The right has learnt how not to apologise for its deep attachment to the
“right” to usurp, dispossess, bomb and incarcerate entire populations. Against
this, the left cautiously waves a banner of hope, but one riddled with holes
like Swiss cheese, of a better future based on the conjured-up “Two States
Solution” next to “The End to the Occupation”. Not a word about the failed
ethno-religious principle that will be expected to continue to rule over least
one of these states. This should forever be the Jewish State, where impeached
Israel Prize judge Ariel Hirshfeld and would-be ethnic cleanser Baruch Marzel
belong to the same tribe and to the same “people”. A people that accept
nobody, unless they are converted, tamed and censured by the likes of the
ultra-nationalist rabbi Mazuz.
Many years ago, many warned against the certain damage that such a state would
inevitably inflict: from the Baron Nathaniel Rothschild at the beginning of
the last century, all the way through Martin Buber, Hillel Kook and the rabbi
J.L. Magnes on the eve of the declaration of independence, not to mention the
Agudath Israel and ultra-orthodox leaders over the generations. The ultra-
orthodox adapted quickly to the comfort zone offered by the religious-national
state. The secular population, however, channel their displeasure with the
Isra-Bluff through satire and art. They make a fuss each time the political
mainstream – pushed by the right wing – tries to deny them the privileges,
grants and awards controlled by the political establishment. But concerning
the very principle of the privileges regime based on ethno-religious identity,
no serious discussion ever takes place, not in academia and certainly not in
the media. When did one ever hear of a case made against the Law of Return, or
against the Absentee Property Law? Who, amongst the worthy combatants against
the vile citizenship regulations, would dare challenge the holy consensus
concerning the “demographic risk”?
In Israel, no political entity may even present its candidacy for
parliamentary elections without declaring explicitly that it supports the
axiom of the “Jewish and Democratic State”. Haneen Zoabi might drive all the
Jews of Israel up the wall, by declaring her support for the idea of a “State
for all its citizens”. But she is running for the Knesset on a party list
obliged to officially find a formulation for an electoral platform that
promises that they are not campaigning to turn Israel into a democratic
country, into a state without special privileges ascribed to Jews only. A
hermetically-sealed wall protects the norms that the United Nations Assembly
declared as “racist” back in 1975. From the heights of its popularity in
Europe, and with the staunch support of the loving and friendly United States
(of the time), Israeli diplomacy finally managed to reverse the 1975
resolution after 16 years of bitter campaigning. No-one, however, is
campaigning for the change of these norms and of this regime.
As ever, the forthcoming election on March 17 will see no voice, in politics
or the media, presenting the positions of those who do not buy the story that
the state accidentally lost its way in 1967. These are the people who
understand that the bad foundations of the State of Israel were cast directly
after the UN partition resolution of 1947, and the expulsion of the majority
of the indigenous residents that followed. But there is a bright side, though,
as more and more people, young and old, including shoe salespersons and taxi
drivers, now understand that they are living in a fake honey trap for
persecuted and non-persecuted Jews. A trap whose only mode of survival is
underneath the institutional umbrella of violence, forever and ever.
Some radio stations allow themselves to play – sometimes – Omri Glikman’s hit
“Fakakte Medine”, but do not permit the translation, from the Ashkenazi
Yiddish to Sephardic Hebrew, of the title – “a shitty state”, for all intents
and purposes. About a fifth of Israel’s citizens are not Jewish. Almost half
the people subjected to its control are not Jewish. Of its Jewish population,
at least a third are disgruntled with the state’s excessive Jewishness. One
might expect that out of this third, a group who – still – holds most of the
power, knowledge and public discourse positions of the state, a clear voice
might emerge to confront the isolationist, segregationist, problematic and
perilous nature of the political concept we live in. Nevertheless, the silence
is resounding. Anybody who wishes to express the missing confrontation at the
poles may, at best, vote for the Joint List of the Arab Palestinians of
Israel. A second option, no less attractive, is to stay at home, improving the
chances for Benjamin Netanyahu and Naphtali Bennett to further slide,
undisturbed, on a collision course with the rest of the world.
Source: http://www.kibush.co.il/show_file.asp?num=68138
= new reply since forum marked as read
