Israel Passes the 'Regularisation' Law - its like having a law to compensate the burglar who enters your home

Pity the Poor, Distressed Zionist Land Thief

Imagine a law in Britain which is specifically designed to legalise squatting on other peoples’ land.  Not only would this be impossible, in fact the opposite occurred under the last government.  The actions of the homeless have increasingly been criminalised, even when they take over empty housing that rich people have decided to keep empty for reasons of making a profit.

The settlement of Amona

Settlers like Education Minister, Naftali Bennett were not homeless.  Bennett came as a rich businessman from Brooklyn, New York.  He and thousands of others are ideological squatters.  They believe they are fulfilling god’s commandments to steal the land of others.  Unlike in Britain they are backed by the force of the State.

Jewish settlers have squatted in their thousands on private Palestinian land [i.e. land which the State has not confiscated under one pretext or another] to which they have no entitlement. 

Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit attends a ceremony in Jerusalem, June 13, 2017. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Instead of evicting them, as would happen if Palestinians in Israel did the same, the Knesset recently passed a ‘Regularisation Law’ which regularised the position of the land thieves.  It retrospectively legalised the theft of private Palestinian land in the West Bank.  Even the Attorney General, Avichai Mendelblit, a member of Likud, refused to support it describing it as unconstitutional but Netanyahu and his far-Right government proceeded regardless.  After all this is what settler colonialism has always done.

The Jewish settlers believe that god gave them the land, on the basis that their ancestors, completely mythical creatures, apparently lived there a few thousand years ago.  Imagine if the whole world were ordered on this basis!  In reality the settlers are doing no more than colonists have always done in places like Southern Africa.  Using the Bible to justify their expropriation of the land of the indigenous people.

See also the excellent article by Gideon Levy Oh Merciful God, Show Some [Mercy] to Victims

Tony Greenstein

The Israeli settlement of Almon in the occupied West Bank. Credit Ahmad Gharabli/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images        

Israeli ‘Regularisation Law’ is Designed to Protect those who steal Palestinian land

Israel to High Court: Law Seizing Palestinian Land Is Humane Response to 'Distress' of Thousands of Settlers

Private lawyer representing the state says expropriation of Palestinian lands in West Bank is constitutional under both Israeli and international law

Yotam Berger 22.08.2017 12:17 Updated: 12:18 PM

The unauthorized outpost of Mitzpeh Kramim. Israel says the expropriation law would help residents there with construction. Michal Fattal

The state on Monday asked the High Court of Justice to reject legal challenges to a controversial law that would allow for the retroactive expropriation of land owned by Palestinians in West Bank settlements. It called the law “a humane, proportional and reasonable response to the genuine distress of Israeli residents.”

In seeking to persuade the court to reject the legal challenges – filed by Palestinian and Israeli human rights organizations – the state argued that the “practical alternative” to the law is the maintenance of the existing situation, which the state said is disruptive to the lives of “hundreds of families” in settlements, including families who built homes based on representations by government authorities that it was permissible.

The state added that the law is constitutional under Israeli law and also meets the requirements of international law.

Amona settlers building

Subject to specific provisions, the law allows Jewish settlers to remain in homes built on privately owned Palestinian land, even though it does not grant them ownership of the land. It also denies the Palestinian owners the right to claim the land or take possession of it “until there is a diplomatic resolution of the status of the territories.”

The state’s response was prepared by Harel Arnon, a private lawyer retained by the government after Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit refused to represent it, saying the legislation was not constitutional. Prior to its passage, he also tried to halt the legislative process.

Implementation of the law had been informally suspended following the legal challenge. However, at Mendelblit’s request, the court made the suspension official on Monday through a court order. This will remain in effect until the court makes its ruling.

Bennett shakes hands with Zeev Elkin

 The law also provides a mechanism for compensating Palestinians whose lands are seized: A landowner can receive an annual usage payment of 125 percent of the land’s value as determined by an assessment committee, or an alternate plot of land if this is possible – whichever the Palestinian landowner chooses.

The state said the law addressed “a reality in which the owners of the land are not benefiting from their rights, particularly a reality that time after time has been polarizing and tearing Israeli society apart, and severely harming public trust and institutions of government.”

The state called the current situation “a national problem.”

It also noted a number of cases in which it said residents would benefit from the law if it is found constitutional, including construction at the unauthorized outpost of Mitzpeh Kramim and a number of buildings in the settlement of Ofra.

Demolition of Amona

The state’s response included data from the Israeli Civil Administration in the West Bank, detailing the numbers of orders issued against illegal settlement construction on privately owned Palestinian land.

It said that between 2012 and 2016, orders were issued against 285 illegally built structures; between 2007 and 2011, orders were issued in connection with 251 structures; and between 2002 and 2006, more than 450 orders were issued. Between 1992 and 1996, however, the figure was only 20.

In conclusion, the state said that although there are many issues that prompted the legal challenges to the law requiring thorough consideration, ultimately the petitioners are making “much ado about nothing.”

The law, the state said, does not run counter to any precedent or legal principle, and instead is meant to deal with a unique and complex situation that at times has led to demolitions that benefited no one – a situation that places hundreds of families under “a cloud of uncertainty.”

In response, the organizations Yesh Din, Peace Now and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel – which are some of the petitioners in the case – responded: “The State of Israel, in its response today, is trying to present the land expropriation law as addressing a national problem, when in practice it involves continued government support for a criminal enterprise that has continued for decades.

“The government is minimizing the continuing harm to the rights of the Palestinian landowners, and at the same time is trying to present the Israeli citizens who are taking part in the looting of West Bank Palestinians as people who have been harmed and who require ‘compensation’ for their part in the looting,” they added. “We hope the court rejects the state’s arguments out of hand, strikes down this unconstitutional and immoral law, and sends a loud and clear message: No more.”

Yotam Berger

Haaretz Correspondent

State says outpost legalization law protects Palestinians

Responding to petition from left-wing NGOs, government insists preventing additional outpost evacuations is in Israel’s ‘national interest’

In its official response Thursday to a High Court of Justice petition against a new law to legalize wildcat West Bank outposts, the state argued that the legislation, if implemented, would benefit Palestinians.

Private attorney Harel Arnon crafted the response on behalf of the state after Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit refused to defend the legislation. In his 156-page response, Arnon wrote that the law will ensure just compensation for Palestinian landowners who would otherwise receive the death penalty from the Palestinian Authority for selling their land to Jews.

“The law even improves the situation of landowners, who will receive significant compensation for the use of their land — an option denied to them without the law,” Arnon wrote on behalf of the state.
The response also rejected claims that the legislation violates Israeli and international law. Arnon argued that it was in Israel’s “national interest” to prevent the evacuation of the some 4,000 homes that the law would legalize retroactively.

Defense Ministry dismantling Amona outpost in the central West Bank on February 6, 2017. (Courtesy Amona Council)

“The Regulation Law balances the obligation of the government towards thousands of citizens who have relied in good faith on government action and a minor infringement of property rights, with increased compensation to the landowners,” the state concluded.

Passed over six months ago, the Regulation Law allows the Israeli government to expropriate private Palestinian land where illegal outpost homes have been built ex post facto, provided that the outposts were “built in good faith” or had government support.

In return, the legislation states, the Palestinian landowners will be compensated financially or with other land.

The passage of the bill, originally meant to save the since-razed outpost of Amona, was roundly condemned by a slew of activists and political figures in Israel and abroad.

Its legality was immediately challenged in a High Court petition from left-wing NGOs Peace Now, Yesh Din and ACRI (Association for Civil Rights in Israel) on behalf of 27 Palestinian local councils and 13 Israeli civil society organizations.

Regardless of the petition, the law was supposed to have gone into effect last week. However, at the behest of Mandelblit, the High Court ruled Thursday to freeze its implementation for two months.

Jewish Home chair Naftali Bennett (R) shakes hands with Minister for Jerusalem Affiars Zeev Elkin after a vote on the so-called Regulation Bill, a controversial bill that seeks to legitimize illegal West Bank outposts, December 7, 2016. (Hadas Parush/Flash90)

Consequently, no additional land will be expropriated even if it fits the above conditions. At the same time, outposts found to have been built in good faith or with government backing will not be demolished until a final decision is made.

Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked echoed state’s response to the High Court petition in a Monday statement praising the legislation. “The law offers a counter to the racism of the Palestinian Authority, which places the death penalty on those who sell land to Jews,” she said

But the left-wing NGOs behind the High Court challenge said the government’s response was an attempt to cover for a “criminal enterprise.”

“The Israeli government’s response seeks to present the expropriation law as a solution for a national problem, while the real problem is the state’s involvement in illegal settlement activity for the past five decades,” they said in a joint statement.

The court is now set to hear a response from the Knesset’s legal adviser in mid-September, followed by what is expected to be an unprecedented challenge to the law from Mandelblit himself in October.

In the months leading up to the February 6 Knesset vote on the Regulation Law, Mandelblit warned that the legislation bypassed standard land regulation procedures in the West Bank and that it legalized Israeli settlements built on private Palestinian land in breach of local and international law.

Mandelblit also cautioned that the legislation openly curtailed property rights of Palestinians in the West Bank in a way that contravenes the protections granted to occupied populations under the Fourth Geneva Convention.

When the Knesset passed the law anyway, Mandelblit officially notified the High Court that he would not defend the legislation if it was challenged. Arnon was subsequently chosen to represent the state in Mandeblit’s stead.

In May, Haaretz revealed that Arnon’s own home in the Elazar settlement is being built illegally on land that had been designated strictly for military purposes.

Revealed: Nearly 3,500 Settlement Homes Built on Private Palestinian Land

These illegal structures could be legalized under Israel's contentious 'land-grab' law, whose validity is now being determined by the High Court of Justice

Yotam Berger Aug 23, 2017 9:01 AM 

Settlers build in the illegal West Bank outpost of Amona, since evacuated by Israel. Emil Salman

There are 3,455 residential and public buildings built on private Palestinian lands in the West Bank, according to Civil Administration data. These illegal structures could be legalized under the expropriation law, whose validity is now being determined by the High Court of Justice in response to Palestinian petitions against the law.

Extensive details on the scope of illegal structures on private Palestinian land were revealed in an appendix to the state’s response to the petitions.

The law allows the state to expropriate Palestinian lands on which settlements or outposts were built “in good faith or at the state’s instruction,” and deny its owners the right to use those lands until there is a diplomatic resolution of the status of the territories. The measure provides a mechanism for compensating Palestinians whose lands are seized.

According to the Civil Administration, the 3,455 structures fall into three categories. The first includes 1,285 structures that are clearly private land. These are structures built during the past 20 years on land that was never defined as state land and all have had demolition orders issued against them. The second category comprises 1,048 structures that were built on private land that had earlier been erroneously designated state land. The third category contains 1,122 structures that were built more than 20 years ago, during a period when planning laws were barely enforced in the West Bank.

The structures on clearly private land are within the jurisdictions or adjacent to the jurisdictions of 74 settlements throughout the West Bank. Of these, 874 are in outposts – small, illegal satellites of larger settlements. One example would be the Tzur Shalem outpost near Karmei Tzur in the Etzion Bloc. Amona, which was evacuated in February, was another example. The other 411 are individual structures that were built on enclaves of private land within various legal settlements that were planned in accordance with Israeli law.

Israel just passed the land-grabbing law. What is it all about?

Of the 1,285 structures built on clearly private land, 543 are built on what the Civil Administration calls “regularized private land,” meaning lands whose owners are known and whose ownership is formally registered. The other homes are built on lands recognized as private after aerial photos proved that these lands had been cultivated over the years, but there is no definitive registry of who was cultivating them. Cultivating land establishes ownership in the West Bank in accordance with the Ottoman-era laws that still prevail there.

According to Dr. Ronit Levine-Schnur, an expert on property rights at the Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya, “Regularized land is land for which there is clear land registration, whether performed under Jordanian rule or during the Mandate period. The land at Amona was regularized land. In these cases there is no doubt about the rights because the registration invalidates any competing right and there’s no such thing as a statue of limitations on registered land. Non-regularized land can be unregistered but known to be privately owned, or registered but in a registry that doesn’t have the same strong evidentiary power.”

The second category includes structures built on lands that had been erroneously declared state land. Because the original declarations of state land were based on obsolete surveying technology, when the technology improved, errors were discovered and lands were removed from the state land listings. As a result, 1,048 structures suddenly found themselves outside the “blue line” that demarcates state lands. Of these, 799 structures are in areas that had a valid master plan and were thus planned and built based on the earlier declarations. Of this subcategory, 303 buildings are in the ultra-Orthodox city of Modi’in Ilit.

The third category of structures were built on private lands, with the Civil Administration admitting that in most cases the owners of the lands are known. These structures, however, were built more than 20 years ago, during a period when there was almost no oversight regarding construction on private Palestinian land. Until 1998, the policy was to conduct virtually no enforcement actions in the settlements. Of these 1,122 structures, 480 are in Ofra, 193 are in Beit El, and 146 are in Elon Moreh. Dozens of other such homes were built in Eli, Shavei Shomron, Psagot, Ma’aleh Michmash and Hermesh.

All told, of the 3,455 structures built on private Palestinian land in the West Bank, 1,576 (around 45 percent) were built on regularized private land and the rest on private land whose owners are not confirmed. This number includes residential structures and public buildings, mobile and permanent alike, but doesn’t include other types of structures like storage rooms, fences, roads and infrastructures that were built on private land.

The Civil Administration data is similar to the numbers that appeared in a recent Peace Now report, which estimated that the expropriation law could legalize up to 4,000 housing units in the settlements and outposts. Outposts that could be legalized included Avigail, Ahuzat Shalhevet, Beit El East, Bat Ayin West, Jebal Artis, Hill 725, Givat Assaf and more. The report noted that numerous homes could also be legalized in Oranit, Asfar, Beit El, Givat Ze’ev, Gitit, Har Gilo and others.

The Civil Administration appendix also details how many demolition orders were issued against illegal structures in the settlements. Between 2012 and 2016 there were 285 orders issued; between 2007 and 2011 – 251; from 2002 to 2006 – 451; between 1997 and 2001 – 278 orders and between 1992 and 1996 only 20 demolition orders were issued.

Yotam Berger

Haaretz Correspondent

Israeli Soldier and National Hero Elor Azaria Goes on Trial For Executing Palestinian Lying Prostrate

I have already posted about Elor Azaria, the soldier who was named by Israel’s most popular free paper, Israel Hayom, as Israeli of the year. THIS IS Israel – Call to Kill All Arabs at Tel Aviv Rally in Support for Killer Soldier

 What did Elor do to earn this accolade?  In most countries it might be rescuing a group of people in danger of their life.  Going into a fire and rescuing a child or some such act of bravery.  Not in Israel.

Elor’s accolade was earned by murdering Abdel Fattah al-Sharifa, who was only a Palestinian, who had already been badly wounded in the settlers’ terrorist enclave in Hebron.  Abdel Fattah al-Sharif was already lying face down in the street as a Magen David ambulance tended to a soldier lightly wounded.  Thus Israel’s ambulance service ignored the first and basic rule of triage, to ascertain who is in most need of medical attention first.   This is practiced in all British hospital A&E’s as a queueing system might lead to someone badly injured or hurt dying.

Not in Israel though.  Arabs do not fit into a triage system where the priority is on the Jewish race.  In the occupied territories this is doubly so.  An Arab wounded by the security forces, is automatically deemed a ‘terrorist’ and receives attention last, if at all.

Our Elor, who is a supporter of the late neo-Nazi Rabbi Meir Kahane, was seriously disturbed by the wounded Palestinian.  Why is he allowed to live he was saying and he took a rifle and nonchalantly shot him in the head.   Normally this would go unpunished by the army.  Indeed it is in the rules on dealing with ‘terrorists’ (people who resist the occupation in normal language).  It is called ‘confirming the kill’. 

The only problem was that some annoying Palestinian, who was later threatened and severely harassed, had captured the scene on a camera kindly supplied by the Israeli civil rights group, Btselem, which is itself under attack for ‘supporting terrorism’.

The army therefore had to arrest Elor and the Minister of Defence, Moshe Yalon supported this.   So did Netanyahu until his far-right Minister of Education, Naftali Bennet started kicking up and condemning the attacks on Elor.  Soon a full scale public campaign was under way to make Elor a national hero.  A large demonstration was held in Tel Aviv under the banner ‘Kill them all’ (i.e. all the Arabs) and a lovely poster ‘My honour is my loyalty’ made up the occasion.  Probably the idiot who carried it was unaware that this was the slogan of the Nazi SS!

Now our Elor is coming up for trial.  My bet is that he won’t see gaol time and if, a big if, he is convicted of manslaughter he will soon have that downgraded to some minor offence.  Either way Elor will be free very soon at the very worst.

The article below seems to consist of a great deal of wishful thinking.

Tony Greenstein

Azaria’s conviction will end a totalitarian ideology

Sgt. Elor Azaria, surrounded by army friends 

This is one in a series of columns by Yakov Hirsch on Hasbara Culture, and its impact on discourse and politics in Israel and the U.S. You can see the other columns here.

In the beginning of January 2017, Israeli sergeant Elor Azaria is going to be found guilty for the execution of Abd al Fatah Al-Sharif lying prostate on the ground in Hebron last March 24. And the Israeli political reaction to that verdict will be transformative. It is then that the hasbara culture cultivated by Benjamin Netanyahu will at last be confronted by a sane Israel led by former Prime Minister Ehud Barak.

The discourse that will resound in Israel in defense of Azaria will be incoherent to anyone who is not an adherent of the hasbara culture that now permeates that society. Naftali Bennett, the education minister under Netanyahu, has already been saying that Azaria needs to be pardoned if convicted.

We have already heard from soldiers who say they will go “AWOL” or even desert should their fellow combatant be convicted of manslaughter charges by the military court.

Jeffrey Goldberg epitomizes Hasbara Culture (Photo: Riccardo S. Savi/Getty Images)

The saga of the Murdering Medic is so important because it has revealed the way that “hasbara” – or the Israeli tradition of spinning its actions to try and make them acceptable to the world – has so deeply affected the spinners themselves that hasbara has hardened into an Israeli construction of reality, so much so that the many participants in that reality no longer think it is necessary to even spin bad events.

Observers who think the Israel of 2016 is an Israel of Netanyahu “cowering before the settlers” are wrong in my opinion.

The real struggle in Israeli leadership is who can control a sacred ethnocentric discourse of Jewish persecution and innocence. That is what has shaped Israeli politics in recent years: the heavyweight battle between Netanyahu and Bennett over control of the reins of hasbara culture.

Let us recall the Israeli government reaction to the video of the killing when it came out last March. Here, after all, was irrefutable evidence of the IDF behaving as its worst critics around the world claim that it does. The whole scene in its hideous naked glory — with the indifferent Israeli soldier “bystanders” to the shooting, as well as the congratulatory hand shake for Azaria from his friend the settler leader Baruch Marzel at the end (as Larry Derfner revealed)—was a nightmare for the difficult business of hasbara.

The video gave the lie to the carefully cultivated image of the world’s most moral army.

We all braced ourselves for the Israeli effort to spin the video: if only to argue that it was an aberration from the IDF norms.

But that is not what happened. What happened is that high officials in the government said, we saw exactly what you saw in that video, and it is fine.

Let’s go back to the timeline. A couple of days after the killing, Amos Harel in Haaretz described it as a “coldblooded execution” and an inevitable one, but he anticipated official condemnation.

Scene of the murder

“The chief of staff, who was once a brigade and division commander of soldiers in the territories, knows [that]… Animal-like behavior like that seen in Thursday’s incident in Hebron can quickly become the unwritten procedure for units in the field. That is the reason that the shooter was immediately arrested, an unusual move for the IDF these days, and the reason for the sharp public condemnations issued by [chief of staff Gadi] Eisenkot and Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon…”

“Meanwhile, we’ve seen no right-wing campaign in support of the shooter.”

Even Netanyahu was on board at this point. He said

“that the soldier’s conduct does not represent the army’s values and even insinuated that the soldier failed to act in accordance with the military’s open-fire rules.”

This story might very well have ended there were it not for hasbara culture. Azaria would have been a bad apple. Even the most moral army in the world has a bad apple or two!

But then Education Minister Bennett came into the picture. Three days after the killing, he began lecturing Netanyahu in the very way Netanyahu lectures human rights groups.

“This soldier was sent by the State of Israel to defend against terror during war,” he said before entering the [Cabinet] meeting. “That some of this country’s leadership has jumped to conclusions before the trial is a mistake and are dancing to the tune of B’Tselem…”

Once the Azaria incident got defined as a story of “us” vs our “enemies,” Netanyahu had nowhere to go except to agitate with Bennett. Because it is Netanyahu himself who has cultivated the world view that the Palestinian on the ground should be killed.

Netanyahu can’t be on the B’Tselem side of this fight!

It should be stressed what the environment is in Israel since the so called “knife intifada” started.

Naftali Bennett states that “terrorists must be killed, not freed”; Yair Lapid clarifies, “You have to shoot to kill anyone who pulls out a knife or a screwdriver”; Bezalel Smotrich cries, “A terrorist who sets out to murder Jews, whatever his age, must not return alive”; and Gilad Erdan declares, “Every terrorist must know he won’t survive the attack he is about to commit.”

Bennett best summed up the government line on Azaria:

“Talk of a murder charge against a combat soldier during a combat operation is a moral mistake that blurs the lines between good and evil. I expect this mistake to be mended.”

Netanyahu then reversed himself. He called the parents of the accused medic, and described Azaria as “one of our children.” He later compared his empathetic call to calling a parent of an IDF soldier fallen in combat.

In Netanyahu’s Israel, hasbara culture is the only game in town. You’re either on the side of hasbara culture and all that’s good in the world, or you’re on the side of the devil. Remember what hasbara culture ideas Netanyahu most champions. From his speech at the teens’ funeral in 2014:

“A deep and wide moral abyss separates us from our enemies. They sanctify death while we sanctify life. They sanctify cruelty while we sanctify compassion.”

That statement and Bennett’s statement of “a moral mistake” in blaming Azaria is why I insist that we are dealing with hasbara culture.

Hasbara began as the need to make sense to outsiders, to spin reality. But these leaders are no longer concerned with that project: they will not convince unindoctrinated outsiders that Azaria doesn’t belong in prison with this type of talk. Any ordinary person seeing that video realizes that Elor Azaria does not represent “good” and his going to prison is not a “moral mistake.”

But for the indoctrinated these statements fall on fertile soil. Bennett is reflecting the Israeli experience of reality when he says that the idea of charging Azaria “blurs the lines between good and evil.” We are good, they are evil. Bennett is saying that the scene of the Azaria shooting of Abd al Fatah Al-Shari is “sacred.” It’s part of the us vs them, good vs bad, narrative that is at the heart of hasbara culture. Hasbara culture understands Jewish history as one long morality tale. It is the foundation of an extreme Jewish ethnocentric narrative, which in its telling, started over two millennia ago and runs through all of hasbara culture’s tendentious telling of Jewish history up to today.

We are going to be hearing a lot more of this kind of talk after the inevitable guilty verdict for Azaria in early January.

But we will also be hearing pushback from Israelis who understand how the rest of the world sees reality.

To understand the other side of this ideological battle, you must recall Gen. Yair Golan’s Holocaust memorial speech of last May, when, alarmed by the rising chorus of voices that excused Azaria’s conduct as the appropriate way to treat Palestinians, he warned that Nazi currents are alive in Israeli political culture today. The speech resulted in the sacking of Golan’s former boss, Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon, who had defended the speech to Netanyahu.

This duality is also what the whole circus surrounding the Amona settlement is about. Once Bennett agitates and defines the struggle on behalf of the Amona settlers as being the same as the sacred struggle in Jewish and Zionist history, Netanyahu becomes Bennett’s hostage.

Ideological moderation is no longer an option at this late date of Benjamin Netanyahu’s political career. His Manichean scorched earth holy wars against his “leftist” political and cultural enemies is Netanyahu’s signature use of toxic hasbara culture for his personal gain; for electoral success.

And Netanyahu’s big political problem these days is Bennett wanting to become the new overseer of hasbara culture. Netanyahu can never let that happen – or he is done.

This is not just about securing the support of the pro-settlement voters. It’s about securing the support of the entire political culture of Israeli society.

And Naftali Bennett is no ordinary right-wing politician. He has constantly been trying to wrest control of hasbara culture from Benjamin Netanyahu.  He knows that it is the key to Netanyahu’s success.

This also explains the state of the left in Israel today. The left in hasbara culture is on the side of “them” and the “bad” of Jewish history.

As a recent poll has shown, nearly half of Israelis think the left are “traitors.”

In short, there is no place for the “left” in the totalitarian ideology of hasbara culture.

Jeffrey Goldberg by Steve Voss, Bloomberg

It is one thing for Netanyahu and Bennett to drag Israeli politics into the narrow and confined space of hasbara culture. The state of Israel must work these things out for itself.

But as an American and a Jew, my concern is the fact that hasbara culture also dominates our discussions of the conflict.

That is the achievement of Jeffrey Goldberg and his followers, who are ready to use the Holocaust and anti-Semitism and other smears against any mainstream voice that is out of line.

Goldberg has said that Jill Stein is crazy for supporting Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions. For the same alleged crime, going to a BDS rally, he has accused a Norwegian rock band of being Nazis.

What Netanyahu has done with hasbara culture in Israel Jeffrey Goldberg has done with it here: created a sacred discourse that no one in the mainstream can contradict. In fact, ever since Andrew Sullivan left the scene, no one has confronted hasbara culture directly here.

And therefore, the Elor Azaria case is a crisis for Goldberg, too. The video of the murdering medic set off a chain of events in Israel in which hasbara culture is NOW facing a serious confrontation. Leading figures have become dissidents, accusing Netanyahu and Bennett and others of fostering fascistic strains in Israeli society. This drama is only going to accelerate when as I believe, Azaria is convicted in January.

Goldberg has had almost nothing to say about Azaria. The reason is obvious. Azaria executing someone because the hasbara culture voice in his head told him to may not be a problem for Naftali Bennett and Israeli leaders, but it is a big Stop sign here. Azaria exposes Goldberg’s achievement: Because in the sacred and tribal socially-constructed reality Goldberg has created, all Palestinian resistance is motivated by hatred for Jews. That is why they attempt to stab soldiers.

But the video of the medic calmly killing an incapacitated Palestinian on the ground exposes what is really going on there. Haaretz’s Gideon Levy described the Israeli policy in the territories:

a policy – to kill, kill and kill. No taking prisoners, no arrest procedures, no rules of engagement. Every knife or scissors wielder, every stone or firebomb thrower and every car rammer – or anyone who is seen to resemble one – must die.

Jeffrey Goldberg has attacked Haaretz as a dissident publication, but his career ambitions do not allow him to say what he really thinks about the “plight” of the Israeli soldier while the world is looking at the Azaria video. Because what Elor Azaria thinks about Palestinian resistance is what Jeffrey Goldberg thinks about Palestinian resistance: It’s all about the Jews. Jeffrey Goldberg’s whole career has been one long tendentious effort to define opposition to Israel as opposition to Jews, as being motivated by a hatred of Jews. And that “social construction of reality” about Abd al Fatah Al-Sharif, which Elor Azaria experienced when he said “the terrorist must die” is what Jeffrey Goldberg has been preaching to the Jewish community and everyone else for the past twenty years.

But when even Israeli leaders have said that the case exposes fascism and Nazi currents in Israel, it is too dangerous for an ambitious “liberal” like Goldberg to say a word in Azaria’s favor.

It is not a surprise that the only thing Jeffrey Goldberg had to say about the case was to retweet a Shmuel Rosner article, whose only coherent message is that the Azaria trial is a PR disaster for Israel. Rosner repeated former defense minister Moshe Arens’s warning about the case:

“Elor Azaria’s Trial Should Never Have Become a Public Affair”

That is precisely Goldberg’s feeling. The case should never have become a public matter because it has only exposed the fact that Hasbara Culture is now run amok in Israel. And when Azaria is convicted, all hell will break loose. A broad segment of society will be outraged; a few sane Israelis will plead for the rule of law. Netanyahu will defend the medic. And Barak will try to unify an anti-Netanyahu coalition.

Goldberg must have felt like the luckiest person in the world when he got promoted to being editor in chief of The Atlantic two months ago. Who could expect the new editor with his huge workload to share his opinion about what was going on in Israel!

I have done my best to show how the Elor Azaria story and its reverberations in Israel have been spun by the hasbarists here. The people who have made a career out of obfuscation and obscurantism about all things Israel (from Max Boot to Bret Stephens to Eli Lake) continued to do so in our discourse. We will return after the Azaria verdict to assess how these “journalists” who claim to be the biggest experts America and the Jewish community have to offer on Israel did on their real life quiz about what the Azaria story was really about.

Meanwhile we can only cross our fingers and hope that Jeffrey Goldberg– “no greater journalist writing in the country today,” and our biggest expert on Israel– will take a break from his busy schedule and share his wisdom with the rest of us. What has Elor Azaria wrought?