Who’s the traitor here?

Who’s the traitor here?

This week the Knesset took an additional step on the slippery slope towards the elimination of the last traces of ethnic democracy that still exist within the Green Line. For the first time in its history the Knesset punished one of its members for fulfilling her legal function, and deprived her of her parliamentary privileges solely because her outlook is not consistent with that of the Israeli Right.

MK Hanin Zoubi of the Balad (1) faction was punished for her participation in the Turkish flotilla that was transporting humanitarian supplies to Gaza. She participated in the flotilla for the same reason that I participated in an earlier flotilla to Gaza (that did in fact succeed in breaking the blockade) (2) – opposition to the closure and the siege that the government of Israeli has imposed on the million and a half residents of Gaza by military means. She believed and still believes, as do many other good people and as do I, that the collective punishment that has converted Gaza into a ghetto and the biggest prison in the world is not right and in our opinion is not legal either.

MK Zoubi’s participation in the flotilla was completely legal. Nevertheless they decided to withdraw her privileges, which are part of the immunity accorded to Knesset Members, such as the right to a diplomatic passport and the right to receive financing for legal defence. She can live without those privileges, but a precedent has been set here, which, like a substantial part of the attacks on basic liberties in racist Israel, begins with Arabs, but its continuation is likely to affect the rest of us as well.

The irony in the whole affair is that it began with a complaint submitted by MK Michael Ben-Ari of the National Unity party, who as a settler is a party to a war crime according to the Geneva and Rome Conventions. Ben-Ari is a member of the Kach movement, founded by the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, which was outlawed in Israel. Even the Supreme Court, which is infected by more than a few racist rulings, could not remain silent in the face of its ideology and that of its leader, because it saw similarities to Nazism in certain aspects of its ideology.

To this day MK Ben-Ari declares that he sees himself as a disciple and perpetuator of the legacy of Rabbi Kahane. Thus did the king of racism in the Israeli Knesset file a complaint against MK Hanin Zoubi and succeed in drawing the Knesset into sanctions against her.

In the discussion that took place in the Knesset over Hanin Zoubi’s participation in the flotilla, two voices were conspicuous for their violence and extremism. MK Miri Regev of the Likud, the former spokeswoman for the IDF, rhetorically exiled Zoubi to Gaza and called her a “traitor;” and MK Anastasia Michaeli of Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s Israel Beiteinu party went so far as to resort to physical violence. She was about to strike MK Zoubi when Knesset ushers blocked her path. This is one of the saddest stories about Israel, which has turned into a home for nationalists and racists. Interior Minister and professional racist Eli Yishai of the Haredi Shas party declared that her citizenship should be revoked.

“Treason” is not only a judicial term, but also a moral one. Former German chancellor Willy Brandt, who was active in the Norwegian underground during World War II, was a traitor to Nazi Germany. Does MK Zoubi commit treason? I very much hope that she is indeed a Willy Brandt-like traitor to racist colonial Israel as I myself am also a traitor to it, along with everyone else who struggles for a democratic Israel that embraces human rights for all.

Meanwhile, while it is still permitted, I declare that everyone who voted to suspend MK Hanin Zoubi’s parliamentary privileges has betrayed the values of democracy as they are expressed in the International Declaration of Human Rights, and has been captivated by racism.

The right wing of the Knesset has been putting in extra hours recently in its attempt to shorten the transition period towards the establishment of a tyrannical regime that will silence dissenting voices. Not a day passes without some new law being proposed in the Knesset. Once it is to withhold the pension of former MK Azmi Bishara, another time it is to bar the receipt of donations from foreign governments that are given mainly to human rights organizations, another time it is to change the citizenship law in order to oblige Arabs to swear allegiance to a “Jewish and democratic” state (an extinct species), another time it is to forbid Palestinian citizens of Israel who marry people from the Occupied Territories from living with their spouses in Israel, and yet other time it is to bar Israelis from signing petitions calling for a boycott of Israel and its products because of the Occupation (including products from the settlements), and to impose a monetary fine on the signers, and so on – whatever the right-wing imagination can come up with.

These new laws are classified under the rubric of “defence of democracy” – another example of laundered terminology along the lines of the “people’s democracies” that we recall from the Soviet period. For the sake of linguistic accuracy it is important to point out that we are dealing here not with a democracy that is defending itself, but with the threatening posturing of an incipient dictatorship.

If things go on like this, then the day will not be far off when we witness the materialization of MK Ahmad Tibi’s hair-raising scenario: by 2022 laws will be passed in Israel that will forbid Arabs from walking on the same sidewalk as Jews, they will be obliged to sit on special seats on buses and they will be barred from living in the same house with Jews. The apartheid regime in the Occupied Territories will conquer all of Israel.

I do not agree with Balad about everything, and so I did not vote for it in the last election. But if Balad runs candidates in the next election and puts Hanin Zoubi in a realistic spot on the list (at least number two), I will vote for the “traitor,” for “a traitor unto a traitor utters speech.” (3)

Oy, Obama!

Yonit Levy, the new anchor on Channel 2, the most watched channel in Israel, chalked up a journalistic accomplishment with her exclusive 20-minute interview with President Obama. In the interview Obama reaffirmed his policy of coddling Israel as was expressed in the last visit of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to the White House. In the interview, President Obama showed himself to be more Zionist than Ben-Gurion and Herzl combined.

Yonit Levy did not ask challenging questions, but instead lobbed softballs that allowed Obama to show himself to be a lapdog instead of a Rottweiler. Obama exhibited understanding for Israel’s “special situation” due to its being in a state of conflict with its hostile surroundings, he emphasized that he has been a friend of Israel since time immemorial, he highly praised Netanyahu as a “wise and peace-loving” politician, he emphasized that his Administration gave Israel more security assistance than any previous Administration and he even displayed understanding for Israeli racism when he stated that he understands that the suspicion of him stems from his middle name, Hussein – the lesson being that it is every Hussein is a legitimate object of suspicion until the opposite has been proven. In summary: a classic case of the tail wagging the dog – or alternatively, maybe the Israeli empire taught Obama a genuine lesson. The settlers and the Kahanists who had enjoyed abusing Obama with terms like “nigger” [Heb. kushon - trans.] must now choke back their anger.

The Israeli Left, which had placed such high hopes on Obama, is now hanging its head in shame. There are those who try to console themselves with the thought that this is only a tactical move to appease Israel in the run-up to the Congressional elections in November because of the importance of the Jewish vote (under the mistaken assumption that all Jews support the State of Israel). Don’t worry, they add: the heavy pressure on Israel to make concessions will come. We have already waited 43 years; we can wait a little longer.

Learning from the Nazis

Hadassah Ben Ito is a retired district judge who is serving as the president of the International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists. Hadassah Ben Ito participated in a conference that took place recently in London with Jewish lawyers that dealt with improving Israeli propaganda [Heb: hasbara - trans.], and in her speech she said that Israel must adopt the tactics the Nazis used in their promotion of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion in the courts. (Ynet website in English, 7 May 2010)

This is not the first time that public figures in Israel have urged study of Nazi practice. A senior officer in the Israeli Occupation army once declared that the Israeli army must study the suppression of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising by the Nazi army in order better to suppress the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories.

The bifurcation in Israel today is clear. There are those who learn from the Nazis, and they are members of the ruling Establishment. And there are those who learn from those who resisted the Nazis, and they are among those who espouse human rights.

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