One of my themes is that Americans, including me, have very little idea what Israeli society is really like. We are told by the lobbyists that it’s a democracy with shared values, but the reporters I trust, from Lia Tarachansky to Max Blumenthal to Jared Malsin, describe a society that is closing down in ugly ways, and you’d never know from reading Ethan Bronner in the Times. Well here’s Neve Gordon, with a chilling report at LRB from Ben Gurion University. (I’ve given his account the headline I have because this account is another signal to me that Zionism has now run its historical course).
A Palestinian student with a Palestinian flag was shoved and had his flag torn from him by some of the pro-government protesters, who were chanting: ‘No citizenship without loyalty!’ In response, the Jewish and Palestinian oppositionists shouted: ‘No, no, it will not come, fascism will not come!’ and ‘Peace is not achieved on the bodies of those killed!’
At one point a Jewish provocateur, who is not a member of any group (and could even be a police agent), raised his hand in the air: ‘Heil Lieberman!’ The response of the pro-government students was immediate: ‘Death to the Arabs!’ Luckily the university security managed to create a wedge between the protesters, and in this way prevented the incident from becoming even more violent.
h/t Alex Kane. Earlier version of this post located Ben Gurion University in Tel Aviv. Shows how much I know. It is, commenters pointed out, in Beersheba.
