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The Upturned World "Rough-and-tumble" of Israel's democracy By Alexander Maistrovoy Israeli journalist with the Russian-language newspaper Novosty Nedely October 11, 2010 |
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Our century is the epoch of cheap clichés, vulgar shows and aggressive ignorance. Smug professors accuse their opponents of Stalinism, knowing no more about Stalinism than schoolchildren. Semiliterate journalists use the word "Nazism" for the description of Guantanamo base or Israeli prisons. Pacifists name soldiers dispersing demonstrators in Bilin "fascists".
Pathology becomes norm, values have been devaluated. A person doubting the loyalty of Third World immigrants will be called "racist". An adherent of barbarous anachronisms is a true representative of multiculturalism; a religious fanatic becomes a “victim of discrimination”.
Let's consider the terms.
"Nazism" is the policy of tyrannical racist nationalism, not a demolition of an illegally built Arab house.
"Fascism" is a totalitarian regime forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism and not a parliamentary committee for investigating funding of a non-governmental organization.
"Stalinism" is a repressive authoritarianism that has annihilated dozens of million people, not an arrest of a terrorist supporter.
"Apartheid" is an official policy of racial segregation, and not the erection of a Security Fence needed for protection against terrorism.
"Genocide" is a deliberate extermination of a national, cultural or racial group, not banning the importation of building materials into Gaza.
However, reading newspapers and listening to our politicians, an uninformed tourist could decide that a military junta has already come to power in Israel, and "death squadrons" prowl the country.
Now let’s get to the heart of the matter.
The Israel Beiteinu proposal to create an inquiry commission to investigate the activities and sources of financing of the left-wing non-governmental organizations is the result of Im Tirtzu movement work. Im Tirtzu has arisen as a spontaneous student movement against anti-Zionist campaign in campuses.
Former senior lecturer in political science at Haifa University Ilan Pappé accuses Israel of "genocide in Gaza" and describes the IDF as a "killing machine". Shlomo Sand (obviously not the disciple of Polybius) insists that Jewish nation does not exist any more.
Alexandre (Sandy) Kedar from Haifa University and Oren Yiftachel from Ben-Gurion University call Israel an “ethnocracy”, comparing the fate of Israeli Arabs with that of American Indians.
D-r of Politics and Government at Ben-Gurion University Neve Gordon called Israel an increasingly "proto-fascist" state and an "apartheid state". Nine of regular lecturers in his faculty are members of left-wing radical groups.
Im Tirtzu students found out that Gordon and his staff are part of management of NIF that supports 16 of human rights groups: “Shovrim shtika”, “Betzelem”, “Adalah”, “Coalition of Women for Peace”, “Women in Black”, "New Profile", “Physicians for human rights”, and others. All of them got 8 $ million during 2006 - 2008.
The Goldstone Report was based on their data. The same organizations initiated legal claims against Israeli military men and politicians.
Every Yom a-Azmaut NIF organizes tours across the USA lecturing about “the Palestinian Catastrophe” ("Nakba").
The main goals of NIF are to delegitimize IDF, impose sanctions against Israel, encourage desertion from the Israeli army and support legal claims against IDF officers abroad. They have no doubts about who is a bandit and who is a victim.
“Shovrim shtika” asserted that IDF “over and over again fired on the civilians who were not participating in clashes”.
“Betzelem”: “Security force abusing their superiority, continue to scoff at Palestinians and beat them, including children”.
“Physicians for human rights”: “It seems that attacks on Gaza were meant to initiate terror so they did not spare fire”.
NIF director Naomi Chazan considers the Gaza blockade a “war crime”.
Main partners of NIF are Ford Foundation (Henry Ford was famous for his anti-Semitism) and EU.
Ford Foundation financed claims abroad Israel against Avi Dichter, Moshe Ya'alon, Doron Almog, Shaul Mofaz and Amy Ayalon via Palestinian Center For Human Right and Center for Constitutional Rights.
As for EU and many West European states, their activity is rather doubtful. We remember boycotts of Israel in Great Britain; blatant anti-Israel incitement in Norway (including the “Gaza Monologues” play); “Israeli organ trade scandal” in Sweden; in Spain, according to a local journalist Pilar Rahola, “any Israeli act of self-defense becomes a massacre, and any confrontation, genocide” and so on.
The aim of the investigation is not to clamp down on these organizations but to estimate their legal permissibility. The goal of HAMAS (as well as "Hezbollah") is not only the destruction of the Jewish State, but the total annihilation of the Jewish population. The idea has massive Palestinian support. It is not a border dispute, but the war of militant theocracy against democracy till utter annihilation.
IDF don't fire rockets on civil population of the enemy as it happened during World War II when the allies leveled German cities, causing hundreds of thousands of casualties. But those are inevitable among Palestinians, because HAMAS uses civilians as “human shields”.
If Naomi Chazan, NIF, "Physicians & Rabbis for human rights" and "Women in Black" can’t acknowledge reality, they are "useful idiots". These people can’t tell the difference between cause and effect, perceive the intentions of the enemies. They forget that human rights organizations must protect victims from a violent regime and not vice versa.
Anyway all of us have the right to know if an entity is defending human rights or undermining Israel's security.
The second aspect is the validity of financial streams.
Who supports the Palestinian Center for Human Rights and Center for Constitutional Rights?
The “Coalition of Women for Peace” is sponsored (besides NIF) by MOK (Spain), the Heinrich Boell Foundation of North America, "Responding to conflict" (Britain) and so on.
“Physicians for human rights” is financed by EPER/HEKS organization, "Diakonia", "Healing Across the Divides", "Christian Aid", and many others.
What are they and their aims? Who stands behind them?
We have the right to know everything about them.
In countries of developed democracy everybody has the right to express his or her own opinion. Neve Gordon can call Israel a "proto-fascist state" and Ilan Pappé - an "apartheid state". Norman Finkelstein has the right to characterize Israel as “insane” and “lunatic”, a member of the Jewish Labour Movement Sir Gerald Kaufman can compare HAMAS to Jewish resistance in the Warsaw ghetto.
But it doesn’t mean that other should share their views. Nor does it mean that these people may turn their doubtful ideals into reality.
Notes:
2. http://economycollapse.blogspot.com/2010/03/berlusconi-kisses-hands-of-muammar.html (Scroll down to video)
Alexander Maistrovoy’s bio: "I was born in Moscow in 1960. In the 80s I began working in journalism and my work was published in various Moscow newspapers. I immigrated to Israel in 1988 where I work for the Russian-language Israeli press. For about fifteen years I’ve been a political analyst and journalist at the newspaper Novosty Nedely (“News of the Week”). I live in Jerusalem, write about politics, social life and religion. A number of English Internet editions and websites have published my work."
Previous article: Israel's "Samson Option": Choice in the Absence of Choice?
Mr. Maistrovoy can be reached at amaist@lycos.com
Previous articles by Alexander Maistrovoy:
One Country and Three Civilizations
One Country and Three Civilizations
Israel's "Samson Option": Choice in the Absence of Choice?
