We’re following the war between Israelis over the right to dissent from misguided state policies. (Why, it may even portend a war inside Israel over the occupation.) The focus of this war has been the New Israel Fund, which has funded human-rights organizations that contributed to the Goldstone report on the Gaza war and which has supported the demonstrations against house evictions in East Jerusalem. Naomi Chazan, a former speaker of the Knesset, is the head of the New Israel Fund. Haaretz:
Yesterday Chazan received an e-mail from Jerusalem Post editor-in-chief David Horovitz, informing her the newspaper would cease publishing her column.
Chazan had provided the daily with one of its few leftist voices in recent years. Horovitz declined to respond to questions from Haaretz last night.
Unfortunately, Haaretz lists nothing about Naomi Chazan as you report, and your link is very broken. It’s about time that you spent a bit of time following the real problems instead of those of your journalist friends.
I saw that article in Ha’aretz this morning. It was certainly there.
Perhaps you should spend a little more time on reports like this: link to ipsnews.net
Illegal Buildings – Unless They Are Jewish
Jerrold Kessel and Pierre Klochendler
SILWAN, Occupied East Jerusalem, Feb 3 (IPS) – Backed by armed security men, the municipal inspectors race their jeeps through the narrow alleyways and up a hillside crowded with buildings.
Some of the homes are well-faced with stone; the naked concrete of others gives off something of a temporary air.
One block of flats stands out for its unusual seven-storey height in an area of the city where two or three storied buildings are the norm. And then there is the giant, blue-and-white Israeli national flag draped demonstratively over the front of the building, from the roof down to the ground.
This is the so-called Beit Yehonatan., the House of Yehonatan, where religious Jews have put down a nationalist marker in the heart of this Palestinian neighbourhood, part of a major effort to change the face of Arab East Jerusalem that has been under Israeli occupation since 1967.
The inspectors’ mission is to deliver demolition orders to owners of illegally-built homes, almost all of them Palestinians.
Beit Yehonatan. is also exceptional in this respect. In July 2008, the Israeli Supreme Court ordered that it too was built “illegally” by the settlers and should be evacuated and sealed off.
When, for the umpteenth time, the inspectors arrive at the settlers’ building they find it shuttered. They are unable to gain access. It is not clear whether anybody is at home. Shrugging their shoulders the inspectors move on to deliver demolition orders on more accessible targets – Palestinian families.
Anyway, they know that there are powerful forces determined to ensure that this display of equal application of the law to Jews and Arabs remains precisely that – a demonstration.
The seven-story structure was built in Silwan by the religious nationalist association Ateret Cohanim in 2004 without the necessary permits. Several Jewish families from Ateret Cohanim – a lynchpin group in the Jewish colonisation endeavour in East Jerusalem – are known to live there.
Last week, Jerusalem’s Israeli mayor Nir Barkat launched a new legal maneuver in a bid to stave off implementation of the High Court order that the settlers be evacuated.
This, despite the fact that the municipality’s own legal advisor, Yosi Havilio, ruled that the court order issued two years ago be implemented immediately. Havilio said that the Mayor’s last-ditch attempt to bypass the court by appealing for an additional ruling from “an external legal authority” was “unacceptable”.
Faced by international opprobrium over the repeated cases of settlers moving more and more into Palestinian neighbourhoods, the government of Benjamin Netanyahu says blandly “it is a purely municipal matter”.
That has enabled the mayor to stand his ground. In a letter to Israel’s State Prosecutor Moshe Lador, Barkat insisted that he has police backing too. “The police believe there is serious concern that the day after Beit Yehonatan.would be sealed off it would be invaded by Jews and/or Arabs and that could create an unnecessary point of friction,” he warned.
The mayor is also trying to push an alternative gambit to having the “illegal building” closed down. He is proposing to issue a new municipal by-law specifically for Silwan which will allow the construction of buildings there up to four stories high.
The motive is clear: Such a by-law would “whitewash” many of the illegal buildings in the area, including Beit Yehonatan.
Given the mayor’s record, however, this seems unlikely to ease the plight of the Palestinians of East Jerusalem whose homes are regularly pulled down on the grounds that they have not acquired the necessary building permits.
In other parts of East Jerusalem the mayor has indeed approved construction tenders for new Jewish building projects; he has yet, though, to extend such tenders to Palestinian applicants in spite of repeated pledges to do so on the grounds that all residents of Jerusalem, Jews and Arabs alike, be treated “equally” in respect of building applications. In the nearby Palestinian neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah, Israeli and international demonstrators have been gathering weekly to protest the eviction of Palestinian families and their replacement by Jewish settlers.
At last Friday’s protest, a leftwing member of the Israeli parliament, Ilan Gilon, poured cold water on the settler claim of ownership over the houses they take over on the grounds that they rely on property titles held by Jews from early in the 20th century.
“If settlers can prove ownership of 28 buildings, Palestinians can prove ownership of 28,000,” he said.
“There are times when one cannot afford to sit quietly by,” the internationally-renowned Israeli novelist, David Grossman, told the gathering. “The settlers and the Right – with tremendous help from the government, the Israeli legal system and important business interests – continue to abuse Palestinian rights in a thousand ways.
“They are complicating the situation to such an extent as to make any peace agreement impossible. Basically, they are destroying our future – of Israelis and Palestinians alike,” Grossman warned.
Mr. Parker,
You put a lot of good information into this blog but I’m going to have to take exception to your abusive tone to Mr. Weiss. The issues surrounding Naomi Chazan and the effect those issues will have on American Jewish perception, which is the point of this blog, are huge. In addition, Mr. Weiss has covered the building issues in Jerusalem to exquisite detail, or did you not notice his scoop on Ethan Bronner’s comments on his own Jerusalem housing issues?
I, for one, am extremely interested in this blog’s treatment of the journalistic issues. For example, the New York Times just picked up a wire report on Ban Ki-Moon and the sufficiency of Israel’s response to the Goldstone report with the headline “UN Chief Praises Israel Probe of It’s Gaza Actions,” which is laughably misleading. link to nytimes.com
As far as I’m concerned, Mr. Weiss can’t call out these journalists enough. He’s doing a great job.
Philip Weiss’s so-called ‘scoop’ was this, from Bronner’s own mouth
Richard Parker- Your post seems to imply that the last quote was from Phil Weiss, which it was not. You should be clearer in delineating where your own words begin.
thank you dalybean, i completely agree. if mr parker doesn’t think phil is doing a good job he should start his own blog instead of highjacking this one. if he wants to discuss EJ this morning instead he could easily have sent an email to phil w/links and phil probably would have posted it.
i don’t know what this abusive tone is about but i have all the respect in the world for phil and andy’s efforts here to keep us informed and up to date.
This is of course only one glaring case, and it won’t change policies toward Palestinians, but something may finally be done about Beit Yehonatan: link to haaretz.com
Unfortunately, the Arabophobic mayor of Jerusalem intends to exercise the Price Tag for being forced to evacuate the building – he will close another 70 Palestinian homes to punish them for being made to obey the law for once.
Or this:
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=117870§ionid=351020202
Richard Parker,
You bring up a VERY pressing issue, indeed.
Israel is planning on demolishing 200 MORE homes in East Jerusalem, thus ejecting more than 200 families out to the street.
As for Philip’s focus on Israeli/Israel-based journalists, I don’t know. Perhaps, Philip believes that by shining a light onto those who shape the narrative, that he will be able to effect change on a larger scale. But, who knows.
Since 9/11 one of the things that has really impressed me about Israel is her openness to allow oppositional views to appear in her press (I really did not know what happened before since I didn’t follow it). This was such a contrast with the stories that appeared in the US press. Is this a sign that the Israeli press is changing? Does this mean that things that Naomi Chazan is saying could really be undermining the Zionist doctrine of more land appropriation? This could reflect a real change. Israel must engage in suppression within Israel to pursue her goals. It can not go on like this.
Jpost still has Larry Derfner
Naomi Chazan was not fired from the JPost for what she says, but for what the organization that she leads does with its funds. This is not a question of freedom of expression, but an attack on the NIF.
WJ,
And what is it that the organisation she leads does with its funds that justifies terminating her column? Does the Post have a similar policy regarding the activities of its other columnists?
What bugs me here (and I assume this is also what’s bugging Phil) is a newspaper vetting the political activities of its columnists, deciding which (legal) political activities are legitimate and which are not. It would probably have been better if the editor or owner of the paper had actually taken umbrage at something she’d written. This is simply the paper catering to the whims and prejudices of a large part of its readership – sacking one of the few writers it published despite that readership and as an exception to its general (right-wing) editorial policy. In the process we have a “patriotic” paper, acting like a comissar, favouring less-than-democratic elements in Israeli society and joining a concerted government effort to disredit, intimidate and destroy voices such as Breaking the Silence by attacking their funders.
Speaking of wondering, I wonder why you would try to defend this? Regardless of what you may think of the UN, the Goldstone Report or even Breaking the Silence, this action by the JPost is unequivocally bad for whatever is democratic and open about Israeli society – especially when viewed in the broader context of diversity of opinion and the current climate in Israel. Something like this is a real blow to liberal defenders of Israel like you. It is getting harder and harder to defend Israel as a “democracy with issues”. So why excuse? Because you don’t like such criticism coming from Phil? Because you feel you have a certain role here, defending things you might not defend elsewhere? I ask, because of all the dissenting voices on this blog, yours is the most valuable, the only one with which there is any real discussion.
Shmuel,
I was not reacting to Phil’s post. I was commenting specifically on something that syvanen said:
“Is this a sign that the Israeli press is changing? Does this mean that things that Naomi Chazan is saying could really be undermining the Zionist doctrine of more land appropriation? This could reflect a real change.”
I was being specific, that it was not anything that Naomi Chazan is saying, but something that the NIF is doing. You feel that this is even worse than that if it was about a column. I’ll think it over.
When people talk about the openness of the Israeli press they are not referring to the Jerusalem Post but rather to Haaretz. But I guess this is a further movement of the Jerusalem Post to the right and that is regrettable and I was quibbling over a minor point rather than seeing the big picture.
I think the readers of the JPost would be better off keeping Naomi Chazan so that they can find out what the left is thinking. But I think that their anger/fear regarding Goldstone is so great that the owners of the JPost have decided that Chazan cannot stay.
But I have taken your criticism to heart and will think it over.
WJ I do believe that one of the great things that Israel has to offer is an incredibly free press. It exists in Haaretz, Maariv and even the JP. Hopefully when Israel succeeds in its one state solution and converts herself into the nation of Palestine, this press freedom she has so far preserved will survive. Israel has many things to offer to the Palestinians and in my more optimistic moments this I believe could be one of her better legacies.
WJ is just nitpicking again.
I agree with Shmuel. WJ definitely has a genuine dissenting voice, and I hope he continues to comment here.
The Israeli press has not changed its attitude or its views in the mere decade since 9/11 (where Israel was not affected at all) although Netanyahoo spoke up:
link to nytimes.com
Syvanen – No. Israel, like most of the European countries it seeks to emulate, has a very free press, not owned by vast US conglomerates where the chief man is usually Jewish, or very pro-Israel
RP: Israel, like most of the European countries it seeks to emulate, has a very free press, not owned by vast US conglomerates where the chief man is usually Jewish, or very pro-Israel
The Israeli press has its own problems. For example, it is almost entirely controlled by about 5 powerful families, with increasing involvement by foreign media conglomerates. There is however, a certain culture of freedom of information (and good journalism) in very specific areas, that has not (yet) been overrun by corporate or political interests.
To me the most upsetting thing so far vis a vis Naomi Chazan is the caricature of her wearing a horn, which is decidedly unfunny and offensive and stupid. The attempt to bully the NIF is upsetting, but the existence of anti democratic forces in the Israeli body politic is not new and I assume that since the NIF does not get funds from Hamas and is willing to be transparent about its funding that this will pass.
I think that the UN security council will not vote to implement the Goldstone report in any significant way.
The major ramification of the Goldstone report will be regarding the next war that Israel fights against Gaza or Lebanon.
(I view these two fronts as essentially different because Gaza is under siege and Lebanon is a sovereign state which has now included Hezbollah into its government and in effect may have replaced its military with a Hezbollah military, which makes Lebanon a valid target in a way that Gaza is not. There is a logic to the desire to topple Hamas, (the recent release of explosive laden barrels on the Mediterranean that landed on Israeli shores underlines this), but the attacks against infrastructure in Gaza, because of the prolonged occupation and the lack of an end game don’t make sense to me in the same way that similar attacks on Lebanon do make sense.)
Nonetheless Israel sees its primary warfare now (beyond the Iranian threat) in the asymmetrical wars that it will fight against primarily urban guerrilla forces and thus it views the need for some kind of justification in these fights and Goldstone stands for the delegitimization that has followed the war against Hamas and Gaza and the war against Lebanon in 2006.
Essentially I think that the asymmetrical wars that are being forced on Israel are a losing proposition because whatever Israel “wins” on the battlefield it will lose on the t.v. screens. So I favor some modus operandi regarding Gaza in particular.
I assume that Hezbollah will refrain from battling Israel, but this is certainly less than a sure thing, especially if Iran wants Hezbollah to war against Israel. Certainly Israel does not have Lebanon’s best wishes as its priority, but it is not clear that Hezbollah has Lebanon’s best wishes as its priority either.
You acknowledge that Lebanon is a sovereign nation, and yet the fact that Israel continues to violate Lebanon’s sovereignty and provoke it into war seems to escape you and entirely absent from your arguments.
As for the so-called asymmetrical warfare, when was the last time Israel fought symmetrical warfare? Urban warfare?
You really should not use terminology that does not apply to Israel. The Israeli hasbara is attempting to adopt such American terminology is because it give Israel the veneer of legitimacy and world acceptance.
In 1948 and 1967 Israeli forces outnumbered all the other Arab forces and were much better equipped. That is, literally, asymmetrical.
The capture of Jerusalem in 1967 was urban warfare.
But, in the strict definition of the terms such as urban warfare and asymmetrical warfare, since the first Intifada in 1988, Israel had been engaged in a war against various guerilla forces and in urban city centers. In other words, fighting against Hamas is nothing new. It’s just that Israel has suddenly adopted the new terminology that is now being touted in American military circles as next generation warfare, mainly because the battlefield – for US forces – has shifted from battling the old Soviet Union with aircraft carriers and ICBMs to chasing down a bunch of guys in a pickup. So, quit borrowing American terminology to give the impression that there the two nations have so much in common these days.
As for your “understanding” of the need to attack or, “go to war” as you put it, against Lebanon, I find that rather odd. The explanation – I’m sure – is going to be as tenuous as the validity of your argument.
What’s there to understand about killing more than 1200 Lebanese civilians, wounding thousands more and destroying an entire nation’s infrastructure because you were inconvenienced by a couple of rockets that were fired in response the Israeli army and air force constantly prodding and provoking the other side?
As for Iran, you can rest assured that Israel won’t dare attack Iran. Not now, not anytime soon. Israel is attempting to drain Iran’s power through the sanctions that the US keeps pushing on its behalf. But, luckily for Iran, neither China, nor Russia are going to support such moves. The US is in no position to test China’s patience on this issue, especially in these economic times.
Avi- I’m sure you won’t agree, but I saw the act of Hezbollah killing (capturing) Israeli soldiers on Israel’s side of the border as an act of war. Since Israel had withdrawn from Lebanon such an act of war required a harsh answer. I realize that there are certain rules of war, but my own feeling is that the killing of civilians is wrong, whereas the destruction of infrastructure is okay, if the government has to be punished, which was the case here when they did not control their own border.
(I’m sorry I used the phrase asymmetric warfare and do not wish to get bogged down in definitions.) My point was that Israel will probably be fighting more wars against Hamas and Hezbollah and these are wars that make Israel look bad. Regarding Hamas, because Israel occupied Gaza for a long time and because they are still controlling their borders, except for the border with Egypt, which is seen as a puppet, that Israel should try to find a modus operandi. Many thought that Hamas would mature politically when it came to power. I don’t think this is the case, but I side with commentators like Yossi Alpher of bitterlemons.org and Larry Derfner of the JPost who advocate some type of easing of the siege on Gaza. Regarding Hezbollah, my feelings are far less compassionate, except in regard to attacking civilians, which I would wish to limit as much as possible. But now that Hezbollah and Lebanon are one I feel minimal compassion towards Lebanon if they start another war.
So what about all the Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners that Israel keeps? Wasn’t Hezbollah trying to use those captured Israeli soldiers as bargaining chips?
In that regard, that makes them no different from Israel. I consider it an act of war as well, however it’s not a random provocation. Israel just kidnapped a Lebanese farmer not too long ago, beat him up, and returned him.
Israel killed 1000 civilians, once again purposefully. The US Army War College report refuted the BS from Tom Friedmann that Hezbollah was ‘intertwined and intermingled with the civilian population of South Lebanon’.
Oh and before Shalit was captured, Israel kidnapped 2 brothers from Gaza. What happened to them?
“I saw the act of Hezbollah killing (capturing) Israeli soldiers on Israel’s side of the border ”
It is not clear to me that that is what happened. There are reports that the Israeli soldiers were, in fact, captured in Lebanon.
link to whatreallyhappened.com
“Since Israel had withdrawn from Lebanon”
But kept sending raiding parties into Lebanon.
link to csmonitor.com
It is this past form which makes me suspect that the claims made above are true.
” I feel minimal compassion towards Lebanon if they start another war. ”
But it is Israel which is going to start the next war.
This is a common tactic with Israel. they vilate territory and air space with impunity, because they can, and when Hamas or Hezbollah respond to such trasngressions, guys liek Witty will argue that it proves Hamas or Hezbollah weer the ones itching for a fight.
This is in spite fo the fact that Moshe Dayan admitted that 80% of skirmished or conflicts were deliberately started by Israel.
Since Israel had withdrawn from Lebanon such an act of war required a harsh answer.
I think we agree on the basics, but you keep avoiding the fact that Israel AFTER 2006 has been in violation of the ceasefire terms.
As for the period prior to 2006 I can agree that Hezbollah’s attack and subsequent capture of Israeli soldiers was an act of war, ONLY if I exclude the fact that Israel had been kidnapping – well inside Lebanese territory – Lebanese civilians who were supposedly “Hezbollah fighters”. Surely, if the Golden Rule applies, then Israel is the culpable party here. My feelings, or your feelings, or anyone else’s feelings toward Hezbollah don’t change the facts. It’s simply cause and effect. If you prick them, expect to have the same done to you and don’t pretend as though you’re a saint. That, YOU, have yet to acknowledge.
Since the 2006 ceasefire, UNIFIL has reported that Israel has vilated the ceasefire on 2500 occasions, while Hezbollah has none.
This is the crux of the matter. Israel is used to getting away with breaking the rules with impunity, which has become the status quo of what the world regards as calm and peace.
When Israel’s enemies break the ceasfire, if inly once, it becomes an act of war.
Hezbollah will fight against Israel if Israel attacks Lebanon again. (Israel seems to be warming up for this.)
The priority of Hezbollah was originally getting israel out of Lebanon, and now it seems to be that of keeping Israel out of Lebanon.
Wondering Jew wonder no more
Hezbollah is now, more or less, the major defence force for Lebanon, and even Saad Hariri, the son of the assassinated (by who? – guess) ex-Prime Minister Rafik Hariri has confirmed this.
Hezbollah hasn’t attacked Israel in the decade since they sent them running from Lebanon. (Except for a small interlude in August 2006, when Israel was doing its very best to wipe out Lebanon, when they fired a few rockets in response).
Certainly, Hezbollah has a connection to Iran, and probably gets financial support from there. But so they should. Both Iran and Hezbollah represent Shi’a Muslim interests, and the Shi’a have had a very poor deal in Lebanon, because the prime minister must be a Sunni Muslim.
Compare them with the quisling Palestinian , Abu Mazen, who gets millions of dollars from the EU, and the US, and can throw some to his son to open a new cellphone network link to itp.net
Richard Parker- I think it’s pretty clear that Syria was behind the assassination of Rafik Hariri. I have not studied the evidence, so my impression is based upon what I read. but your implication that it was Israel seems way off base and I guess you are way off base.
“I think it’s pretty clear that Syria was behind the assassination of Rafik Hariri. I have not studied the evidence”
Not clear at all. The whole business seems very murky. As soon as it happened, the usual suspects were screaming “Syria dunnit” (how did they know?) but the investigations seem to have failed to support this.
I would love to be able to blame Israel, but I have insufficient evidence to do more than suspect.
link to counterpunch.org
link to globalresearch.ca
link to facts-are-facts.com
Rafik Hariri was killed in a very small part of Beirut, well known to everybody. It was opposite the St George’s hotel bar, where I used to drink. The size, precise timing and power of the bomb was well beyond Syrian capabilities, so the pointer is to the obvious perpetrator which has done numerous car bombings in Beirut before.
Prior to the breakup of the Ottoman Empire Syria and Lebanon was pretty much of a single entity. The French, as arranged in Sykes-Picot, took Lebanon and put the christian minority over all the others. Much of the the subsequent turmoil is a result of this.
I was told today that she is wearing a horn because the hebrew word for fund is the same as horn.
Ease up people … Parker brings valuable information to this blog’s comments section (and a clear passion) and the battle against israel’s evil policies is being waged on several fronts at once all over the world and all over the internet … Phil’s blog presents a forum here in the comments section for those voices who can cover issues he does not – and many of you are doing a great job in that regard
The firing of Naomi is a tell tale sign, Israel is learning nothing, and is turning in on itself toward extreme fascism. It cannot even bear the slightest light, nor anyone bringing the slightest criticism. Their persistence in turning off any light unfortunately means they will be completely in the dark, and when you are in the dark it is nothing but more atrocities around the corner. In fact, the fact of the acceleration of these same ethnic cleaning processes works quite well with stamping out any form of dissent, the two go hand in hand. They are not isolated from one another, but part of an entire schema which should tell us that these people need even more pressure, more condemnation for their atrocious behavior along with their total isolation – boycott, divestment, and sanction in the world community.
Back on topic
Israeli press is what it is for two main reasons:
1. A nation built on religious foundations is rather homogeneous, coupled with the Zionist myth of nation building any dissenting views are not going to endanger or bring about regime change. In such a state, each individual’s loyalty lies in his loyalty to himself and to a divine power. There is also the sense of unity in times of crisis, for example, 2000 years of persecution, the enemy is at the gates etc.. Israel has been in an official state of emergency since its inception.
In contrast, the US is a heterogeneous society. Each ethnic or racial group has its ancestral origins in one country or another, each group belongs to a different religion. So keeping the cohesion is more difficult and requires more myth building around more universal notions of freedom, “Give me your tired, your poor ….”
2. Israel adopted many principles of socialism and as a result, unlike the US, corporations play a small role in influencing public opinion. But, the government retains the authority to regulate and limit freedom of the press. In this case, allowing a few journalists to be critical of the government’s policies serves to give Israel the image that it is a democratic state, after all. At the same time, such outlets allow society to voice its frustrations and anger. If it didn’t, many would leave for there is nothing else to attract or entice the average immigrant.
These two facts shape Israeli press and journalistic “freedom”, whichever form it may take.
Avi, what type of “religious foundation” are you talking about? It bears no resemblance to anything historically I am familiar with, in fact, Zionism is a relatively new phenomena that is nothing but a mock of Judaism. These people can claim all they want the “self-hating” mantra, Zionism is self-hatred. In fact, anyone who owns it in its current state of activity is nothing but a shyster. It acquires isolation because it is becoming (rightfully) a pariah, however it is personally computed by the collective shmo who swallowed Zionism, it bears no resemblance to righteous persecution in the least.
So, they can get closer to the “divine power” while they are divested. Zionism in a religious sense is like manifest destiny to Christianity, it is merely a ploy to agitate the masses to do the will of the few – it is colonial fodder. That is why when the proper pressure is applied it (Zionism) will quit, or self-destruct, because it is a sham by its activity. It does not matter how the elite portray their plight, because all one who thinks has to do is reflect on the collection of atrocities that is now becoming over a 60 year calculation.
It does not matter how much socialism has been ingested by Israel, if you have no economic substance, or it is severely curtailed, you drop. That is the unfortunate truth about the the Zionism yold, because it sold all it was for a national title and with that comes all of the frailties of Hegelian reality. It does not even play a good “democracy” well, it is not even a B movie.
The idea of permanent war is palpable and you say that Unity in time of Crisis is the motivator. This often seems to be the condition that when things don’t go so well in Israel, the government lashes out with another war effort against a new ‘Hitler’.
Do you think there is a way to reduce this sense of fear from the enemy at the gates?
Fear is the best motivator, and if it was reduced, you would think the policy might become more rational.
VR, You are absolutely right. I seem to have phrased my post incorrectly.
Chu,
The intense fear at the gates, even when it is non-existent or when it is minute, the Israeli government will seek to exacerbate it because it serves a goal much in the same way the fear mongering in the US after 9/11 has served the goal of keeping the masses on a short leash while violating their basic civil rights and privacy.
Israel will dissolve if it weren’t for such uniting forces, among which is fear.
Socially, Israeli society is rather fragmented, the hierarchical division between European Jews, Mizrahi Jews and Sephardi Jews is too fragile. If you removed the political tensions and threats, all these social divisions will rear their ugly head, not to mention the constant push-pull relationship between orthodox and secular Judaism in Israel.
Avi: The intense fear at the gates, even when it is non-existent or when it is minute, the Israeli government will seek to exacerbate it because it serves a goal much in the same way the fear mongering in the US after 9/11 has served the goal of keeping the masses on a short leash while violating their basic civil rights and privacy.
I was thinking about that the other day. I had to go to the Israeli embassy to renew my passport, and the security measures were even more way out than the last time I was there, two years ago. I was wondering what had changed, and the answer of course was nothing. The checks were very theatrical, but inconsistent. My belt was taken apart, my credit and business cards scrutinised, the change in my wallet poked through, my coat x-rayed, but my clothing and person were only subjected to a metal detector. Anything that could have been hiding in my collection of business cards could just as easily have been in my shoe, or simply in my pocket. I was questioned 3 times by 3 different security guards, who all asked the same questions. The theatrical excess was obviously intended to justify itself and to reinforce the fears of Israelis abroad.
Avi, this might be a dumb question, but are you Israeli? I recall you being able to speak Hebrew? What’s you background? Just curious/interested to hear more about you.
It seems that the less actual terrorism, the more intensely the Israelis ramp up the “security” machine, the fear, the oppression of nonviolent dissent.
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on the Im Turzu movement’s attack on Naomi Chazen, NIF…and any remnants of democracy and human rights in Israel.
Antisemitic Hagee and CUFI organization big donors to right-wing smear campaign against NIF. link to coteret.com
This is the piper that the JP is dancing to.
The basic premise of this entire smear campaign is that without Israeli sources Goldstone would have had no “case” against Israel – obviously because there were no dead and maimed Palestinian non-combatants, no razed neighbourhoods, no experts on the ground, no eye-witnesses (other than turncoat Israeli soldiers cultivated by organisations supported by the NIF), no human rights groups, no journalists. The campaign only makes sense in the warped universe where Palestinians are mere objects or machines programmed to kill and lie. And NIF falls for it, RHR (Rabbis for Human Rights) falls for it, JStreet falls for it, and so on. The best these organisations can come up with is “anti-Semitic caricature”, “Rabin”, “freedom of speech” and Hagee?
JP ratchets up the pressure:
How to save the Obama presidency – bomb Iran
BY DANIEL PIPES
link to jpost.com
As if the Obama presidency were worth saving.
The Onion? SNL? Daily Show?
Pipe down, Pipes. Is there anything lower than Pipes? I can’t think of anyone, except Dershowitz. There’s absolutely nothing American about either one of them.
Anyone else ever noticed how casually those in the US/UK/Israeli media conspire to commit murder?
Pipes is one of the worst, but he’s by no means the only one.
This just in:
The Jerusalem Post has canceled Naomi Chazan’s biweekly column, after she and the New Israel Fund of which she is president threatened legal action against the paper over a recent advertisement.
The decision was taken by Jerusalem Post management after a legal threat was received at the paper from the NIF and Chazan’s lawyers.
Along with other publications, the Post last Sunday carried an advertisement criticizing Chazan and the New Israel Fund in the context of the Goldstone Report on Operation Cast Lead.
In Friday’s paper, the Post carried an advertisement defending the NIF and Chazan against their critics.
Thanks, WJ. The Post may have been looking for an excuse, but firing a columnist who heads an organisation that threatened to sue the paper is not the same as sacking her for her views or political activities. I’m waiting to hear Chazan’s side of the story.
Sounds like retaliation to me. Or perhaps simply an after the fact excuse for her firing. She was fired on Thursday and the “reason” for the firing wasn’t disclosed until Sunday. The JP refused to discuss it with Haaretz reporters when the news first came out, so they had three days to get what they thought was an acceptable story out. Or two days to distance the reason for the firing being connected to the defending ad which was run on Friday.
My real suspicion, from the cagey wording in the JP story about the NIF threatening to sue the JP “over an advertisement”, is that the JP, which ran the ImTirzu ad depicting “Naomi Goldstone Chazen” with a horn on her forehead, may have at first refused to run the counter ad that defended CHazen and the NIF. The NIF responded by threatening to sue the Post for its discriminatory ad policy, so the JPost was forced to run the defending ad on Friday, but retaliated by firing Chazen as a columnist on Thursday evening..
Again, the preceding is only my suspicion of the reasoning behind the sequence of events, but regardless of whether my suspicions are true or not, the JPost’s stated reason for firing Chazen does not diminish the offense. In labor law, any negative change in the working status quo of an employee after a lawsuit has been filed is an indication of a retaliatory impulse aimed at an unfair quashing of the legal action against it. Chazen’s status as a columnist was slightly different but it seems like the same principle applies here.
In the meantime, even the CUFI (Christians United for Israel) have criticized the ImTirzu ad, according to the JPost.
Christians fume over ad showing Chazen wearing horn
In the current atmosphere surrounding Goldstone and ImTirzu/Maariv’s “revelations” about the NIF, I’m sure the Post was more than happy to get rid of Chazan. The issue here however is not one of Chazan’s labour rights, but the broader implications for Israeli society. In that sense, it does make a difference whether the column was cancelled – if only officially – because of the ImTirzu smear campaign or because the NIF threatened to sue.
I’ll disagree with you on this point. The unanswered question is, why did the NIF threaten to sue? If the threat came prior to the release of the defending ad, which it did, I think it is a reasonable assumption to make that the threatened lawsuit was in response to a JPost initial refusal to run the ad countering the smear campaign ad. I can think of no other logical reason for the NIF and Chazen lawyers to sue, particularly “over an advertisement”. Assuming thusly, the JPost was attempting to limit the freedom of speech of the NIF in response to the smear campaign. This is what has broader implications for Israeli society as a whole. And firing Chazen because her lawyers rightly argued that the JPost could not be discriminatory in accepting ads, if that is what happened, also has broader negative implications for Israeli society.