We often complain that the New York Times is laggard in informing Americans about the true face of Israeli society. Well, Isabel Kershner has an excellent piece in the New York Times today about a new plan to fence off Palestinian neighborhoods of Jerusalem originated by what passes for the Israeli left so as to preserve the Jewish state, and Kershner says the campaign has a “jingoistic” flavor. The Palestinian leader Saeb Erekat is quoted calling the plan “racist.”
The contentious plan, promoted by a group of liberal Israeli Jews and adopted in principle by the center-left Labor Party, would unilaterally fence off most of East Jerusalem’s Palestinian neighborhoods and transfer responsibility for their 200,000 residents from City Hall to the Palestinian Authority and the Israeli military in the occupied West Bank.
Kicked off with advertisements under the heading “Saving Jewish Jerusalem,” the campaign’s almost jingoistic tone seems intended to appeal to the broadest Jewish constituency, including Israel’s growing political center and conservative “nationalist camp.”…
The new campaign describes Jerusalem’s Palestinian residents as imperiling the security, demographic balance, standard of living and economy of the city. It argues that a majority of people 18 and under in the city are Palestinian and plays on fears raised by the recent surge of Palestinian attacks against Israeli Jews.
Here Kershner quotes a leading leftleaning politician describing Palestinian voters as “the enemy.” And you (and Barack Obama) thought Netanyahu was so bad when he warned that Arabs were going to the polls in droves a year ago!
Haim Ramon, a former minister from Labor and the centrist Kadima Party who is the architect of the new plan, said that if the Arab residents ended their boycott of city elections, the next mayor of Jerusalem would not be Jewish. “If the Palestinians were clever, they would decide, instead of the knife, to use the vote,” he told reporters. “You cannot have a strategy that your enemy will be stupid forever.”
(By the way, Ramon is a guy who converted me when I was new to this subject to the two-state solution nine years ago with a speech to a liberal Zionist group in New York. And look at him, he’s an arrant racist.)
Here’s a former American liberal who became an Israeli rightwinger embracing the racial demographics of the plan:
“Demographically, it’s a compelling argument,” said Michael Oren…
The New York Times should be congratulated for portraying this Israel to American leaders: a racist, segregationist Jewish Israel reminiscent of the Jim Crow south.
Last month at an exhibit of photographs in Soho, Chemi Shalev of Haaretz said the only political hope of the Israeli left to regain the government is to nominate as prime minister the likes of Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi or Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, men with proven military experience (pulverizing Palestinians). This is the same ugly message about Israeli political culture the Times has today.
It is also what Adam Shatz relates in LRB: “The Putinisation of Israel.” Shatz describes the toughening of the Israeli discourse and concludes that the secret of Israel’s aims is finally getting out to the world:
Israel has stubbornly carried on a colonial project at the risk of harming its relations with Europe and the United States, both of which are finally realising that Israel has no intention of making a genuine peace with the Palestinian people.
The Times advances this understanding today.
Thanks to Scott Roth.
So, they want to fence off the Jerusalem Palestinians but you dare call it apartheid!
“The new campaign describes Jerusalem’s Palestinian residents as imperiling the security, demographic balance, standard of living and economy”
“Almost jingoistic” !!! Forget jingoism – it is quite simply ugly racism.
Definitely more overt in your face strains of Mein Kampf emerging in the Land of Creation. Can`t be long now before Israeli Zionists start to simply cut and paste from what (second of course to the Torah ) must be on the way to becoming their favourite book (delete “Jews “insert ” Arabs ” ).
BOYCOTT UGLY APARTHEID ISRAEL
SUPPORT BDS
TELL YOUR FAMILY AND FRIENDS ABOUT BDS
Hey, don’t drag the rest of us down in the mud. I remember the coverage on the election last year. There were plenty of us who threw cold water on the idea that Labor would be any different. You should read some of your pieces on the eve of the election, its like you were in love with the “liberal” Zionist movement but for a brief moment.
Overall, this proposal simply confirms what we all know. It further underscores that nobody in liberal America will believe a single word coming out of Clinton’s mouth as she attempts to pretend that the 2SS is alive and well in 2017.
The question is: what happens next? I think there are good reasons to believe that the next 8 years will be crucial for the BDS movement in general. And it would also mark the passing of America over Europe in the political activism, as I suspect Europe will move further to the right in response to the refugee crisis, which means plenty of pro-Zionist parties.
The sheer slavishness of Hillary for Israel means that the liberal left will become unchained in their criticism.
In the Middle Ages it was called creating a ghetto.
Oh boy, Nutty’s in a snit! He’s blown off Obama, cancelling a meeting they were to have at the end of the month – but WH only found out thru the media. Cue Repugs lining up to blame O and sympathise with dear Bibi.