- HOW LUCKY we are to have the extreme Right standing guard
over our democracy.
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- This week, the Knesset voted by a large majority (47
to 34) for a law that threatens imprisonment for anyone who dares to deny
that Israel is a Jewish and Democratic State.
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- The private member's bill, proposed by MK Zevulun Orlev
of the "Jewish Home" party, which sailed through its preliminary
hearing, promises one year in prison to anyone who publishes "a call
that negates the existence of the State of Israel as a Jewish and Democratic
State", if the contents of the call might cause "actions of hate,
contempt or disloyalty against the state or the institutions of government
or the courts".
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- One can foresee the next steps. A million and a half
Arab citizens cannot be expected to recognize Israel as a Jewish and Democratic
State. They want it to be "a state of all its citizens"
Jews, Arabs and others. They also claim with reason that Israel discriminates
against them, and therefore is not really democratic. And, in addition,
there are also Jews who do not want Israel to be defined as a Jewish State
in which non-Jews have the status, at best, of tolerated outsiders.
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- The consequences are inevitable. The prisons will not
be able to hold all those convicted of this crime. There will be a need
for concentration camps all over the country to house all the deniers of
Israeli democracy.
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- The police will be unable to deal with so many criminals.
It will be necessary to set up a new unit. This may be called "Special
Security", or, in short, SS
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- THE FACTORY of racist laws with a distinct fascist odor
is now working at full steam. That is built into the new coalition.
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- At its center is the Likud party, a good part of which
is pure racist (sorry for the oxymoron). To its right there is the ultra-racist
Shas party, to the right of which is Lieberman's ultra-ultra racist "Israel
is our Home" party, the ultra-ultra-ultra racist "Jewish Home"
party, and to its right the even more racist "National Union"
party, which includes outright Kahanists and stands with one foot in the
coalition and the other on the moon.
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- All these factions are trying to outdo each other. When
one proposes a crazy bill, the next is compelled to propose an even crazier
one, and so on.
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- All this is possible because Israel has no constitution.
The ability of the Supreme Court to annul laws that contradict the "basic
laws" is not anchored anywhere, and the Rightist parties are trying
to abolish it. Not for nothing did Avigdor Lieberman demand and get
the Justice and Police ministries
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- ___________
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- Hopefully, these measures will suffice to preserve our
democracy. If not, more stringent steps will have to be taken, such as
revoking the citizenship of the democracy-deniers and deporting them from
the country, together with the Jewish leftists and all the other enemies
of the Jewish democracy.
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- After the preliminary reading of the bill, it now goes
to the Legal Committee of the Knesset, which will prepare it for the first,
and soon thereafter for the second and third readings. Within a few weeks
or months, it will be the law of the land.
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- By the way, the bill does not single out Arabs explicitly
even if this is its clear intention, and all those who voted for
it understood this. It also prohibits Jews from advocating a change in
the state's definition, or the creation of a bi-national state in all of
historic Palestine or spreading any other such unconventional ideas. One
can only imagine what would happen in the US if a senator proposed a law
to imprison anyone who suggests an amendment to the Constitution of the
United States of America.
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- THE BILL does not stand out at all in our new political
landscape.
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- This government has already adopted a bill to imprison
for three years anyone who mourns the Palestinian Naqba the 1948
uprooting of more than half the Palestinian people from their homes and
lands.
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- The sponsors expect Arab citizens to be happy about that
event. True, the Palestinians were caused a certain unpleasantness, but
that was only a by-product of the foundation of our state. The Independence
Day of the Jewish and Democratic State must fill us all with joy. Anyone
who does not express this joy should be locked up, and three years may
not be enough.
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- This bill has been confirmed by the Ministerial Commission
for Legal Matters, prior to being submitted to the Knesset. Since the rightist
government commands a majority in the Knesset, it will be adopted almost
automatically. (In the meantime, a slight delay has been caused by one
minister, who appealed the decision, so the Ministerial Commission will
have to confirm it again.)
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- The sponsors of the law hope, perhaps, that on Naqba
Day the Arabs will dance in the streets, plant Israeli flags on the ruins
of some 600 Arab villages that were wiped off the map and offer up their
thanks to Allah in the mosques for the miraculous good fortune that was
bestowed on them.
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- THIS TAKES me back to the 60s, when the weekly magazine
I edited, Haolam Hazeh, published an Arabic edition. One of its employees
was a young man called Rashed Hussein from the village of Musmus. Already
as a youth he was a gifted poet with a promising future.
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- He told me that some years earlier the military governor
of his area had summoned him to his office. At the time, all the Arabs
in Israel were subject to a military government which controlled their
lives in all matters big and small. Without a permit, an Arab citizen could
not leave his village or town even for a few hours, nor get a job as a
teacher, nor acquire a tractor or dig a well.
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- The governor received Rashed cordially, offered him coffee
and paid lavish compliments to his poetry. Then he came to the point: in
a month's time, Independence Day was due, and the governor was going to
hold a big reception for the Arab "notables;" he asked Rashed
to write a special poem for the occasion.
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- Rashed was a proud youngster, nationalist to the core,
and not lacking in courage. He explained to the governor that Independence
Day was no joyful day for him, since his relatives had been driven from
their homes and most of the Musmus village's land had also been expropriated.
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- When Rashed arrived back at his village some hours later,
he could not help noticing that his neighbors were looking at him in a
peculiar way. When he entered his home, he was shocked. All the members
of his family were sitting on the floor, the women lamenting at the top
of their voices, the children huddling fearfully in a corner. His first
thought was that somebody had died.
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- "What have you done to us!" one of the women
cried, "What did we do to you?"
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- "You have destroyed the family," another shouted,
"You have finished us!"
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- It appeared that the governor had called the family and
told them that Rashed had refused to fulfill his duty to the state. The
threat was clear: from now on, the extended family, one of the largest
in the village, would be on the black list of the military government.
The consequences were clear to everyone.
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- Rashed could not stand up against the lamentation of
his family. He gave in and wrote the poem, as requested. But something
inside him was broken. Some years later he emigrated to the US, got a job
there at the PLO office and died tragically: he was burned alive in his
bed after going to sleep, it appears, while smoking a cigarette.
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- THESE DAYS are gone forever. We took part in many stormy
demonstrations against the military government until it was finally abolished
in 1966. As a newly elected Member of Parliament, I had the privilege of
voting for its abolition.
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- The fearful and subservient Arab minority, then amounting
to some 200 thousand souls, has recovered its self-esteem. A second and
third generation has grown up, its downtrodden national pride has raised
its head again, and today they are a large and self-confident community
of 1.5 million. But the attitude of the Jewish Right has not changed for
the better. On the contrary.
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- In the Knesset bakery (the Hebrew word for bakery is
Mafia) some new pastries are being baked. One of them is a bill that stipulates
that anyone applying for Israeli citizenship must declare their loyalty
to "the Jewish, Zionist and Democratic State," and also undertake
to serve in the army or its civilian alternative. Its sponsor is MK David
Rotem of the "Israel is Our Home" party, who also happens to
be the chairman of the Knesset Law Committee.
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- A declaration of loyalty to the state and its laws
a framework designed to safeguard the wellbeing and the rights of its citizens
is reasonable. But loyalty to the "Zionist" state? Zionism
is an ideology, and in a democratic state the ideology can change from
time to time. It would be like declaring loyalty to a "capitalist"
USA, a "rightist Italy," a "leftist" Spain, a "Catholic
Poland" or a "nationalist" Russia.
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- This would not be a problem for the tens of thousands
of Orthodox Jews in Israel who reject Zionism, since Jews will not be touched
by this law. They obtain citizenship automatically the moment they arrive
in Israel.
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- Another bill waiting for its turn before the Ministerial
Committee proposes changing the declaration that every new Knesset Member
has to make before assuming office. Instead of loyalty "to the State
of Israel and its laws," as now, he or she will be required to declare
their loyalty "to the Jewish, Zionist and Democratic State of Israel,
its symbols and its values." That would exclude almost automatically
all the elected Arabs, since declaring loyalty to the "Zionist"
state would mean that no Arab would ever vote for them again.
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- It would also be a problem for the Orthodox members of
the Knesset, who cannot declare loyalty to Zionism. According to Orthodox
doctrine, the Zionists are depraved sinners and the Zionist flag is unclean.
God exiled the Jews from this country because of their wickedness, and
only God can permit them to return. Zionism, by preempting the job of the
Messiah, has committed an unpardonable sin, and many Orthodox Rabbis chose
to remain in Europe and be murdered by the Nazis rather than committing
the Zionist sin of going to Palestine.
-
- THE FACTORY of racist laws with a distinct fascist odor
is now working at full steam. That is built into the new coalition.
-
- At its center is the Likud party, a good part of which
is pure racist (sorry for the oxymoron). To its right there is the ultra-racist
Shas party, to the right of which is Lieberman's ultra-ultra racist "Israel
is our Home" party, the ultra-ultra-ultra racist "Jewish Home"
party, and to its right the even more racist "National Union"
party, which includes outright Kahanists and stands with one foot in the
coalition and the other on the moon.
-
- All these factions are trying to outdo each other. When
one proposes a crazy bill, the next is compelled to propose an even crazier
one, and so on.
-
- All this is possible because Israel has no constitution.
The ability of the Supreme Court to annul laws that contradict the "basic
laws" is not anchored anywhere, and the Rightist parties are trying
to abolish it. Not for nothing did Avigdor Lieberman demand and get
the Justice and Police ministries.
-
- Just now, when the governments of the US and Israel are
clearly on a collision course over the settlements, this racist fever may
infect all parts of the coalition.
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- If one goes to sleep with a dog, one should not be surprised
to wake up with fleas (may the dogs among my readers pardon me). Those
who elected such a government, and even more so those who joined it, should
not be surprised by its laws, which ostensibly safeguard Jewish democracy.
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- The most appropriate name for these holy warriors would
be "Racists for Democracy."
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