Archive for the ‘Israeli Theocracy’ Category

Israel is in the midst of a culture war

Posted: December 17, 2011 in Israel, Israeli Right Wing Nuts, Israeli Theocracy, Israels Fascists
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Israel is in the midst of a culture war

The right has been in power for a long time now, and now, in its 35th year in government, in the 64th year of the state, it has turned to the task of reshaping the country’s character and faces almost no opposition.

By Gideon LevyTags: KnessetIsraeli ArabsHaredimJerusalem

Anyone who says this is a matter of a few inconsequential laws is leading others astray; anyone who claims a reversible procedure is being deceptive; anyone who states reassuringly that this is a passing phase is trying to put one over. Even the person who thinks it’s just an attempt at regime change is under a delusion. What we are witnessing is w-a-r.

This fall a culture war, no less, broke out in Israel, and it is being waged on many more, and deeper, fronts than are apparent. It is not only the government, as important as that is, that hangs in the balance, but also the very character of the state. Our way of life is about to change, from cradle to grave. For this reason, it could be the most pivotal battle in the country’s history since the War of Independence.

We always knew that a few years without an external threat could strain the delicate seams: When the guns go silent, the demons roar. But no one predicted such an outburst of demons of every kind, all at once. The assault on the existing order is an all-out war, on every front; a political tsunami, a cultural flood and a social and religious earthquake, all still in their infancy. Those who call this an exaggeration are trying to lull you to sleep. The defeats and the victories up to now will determine the course of events: In the end, we will have a different country. The pretension of being an enlightened Western democracy is giving way, with terrifying speed, to a different reality – that of a benighted, racist, religious, ultranationalist, fundamentalist Middle Eastern country. That is not the kind of integration into the region we had hoped for.

The ferocious combined assault is highly effective. It targets women, Arabs, leftists, foreigners, the press, the judicial system, human rights organizations and anyone standing in the way of the cultural revolution. From the music we listen to, to the television we watch, from the buses we ride to the funerals we attend , everything is about to change. The army is changing, the courts are in turmoil, the status of women is being pelted with rocks, the Arabs are being shoved behind a fence and the labor migrants are being forced into concentration camps. Israel is barricading itself behind more and more walls and barbed-wire fences as if to say, to hell with the world.

There is no single guiding hand mixing this boiling, poisonous potion; many hands stir the revolution, but they all have something in common: the aspiration to a different Israel, one that is not Western, not open, not free and not secular. The extreme nationalist hand passes the antidemocratic, neofascist laws; the Haredi hand undermines gender equality and personal freedoms; the racist hand acts against the non-Jews; the settler hand intensifies the hold not only on the occupied territories but also deep into Israel; and another hand interferes in education, culture and the arts.

You can’t see the forest for the trees, and the forest is dark and deep. Take, for example, Friday’s paper. The news pages of Haaretz reported on a few such rotten trees: the managers of dozens of businesses in Sderot have begun requiring their workers to dress modestly; in Mea She’arim, the polling places are gender-segregated; nonobservant Jews in Jerusalem have been asked to wear a kippa at work; Carmiel’s Palmach School has been turned into a religious school; discrimination against Sephardic girls at schools in Jerusalem, Modi’in Ilit, Betar Ilit and Bnei Brak; withdrawal from a physicians’ training program for Palestinians as a condition for tax relief; the government’s new plan to fight illegal immigration. And one final touch: The foreign minister gave his imprimatur to the Putinist election in Russia. All in a single day, one ordinary day.

In 1948 the state was established, and in 2011 a war is being waged for its never-crystallized character. In between these two years, the state has been rocked by waves of immigration, by different governments and by contradictory trends, and throughout loomed the threat of war and other external dangers. Various islands formed, some of them beautiful, and sometimes it seemed as if an open, enlightened country was taking root. Now that belief is on the verge of being shattered. The right has been in power for a long time now, but it lacked the self-confidence to launch this crucial assault. But now, in its 35th year in government, in the 64th year of the state, it has turned to the task of reshaping the country’s character and faces almost no opposition.

We’ll meet again in a few years, in that other Israel, that will be different and distorted beyond recognition.

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The Destruction of Israel

Posted: September 26, 2011 in Anti-Science, Anti-Science Crazies, Bad Religion, Ethnic Cleansing, Fascism, Fascists & Zionists, Fundamentalism, God, God Crazies, God nuts, Human Liberty, Human Rights, Israel, Israeli Fascism, Israeli Theocracy, Jewish Fascism, Jewish Fascist, Jewish Fundamentalism, Jewish Religious Right, Jewish Right, Jewish Right Wing, Jewish Superstitions, Jewish Taliban, Jewish Theocracy, Religious Crazies, Religious Credulity, Religious Fascists, Religious Fundamentalism, Religious Right, Right Wing, Right Wing Assassinations, Right Wing Culture Wars, Right Wing Extremism, Secular Humanism, Secularism, Theocons, Theocracy
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Make no mistake, Israel‘s existence is under threat
TheDrum By ABC’s Ben Knight

Updated September 24, 2011 12:17:39

Let’s imagine for a moment that at this time next year, by some
miracle, Benjamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas meet on the White House lawn to
sign the accord that will create the nation of Palestine. All disagreements are
forever resolved – from where the borders of the two countries will lie, to how
they will share Jerusalem as their capital.

Let’s also assume that all Muslim and Arab nations will keep their promise to
recognise Israel – and that the militants of Hamas, Hezbollah, and Islamic Jihad
are consigned to the dustbin of history.

Israel is finally free to realise its full potential as a nation. Or, to put
it another way – Israel is finally free to let its own internal divisions and
hatreds tear it apart.

If you think Israelis and Palestinians don’t see eye to eye, the gulf between
secular Israelis and the ultra-orthodox religious is probably just as wide.

Go to Tel Aviv on a Saturday morning, and you’ll see one version of Israel –
secular, middle-class sun-worshippers, sitting in trendy beachside cafes,
munching on bacon and eggs, or hummus and salad.

Then, on the same Saturday morning, drive 40 minutes up the highway to
Jerusalem, where you’ll visit an entirely different country. Here, there are no
cars, and streets are closed off with police barriers – as ultra-orthodox Jews
in black overcoats and fur hats walk to the Western Wall to pray.

And no, the two groups don’t get along.

Secular Israelis work, pay taxes, and serve in the army. Ultra-orthodox, or
Haredi Jews, don’t.

Secular Israelis are prepared to die for their country in battle, but have to
travel outside it to get married in a civil ceremony.

Not surprisingly, it’s a pretty sore point. Especially as the demographic
balance is shifting fast.

Secular couples have, on average, around two children per couple. Haredi
couples have closer to eight or nine.

And it’s changing the very identity of Israel – away from the secular,
socialist civil society it was created as in 1948 – to something quite
different.

To see it in action, you only need to take a peek inside an Israeli
school.

Israeli’s government funds three streams of education; regular state schools,
ultra-orthodox religious schools, and Israeli Arab schools.

Back in 1960, only around 15 per cent of Israeli children were enrolled in
religious or Arab schools.

That figure is now around 50 per cent. In 30 years, it will be almost 80 per
cent. That is a frightening statistic for the nation of Israel.

Arab Israelis have long had lower education, and higher unemployment
levels.

But the real problem is in the religious stream.

In religious schools, children don’t learn mathematics, science, or English;
only the Bible. All day, every day. And Haredi men are expected to – and do -
continue that Bible study for the rest of their lives.

It’s all funded by the taxpayers. And the taxpayers are… secular
Israelis.

What does it mean? Well, if the figures are to be believed, in less than 30
years, Israel will have a population where the majority either can’t, or won’t
join the workforce – putting an increasing, and impossible burden on the secular
minority to pay the taxes and serve in the army.

This, in the ‘Startup Nation’ – the country that prides itself on its hi-tech
sector. Israel has the ideas, the inventors, and the entrepreneurs – but
already, it has to import workers from overseas, because there aren’t enough
educated Israelis in the job market.

It’s not sustainable. Israelis know about it, and sometimes talk about it,
but Israel’s government does nothing. It’s just too hard – especially as the
political power of the ultra-religious is growing. It’s almost impossible to
form a government in Israel today without them.

Opposition – and resentment – is growing. Middle-class, taxpaying, secular
Israelis are already so angry about the mere cost of living – and that their
children cannot afford to buy or rent a home – that they have taken to the
streets in huge numbers.

But it’s hard to see how any government – however brave – is going to be able
to turn the ship around without committing political suicide.

Now let’s imagine that in a year from now, Benjamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud
Abbas have not reached a peace deal.

All of the current problems are still there; but Israel is even more
isolated, the Palestinians are even more frustrated, and sitting in the midst of
an ever more unstable and chaotic region.

This week’s UN assembly might have put Israel and Palestine back in the
headlines – but it won’t solve the conflict. And soon enough, it will all fade
from view again.

And all the while, behind the scenes, Israel’s
demographic time bomb is still ticking away.

Ben Knight
is the ABC’s Middle East correspondent.

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Israel Lurches Further Toward Right Wing Theocratic Gomorrah

Posted: September 18, 2011 in Israeli Fascism, Israeli Theocracy, Jewish Fundamentalism, Jewish Religious Right, Jewish Right Wing
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Netanyahu’s Partners, Democracy’s Enemies
By CARLO STRENGER
Published: September 16, 2011

Tel Aviv

ISRAEL is at a fascinating, and frightening, crossroads. In the last two years the Knesset has proposed and passed laws that seriously endanger Israel’s identity as a liberal democracy.

It began with a law forbidding public commemoration of the Palestinian refugee crisis of 1948, known as the Nakba; it continued with the demand for all new Israeli citizens to swear a loyalty oath to a Jewish and democratic country, and recently culminated in a bill outlawing calls to boycott any Israeli group or product — including those from the occupied territories.

On the other hand, in the last two months, Israel’s democracy has come dramatically alive after a long period of hibernation. Protests for social justice have mobilized hundreds of thousands in demonstrations that have the support of 87 percent of the country, according to a Haaretz poll. These protests have become an exercise in direct democracy, forcing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to move beyond party politics and listen directly to the grievances of Israel’s disenfranchised middle classes.

Existential fears have pushed Israelis to the right; only when it comes to social questions are they willing to listen to the largely liberal middle class. Who, then, represents the real Israel? Is Israel an open-minded, liberal country with a developed sense of justice, or is it an ethnocracy with theocratic leanings?

Mr. Netanyahu believes that he can avoid agreeing to a viable Palestinian state, in the face of fierce international criticism, because he is certain that America’s heartland, as opposed to its liberal elites, is tied to Israel on ideological and theological grounds. The ovations he received in Congress earlier this year only strengthened this belief. Convinced that Obama won’t win a second term, he simply wants to hang on until a Republican president is sworn in.

His foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, has a very different worldview. Mr. Lieberman’s open disdain for European leaders and diplomats is not a failure of diplomacy; he is a shrewd man, who first and foremost seeks to cultivate an image of a strong leader for his right-wing constituency. He believes that the West’s hegemony has come to an end, and that the future lies with autocratic governments like those ruling Russia and China. Hence he believes that Israel has no reason to pander to the West’s values.

To him, liberal democracy represents weakness and he contends that Israel should evolve into a stronger state with less individual freedom. At the same time, he is completely secular: his constituency is primarily of Russian origin, and many of its members are not accepted as Jewish by Israel’s Orthodox rabbinical establishment.

The national-religious parties in the governing coalition, meanwhile, are based on the belief that the Jewish people have a God-given right to what they call the Greater Land of Israel. In the long run, they want Israel to be a theocracy based on biblical law. Their participation in the democratic game is based on the prediction that Israel’s demography will inevitably lead to an Orthodox Jewish majority, and that they simply need to make sure that Israel doesn’t give up the West Bank before they rule the country.

The ultra-Orthodox parties, Shas and Yahadut Hatorah, also want Israel to become a theocracy in the long run. Until a decade ago, they did not necessarily claim that Israel should hold on to the occupied territories, but they realized that their electorate is right-leaning, and they need space for the rapidly expanding families of their constituency. They see liberal elites as their primary enemies.

The paradox, of course, is that Mr. Lieberman and the religious parties are on opposing ends of the spectrum in other ways. Mr. Lieberman wants a secular state; the religious parties want a theocracy. What unites them is that, for completely different reasons, they have no investment in the values of liberal democracy, which are one of the major stumbling blocks for Israel’s annexation of the West Bank. As Israeli liberals have repeated ad nauseam, such annexation will either lead to a binational state without a Jewish majority, or to an apartheid regime.

The coalition partners have found a modus vivendi primarily by uniting in their hatred for the institutions that uphold liberal democratic values: Israel’s Supreme Court, its largely liberal academic community and its human rights organizations.

Israel’s recent falling out with Turkey is just the latest example: Mr. Lieberman made it impossible for Mr. Netanyahu to apologize for the killing of nine people by Israeli commandos on the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara last year by insisting that it would undermine Israel’s national pride. When Turkey retaliated with trade sanctions and threats of an increased naval presence in the Mediterranean, Mr. Lieberman called on Israel to support Kurdish militants. Mr. Lieberman keeps upping the ante for being a patriotic Israeli, pulling Mr. Netanyahu along with him.

The staying power of Israel’s governing coalition is primarily the result of the trauma Israelis sustained during the second Palestinian intifada and subsequent rocket attacks. Israelis have trouble trusting anybody but a hard-liner for fear that, once again, they will become targets of terror attacks.

Mr. Netanyahu’s coalition may seem incoherent in its core values, but it has created a potentially explosive mix that has brought considerable damage to Israel, pushing it into unprecedented isolation that is only likely to deepen if a sizable majority of the United Nations General Assembly recognizes Palestine as a state later this month. This would be especially challenging when relations are already strained with historic regional allies like Egypt and Turkey.

The irony is that Mr. Netanyahu himself is not opposed to liberal democracy. But the only way for him to prevent an independent Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders is to hold his right-wing coalition together.

Mr. Lieberman has outflanked him and challenged his leadership of the Israeli right. Mr. Netanyahu needs to keep up with the right-wing Joneses and show that he is no less of a strong leader. The only common denominator of his major coalition partners is enmity to the core values of liberal democracy, and, for lack of choice, he has so far pandered to their wishes.

Carlo Strenger, a professor of psychology at Tel Aviv University, is a columnist for Haaretz and the author of “The Fear of Insignificance.”

Ref: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/16/opinion/netanyahus-partners-democracys-enemies.html?_r=2&ref=opinion

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