that ‘62 percent of Israelis want the government to encourage Arabs to leave Israel, according to the 2006 democracy index released Tuesday by the Israel Democracy Institute.’

A year later, YNet reported that ‘over half of the Jewish population in Israel believes the marriage of a Jewish woman to an Arab man is equal to national treason’.  What is interesting about this is that people didn’t oppose it on national but racial/national grounds. 

The survey also found that over 75% of Jews did not approve of apartment buildings being shared between Arabs and Jews. 60% said they would not allow an Arab to visit their home.  Inter-marriage diluted the dominant race.

About 40% of participants agreed that “Arabs should have their right to vote for Knesset revoked”. Over half agreed that Israel should encourage its Arab citizens to leave the country and over half said they would not want to work under the direct management of an Arab.  55% said “Arabs and Jews should be separated at entertainment sites”.

Israeli Jews hold views that, if they were expressed in Britain, would be attributed to the far-Right, the BNP and EDL. In Israel such views are mainstream.

Racism amongst young Israeli Jews is even higher than amongst their elders

Israeli Jewish school students in their segregated classroom - most Jewish youth will never meet or have an Arab friend

In Half of Jewish high schoolers say Arabs shouldn’t vote – poll, nearly half of Jewish Israeli high school students said they believe Arabs should not have the right to vote.

The poll asked Jewish Israeli high school students in grades 11-12 a variety of questions intended to probe their opinions on current affairs and political identity, among other issues. Nearly half (48%) of those polled answered “no” to the question: “Do you think Arab Israelis should be represented in the Knesset?”  The remainder, 52%, said yes.

Joint (Arab) List members Jamal Zahalka (left), Basel Ghattas (center) and Hanin Zoabi (right) at the weekly Joint (Arab) List meeting at the Knesset, on February 8, 2016. On January 2, the trio met with the families of Palestinian terrorists, prompting a political outcry. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Reuven Harari, the CEO of pollster New Wave, told Army Radio that the research had two important implications. First, youth in Israel are more right-wing than their parents. Secondly, while “the trend around the world is for youth to be more left-wing than their parents, in Israel we are special in that our youth is more to the right of their parents.”

According to Israel Hayom, a newspaper allied to Benjamin Netanyahu, the poll also found that 59% of 11th- and 12th-graders identified as politically right-wing, 23% identified with the center and only 13% said they considered themselves left-wing.

When asked whether Elor Azaria, the soldier who shot and killed an incapacitated Palestinian  in Hebron should be prosecuted, some 60% said the soldier should not be prosecuted, 30% said he should be prosecuted, while 10% said they had no opinion on the matter.  According to Hariri, 60% of those polled also said they believed medical treatment should not be given to an injured terrorist.

In 2010 a Ha’aretz article Poll: Half of Israeli High Schoolers Oppose Equal Rights for Arabs quoted Prof. Daniel Bar-Tal that "Jewish youth have not internalized basic democratic values,".  The question is why?  The answer is obvious.  In a Jewish state where Arabs are marginalised, education, land and much else is segregated and where there are real economic differences between Jews and Arabs, then of course young people will internalise this.

Ha’aretz noted that ‘The results paint a picture of youth leaning toward political philosophies that fall outside the mainstream.’  It would seem however, on all the evidence, that the views of Israeli high school students fall squarely within Israel’s mainstream.  That is the problem!

In response to the question of whether Arab citizens should be granted rights equal to that of Jews, 49.5 percent answered in the negative. The issue highlighted the deep fault lines separating religious and secular youths, with 82 percent of religious students saying they opposed equal rights for Arabs while 39 percent of secular students echoed that sentiment.

When students were asked whether Arabs should be eligible to run for office in the Knesset, 82 percent of those with religious tendencies answered in the negative, 47 percent of secular teens agreed. In total, 56 percent said Arabs should be denied this right altogether.

While an overwhelming majority (91 percent) expressed a desire to enlist in the Israel Defense Forces, 48 percent said they would not obey an order to evacuate outposts and settlements in the West Bank.  "This poll shows findings which place a huge warning signal in light of the strengthening trends of extremist views among the youth," said an Education Ministry official.

The survey, which indicates "a gap between the consensus on formal democracy and the principles of essential democracy, which forbid the denial of rights to the Arab population," the official said.

"The differences in positions between secular and religious youth, which are only growing sharper from a demographic standpoint, need to be of concern to all of us because this will be the face of the state in another 20-30 years," said Bar-Tal. "There is a combination of fundamentalism, nationalism, and racism in the worldview of religious youth."

The Erosion of Even the Most Minimal Democratic Rights in Israel

In an editorial ‘Who Needs The Courts in Israel?’ Ha’aretz describes how ‘A government-sponsored bill that would expand the defense minister’s powers to restrict the freedom of Israeli citizens constitutes another step in an unbridled campaign whose goal is to deal a death blow to human rights and the sacred fundamental principles of the rule of law and the separation of powers.’

The bill would grant the Defence Minister the authority to detain individuals without trial or to issue a restraining order with minimal judicial oversight, and even that sometimes only after the fact. The minister would have the authority to exclude an individual from working in a certain trade or profession, from entering or leaving defined locales, from leaving the country or having contact with certain people.  In what other democratic country would the Minister of Defence have the power to detain anyone or issue such powers?

There is a myth that Israel’s Supreme Court has been a block on the Likud government.  This is not so.  Although it has tended to favour the secular against the religious in Israel, when it comes to Israeli Arabs it has been nearly always ruled against them.  In terms of the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories the courts has been even worse, repeatedly ruling that Israeli law trumps international law.  They have consistently turned a blind eye to land theft and confiscation using a variety of legal pretexts.  The Supreme Court is now stuffed with judges who live on settlements in breach of international law.  Israel's High Court Rules Residents of Settlements Can Serve as Justices

For Justice Minister, Ayelet Shaked, a member of the far-right HaBayit HaYehudi (Jewish Home) settler party, even the present limited freedom of the Supreme Court is too much to bear.  Shaked is on record as advocating the genocide of Palestinians, putting on her Facebook a quote from a settler leader that "They [the Palestinians] are all enemy combatants, and their blood shall be on all their heads. Now this also includes the mothers of the martyrs, who send them to hell with flowers and kisses. They should follow their sons, nothing would be more just. They should go, as should the physical homes in which they raised the snakes. Otherwise, more little snakes will be raised there."  Shaked  is Israel’s Justice Minister!

The Attack on Human Rights NGOs

On particularly favourite target of the Zionists in recent years have been Israel’s human rights groups, notably B’tselem and the soldier’s group, Breaking the Silence.  They have been repeatedly accused by government ministers of supporting ‘terrorism’.  The result has been the ‘Transparency Law’.  Ha’aretz described how this Bill ‘demands that NGOs which receive funding from foreign governments specify that in all their official publications, along with the names of the countries that contribute.’  Israeli human rights NGOs  receive most of their funding from abroad because there is little support for human rights amongst Israel’s Jewish population.  Right-wing NGOs  and Likud, also receive foreign funding, but this is  from private not public groups therefore it doesn’t have to be disclosed.

When Btselem’s Director Hagai el-Ad recently appeared before the UN Security Council saying that without international pressure, Israel would never abandon its settlements in the West Bank,  he was threatened with loss of his citizenship, called a traitor and attacked by all sections of the Zionist movement.  The Times of Israel describes how:

Zionist Union MK Itzik Shmuli said the group was helping to advance “the libel and demonization of Israel.” A Labor party activist even lodged a police complaint for alleged treason by the organization.

The Zionist Union is the parliamentary group that is dominated by the Israeli Labour Party.  These are the ‘moderate’ alternatives that the Labour Party’s affiliate the Jewish Labour Movement would have people believe are a principled opposition to Likud and Netanyahu.

Administrative Detention

In Israel it is possible for someone to be administratively detained without trial for up to 6 months at a time and for that detention to be renewed indefinitely without someone ever being brought before a court to face a charge.  The Jerusalem Post described how ‘In Israel, the administrative detention of Jews and Palestinians is different by any measure, including length of detention, and number of detainees.’ At the time when the article was written there were three Jewish detainees all of whom were due to be released, meaning that there would be no Jewish prisoners detained compared to some 700 Palestinian detainees.’  The three Jewish prisoners were only detained because they were suspected of having firebombed the Dawabshe family home in Duma village, in which 3 people including an infant died and a toddler barely survived.

The Post described how ‘Justice’ Minister Shaked explained ‘why the state routinely demolishes Palestinian terrorists’ homes, but never Jewish terrorists’ homes. Shaked explained the much wider need to deter Palestinian terrorism justified applying the law differently.’  In other words, Jewish terrorism against Palestinians isn’t really terrorism.

Addameer, the Legal Rights group that provides representation and legal services to Palestinian detainees, in an article On Administrative Detention describes how since the beginning of the Israeli occupation in 1967, Israeli forces have arrested more than 800,000 Palestinians, almost 20% of the total Palestinian population in the occupied Palestinian territories. About 40% of male Palestinians in the occupied territories have been arrested.

Addameer itself and its workers have been repeatedly harassed by the Israeli army subjecting some to administrative detention.  Human Rights Watch issued a statement Israel: Military Harassing Rights Group Staff in which it called on Israel’ military to

stop harassing members of Addameer, a rights group that provides legal services and advocates for the rights of Palestinians in detention. The Israeli military has imposed severe restrictions and penalties on Addameer’s staff, either without even alleging any violent activity, or without due process.

The Mistreatment of Palestinian Children

Perhaps the most abominable of all practices is the arbitrary detention, beatings and torture of Palestinian children.  This in itself is proof that Israel’s claims to be a liberal western democracy is a sham.  In The Palestinian children – alone and bewildered – in Israel's Al Jalame jail the Guardian described how in Al Jalame prison in northern Israel, ‘Palestinian children are locked in solitary confinement for days or even weeks. One 16-year-old claimed that he had been kept in Cell 36 for 65 days.’

‘The only escape is to the interrogation room where children are shackled, by hands and feet, to a chair while being questioned, sometimes for hours....
‘Most say they are threatened; some report physical violence. Verbal abuse – "You're a dog, a son of a whore" – is common. Many are exhausted from sleep deprivation. Day after day they are fettered to the chair, then returned to solitary confinement. In the end, many sign confessions that they later say were coerced.’

These claims and descriptions come from affidavits given by minors to an international human rights organisation and from interviews conducted by the Guardian... Since 2008, Defence for Children International has collected sworn testimonies from 426 minors detained in Israel's military justice system.  Their statements show a pattern of night-time arrests, hands bound with plastic ties, blindfolding, physical and verbal abuse, and threats. About 9% of all those giving affidavits say they were kept in solitary confinement, although there has been a marked increase to 22% in the past six months.

Minors are rarely questioned in the presence of a parent, and rarely see a lawyer before or during initial interrogation. Most are detained inside Israel, making family visits very difficult.

Most children maintain they are innocent of the crimes of which they are accused, despite confessions and guilty pleas, said Gerard Horton of DCI.

Torture

Israel is one of the few countries where torture is not illegal.  In May 2016  UN official Jen Modvig, of the UN Committee Against Torture told Israel: ‘You must criminalize torture.’

Israel has argued before the committee in the past that treaties like the Convention against Torture are applicable only in areas of the country in which Israeli law fully applies. Surprise, surprise, that doesn’t include the West Bank or Gaza, except for Jewish settlers of course!

Israel’ new law to expel Arab MKs from the Knesset

Israel’s main claim to being a democracy is that Arabs have the vote.  This too is deceptive.  In Israel most voters vote for either Arab or Jewish Zionist parties unlike in western countries where people vote according to their political allegiance.  The result is that the Jewish majority consistently dominates the Israeli Palestinian minority.

Even so there are constant attacks on both the Arab parties and individual parliamentarians.  The latest move to restrict the freedom of manoeuvre of Arab members of the Knesset is an Expulsion Law.  Jonathan Cook writes how ‘Critics fear the new legislation is designed to empty the Knesset of its Palestinian parties’

Writing from Nazareth Cook describes how ‘The Knesset, awarded itself a draconian new power last week: A three-quarters majority of its members can now expel an elected politician if they do not like his or her views.’

The expulsion law has no parallel in any democratic state. Addameer noted that it was the latest in a series of laws designed to strictly circumscribe the rights of Israel’s Palestinian minority and curb dissent.  The four Palestinian parties in the parliament, in a coalition called the Joint List, issued an open letter warning that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government “want a Knesset without Arabs”. After Stormy Debate, Bill Allowing Knesset to Expel Lawmakers Passes First Legislative Hurdle Ha’aretz 29.2.16.

Even Likud’s Attorney General warned that the Bill ‘frustrates the will of the voters’.  Joint Arab List head Ayman Odeh said he would  resign if Balad MKs are ousted.   Another Arab MK Tibi described the Bill as 'The parliamentary translation of the phrase 'Death to Arabs,'' a favourite slogan of the Israeli Right.

Elor Azaria – the Soldier Murderer as National Hero

At the demonstration for Azaria in 'liberal' Tel Aviv, one banner said 'My honour is my loyalty' the SS slogan

Other examples of Israeli democracy include the case of  Elor Azaria, an Israeli soldier who was filmed executing a gravely wounded Palestinian as he was lying comatose on the ground.  He instantly became a national hero. Poll: 62% of Israelis favor closing Hebron shooting case.

Abd al-Fattah al-Sharif and Ramzi al-Qasrawi, both 21, were shot dead after they allegedly tried to attack Israeli occupation soldiers in the West Bank city of Hebron on 24 March.  The killing of al-Sharif was caught on video which shows the youth on the ground, incapacitated, as Azarya points a rifle at him from close range and fires directly at his head.

The Palestinian human rights group Al-Haq called the killings war crimes and noted the complicity of Israeli medical workers who did nothing to assist the injured al-Sharif before he was extrajudicially executed.  Al-Haq dismissed the arrest of Azarya as part of a public relations effort, noting that no one was detained in the shooting of al-Qasrawi, whose killing was not filmed.

If an Israeli Palestinian had held this banner they would have been instantly arrested and placed in administrative detention and then charged - but in Israel Jewish racism is openly displayed without legal consequences

In an article “Death to the Arabs” rally draws thousands in Tel Aviv Electronic Intifada described how, at a demonstration held in Tel-Aviv on April 19^th 2016 there was a banner ‘Kill Them All’.  The ‘all’ can be taken to ‘mean Arabs, leftists, critics of the IDF….) Another independent reporter, Dan Cohen, tweeted that many in the crowd chanted “Death to Arabs,” a frequently heard rallying cry at anti-Palestinian demonstrations.

Times of Israel reporter Judah Ari Gross tweeted that an activist from B’Tselem, the human rights group that released the video of Azarya shooting and killing Abd al-Fattah al-Sharif, had to be escorted out of Rabin Square by police in order to “protect his life.”

Journalist attacked

Reporter David Sheen, a contributor to The Electronic Intifada, was set upon by a mob and then ordered to leave the area by police after he was accused of association with B’Tselem.

“It doesn’t surprise me that people in Israel harbour hatred towards journalists,” Sheen said.  “They don’t see the soldier’s actions as a problem,” he added. “They see the problem as exposure to world media that puts pressure on their government to withdraw support from that soldier.”

Dan Cohen wrote that ‘Also in attendance were members of El Yahud, a loose network of Jewish supremacist thugs who organize mob violence against Palestinians and anyone they deem “leftists” that sprouted during the last assault on Gaza – a group journalist David Sheen compared to the Ku Klux Klan.

There are many other reasons why Israel is not a democracy.  It has a pervasive censorship that extends even to Israel’s archives.  Rewriting History – First the Holocaust now the Nakba – Netanyahu style.  It has a permanent state of the  emergency despite that fact that Israel is a military superpower that is under no military threat from its neighbours.  It has certain democratic rights, for its Jewish citizens but even they, if they challenge the Zionist status quo are in danger of falling foul of the security apparatus.  It however serves western interests well to pretend that Israel is some beacon of democracy in the Middle East.

Tony Greenstein