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Israeli

(4,151 posts)
Mon Jul 14, 2014, 04:10 AM Jul 2014

Israel's dissenting voices get lost in the war echo chamber

by Neve Gordon

Neve Gordon is the author of Israel's Occupation.

For several days now, some of my neighbours have suggested that the time has come to "destroy them"- meaning either Hamas or Palestinians - "once and for all". The rockets being fired from Gaza clearly do have the effect of raising the level of hysteria within Israel.

However, not only have the dozens of Grads been fermenting the spirit of war - government ministers, members of Knesset and leading media commentators have also been consistently pouring oil onto the fire. Indeed, it seems the only vocal criticism against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is that he is too soft on the Palestinians. There is no public debate about the necessity of another war, but only about how punitive Israel should be.

Immediately following the discovery of the three Jewish teenagers' bodies on June 30, Israel's security cabinet met. Although it was, by then, common knowledge that the higher echelons had known the boys were dead even as they launched a massive military operation in the West Bank two weeks earlier - killing seventeen Palestinian civilians and arresting more than 500, including a number of Hamas members who had been released in the Shalit swap - the cabinet allegedly convened to discuss how Israel should respond to the boys' death.

'Not striking hard enough'

Reportedly, the political and security leadership supported a "more moderate response," while the far-right wing economy minister and the head of the Jewish Home Party, Naftali Bennett, demanded a much harsher reaction. A few days later, Bennett complained that "Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is undermining Israel's deterrence"; adding that "restraint following the execution of three children is a sign of weakness". Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman went so far so to dismantle the Likud-Beiteinu unity, blaming Netanyahu for "not striking Hamas hard enough".

continue......

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Israel's dissenting voices get lost in the war echo chamber (Original Post) Israeli Jul 2014 OP
............. Israeli Jul 2014 #1
To leftwing Stalinists everyone else is rightwing - especially Meretz shira Jul 2014 #2
The Hour of the Right Israeli Jul 2014 #3
+1..thank you. n/t Jefferson23 Jul 2014 #4
your welcome ..... Israeli Jul 2014 #5
I appreciate your posts, regardless. n/t Jefferson23 Jul 2014 #8
The sound of rockets exploding does tend to drown out abstract philosophizing. Fozzledick Jul 2014 #6
imagine what happens when the population actually experiences geek tragedy Jul 2014 #7
Really ?....no kidding ... Israeli Jul 2014 #9
US foreign policy: Absurdity of double standards in Palestine Jefferson23 Jul 2014 #10

Israeli

(4,151 posts)
1. .............
Mon Jul 14, 2014, 04:11 AM
Jul 2014

In a similar vein, several prominent columnists urged Netanyahu to take a more belligerent stand. Shaul Rosenfeld noted that Israel's restraint is outrageous and shameful. In an opinion piece for the popular news site Ynet he wrote: "'The regional power Israel has fallen to its knees to beg the murderous terrorist organisation to graciously give it some peace and quiet."

The public debate today is not whether or not to stop the air strikes but rather whether or not to deploy ground forces. In an opinion column, Channel 2's military correspondent Ronnie Daniel claimed that only "a ground operation will extract a heavy enough price from Hamas" in order to ensure a longer period of peace for Israel. The following day Channel 2's anchor pondered: "We wanted Hamas to fall on its knees and so far this has not happened"; and Daniel responded, "So far it's not happening, and the conclusion, in my opinion, is that it has not received enough."

Moreover, the editor-in-chief of the most widely circulated daily newspaper Israel Hayom, published an opinion article entitled "Bring the Gaza Strip back to the Stone Age." He immediately explained that he did not mean that Israel should reduce all of the houses in Gaza to rubble but rather to "destroy the weapon arsenal Hamas has accumulated over the past ten years. To pull out the snake's teeth. To leave them without missiles, with stones at the most. And this can only be done in or through an extensive ground operation."

While not all commentators were as blatant, the Israeli press has, overall, mobilised itself in the name of the national hysteria. Most commentators for Haaretz, Yediot Ahronot, Ynet, and Ma'ariv concur that the current round of fighting was forced on Netanyahu and are also in general agreement in insisting that it is impossible to eradicate Hamas without recapturing the Gaza Strip, but note that at this stage the government is not interested in doing so.

A number of Likud members also object to a ground operation. Knesset Member Moshe Feiglin stated that "Our enemy is not only Hamas but the entire population that supports it and raises three fingers with pride while handing out candy as our sons are killed," he wrote, exclaiming: "We should not send a single soldier to Gaza! We do not even need to bomb houses and empty areas! We should simply deny them electricity, water, food and medicine until they fall on their knees."

Deputy Defence Minister Danny Danon, who has over 105,000 followers on his Facebook page, posted a poster of an aerial photo of Gaza showing a rocket being launched towards Israel. On the poster he wrote: "A billion and a half shekels debt to the electricity company; more than 360 rockets have been fired towards Israel; 0 rationale in transferring electricity and fuel to Hamas." Close to 33,000 people liked the poster, 6,700 shared it, and 1,200 commented on it, claiming, for example, "it is the leader head of your party [Netanyahu] who is to blame."

This is the atmosphere produced by the right wing government and the media, but what, one might ask, has been the reaction of the political parties sitting in the opposition?

Responding to a question posed by Channel 2's anchor, Labor leader and the head of the opposition Yitschak Herzog said: "…I think Israeli restraint has run its course and it's time to execute the blow that will restore the calm…" The anchor pressed Herzog, asking whether he supports a ground operation, but Herzog was unwilling to provide a direct response. Similarly, former Labor leader Shelly Yachimovitch, also expressed support for the military operation, adding that while she is one Netanyahu's harshest critics "it is impossible not to appreciate his responsible and restrained conduct in this crisis."

The leader of the liberal Meretz Party publically demanded an end to the operation, but in a conversation with Netanyahu she was quoted as saying that "You have to punish Hamas, but also strive for a diplomatic move, with the aid of the Egyptians, that will produce a cease-fire."

The only exceptions to this warmongering have been the usual suspects, people like Gideon Levy, Amira Hass and Uri Misgav from Ha'aretz who have harshly condemned the current round of violence. The voices of the Palestinian members of Knesset have not been heard in the Israeli media for the past several days, because, I suspect, they are adamantly against this cycle of violence and the demos does not really want to hear them.

Finally, the left has organised several protests, fifty people here a hundred people there, and, while often this is how resistance begins, it is not clear how within the current atmosphere these sober voices will amount to anything. It is a time of deep despair for all those who envision a different and brighter future for this land.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/07/israel-dissenting-voices-get-lo-201471211752770728.html

 

shira

(30,109 posts)
2. To leftwing Stalinists everyone else is rightwing - especially Meretz
Mon Jul 14, 2014, 06:33 AM
Jul 2014
The leader of the liberal Meretz Party publically demanded an end to the operation, but in a conversation with Netanyahu she was quoted as saying that "You have to punish Hamas, but also strive for a diplomatic move, with the aid of the Egyptians, that will produce a cease-fire."


Liberals are the #1 enemy of both Stalinists and rightwing fascists.


Israeli

(4,151 posts)
3. The Hour of the Right
Mon Jul 14, 2014, 08:06 AM
Jul 2014

This is the hour of the vengeful Right and its murderous mirror-image Hamas. It is the hour of corpses and the cult of death. That is what fills them with adrenalin. I hear the solutions proposed by the Establishment experts that proliferate in television studios like mushrooms after the rain as they compete with each other over who can shed the most blood. They all offer up the same menu of more and more of the same – more murder, more killing, more destruction, more collective punishment, blowing up the homes of more families that were convicted of no crime, and more extrajudicial executions of Hamas leaders. Knesset Member Feiglin repeats his proposal to the implement the death penalty. From Gaza they threaten us with hell and Deputy Foreign Minister Tzahi Hanegbi threatens Hamas with his own hell. This bloody mixture is a festival for rabbis immersed in racism and hatred of Gentiles on both sides of the Green Line. The incited and inflamed masses absorb very well the message from the neo-Nazi slogans that flood the social media. If I had to choose the most representative one, it would be “Hatred of Arabs is not racism; it is principle.” This is a translation into Hebrew of slogans that were widely used against Jews in Nazi Germany. There are imams who pay back in the same currency with sermons full of hatred. At this point religious fanaticism is triumphant on both sides. We have seen all this before, and the lesson has not been learned.

The three kidnapped and murdered yeshiva students were born into the Occupation, or were taken to the Occupied Territories by their parents, and were filled with the venomous belief that everything belonged to them, for it is written in the Bible, after all: God promised and we are His emissaries. They paid with their lives, their faith intact.

And on the other side, the suspects in the murder too are children of the Occupation. They have not experienced one single day of freedom. Their entire lives have been lived under the yoke of the Occupation. They are witness to humiliations, their relatives arrested, tortured and killed. They are young in age but have already undergone the initiation of Israeli prison. The scars accumulate and the flames of hatred and revenge became a huge conflagration. With no light at the end of the tunnel, faith in God becomes an escape, and from there the road to Hamas is a short one. They too were poisoned to believe that everything belonged to them, for it is written in the Holy Scriptures.

Against these two camps of fanatics stands the Israeli peace camp, and I mean peace; not the agents of the Occupation like Peres, Rabin, Herzog, Fuad [Binyamin Ben-Eliezer] and their ilk, but those who oppose the Occupation without any “if”s, “and”s or “but”s, or “however”, or “we are all one family”, whose opposition to the Occupation is not motivated only by “what it is doing to us” (Israelis), but also “because of what it is doing to them” (Palestinians). In other words, the crimes and the injustices that are embodied in the superstructure called the Occupation are cause enough to oppose it even if you can prove to them in black and white that the Occupation does us nothing but good. Which it doesn’t.

The power of the racist incitement against the Arabs has reached nearly 10 on the Incitement Scale, much to the satisfaction if the Israeli Right. Burning hatred of Arabs is one of the fuels that feed the colonization project.

It was clear to all whose eyes had not been dazzled that this wave of hatred that flooded the Internet would not remain within the digital realm and that some would translate it into permission to attack Arabs. And then came the worst of all: six Jews kidnapped the young Muhammad Abu Khdeir from his home in Jerusalem and murdered him with indescribable cruelty – burned him alive, for the sole crime of being an Arab.

A filthy wave of incitement is passing over Israel, which is reminiscent of the waves of incitement against Jews in Germany on the eve of the Krystallnacht pogroms. The way Muhammad was murdered is reminiscent of the Ku Klux Klan. The mayor of Jerusalem said that the murder of Muhammad “is not Jewish”. Why? The murderers implemented what is written in the book The King’s Torah, [1] the first fruit of the rabbis of the Yizhar settlement, which permits the murder of babies lest they join the ranks of the enemies of Israel in the future. That is the Judaism that is taking over Israel – the Judaism of real-estate agents, racist Judaism, colonial Judaism, the Judaism of institutionalized discrimination against Arabs in which the mayor of Jerusalem is also a partner. That is the Judaism from which they derived inspiration, power and glory: Judaism that burns bodies. Off to one side stands humanistic Judaism, still trying to struggle, but the Bennett Brigade is stronger, so it is keeps getting worn down and burnt out, until the day will not be far when it becomes Judaism of silence. In line with the well-known statement by the German Jewish Poet Heinrich Heine (1797-1856), that “Where they have burned books, they will end up burning human beings”, we can add that where they burn human beings, they will end up committing genocide.

Once it was clearly established that Muhammad Abu Khdeir was murdered on national-racial-religious grounds, it was but natural to expect that the Arab public would take to the streets to express their anger. Instead of exhibiting flexibility and understanding and permitting spontaneous demonstrations to take place, the police mobilized hundreds of personnel equipped with weapons, batons, shields and helmets, and their violence astonished the demonstrators, both in East Jerusalem and in Wadi Ara. We saw on television a shocking scene in which police brutally beat a 15 year old boy whose only crime was to be a cousin of the murdered boy. After all that, the Minister of Public Security, Czar Lieberman’s emissary to the police, was not ashamed to declare on television that the police would have zero tolerance for violence, not by police, but by demonstrators. Faced with such violent and aggressive police, throwing objects at police is an act of self-defence. But – in Israel as in Israel: since the dozens of demonstrators the police arrested are Arabs, we can count on the courts to pick up where the police left off. Occupation justice.

Following the horrifying murder of the Palestinian youth, a number of Israeli celebrities got the idea that we must strongly come out against extremism “on the Right and the Left”. Thus said former Supreme Court Chief Justice Dorit Beinish, as did the journalist Ari Shavit of Haaretz, who carries a level with him wherever he goes, so he can inspects himself every day to ensure that the bubble is exactly in the middle. The learned celebrities will forgive me, but this is a misleading comparison. The Right does not look like the Left, nor vice-versa. None in the Israeli Left can be defined as more extremist than the extremist who assassinated a prime minister, who set up a murderous terror underground, who killed the settlers they hate, who planted an explosive device next to a religious girl’s school in a settlement in order to kill and wound as many students as possible, who yell “death to settlers and to the Right!” at demonstrations or have bomb-making laboratories in their homes. But all that and more such plums are found in dangerous abundance on the Right, sometimes with the support and encouragement of right-wing ministers and Knesset members. I do not know any man or woman of the Left, in Israel or outside it, who wants to be in a live in a state that is ruled by ministers of religion. Not ayatollahs, not imams or rabbis or priests.

On this specific matter I am one who holds to the vision of Herzl, who wrote in his book that the rabbis would stay in their houses of prayer and concern themselves with the spiritual needs of the believers, and the military men would stay in their barracks and not interfere in politics. If Herzl were with us today and spoke modern Hebrew, he would say to Rabbi Piron, Minister of Education, “Get out of my sight, go back to your synagogue and take care of your congregation’s religious needs!”

Members of the Left in Israel, however extremist they may be, will always hold to means of struggle that do not transgress the bounds of the realm of democracy.

And another thing of no small importance: the murder of Muhammad proved just how vacuous and mendacious is that day called “Jerusalem Unification Day”.


http://www.kibush.co.il/show_file.asp?num=65172

Israeli

(4,151 posts)
5. your welcome .....
Mon Jul 14, 2014, 12:47 PM
Jul 2014
but it was in answer to shira Jefferson23......not to you ... therefore you have nothing to thank me for .

Probably wasting my time and energy anyhow .....she is a lost cause .



 

geek tragedy

(68,868 posts)
7. imagine what happens when the population actually experiences
Mon Jul 14, 2014, 02:37 PM
Jul 2014

death and injurying and widespread suffering and humiliation.

Israeli

(4,151 posts)
9. Really ?....no kidding ...
Tue Jul 15, 2014, 12:46 AM
Jul 2014

.......and you and shira can hear them all the way over there ??

Ah ......so thats why this :
http://www.jewishnews.co.uk/israels-envoy-plays-warning-siren-un-security-council-meeting/

shira had the sense to move on from this thread Fozzledick ....I suggest you do the same .

Jefferson23

(30,099 posts)
10. US foreign policy: Absurdity of double standards in Palestine
Tue Jul 15, 2014, 10:14 AM
Jul 2014

July 15, 2014

Toby Cadman is an international criminal law specialist. He is a barrister member at Nine Bedford Row International Chambers in London and a member of the International Criminal Bureau in The Hague.

One could be forgiven for believing that the protection of civil liberties and fundamental freedoms, and the obligation upon a state to protect and adhere to those rights without prejudice, would be uniform. One could also be forgiven for believing that the treatment of a citizen on the right hand side of the road would be the same as that of the treatment of a citizen on the left hand side of the road. One could be forgiven for naively believing that all are equal before the law.

However, the way in which Israel treats its own nationals as compared to the way in which it treats Palestinians, comes as a stark reminder that there is no equality. It also comes as a stark reminder that without universal condemnation by the international community, and specifically the United States, this disparity in treatment will never change.

There will of course be those who do not accept that there is a double standard, or seek to justify that double standard on the basis that Israel is simply seeking to defend its borders, and its people. There are examples however, that cannot be justified.

Following the brutal murder of Mohammed Abu Khdeir, and the demonstrations that followed, the boy's cousin, Tariq Abu Khdeir, aged 15, was arrested by members of the Israeli Defence Force (IDF). During that arrest he was brutally beaten. Video evidence released would tend to demonstrate just how violently he was beaten during the arrest.


http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/07/us-foreign-policy-absurdity-dou-201471062240646909.html


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