Even liberal Zionists maintain a red line against Americans calling Israel an apartheid state. Jeremy Ben-Ami says the apartheid “label” will “distract” Israelis and keep them from doing the right thing. But Haaretz writers, desperate about the racism that prevails in their society, refer to apartheid in article after article.
More than 2000 Israeli Jews in the settler movement prayed on the Haram al-Sharif in recent weeks in violation of international agreements, and the government turned a blind eye. Because it is beholden to the right wing. And Labor and Meretz members of the coalition will stomach it all because they are finally in power and when Netanyahu disappears, they will be “in the desert again for God knows how long,” Michael Koplow says.
Israel is now walking a tightrope above very unpredictable waters of public opinion in the west. The overwhelming wave of opposition to Russian aggression is justifying boycott, divestment and sanctions as well as resistance as responses to the Russian military occupation, measures for which Palestinians have vainly sought western approval. And meanwhile, Israel is playing footsie with Russia so as to maintain its freedom to conduct missile attacks in Syria against Iranian targets.
“The Zionist left is the real enemy of freedom, of fighting the occupation in Israel, much more than the right wing is,” says Haaretz columnist Gideon Levy. “They are the founding fathers for the settlement project. Who started it? Netanyahu, Begin, Sharon? No no no no no! Shimon Peres, Yitzhak Rabin– Nobel Peace Prize winners, peacemakers– they are responsible. They also enable us Israelis to feel so good about ourselves. Because they were always the laundry of any crime. We have this prestigious, world-famous Supreme Court, this castle of liberalism and freedom, part of the Zionist left, and this Supreme Court enabled any crime of war, from the settlements to the tortures, everything went through the Supreme Court and everything was washed there, and it was accepted. If the Supreme Court says there are no torturing or the settlements are legal– so who are we to say or to think different?”
Israel has been humiliated by the escape of 6 Palestinian prisoners Monday. Israelis describe the escapees as “terrorists,” and an anchor on i24 News said they are “dangerous people on the run.” Alon Eviatar, a former intelligence officer, told the channel that Israel has two choices, to capture the escaped prisoners or kill them. While Samer Sinijlawi, chair of the Jerusalem Development Fund, warned that if any prisoner is assassinated, it would be a “serious mistake” on Israel’s part and possibly result in an intifada, or uprising.
Israel’s onslaught on Gaza is a p.r. disaster, with broadcast hosts accusing the country of war crimes. Reform Jewish leader Rabbi Rick Jacobs says it’s time for American Jews to stand up for their Israeli siblings and counter the bad press and “raise the voice of solidarity and love.”
B’Tselem’s finding that Israel is an apartheid regime and Israel’s banning of the film “Jenin Jenin” sends Dr. Hatim Kanaaneh back to his wrenching visit to the scene of the Jenin massacre a month afterward in 2002.
Israeli activist Yifat Doron took a stance of solidarity with Ahed Tamimi, icon of Palestinian resistance, by slapping a military prosecutor. And she will pay the price: 8 months in prison. Her sentence echoes Tamimi’s sentence for a similar action in occupied Nabi Saleh.
Rep. Ilhan Omar is repeatedly being accused of bearing anti-Semitic sentiments, since she tweeted in 2012 that “Israel hypnotizes the world” and that it is doing “vile deeds” in Gaza. But many Israelis have made similar charges against Israel, without facing such accusations.
Israeli historian Benny Morris tells Gideon Levy that one state means a future of genocide and ethnic cleansing for Israeli Jews, thereby dehumanizing Palestinians as murderous, wild animals, when history tells us Palestinians are angry over ethnic cleansing and discrimination and when those conditions end, we can struggle toward one state with equality.