Showing posts with label Miki Zohar. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Miki Zohar. Show all posts

28 October 2018

Comparisons between Israel and Nazi Germany are NOT anti-Semitic – Israelis do it all the time!

What is the difference between Israelis who chant ‘Death to the Arabs’ and Nazis who shouted ‘Death to the Jews?’



The IHRA definition of anti-Semitism states that ‘Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis’ could be anti-Semitic. But the strange thing is that anti-racist Israelis are the first to draw such comparisons. Are they also anti-Semitic under this dumb definition of anti-Semitism?
Perhaps Professor Zeev Sternhell who is emeritus head of the department of political science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and one of the world’s leading experts on fascism is also anti-Semitic? Perhaps Caroline Lucas, Green MP for Brighton Pavilion or Daniel Yates, New Labour Head of Brighton and Hove Council, both of whom support the IHRA, can tell us?
But before they do I should tell them that Zeev Sternhell is a child survivor of the Holocaust. At the age of 7 he was smuggled out of the Przemyśl ghetto in Poland into Lwow. He was cared for by a Polish Catholic family and baptised.  He is one of the few Zionists who isn’t a racist which is perhaps why in September 2008 he was the victim of a pipe bomb attack by Zionist terrorists.
Sternhell poses a rhetorical question. How will future historians judge when it was that the Israeli state had devolved into a ‘true monstrosity for its non-Jewish inhabitants’. Sternhell is, as I said a Zionist who has illusions in a period when Israel was not a racist entity. Nonetheless it is to his credit that he now accepts that racism in Israel today is akin to that in pre-Holocaust Germany. I would go further.  All the evidence is that racism in Israel today is far higher than ever anti-Semitism was in Nazi Germany.
Ian Kershaw described how in Bavaria, the state-sponsored Kristallnacht pogrom on November 2nd 1938 not only met with little sympathy but that it was ‘condemned deep into the ranks of the Party.’ Just 5% of the population approved as opposed to 63% who displayed disgust and anger.  It was in rural Catholic Bavaria that the most vociferous condemnation of the pogrom was heard.  Kershaw notes,
another, more appealing, side of the popular reaction to the pogrom was its rejection on grounds of Christian compassion and common humanity.  Jewish eye-witness accounts abound with references to the kindness of ‘Aryan’ and ‘Christian’ neighbours who are anxious to point out the overwhelming rejection of the pogrom by the vast majority of the population. 
Jews in Munich ‘were lavish in their praise of the sympathetic response they encountered among non-Jewish people.’[Ian Kershaw, Popular Opinion and Political Dissent in the Third Reich, pp.257-277].   This despite living in a police state unprecedented in its viciousness. 
Isaac Herzog, Israeli Labour leader explains why he doesn't want a Palestinian Prime Minister of Israel
Compare this with the Israelis who set up armchairs and coffee machines on a hilltop in order that they could get a better view and cheer on the ongoing destruction taking place in Gaza. [‘Israelis gather on hillsides to watch and cheer as military drops bombs on Gaza, People drink, snack and pose for selfies against a background of explosions as Palestinian death toll mounts in ongoing offensive.’ http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/20/israelis-cheer-gaza-bombing Harriet Sharwood, The Guardian, 20.7.14].  
 The only effect of the holocaust has been to reinforce the self-righteousness and moral turpitude of Israel’s Jews and to enable them to justify their own vicious racism.
The Nazis had to try very hard to instil anti-Semitism in the German population. The Nazis came to power not because of but despite their anti-Semitism.
Sternhell speaks of ‘the toxic ultra-nationalism that has evolved here, the kind whose European strain almost wiped out a majority of the Jewish people.’ Anyone familiar with Israeli society will know that the levels of racism in it are far higher than any equivalent Western society.
When we have, in the Labour Party, group like the Jewish Labour Movement going on about anti-Semitism whilst saying nothing about the horrific levels of racism in Israeli society, then we can accuse them of complicity. The JLM describe themselves as the ‘sister’ party of the Israeli Labour Party yet not once have they called out the visceral racism of the ILP. Israel claims to be the nation state of Jews, all Jews, yet the JLM and  their supporters keep silent, apart from smearing their Jewish opponents.
As Sternhell quite correctly says, the Jewish Nation State Law which explicitly denies Israeli Palestinians any right to be considered part of the same nation as Israeli Jews, because there is no Israeli nationality, is no different in principle from the Nuremburg Laws which changed the status of German Jews from citizens and nationals into subjects.
Daniel Blatman whose book The Death Marches: The Final Phase of Nazi Genocide won the Yad Vashem International Book Prize for Holocaust Research in 2011is a Holocaust researcher at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Blatman wrote an article earlier this year International Holocaust Remembrance Day: An Israeli Hypocrisy. Moshe Machover in Why Israel is a Racist State quotes Blatman as saying that “Deputy Speaker Bezalel Smotrich’s admiration for the biblical genocidaire Joshua bin Nun leads him to adopt values that resemble those of the German SS.”
According to Blatman, the blueprint of the Deputy Speaker of the Knesset, Bezalel Smotrich and Miki Zohar, a Likud MK, for the Palestinians, both inside and outside Israel, would be akin to Jews under the Nuremburg Laws.
As Sternhell observes, Smotrich and Zohar don’t wish to harm Palestinians, as long as they do what they are told of course, merely to ‘deprive them of their basic human rights, such as self-rule in their own state and freedom from oppression’.
The late Professor Amos Funkenstein, Head of the Faculty of History at Tel Aviv University when referring to the controversy over the refusal of soldiers to serve in the Occupied Territories, compared them to soldiers in the German army who refused to serve in concentration or extermination camps. [HOLOCAUST ANALOGIES - Repaying the Mortgage Return 2 March 1990] To those who asked how it was possible to compare the actions of Nazi soldiers with Israelis, Funkenstein replied,
“As a historian I know that every comparison is limited. On the other hand, without comparisons, no historiography is possible. Understanding a historical event is a kind of translation into the language of our time. If we would leave every phenomenon in its peculiarity, we could not make this translation. Every translation is an interpretation and every interpretation is also a comparison.”
It is not only anti-Zionists and anti-racists who make the comparison between Israel and Nazi Germany.  The racists also make the comparison.
The liberal left are often reticent about comparing Zionism to Nazism. Gilbert Achcar for example found it a ‘terrible comparison’ [Arabs and the Holocaust, pp.228. 234] and Shami Chakrabarti, in her report on racism in the Labour Party, argued that ‘it is always incendiary to compare the actions of Jewish people or institutions anywhere in the world to those of Hitler or the Nazis or to the perpetration of the Holocaust.’[The Shami Chakrabarti Inquiry, http://www.labour.org.uk/page/-/party-documents/ChakrabartiInquiry.pdf ]  By this logic one should not compare the settlers of Hebron, who daub the walls of Palestinians with the slogan ‘Arabs to the gas chambers’ with the Nazis. [See for example Donald Macintyre, Breaking silence over the horrors of Hebron, 22.6.04. The Independent, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/breaking-silence-over-the-horrors-of-hebron-5355569.html]  Only Zionists should be allowed to make such comparisons.
If the Holocaust is to serve any purpose it is as a warning against the repetition of such horrors. Even Israel’s Deputy Chief of Staff Yair Golan recognised this when he said, at the 2016 Holocaust Remembrance Day, that
"If there's something that frightens me about Holocaust remembrance it's the recognition of the revolting processes that occurred in Europe in general, and particularly in Germany, back then – 70, 80 and 90 years ago – and finding signs of them here among us today in 2016."
When Israeli rabbis talk about the justified murder of children and infants in war time, as Rabbis Yitzhak Shapiro and Josef Elitzur did in Torat HaMelech, a 2011 book which was a guide to how Jews could legally kill non Jews, they are laying the basis for a future genocide.  As American journalist Max Blumenthall observed, Torat HaMelech is:
a virtual manual for Jewish extremist terror designed to justify the mass slaughter of civilians. And in that respect, it is not entirely different from the Israeli military’s Dahiya Doctrine, or Asa Kasher and Amos Yadlin’s concept of “asymmetrical warfare.” The key difference seems to be the crude, almost childlike logic the book’s author, Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira, marshals to justify the killing of non-Jewish civilians.
Nazism didn’t come from nowhere.  In Mein Kampf Hitler cites, with approval, the American practice of eugenics. Nazism wasn’t an aberration. It was supported by many of the West’s leaders, Churchill included, when it first took power. The destruction of the German Labour Movement met with approval by these people. It was only when Nazi Germany turned against British interests that the British ruling class opposed Hitler.
However the racism of the British Empire was not altogether different from the racism of the Nazis which is why the Colonial Office vetoed propaganda aimed at Africans which condemned the racism of the Nazis. [see Smyth, Rosaleen; Britain's African Colonies and British Propaganda during the Second World War, Journal of Imperial & Commonwealth History 14,1 October 1985]
Isaac Herzog, Israeli Labour Party leader denies the party is 'Arab loving'
There can be little doubt that the edict of the Chief Rabbi of Safed, Shmuel Eliyahu, endorsed by dozens of other rabbis, to ban the renting of rooms or apartments by Jews to Arabs, bore a distinct resemblance to similar measures in pre-Holocaust Germany.  Safed Rabbi Boasts That anti-Arab Edict Worked
Or the mobs who in ‘liberal’ Tel Aviv chanted, during the attack on Gaza in 2014 that ‘‘There is no school tomorrow; there are no children left in Gaza’ resembled similar mobs in Berlin.
Those who seek to deflect from these comparisons by raising the bogey of ‘anti-Semitism’ are actively colluding in Israel’s Nazi like racism. We only have to look at the Pew Research Centre’s Survey Israel’s Religiously Divided Society which found that a plurality of Israeli Jews want to physically deport Israel’s Palestinian citizens.
Nazi like? Well expulsion of the Jews was the programme of the Nazis until 1941.
Tony Greenstein
See also

Are there any limits to Corbyn’s ritual self-humiliation? Being a Leader means standing up to your opponents not appeasing them

Nazi Zionist Comparisons – Israel’s metaphor for a disturbed conscience

Professors Ofer Cassif & Daniel Blatman of the Hebrew University, Jerusalem Compare Israel to Nazi Germany

Israel’s Occupation Forces Have Learnt Well from the Nazis

In Israel, Growing Fascism and a Racism Akin to Early Nazism
Zeev Sternhell
19.01.2018 02:00
They don’t wish to physically harm Palestinians. They only wish to deprive them of their basic human rights, such as self-rule in their own state and freedom from oppression
Israeli border police arrest a Palestinian in the West Bank, December 22, 2017Nasser Shiyoukhi/AP
I frequently ask myself how a historian in 50 or 100 years will interpret our period. When, he will ask, did people in Israel start to realize that the state that was established in the War of Independence, on the ruins of European Jewry and at the cost of the blood of combatants some of whom were Holocaust survivors, had devolved into a true monstrosity for its non-Jewish inhabitants. When did some Israelis understand that their cruelty and ability to bully others, Palestinians or Africans, began eroding the moral legitimacy of their existence as a sovereign entity?
The answer, that historian might say, was embedded in the actions of Knesset members such as Miki Zohar and Bezalel Smotrich and the bills proposed by Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked. The nation-state law, which looks like it was formulated by the worst of Europe’s ultra-nationalists, was only the beginning. Since the left did not protest against it in its Rothschild Boulevard demonstrations, it served as a first nail in the coffin of the old Israel, the one whose Declaration of Independence will remain as a museum showpiece. This archaeological relic will teach people what Israel could have become if its society hadn’t disintegrated from the moral devastation brought on by the occupation and apartheid in the territories.
The left is no longer capable of overcoming the toxic ultra-nationalism that has evolved here, the kind whose European strain almost wiped out a majority of the Jewish people. The interviews Haaretz’s Ravit Hecht held with Smotrich and Zohar (December 3, 2016 and October 28, 2017) should be widely disseminated on all media outlets in Israel and throughout the Jewish world. In both of them we see not just a growing Israeli fascism but racism akin to Nazism in its early stages.

Israeli Labour Party leader Herzog welcomes Trump to power
Like every ideology, the Nazi race theory developed over the years. At first it only deprived Jews of their civil and human rights. It’s possible that without World War II the “Jewish problem” would have ended only with the “voluntary” expulsion of Jews from Reich lands. After all, most of Austria and Germany’s Jews made it out in time. It’s possible that this is the future facing Palestinians.
Indeed, Smotrich and Zohar don’t wish to physically harm Palestinians, on condition that they don’t rise against their Jewish masters. They only wish to deprive them of their basic human rights, such as self-rule in their own state and freedom from oppression, or equal rights in case the territories are officially annexed to Israel. For these two representatives of the Knesset majority, the Palestinians are doomed to remain under occupation forever. It’s likely that the Likud’s Central Committee also thinks this way. The reasoning is simple: The Arabs aren’t Jews, so they cannot demand ownership over any part of the land that was promised to the Jewish people.
According to the concepts of Smotrich, Zohar and Shaked, a Jew from Brooklyn who has never set foot in this country is the legitimate owner of this land, while a Palestinian whose family has lived here for generations is a stranger, living here only by the grace of the Jews. “A Palestinian,” Zohar tells Hecht, “has no right to national self-determination since he doesn’t own the land in this country. Out of decency I want him here as a resident, since he was born here and lives here – I won’t tell him to leave. I’m sorry to say this but they have one major disadvantage – they weren’t born as Jews.”
From this one may assume that even if they all converted, grew side-curls and studied Torah, it would not help. This is the situation with regard to Sudanese and Eritrean asylum seekers and their children, who are Israeli for all intents and purposes. This is how it was with the Nazis. Later comes apartheid, which could apply under certain circumstances to Arabs who are citizens of Israel. Most Israelis don’t seem worried.

International Holocaust Remembrance Day: An Israeli Hypocrisy

If a racism survey were held in Western countries like the one on anti-Semitism, Israel would be near the top of the list

Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

20 June 2018

A Jewish, Settler Colonial, State Can Only be a Racist State


Israel is the only Jewish State in the World – it is also the only Apartheid State in the World

One of the most familiar Zionist refrains is that Israel is ‘the only Jewish state in the world’.  This is a last ditch defence of Israel. However bad Israel might be, whatever it does, it is the only thing that Jews in the world have. It is therefore important to understand why a Jewish state, in a settler colonial context, must be a racist state.
Demonstration in Afula against selling homes to Arabs
In Britain for example if individuals were to campaign to exclude Black or Muslim people from living in a town they would be charged with incitement to racial hatred. The state, even though it is racist, as the appalling treatment of the Windrush people demonstrates, is also committed to a formal legal and political equality.
That was the legacy of the Scarman Inquiry in the early 1980’s, set up as a result of the inner city riots. It was realised that the existing level of police racism and violence and the fascist violence of organisations such as the National Front could no longer be tolerated if British society were not to be torn apart.
Killing a sea-turtle will get you a heavier sentence than killing a Palestinian in Israel
In Israel it is different.  It is the State itself which is responsible for implementing and reinforcing the already existing level of racism.  It is the State which, for example, sponsors and works with the the Jewish National Fund, the Zionist organisation which openly refuses to allocate land for the use of Israeli Palestinians.
Israel is a Jewish supremacist state. In Israel being Jewish means you are entitled to privileges that non-Jews don’t receive whereas in Iran or Saudi Arabia being a Muslim entitles you to nothing. Arguably Jews suffer less in Iran than Muslims. A Muslim state merely legitimises its repression through the use of Islam.
The British state is formally Christian. The Irish Republic is Catholic, albeit not much of one after the votes legalising gay marriage and abortion. However the difference is that the rights and privileges of non-Christians is not dependent on their religion.
The Zionists argue, if you are opposed to Jews having just one Jewish state then that is anti-Semitic. There is however a gaping hole in this ‘logic’.  The primary reason for opposition to a ‘Jewish’ state is not that it is Jewish but that it is discriminatory.
In Britain there is no Christian National Fund which owns or controls 93% of the land. No one says to me, sorry you cannot rent or buy a property or live in a particular area because you aren’t Christian. But in Israel, if you are not Jewish, then your right to live anywhere you want is severely restricted.  93% of the land is owned or controlled by the JNF whose constitution reserves the land it owns to Jews only.
In Israel over 400 towns or villages bar non-Jews from living in them.  As the report from Afula demonstrates, when Arabs bid for houses in a ‘Jewish’ area or actually manage to buy a property there then it causes mass demonstrations of Jewish residents.
In the good old days when Israeli Labour welcomed their fellow apartheid politicians from South Africa
In Israel there is no Group Area Act or petty apartheid as used to be the case in South Africa, there are no signs barring Palestinians from certain areas but nonetheless there is a residential apartheid in Israel which is just as effective as that in Apartheid South Africa.
In 2014 the Knesset passed a Receptions Committee Law with the express purpose of allowing Israeli Jewish villages to bar Arabs and anyone else they didn’t like.  This decision was upheld by 5-4 in the Supreme Court. High Court Upholds Residential Screening Law, Enabling Jewish Villages to Keep Arabs Out  
The law didn’t specifically state that Arabs could be barred but that was the motive. In so doing the Court retreated from its own decision in 2000 when it ruled, in the Ka’adan case, that an Arab couple could not be refused the right to buy property because they were not Jewish.
Israeli soldiers firing tear gas at demonstrators
In the Jewish Nation State bill which is making its way onto the Statute Book there is a provision which explicitly allows for the creation of Jewish only communities. As Ayelet Shaked, the ‘Justice Minister’ explained: “There is place to maintain a Jewish majority even at the price of violation of rights.” ‘Shaked referred to Ka’adan and said regarding “the argument over whether it’s all right for a Jewish community to, by definition, be only Jewish, I want the answer to be ‘yes, it’s all right.’”
In 70 years in Israel, despite a tenfold increase in the Arab population not one new Arab town or village has been created. Arabs are confined to about 3% of the land despite being 20% of the population.
Opinion polls demonstrate the racist nature of the Israeli state as reflected in the opinions of ordinary Israelis. An article ‘Marriage to an Arab is national treason’ (27.3. 07) revealed 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. Note it is not a religious offence but it is seen as treasonous towards the (Jewish) nation.
Over 75 percent of participants did not approve of apartment buildings being shared between Arabs and Jews. Sixty percent of participants said they would not allow an Arab to visit their home. About 40 percent of participants agreed that “Arabs should have their right to vote for Knesset revoked”. The number was 55 percent lower in the previous survey. Also, over half of the participants agreed that Israel should encourage its Arab citizens to emigrate. Over half of the participants said they would not want to work under the direct management of an Arab, and 55 percent said “Arabs and Jews should be separated at entertainment sites”. Over 56 percent of participants said they believed that Israel’s Arab citizens posed both a security and a demographic threat to the country.
These results have been repeated subsequently.  For example in the Pew Research Centre’s Israel’s Religiously Divided Society in 2016 48% of Jews say all Arabs should be expelled from the country, compared to 46% who are opposed.
A Jewish State established by settler colonialism cannot be other than racist.  That is the truth that racist hypocrites like Emily Thornberry refuse to see.
I am copying below articles that illustrate the depths of racism in the ‘Jewish’ state and why it is qualitatively different to normal western capitalist states. This is important to understand.  Israel is not a ‘normal capitalist state.  Its political economy and social relations are distorted by its settler colonial nature.
1.      The first article Ignoring Racism in Afula is about two days of demonstrations in the Jewish town of Afula in Northern Israel.  They are demonstrations by 150 Jewish residents against the sale of a house to an Arab.  “The residents of Afula don’t want a mixed city, but rather a Jewish city, and it’s their right,” explained Avi Elkabetz, a former Mayor who is running for the position again. There has been no condemnation of this by Netanyahu or indeed the Opposition parties.  Such things are taken for granted in the ‘only democracy in the Middle East. Neither Elkabetz nor any of the demonstrators were arrested or charged.  Contrast this with the Israeli Palestinian poet Nadeen Tatour, who was arrested and charged in October 2015 and spent several months in prison before being held under strict conditions of house arrest.  She has just been convicted of “inciting violence and supporting a terrorist organisation over comments she made on social media.”. The Israeli state is seeking to gaol her for having written a poem which included the lines “Resist, My People, Resist Them”.
Miki Zohar, Israeli MK and expert on Jewish Race
2.   The second article, Israeli lawmaker proclaims supremacy of ‘Jewish race’ concerns the comments of Miki Zohar, a Likud member of the Knesset. Zohar was explaining why it was that, despite the clear evidence of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s corruption, such as accepting hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of the best champagne and cigars, Israeli Jews are unconcerned. The ability of Netanyahu to play the race card is such that everything else is secondary.  Zohar’s explanation? The ‘Jewish race’ is so superior to everyone else in the world that they can see through the Israeli Police case against Netanyahu! 
3.    The third case, the killing or rather murder of Samir Awad, a child of 15 from the village of Budrus, is truly shocking. Two soldiers, known only by their initials A.G. and A.D, caught Samir trying to cross a forbidden fence circling the village.  First they shot him in the thigh and got hold of him but the little devil escaped from their clutches and so. as he was running, they shot him in the back and in the neck.
No doubt, like me, you will be wondering why A.G. and A.D were ever charged and the answer is because of the interference of the B’tselem human rights organisation. For over two years, the soldiers had hanging over them the charge of committing “an act of haste and negligence”. Outrageous I’m sure you will agree as it is clear that this young scamp, had he grown up, would have become a terrorist.
4.    The fourth case concerns a swimming pool in Mabu'im in Israel’s south.  At the swimming pool in question, there is strict separation between Bedouin and Israeli Jews. When the Jews want to use the pool, which is most of the week, the Bedouin can’t use it and when the Bedouin are able to use the pool Jews are banned. In other words there is complete equality. Only malevolent and malicious troublemakers would wish to upset this arrangement. It is cultural self-determination. Each group prefers to be amongst its own and only a handful of leftists could possibly object.
The Board of Deputies, which is always concerned about 'antisemitism' harbours a number of vile Islamaphobes
Roslyn Pine's manifesto when she stood for Vice President of the Board of Deputies
5.    The next story concerns Roslyn Pine of the Board of Deputies who described Muslims as “the vilest of animals” and Arabs in similar terms.  I am sure you will agree that Ms Pine, although she might be considered a tad controversial, is entitled in a free society to express her opinions.  Only leftist troublemakers and anti-Semites could possibly object to her expressing her opinion.
The fact that the Board of Deputies has been leading the charge against Corbyn’s ‘anti-Semitism’ is completely irrelevant. There is no comparison between anti-Semitism, which as we all know is the world’s longest hatred and calling Muslims ‘animals’ when we all know that most Muslims are only waiting for the chance to become martyrs in the global jihad.


Roslyn Pine's opposition to 'antisemitism' doesn't extend to Muslims
However I am sure that you will all be pleased to hear one piece of good news from Israel. The Times of Israel reports that a man was sentenced to 10 months for stabbing a rare sea turtle, killing the blighter.  This is one more month than Elor Azaria received for murdering Abed al Fatah a-Sharif, a wounded Palestinian who was lying unconscious on the road. Yes I hear you say, how disgraceful that the turtle killer received one more month in prison than an Arab killer.  Don’t they know that, according to the Deputy Defence Minister Eli Dahan Palestinians are animals? New deputy defense minister called Palestinians ‘animals’ What possible justification is there for having given Azaria only 1 month less than the turtle killer? The turtle in question was very rare .  Palestinians by way of contrast are only too numerous.  Clearly the Israeli justice system leaves a lot to be desire!

Ignoring Racism in Afula

Netanyahu and his fellow cabinet members promote racist laws whose sole purpose is to give this superiority the force of law
Haaretz Editorial, Jun 18, 2018
Some 150 Afula residents, including former Mayor Avi Alkabetz, who is running for the position again, and Acting Mayor Shlomo Malihi, demonstrated Wednesday against the sale of a home in the city to an Arab family. “The residents of Afula don’t want a mixed city, but rather a Jewish city, and it’s their right,” explained Elkabetz, adding, “That’s not racism.”
If that isn’t racism, then what is? In Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Israel, which translated the Zionist vision of a national home for the Jewish people into an ultranationalist project of Jewish supremacy, it is easy to get confused. Racism and ethnic superiority have acquired legitimacy, and Netanyahu and his fellow cabinet members promote racist laws whose sole purpose is to give this superiority the force of law. Theoretically, if we’re talking about the kind of Jewish state the right talks about, why resist Afula’s desire to be a Jewish city?
As long as such racist behavior gets by without provoking determined opposition, public condemnation and vocal criticism, it will increase and become legitimate and transparent. The opposition to the right-wing government has an important role to play here. It must draw red lines and mold the public discussion  in accordance with its worldview. Why weren’t Zionist Union Chairman Avi Gabbay, Meretz Chairwoman Tamar Zandberg and even Yesh Atid Chairman Yair Lapid in Afula leading an anti-racism counterdemonstration? Why didn’t they express support for the sale of the home to an Arab family?
This is a critical ethical question with far-reaching political implications. The right, as it is reflected in the most ultranationalist government in Israel’s history, draws its power in part from a blatantly racist, anti-Arab base. Netanyahu himself appealed to his potential voters in the last election by warning that “Arabs are coming to the polls in droves.”
The left must recognize that its main purpose is to erase racism and represent a sane, enlightened alternative to the moral darkness into which Netanyahu is leading Israel. Otherwise the left will never be reawakened and it will be wiped off the political map.
Israel expects foreign governments to take expressions of anti-Semitism within their borders seriously and to publicly denounce it. In Israel, in contrast, expressions of hatred for Arabs are met with total indifference at best or encouragement at worst. To our great shame, we cannot expect the government to denounce such ugly behavior, since the right itself spreads hatred and racism and benefits from them in elections. But if the protest in Afula failed to bring opposition leaders, who claim to champion equality and human dignity, to the streets, then who needs them?
The above article is Haaretz’s lead editorial, as published in the Hebrew and English newspapers in Israel.  See also:
The Israelis Who Protested Against a Home Sale to Arabs Aren't Alone. They Have Friends in the Left

Dozens of Israelis Demonstrate Against Home Sale to Arab Family for Second Straight Day

Israeli lawmaker proclaims supremacy of ‘Jewish race’

Likud's MK Miki Zohar says Jews are the smartest in the world, so know Netanyahu isn't corrupt

By Stuart Winer 13 June 2018
Likud MK Miki Zohar speaks during an Interior Affairs Committee meeting at the Knesset, in Jerusalem, February 20, 2018. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

A lawmaker from the ruling Likud party said Wednesday that the “Jewish race” is the smartest in the world and possessing of the “highest human capital,” which is why, he said, the Israeli public did not buy into the allegations of wrongdoing by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
MK Miki Zohar made the comments during a radio debate with veteran political journalist Dan Margalit about the corruption investigations in which Netanyahu is either a suspect or has given testimony.
Ahma Tibi notes the similarity between Jewish race specialists and Nazi race specialists
His assertions led to a Twitter spat with Joint (Arab) List party MK Ahmad Tibi, who noted Nazi Germany’s treatment of Jews as a race during the Holocaust.
Citing recent opinion polls that show Netanyahu enjoying strong support despite being a suspect in three graft investigations, Zohar argued that the media focus on the probes has not convinced the Israeli public that the prime minister is unsuited to lead the country.
“I can tell you something very basic,” Zohar said during the Radio 103FM debate. “You can’t fool the Jews, no matter what is the media writes. The public in Israel is a public that belongs to the Jewish race, and the entire Jewish race is the highest human capital, the smartest, the most comprehending. The public knows what the prime minister is doing for the country and how excellent he is at his job.”
Tibi, in response, tweeted a picture of Zohar with the message: “An elected official in ‘the Jewish state’ presents: race theory.”
Tibi, whose party and its members have often raised ire among their Jewish colleagues with their open support for the Palestinian cause, followed that tweet up with a photo of himself reading Amos Elon’s book “The Pity of It All,” which examines how the Holocaust brought an end to German-Jewish culture.
Zohar tweeted back: “And on the back cover there is a photo of Albert Einstein, another Jew who brought great news to the world.”
“What’s the connection between you and Einstein?” Tibi rejoined. “It isn’t even a relative relationship.”
In a follow-up interview with Hadashot TV news, Zohar at first denied that he had spoken about the supremacy of the “Jewish race,” but, presented with a recording of his earlier comments, doubled down and reiterated: “The Jewish people and the Jewish race are of the highest human capital that exists.”
“What can you do? We were blessed by God… and I will continue to say that at every opportunity,” he said. “I don’t have to be ashamed about the Jewish people being the Chosen People; the smartest, most special people in the world.”
Zohar cited the many innovations and discoveries made by Jews, and said that Israel had achieved more in its 70-year span than some peoples had in thousands of years.
“You can understand why we usually win a lot of Nobel Prizes,” he said.

Killing a Child Is 'Not Right', but Not Wrong Enough for an Indictment

Israeli prosecutors concluded that the two soldiers acted properly when they shot and killed an unarmed teenager 10 meters away as he ran away from them

Gideon Levy, Jun 14, 2018 4:57 AM
 
Opinion
Palestinian and Israeli activists flee tear gas fired by Israeli soldiers during a demonstration against Jewish settlement construction in the West Bank, on November 17, 2016. Majdi Mohammed/AP
A.G. and A.D. presumably celebrated. Maybe they raised a toast with their lawyers at some fashionable pub, or perhaps they just basked in the good news with their families. It was the relief of their lives. The poor souls’ nightmare is over. How they harassed them when the teenager was killed, but all’s well that ends well: The central district prosecution decided last week to withdraw the indictment against them, two-and-a-half years after it was filed.
True, it was sickeningly ridiculous that they were charged with “an act of haste and negligence” for shooting an unarmed, already wounded teenager in the back as he was running or his life. Still, it was an indictment, which itself was only filed after the deceased’s family and B’Tselem petitioned the High Court of Justice.
For a moment it seemed as if the two would be given a suspended sentence of maybe a day, or even a one-penny fine for killing a boy who had not yet turned 16, even though he didn’t pose any danger or threat to them. But even this faint hope for a remnant of delayed and symbolic justice – for even the faintest likeness of justice – was dashed, and what could be more predictable than that?
The indictment was withdrawn. A.G. and A.D. acted properly when they shot an unarmed teenager from a range of 10 meters as he ran from them. They violated nothing. Their act of killing wasn’t even hasty or negligent. They are good soldiers, excellent ones, even though the day after the killing a senior officer said, “Something that wasn’t right happened there.” Not right, but apparently not wrong enough. So go ahead, dear soldiers; continue to kill Palestinian teenagers who don’t endanger you. You can even kill them as they run away, because no harm will come to you.
A.G. and A.D. were a platoon commander and a soldier from the 71st Battalion of the Armored Corps. They shot from behind and killed Samir Awad, who tried to cross the fence that constricts his village, as he ran from an ambush the soldiers had set up in the prickly-pear bushes. They shot him in the back and will never be punished for their act. They shot him in the leg first, and after he fell wounded and got back on his feet they managed to grab him by the arm, but he got away from them. Then they shot him twice from behind, a bullet to the back of his neck and a bullet in his back, killing him. So now they can calmly fly off to India or Costa Rica for their post-army trip – perhaps they’ve already done so – and forget everything. But the home of the boy they killed in Budrus will never be the same again.
It was winter 2013, the last day before the semester break. The science exam was over, and the pupils left the school, located around 200 meters from the fence. Six of them came down the hill, for their usual test of courage – crossing the fence. It was Munir, Hosni, Muhammad, Saher, Musa and Samir.
The first five sensed danger and decided to back off. Samir chose to continue. He did not know that six soldiers lurked among the cactuses. He crossed an old hole in the inner fence and was caught in the space between two fences. Then the soldiers of the brave Reshef battalion emerged from their hiding places and shot in the air. Samir was scared to death and tried to retrace his steps. His legs got tangled in the brambles. They shot him in the thigh. He managed to extract himself and began to run, wounded, back toward the village. They shot him twice more from behind. The indictment that was annulled detailed the serious deviations from the rules of engagement.
When I came to the village the day after the killing, Samir’s blood was still smeared on the rocks. Here the soldiers hid, and here he was caught between two fences and here’s where they shot him. The picture was clear, the facts decisive. After two and a half years of intensive investigation it emerged that there was no evidence. In the interim, Israeli soldiers also killed Lafi Awad, in the same place, the same way. Why not? The two graves are next to each other, and the two killers are already someplace else.

End Separation of Jews and Bedouin at Pool in Israel's South, Lawmakers Tell AG

MKs say the practice, which is unofficial but familiar to residents, 'has no place in a democratic state'
Almog Ben Zikri, Jun 19, 2018 6:43 PM
The entrance to the pool, Mabu'im, June 17, 2018. Eliyahu Hershkovitz
Knesset members from both the opposition and the ruling coalition called on the attorney general Tuesday to work toward ending the separation between Bedouin and Jews at a public swimming pool in southern Israel.
As Haaretz revealed at the beginning of the week, Bedouin are not permitted to enter the pool in Mabu'im at hours designated for Jews – and vice versa. Bedouin who wanted to enter the pool on Saturday were stopped at the entrance and were told that the pool was "for members only."
In a letter to Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit, Knesset members called the separation "a grave practice that has no place in a democratic state" and said it violates an anti-discrimination law.
They added that "it is difficult to stand idly by while children are kept outside of the pool only because of their religion, in a country where they are considered equal citizens."
The letter was signed by Meretz MKs Tamar Zandberg, Mossi Raz, Michal Rozin, Ilan Gilon, and Esawi Freige; MK Yousef Jabareen (Joint List); Zionist Union MKs Eyal Ben-Reuven and Stav Shaffir; Yesh Atid MKs Pnina Tamano-Shata and Yael German, and MK Akram Hasson (Kadima).
As previously reported by Haaretz, the separation is undeclared but nevertheless familiar to both residents and visitors, Jews and Bedouin alike.
An employee said the pool has activities for the Bedouin community during the week ater 6 P.M. and on Friday nights, while the rest of the time the pool is open only to members.
"There is a tacit agreement here," a resident of Mabu'im said. "Bedouin will not enter the pool when there are Jews because the residents threatened to stop coming."

Senior Member of The Jewish Board of Deputies labels Muslims as “the vilest of animals”

By Tom Barker
- 16th June 2018
For some time now, the Board of Deputies of British Jews has been leading the charge against Jeremy Corbyn over highly controversial allegations of anti-Semitism. But now, undeniable evidence has reportedly emerged exposing that a leading member of the Board of Jewish Deputies is an out-and-out racist.
Last Thursday the Jewish Chronicle reported that they had “seen tweets shared by Roslyn Pine, who stood unsuccessfully to be vice-president of the Board in last month’s elections, describing Muslims as “the vilest of animals”, as well as one describing Arabs as “so evil”. She also retweeted a message describing Arab migrants to Europe as “an invading army”.”
When challenged by the Chronicle on her abhorrent views Pine, who represents a far-right tendency within the Board, was emphatic
I detest the creed of Islam and I’m entitled to say it.
Her invective stands in stark contrast with the words and actions of the longstanding anti-racist campaigner Marc Wadsworth – who was recently expelled from the Labour Party over extremely dubious allegations of anti-Semitism – as well as Jeremy Corbyn himself.
And Pine’s dangerous views are not anomalous amongst the leadership of the Board of Deputies either. Robert Festenstein, who also stood to become a Vice President of the Board, courted controversy recently by agreeing to be interviewed by Britain’s leading Islamophobe, Tommy Robinson. Festernstein is also a director of the right-wing Jewish Human Rights Watch, a group that conflates opposition to the crimes of the Israeli State with anti-Semitism.
In August 2015, another representative of the Board of Deputies (as well as Jewish Human Rights Watch), Jonathan Neumann, compared Leicester City’s Labour-run Council to Hitler’s genocidal regime because the Council had agreed to boycott goods from illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
In a YouTube video made at the time, Neumann explains, in direct reference to Leicester’s boycott: “When the Nazis first came to power in 1930s Germany, one of the very first things they implemented were boycotts of Jews.”
Who do the Board of Deputies Represent?
The Board of Deputies of British Jews has been presented in the Tory press as an organization that represents the voice of Jewish people in Britain… as if there is just one voice! This is not the case. As Jewish Voice for Labour made clear in a recent statement:
“We are appalled by the actions and statements of the Board of Deputies. They do not represent us or the great majority of Jews in the Party who share Jeremy Corbyn’s vision for social justice and fairness.”
Rather, the Board of Deputies represents a very particular strain of thought – one which unflinchingly supports the actions of the current Israeli government. This was confirmed by Roslyn Pine herself when, during her leadership campaign, she was asked “How will you [as a potential Vice President of the Deputies] represent the diversity of opinion in our community with regards to Israel?” She responded:
That is not required by the Board’s constitution, nor is it feasible. The Board should take no view as to this or that Israeli policy. The Board’s remit is to do whatever in its power to support Israel’s security, well-being and standing.
Clearly a large part of this mission includes smearing and attacking those who oppose Israeli State terror, including Labour’s current leader.

The Fight for Democracy

And while Corbyn and his supporters have always sought to promote democracy and fairness, the Board of Deputies serves the opposite purpose. Indeed, Roslyn Pine again provides evidence of this when responding to the following question “What is the one thing that most frustrates you about the Board?” She replied:
Not having any role in decision making, despite sitting on a division (International). The democratic mandate seems to be for the very few. It seems that the views of the average deputy count for very little.
Her wording (unconsciously) evokes the very antithesis of the Labour Party’s current slogan – “for the many, not the few” – as well as the underpinning values of the labour movement.
But clearly there remains a minority of Labour Party members who do not share in this noble idea – including numerous MPs and Councillors, many of whom are enthusiastic supporters of the ongoing witch-hunt against socialists.
One of the main tasks facing Labour members at the moment, therefore, is to push for the full democratisation of the Labour Party – including the readmission of expelled socialists and the reintroduction of mandatory reselection – which would enable pro-working-class MPs and councillors to replace the current pro-capitalist ones.
Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , , , , , , ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)