Israel's War On Democracy (and why Americans should care)

Dispatches From The Edge

Conn Hallinan
Jan. 31, 2012

Submitted to Portside by the author

From its birth more than 60 years ago, Israel has always
presented itself as "an oasis of democracy in a sea of
despotism," an outpost of pluralism surrounded by tyranny.
While that equality never fully applied to the country's Arab
citizens, Israel was, for the most part an open society. But
today political rights are under siege by right-wing
legislators, militant settlers, and a growing religious
divide in the Israeli army, all of which threaten to silence
internal opposition to the policies of the government of
Benjamin Netanyahu. Since that may include a war with Iran--
and the probable involvement of the U.S. in such a conflict--
the move to stifle dissent should be a major concern for
Americans.

The U.S. media has reported on growing tensions between
Israeli women and the ultra-orthodox Haredim over the
latter's demand for sexual segregation of schools, public
transport, and public life. But while orthodox Jews spitting
on eight-year old girls for being "immodestly dressed" has
garnered the headlines, the most serious threats to
democratic rights have gone largely unreported, including a
host of proposed or enacted laws. Some of these include:

*A law that allows Jewish communities to bar Arab families
from living among them. Arabs make up about 20 percent of the
population.

*A law that makes it illegal to advocate an academic,
cultural or economic boycott of Israel, including settler
communities.

*A law that would limit the power of the Supreme Court.

*A law that bars any state institutions, including schools
and theaters--from commemorating the "Nakba," or
"catastrophe," the term Palestinians use to describe the loss
of their lands in the 1948 war that established Israel.

*A law that prohibits Palestinians from living with their
Israeli spouses within Israel proper and denies them
citizenship.

*A law that drops Arabic as an official language.

*A law that requires anyone obtaining a driver's license to
swear loyalty to the state.

*A law that would limit the number of petitions non-
governmental organizations, including peace and human rights
groups, could file before the Supreme Court.

*A law that forces human rights and peace groups to limit the
money they can receive from abroad, and forces them to go
through burdensome registration requirements.

Tzipi Livni, former foreign secretary and head of the Kadima
Party, told the Knesset that Arab states were "trying to
become a democracy, while we--with these bills--are headed
toward dictatorship."

Most of these laws are being pushed by Israel's rightwing
Likud and Yisreal Beiteinu parties, but the proposal to drop
Arabic comes from the Kadima Party. Ram-rodding many of these
laws are Lukid's so-called "fantastic four": Danny Danon,
Yariv Levin, Tzipi Hotovely, and Ofir Akunis.

"We are in the process of reducing freedom of speech and the
freedom of association, and we are infringing on the right to
equality, especially vis-à-vis the Israeli Arab," Mordechai
Kremnitizer, a professor of law and vice-president of the
Israel Democracy Institute told the Financial Times.  "We are
also weakening all the elements in society that have the
function of criticizing the governments, including the
courts.

Israeli society is filled with sharp divisions on everything
from war with Iran to growing economic inequality. Israel has
the highest poverty rate out of the 32-nation Organization
for Economic Cooperation and Development, and ranks twenty-
fifth in health care investment. The poverty rate for Israeli
Arabs is between 50 and 55 percent.

Starting in the 1980s, Israel began dismantling its social
safety net, a trend that Netanyahu sharply accelerated when
he served as finance minister in 2003. While slashing money
for housing, education, and transport, he cut taxes for the
wealthy and corporations.

Most of all, however, Israeli governments poured the nation's
wealth into colonizing the West Bank, Gaza, and the Golan
Heights, where, according to Shir Hever of the Alternative
Information Center based in Jerusalem, Israel has spent about
$100 billion. A vast network of bypass roads, security zones,
and walled settlements siphoned off money that could have
gone for housing, education and transportation in Israel.
Special tax rebates and rent subsidies for settlers added to
that bill. Some 15 percent of the Israeli housing budget is
used to support four percent of its population in the
Occupied Territories. Add to that the 20 percent the military
budget sucks up, and it seems increasingly clear that the
settlement endeavor is no longer sustainable.

Wealth disparity--a handful of families control 30 percent of
Israel's GDP--was partly behind last summer's social
explosion that at one point put some 450,000 people into the
streets of Haifa, Tel Aviv, and Jerusalem demanding
reductions in rent and food prices. But so far, organizers of
those massive demonstrations have avoided making the link
between growing income inequality and Israel's policies in
the Occupied Territories. Many of these new laws are aimed at
organizations that have been trying to do precisely that.

There are other divisions as well. Israelis are split down
the middle over whether to attack Iran--43 percent yes, 41
percent no--but 64 percent support the creation of a Middle
East nuclear free zone, and 65 percent feel that neither
Israel nor Iran should have nuclear weapons. Those are not
exactly the home front sentiments that a government wants
when it is contemplating going to war.

Besides the avalanche of right-wing legislation coming out of
the Knesset, Israel is increasingly at war with itself over
the role of religion in daily life, a conflict that is
playing out in one of Israel's core institutions, the Israeli
Defense Forces (IDF).

Two years ago, soldiers of the Kfir Brigade, a unit deployed
in the West Bank, unveiled banners declaring they would
refuse orders to remove settlers. By international law, all
settlements in the Occupied Territories are illegal, but
Israel claims that only unregistered "outposts" are against
the law and subject to removal. The soldiers held signs that
read, "We will not expel Jews." Six of them were arrested and
spent 30 days in the stockade.

The soldiers were graduates of army-sponsored "hesder
yeshivas" that allow orthodox soldiers to divide their time
between active service and Torah study. Settler rabbis
rallied around the six and even provided money for some of
the soldiers' families.

Writing in the progressive Jewish weekly, the Forward,
Columnist J.J. Goldberg says that a "secret report" in 2008
warned that such "yeshiva graduates comprise 30 percent of
the junior officer corps and rising. In a decade they will be
the military's senior commanders. If a peace agreement is not
reached in 15 years or so, Israel may no long have an army
willing to carry out its side."

A majority of Israelis support some kind of compromise to
achieve a settlement with the Palestinians, but in the most
recent set of talks, the Netanyahu government made it clear
that Israel will not surrender any settlements, any part of
Jerusalem, or the Jordan Valley. In essence, Palestinians
would be forced to live in isolated enclaves surrounded by
networks of restricted roads and over 120 settlements. The
Netanyahu proposal not only violates numerous United Nations
resolutions and international law, no Palestinian government
that accepted such an offer would survive for long.

But Israelis who protest an offer that is widely seen as
little more than a way to kill the possibility of serious
negotiations may find themselves treated in much the same way
as Israel has dealt with its Arab citizens.

Those who agitate against the current government may find
themselves hit with the new libel law that no longer requires
plaintiffs to prove they were damaged and increases awards
six-fold. Bloggers, who lack institutional support, are
particularly fearful of the new law. Organizations critical
of the government that try to raise money from sources
outside the country could face huge fines.

According to Hagai El-Ad, director of the Association for
Civil Rights in Israel, there is growing resistance within
Israel to the attempt to silence critics, as well as pressure
from abroad, including the American Jewish community. Even a
pro-Netanyahu hawk like the Anti-Defamation League's Abraham
Foxman warns "the very democratic character of the state is
being eroded." That resistance has delayed some of the more
odious proposals, but the "fantastic four" and their allies
are pushing hard to get them on the books.

Why should Americans care? Because if Netanyahu silences his
domestic opponents, he will have carte blanche to do as he
pleases. And if Tel Aviv attacks Iran, it will be very
difficult for the U.S. to keep clear of it. For starters, the
IDF will be firing U.S.-made cruise missiles, flying
American-made F-15s, and dropping "made in the USA" bunker
busters. With the exception of the monarchs from the Gulf
states, no one in the Middle East--or most of the world--is
going to give Washington a pass on this one.

Does America need another war? If it doesn't protest the
assault on democracy in Israel, it may get one, whether it
likes it or not.

Conn Hallinan can be read at
dispatchesfromtheedgeblog.wordpress.com and
middleempireseries.wordpress.com

___________________________________________

Portside aims to provide material of interest to people
on the left that will help them to interpret the world
and to change it.

Submit via email: [log in to unmask]

Submit via the Web: http://portside.org/submittous3

Frequently asked questions: http://portside.org/faq

Sub/Unsub: http://portside.org/subscribe-and-unsubscribe

Search Portside archives: http://portside.org/archive

Contribute to Portside: https://portside.org/donate