A danger to democracy. The Challenge of Post-Zionism: Alternatives to Israeli Fundamentalist Politics - Ephraim Nimni. Ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, or, democratic Israel at work. The only democracy in the region, cont. To me it's always been self-evident that Israel is not a democracy (both because its discrimination against non-Jews within its internationally recognized borders and its military occupation and rule over the Palestinian Occupied Territories) but many Israelis are themselves shocked at the formalization of discrimination against Israeli citizens who are not Jewish.
Here's how Jerry Haber aka "The Magnes Zionist" puts it (last link below): Supreme Court thrusts Israel down the slope of apartheid. Michael Sfard: Is Israel on the high road to fascism? Will the anti-democratic legislation underway in Israel soon make progressive advocacy redundant?
Is it an exaggeration to say Israel is on the high road to fascism? And what can the Left do to reverse the process? An interview with Israel’s pre-eminent human rights lawyer, Michael Sfard. A courtroom in the Israeli Supreme Court (photo: Josh Yellin/CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) Happy Palestine Land Day: Israel Earmarks 10% of West Bank for Settlements: White. Ben White writes in a guest editorial for Informed Comment: It has just come out that the Israeli military has earmarked ten percent of the land in the Occupied West bank for Israeli settlements.
In addition, the Israeli government is moving forward with an outrageous plan that will mean the expulsion of tens of thousands of Bedouin citizens in the Negev desert. The context is the warning issued by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in a 2010 government meeting that a Negev “without a Jewish majority” would pose “a palpable threat”. You won’t be told about this by television news, your elected representatives, or the US State Department (in fact, when asked about the Negev displacement plan they dismissed it as an “internal Israeli matter”). Settlement policy will cause Israel to self-destruct. Max Blumenthal Demolishes Talking-Points About Israel's 'Liberal Democracy' Avigdor Lieberman of the far-right Yisrael Beiteinu party.
March 12, 2012 | Like this article? Join our email list: Stay up to date with the latest headlines via email. Terror wars tend to lead to blow-back on domestic populations. Israel: The Knesset vs. Democracy by Dimi Reider. This is the seventh in an NYRblog series about the fate of democracy in different parts of the world.
This should be a year in which Israeli democracy is much on display. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been reconfirmed as head of the right-leaning Likud Party, seems to be pushing for early national elections; while candidates to lead the centrist Kadima Party, the main opposition party, are now campaigning for their March 27 primary. Association for Civil Rights in Israel. In the past few years, ACRI has been increasingly concerned by intensifying infringements on democratic freedoms in Israel.
Of particular concern is the fact that two of the central arenas from which these threats arise are the very ones charged with safeguarding democracy: The Knesset (Israeli parliament) and government leadership. Senior officials have voiced harsh and unprecedented statements against human rights organizations, political groups, and minorities, and have made various attempts to curtail their operations. In the Israeli Knesset, some undemocratic activities. If that sounds bizarre — a committee of Israel’s Knesset presuming to instruct an American Jewish organization on how it should characterize itself — well, that’s because it is.
At the risk of telling the committee how it should characterize itself, it might consider changing its name to the Knesset Un-Jewish Activities Committee. This outbreak of Middle East McCarthyism came in response to a position that the organization in question, J Street, took on a U.N. Security Council resolution to condemn Israel’s settlement policy — a resolution based in part on statements that administration officials had made in opposition to the settlements.
What is the anti-boycott law? Who does it affect? Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, is set to pass (after some convoluted last minute wrangling) today one of the most anti-democratic measures in the country’s history, the so-called “Anti-Boycott Law.”
A link to the full text’s translation can be found here. Simply put, the law seeks to penalize those who call for boycotting Israel, the settlements, or anyone related to the occupation. If a person, for example, calls for a boycott of academic institutions that participate in the occupation, he could be sued in civil court, and ordered to pay compensation. If a company agrees not to purchase products manufactured in the settlements, it could be barred from government contracts. If an NGO joins the global BDS call, it could be stripped of its non-profit status, and compelled to pay taxes as if it was a commercial firm. Although only a small minority of Israelis have expressed support for BDS (and I am not one of them), their voice has been significant. Boycott law aftermath: The sound of silence. By Don Futterman Protest against the boycott Law, Tel Aviv, June 12 2011 (photo: Oren Ziv/activestills) As an Israeli citizen, here is what I am allowed to say about boycotting products produced in the Occupied West Bank without incurring risk of fine, penalty or law suits for damages (no evidence required), thanks to the new Boycott Prohibition Law: Can you hear it?
That’s our disappearing freedom of speech. J Street Condemns Knesset Passage of Boycott Bill. « Back to the Blog J Street condemns the Knesset’s passage yesterday of a law making the call for boycotts of Israel or the West Bank settlements illegal, as a clear and unabashed violation of the fundamental democratic precept of freedom of speech. This bill is part of a disturbing anti-democratic trend that undermines its purported purpose by giving fodder to Israel’s critics and alienating many of its friends. In direct contradiction to claims that it would somehow protect Israel from efforts to delegitimize it, the boycott bill actually gives ammunition to those who question Israel’s democratic standing. While J Street opposes the BDS movement, we are concerned that opening the way for civil sanctions against supporters of boycotts will only be used as further justification for increasing anti-Israel boycotts.
Israeli society mounts resistance to assault on democracy (updated) This post has been updated, 21 July, 2011 When we look back on this period in Israeli history, I don’t want to wonder: “why didn’t Israelis fight for their democracy? MK Danny Danon is the new McCarthy. The death of Israeli democracy - Mya Guarnieri. Al Jazeera English, February 6, 2011 As Egyptians take to the streets to demand their freedom, I ask a Muslim in Yafo if we’ll see the same in Israel.
“I don’t think so,” he answers. “Even with all the mess here, we have democracy.” Do we? And for how much longer? As we speak, the Knesset is debating one of a slew of anti-democratic bills. If the Admissions Committee law passes, for example, this young couple and their three children could find themselves barred from living in certain communities and villages, even those built on public land. Israel's Resilient Democracy - By Michael Oren.
At 64, Israel is older than more than half of the democracies in the world.
The Jewish state, moreover, belongs to a tiny group of countries -- the United States, Britain, and Canada among them -- never to have suffered intervals of non-democratic governance. Since its inception, Israel has been threatened ceaselessly with destruction. Yet it never once succumbed to the wartime pressures that often crush democracies. Omissions, half-truths, lies: Ambassador Oren in Foreign Policy. In a piece recently published, Israel’s Ambassador to Washington Michael Oren rejected claims regarding anti-democratic trends in his country, and compared the legal status of Palestinians in the West Bank to that of American citizens in Washington DC and the U.S. territories. A response. Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren Visits Annapolis. Oren enjoys high credibility among Jewish elites and the Washington establishment (photo: Jay Baker / CC BY 2.0) When Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu appointed Professor Michael Oren – a historian and researcher at the conservative Shalem institute, author of a popular book on the 1967 war – as his ambassador to Washington, he was probably hoping to capitalize on the latter’s name-recognition and credibility, especially with the political establishment and the Jewish elites.
And indeed, as criticism of the occupation and of various Knesset legislative initiatives intensified, Prof. Prof. The necessary elimination of Israeli democracy. Robert Fisk: The present stands no chance against the past - Robert Fisk - Commentators. And Benjamin Netanyahu has been boasting that he was right about Egypt and Tunisia and Libya. He did not welcome their supposedly democratic revolutions last year – and who, he has been asking, blames him now for his silence? And the Israeli Prime Minister's silence, I notice, continues over Syria.