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The vast majority of Jewish Israelis don’t want to give up their privilege. But nobody has the right to ‘democratically’ deny rights to another.

The most shocking piece of information to come out of a Pew Research Center survey of Israeli society published Tuesday is that nearly half of Jews in the country say they support the ethnic cleansing of Arabs. Forty-eight percent of Jewish respondents agreed/strongly agreed that “Arabs should be expelled or transferred from Israel.”

Digging deeper into the data, however, that glimpse into the collective political mindset of half of Israel’s Jewish population becomes less and less surprising. Furthermore, the full set of data makes the prospect of Israel voluntarily ending the occupation and becoming a state of all its citizens appear more distant than ever.

The picture of the Jewish Israeli body politic drawn by the Pew survey seems to mirror the state of Israel’s politics, an indication that Israel’s system of government is more akin to a tyranny of the majority than democracy.

For instance, we learn from the survey that the vast majority of Israeli Jews (79 percent) think Israel should give preferential treatment to its Jewish citizens. A statistically identical number (76 percent), with some obvious dissonance, say they believe that democracy is compatible with a Jewish state. Democracy without full equality for all citizens, however, is only a democracy in name.

Another insight, which is possibly more troubling although not as sexy a headline, is that there is no viable political force or portion of Israeli society that opposes those illiberal currents which run straight to the core of Israel’s national identity — a system of government that academic Oren Yiftachel termed ethnocracy.

Where is the political opposition? Where are those political forces, those peace-seekers and civil rights crusaders who would fight for a better, more equal, liberal and democratic future? Where is the Left?

The Pew survey found that only 8 percent of Jewish Israelis today identify with the political Left — 92 percent with the Center and Right. Or in other words, there is no Left. Indeed, the only Zionist party that places itself on the political Left, Meretz, holds a mere five of 120 seats — 4 percent — in the country’s parliament, the Knesset. (There are non-Zionist parties that are often identified with the Israeli ideas ascribed to liberalism and the Left, but their support from the Jewish population is nominal.)

So if there is no Left, and if the vast majority of the Center and Right believes one ethno-religious group should receive privileged or preferential treatment from the state — necessarily at the expense of other ethno-religious groups — then we can deduce that under current circumstances the prospects of Israel voluntarily becoming a state that treats all citizens equally are slim to none.

“History is the long and tragic story of the fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily,” Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote in his Letter From Birmingham City Jail. In Israel today we can see that tragic process playing out yet again.

We are at the tail end of two decades of failed peace processes. Those processes were not meant to liberate Palestinians or to grant them equality, either in Israel or the occupied territories. By drawing political boundaries — a la gerrymandering — to ensure a Jewish majority, the peace process was designed to preserve Jewish privilege within a Jewish state while maintaining the country’s democratic, or rather ethnocratic, character.

Today even the Labor party, which designed, championed and sold the two-state solution to the world as an alternative to both full equality and apartheid, has given up on that dream. In turn, that has led us into an abyss where half of the Jewish population appears willing to openly consider a step as drastic as ethnic cleansing to preserve its privilege, privilege 91 percent say is necessary for the long-term survival of the Jewish people.

But just as it is not legitimate for Israel’s Jewish population to “democratically” decide whether to treat the country’s Arab citizens equally, it is even less legitimate for Jewish Israelis to “democratically” decide to deny basic civil and human rights to the millions of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.

The leader of the Israeli opposition, of the so-called “peace camp,” recently declared that “a full peace agreement, unfortunately, isn’t around the corner and at this stage.” Palestinians must wait for Israel to grant them their rights, he has been explaining for the past few months. But what right does he, or any Israeli leader, have to decide if and when a group of people — who did not elect them — can realize their rights?

Isaac Herzog wants Palestinians to patiently wait for their rights until he decides the time is right. He understands, and he knows that his constituency understands, that granting Palestinians equal rights would destroy Jewish privilege. And the alternative, a two-state solution, isn’t around the corner. So the Palestinians must wait.

But boycotts are wrong.

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McCarthyism

Israeli-induced attacks on free speech and civil rights in Europe, the US and Canada, among others, are fostering an ominous environment of bullying, intimidation and repression that has all the hallmarks of the era of McCarthyism in the US and the worst days of the apartheid regime in South Africa.

In a desperate attempt to suppress BDS from above, after losing many battles for the hearts and minds at the grassroots level, Israel and its pressure groups, including anti-Palestinian billionaires, are pressuring governments, legislatures and officials in the West to implement patently anti-democratic measures that threaten civil liberties at large.

This should deeply concern not just activists supporting Palestinian rights, but all those who value civil liberties as well as progressive movements struggling for racial, gender, social, economic, indigenous and environmental justice.

The authoritarian measures adopted against BDS so far include the prosecution of BDS activists in France, like the recent arrest of an activist for wearing a BDS T-shirt; proposals to exclude organizations that support BDS in the US from public funding or contracts; the Canadian parliament’s condemnation of BDS and threats against Palestine solidarity groups; and the British government’s intimidation of local councils that have voted to support BDS measures, among other attacks on local democracy in the UK (more details on all these below).

Glenn Greenwald has described this well-orchestrated series of draconian measures as the “greatest threat to free speech in the West.” Yet Israel’s exceptionalism in some mainstream quarters in the West remains intact.

South African Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu once likened this singling out of Israel’s regime for unconditional military, political and financial support, not to mention protection from accountability, by the US and other Western governments to placing Israel “on a pedestal” above every other state. Many people are afraid to criticize Israel’s policies, Tutu argues, because of the exceptionally intimidating methods used by its lobby.

....continued...

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Tipote said:

Clinton was probably the most aggressive. She spoke about destroying the BDS campaign among other things. .

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hey guys, its been a while..

just thought i'd share some links here..

this concerns the shooting of the palestinian i mentioned above.. Israelis have been calling him a hero

(hpefully you dont mind the copy pasta..)

this underlines the need for BDS -

Israel Is Reborn Into a Monster - and No One Is Going Stop It

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Israel is forming a new national identity. The old one was problematic too, but the new one is incorrigible. It’s not a passing fancy, it’s the zeitgeist and the ortgeist, the spirit of the place, and it is patently irreversible. Some of the cultural decline is in a failure to recognize the gravity of the situation, even by those who don’t approve of a soldier executing a helpless Palestinian. Some of the blindness lies in the paralysis that gripped those who did not scream outside the Castina military court.

The new situation, of which the the soldier in Hebron is just one symptom, is irreversible, because there’s no one to change it. One might think it could be fixed in the future, that the mood will change when the government does. But the situation is irreparable because there’s no one to repair it, not now or in the foreseeable future. Any attempt to write an alternative, hopeful, scenario, which gives some hope, is nipped in the bud. Try it and see. There is no such script, and one cannot even be imagined.

Who will stop the decline taking place before our unsurprised eyes? With horrific speed, it is changing the ortgeist and with it, the nation and its values. These changes will be nearly impossible to reverse. See who protested in Beit Shemesh, who the thugs were in Ma’aleh Adumim, Ramle and Castina and who wrote on Facebook that killing Arabs reflects values. This is the next generation of Israelis, the face of its future. It’s doubtful that a nation so corrupt can be brought back to the straight and narrow. A people that has lost its moral compass, even its shame, will never find them again. How would it, and why? No one even seems to be trying.

It’s not that all Israelis have become monsters. The worst of them, those who see the executioner soldier, as a national hero are not yet a majority. Those who think “death to Arabs,” who are convinced that non-Jews shouldn’t be allowed to live here; those who know they are the Chosen People and those who are sure that sovereignty is guaranteed by divine promise; those who think the Palestinians have no rights and those who are sure the Israel Defense Forces is the most moral army in the world — are growing stronger and more numerous at a frightening rate. And no one stands up to them.

After the orgy of 1967 came the turning point of Operation Protective Edge: In the summer of 2014, tolerance died, replaced by violence. The Zionist-religious demon genie escaped, and there’s no one to recapture it. All the social agents meant to protect society weakened or collapsed, nothing remained.The center-left politicians are paralyzed with fear at the pouncing tiger, while those on the right ride its back and kow-tow to reap momentary gains. It will throw them off too, in the end.

The media have all but relinquished their genuine purpose. Israel doesn’t need a Ministry of Propaganda: The media perform that function, and civil society is being dragged down by the government, with the help of the media. The justice system is right on their tail. B’Tselem? Traitors. Lehava and La Familia? They’re principled. Need we say more?

Who will stop this? Isaac Herzog? Yair Lapid? Gabi Ashkenazi? Gideon Sa’ar? Don’t make me laugh. The Supreme Court? The IDF chief of staff? The military justice system? The conference against the international boycott, divestment and sanctions movement that was sponsored by the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper? The Channel 2 television news and “Fact,” after they return from carrying out investigations commissioned by Ad Kan? Who exactly will stop it?

There are toxic seeds which, once planted, cannot be stopped from sprouting. There are plagues that cannot be stopped from spreading. We are there. When the execution of a wounded Palestinian becomes a value, all other values and hopes disappear. A new people has been created, between the ultranationalist and religious right on one side and the apathetic majority on the other. The People of Israel lives, and will continue to do so, its country is strong and steadfast and it will apparently survive forever. But this place will become impossible and intolerable for anyone who thinks differently. No one will stop this on their behalf.

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Since we lack any real prominent educators in the present, we must dust off the writings of Yitzhak Epstein, a distinguished and pioneering educator who was one of the first Hebrew educators in pre-state Palestine. He came to Palestine in 1886 at age 23, serving as an agriculture guide at the behest of Baron Rothschild. Five years later he began working in education, when he was appointed as teacher and principal at a girls’ school in Safed.

Epstein, in one sentence, asked us to look at things from the perspective of the other. This ability is necessary for a society based on institutions of justice, and, surprise surprise, it is the basis for all processes of learning and education. At the Seventh Zionist Congress in 1905, Epstein gave a speech titled “The Hidden Question,” which was published in print in 1907. “Among the difficult issues regarding the rebirth of our people in its homeland, one issue outweighs them all: our relations with the Arabs. This issue, upon whose correct resolution hinges the revival of our national hope, has not been forgotten by the Zionists but has gone completely unnoticed by them and, in its true form, is barely mentioned in the literature of our movement.”

The things Epstein saw

Epstein already talked about all the Zionists who denied the existence of the Arabs: “We devote attention to everything related to our homeland, we discuss and debate everything, we praise and criticize in every way, but one trivial thing we have overlooked so long in our lovely country: there exists an entire people who have held it for centuries and to whom it would never occur to leave.”

Epstein responded to all those who pride themselves on a land unique to Jews: “At a time when we are feeling the love of the homeland with all our might, the land of our forefathers, we are forgetting that the people who live there now also have a sensitive heart and a loving soul. The Arab, like any man, has a strong bond with his homeland…”

To all those who mocked the Arabs for not having developed the land, Epstein, as one of the first Zionists there, explains: The time has come to dispel the misconceptions among the Zionists that land in Palestine lies uncultivated for lack of working hands or laziness of the local residents. There are no deserted fields.”

And to all those who reject the Arabs’ national sentiment, Epstein has this to say: “One can definitely say, that at the present time, there is no Arab national or political movement in Palestine. But this people has no real need of a movement: it is large and numerous and does not require a revival because it never ceased to exist for even a moment.”

Justice over nationalism

Epstein then suggests two principles that should guide our treatment of the Arabs.

A. The Jewish people, the foremost with regard to justice and the law, egalitarianism and the brotherhood of man, respects not only the individual rights of every person but also the national rights of every nation and ethnic group.

B. The people of Israel, yearning for rebirth, is in solidarity — in belief and deed — with all nations who are awakening to life and treats their aspirations with love and goodwill and fosters in them their sense of national identity.

Epstein uses a moral justification for these principles, which rest on a Jewish worldview that protects the weak from the powerful: “A nation which declared: ‘but the land must not be sold beyond reclaim,’ and which gives preference to the rights of one who cultivates the land over one who buys it, must not and cannot confiscate land from those who work it and settled on it in good faith. We must not uproot people from land to which they and their forefathers dedicated their best efforts and toil.”

Epstein responds to Bennett and his friends, who prefer the nationalist, short-sighted point of view over justice and morality: “Whenever what we believe to be the national good violates human justice, this good will become a national sin from which there is no repentance… But we sin against our nation and our future if we facilely cast aside our choicest weapon: the justice and the purity of our cause. As long as we hold to these principles, we are mighty and need fear no one, but if we abandon them – our strength is in vain and our courage for nought…”

Epstein gives several economic and utilitarian explanations, adding: “Will those who are dispossessed remain silent and accept what is being done to them? In the end, they will wake up and return to us in blows what we have looted from them with our gold! […] Let us not depend upon the ash that covers the embers: one spark escapes, and soon it will be a conflagration out of control.”

Morality for Jews alone

But let’s go back to talking about education. I can understand the argument that the Jew kills an Arab because the Arab “rises up against him” and the Jew preemptively strikes. But this is contingent on us making an effort to look at things from the other side, and recognizing that the Arab attacked a Jewish soldier with a knife, since from his perspective, the occupying soldier is “rising up against him.” If there is such a thing as morality, it applies to both sides. Bennett does not believe this. If the people yell, “the soldier is a hero!” Bennett bends morality such that it applies to Jews alone.

Bennett looks at things through the short-sighted prism of Jewish nationalism. But what good will one Arab killed by long-sightedness do? Does anyone really think that a blind, belligerent Zionism can bring about any future aside from one full of hatred, blood, and fear in the streets?

As opposed to Epstein, we have the privilege of 111 years of perspective, which prove that nothing good comes out of this. Epstein asked that we look at reality for what it is, and despite the passage of time, very few have been willing to open their eyes.

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Dorian Gray said:

torrent all movies and TV you watch so the Jews can't make easy shekels

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Jerusalem (AFP) - When word spread that the Ahava cosmetics firm would move its factory from the occupied West Bank, it set off alarm bells among Israelis for reasons nothing to do with its products.

There were suspicions that Ahava, which sells Dead Sea minerals and mud around the world, had made the decision because of mounting pressure to shift its operations from the Palestinian territory.

The beauty products company said in a statement that it would "establish an additional plant" inside Israel, but has yet to explicitly confirm the West Bank factory will close.

Yet activists are seeing it as a victory for their campaign known by the initials BDS -- or Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions -- that calls for a boycott of Israel until it withdraws from the occupied territories.

The campaign is a decade old, but recent moves like Ahava's have raised the question of whether it has now gained steady momentum.

It has become an increasingly global fight, with skirmishes taking place not only in the West Bank but in courtrooms, parliaments and university campuses in New York, Paris and London.

Supporters of the campaign point to past moves by companies like SodaStream, which pulled out of the West Bank in September 2015, and British-Danish security giant G4S, which will leave Israel altogether.

But at the same time, some companies in the West Bank are proudly expanding, defying pressure not only from BDS but also the European Union, which recently began requiring products from Israeli-occupied territory to be labelled.

Israel is not taking BDS lightly, with officials calling it a "strategic threat" and budgeting 118 million shekels ($31 million) to fight it this year.

Both sides recently held strategy conferences and, perhaps unsurprisingly, both claim to be winning.

Strategic Affairs Minister Gilad Erdan told the pro-Israeli conference his government was seeking to "be able to thwart (criticism) in real time and even be one step ahead of BDS."

- 'Never leave this place' -

BDS has sought to use the anti-apartheid campaign in South Africa in the 1980s as an example.

Israelis and others however accuse it of going beyond legitimate criticism into anti-Semitism, claims campaigners deny.

"They can't respond in the traditional way... to accuse of being terrorists or funded by terrorists. It is easy for the world to see this is not true," Jamal Juma, a member of the BDS executive committee in Ramallah, told AFP.

"(So) they are trying internationally to criminalise the movement."

Even the Palestinian government does not support a total boycott of Israel, though it does urge bans on products made in settlements on occupied land.

Some 2.8 million Palestinians live in the West Bank and annexed east Jerusalem in near constant tension with more than 500,000 Israeli settlers.

Israeli settlements and industrial zones in the Palestinian territory, which receive significant government subsidies, are considered illegal under international law.

The anti-occupation NGO Gush Shalom estimates a glut of companies have left the West Bank in recent years, and even smaller firms face pressure to depart.

The Psagot winery now produces 250,000 bottles a year, but founder Yaakov Berg says he turned down a multi-million-dollar investment in the firm as the investors wanted him to relocate to inside Israel.

"I would never leave this place," he said.

The wider impact on Israel's economy so far seems limited.

Settlements represent only two-to-three percent of Israel's trade and the Yesha Council, which represents Israeli settlements, said the number of factories in settlements grew from 680 in 2011 to 890 in 2015.

But while smaller, ideologically motivated firms such as Psagot are unlikely to change course, some analysts say larger ones are feeling the pressure.

Ofer Zalsberg of the International Crisis Group think-tank said major firms that would have happily invested in the West Bank five years ago are now wary of doing so.

- Moving the goalposts? -

Israeli officials fear BDS's influence is slowly moving the goalposts.

In October, the European Union introduced labelling on products from the West Bank, while the US ambassador has been unusually outspoken in his criticism of Israel's West Bank policies.

Zalsberg said the Israeli government fears becoming delegitimised, as well as further measures such as excluding West Bank settlers from the automatic visas to European countries granted to Israelis.

Ben-Dror Yemeni, an Israeli journalist who campaigns against BDS, admitted they may never win the battle for public support in some countries.

"Right now the battlefield is public opinion in the West and I think they might prevail -- the BDS supporters," he said.

"It is so easy to sell this anti-Israel propaganda."

Israel has instead increasingly focused on measures limiting BDS legally.

Ron Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress, said they first brought together 40 Jewish lawyers two years ago to develop a legal strategy.

"On the legal front, we are winning," Lauder recently told Israel's largest ever anti-BDS conference.

Events of recent months appear to bear out his claims.

In France, in October the high court effectively banned BDS in a ruling that has had a devastating impact.

In the United States, so far seven states have adopted resolutions condemning BDS, organised largely by evangelical Christian groups.

In Britain, the government has introduced new measures to prevent local government boycotts, while the Canadian parliament recently condemned BDS.

However, boycott movements on university campuses, have sought to keep up the pressure on Israel

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Dorian Gray said:

I'm not part of this cause dude I just don't like Jews lol. Definitely don't give a fuck about Palestinians either though.

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Dorian Gray said:

Tricks are what they do best. "By way of deception thou shalt do war" as the Mossad say. Takes a sharp mind to see what they're up to.

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same could be said of EVERY security service since the beginning of time.

Shins said:

Why is it OK to dislike Christians and muslims, but not ok to dislike jews?  Nice trick.

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