Day: 21 May 2016

Israel Labor ‘no place for radical leftists;’ JLM ‘no place for Palestine advocates’

Recalling Herzog’s anti-Arab racism, the Haaretz columnist Sayed Kashua mused today that, ‘The choice of the name “Zionist Union” left no room for doubt.’ Isaac Herzog is Chairman of the Zionist Union and leader of the Israeli Labour Party, which is affiliated to the UK Jewish Labour Movement (JLM).

Haaretz reports that Herzog has maintained there was “no place in Zionist Union for the radical left.” Here, the Jewish Labour Movement are trying to impose a rule change on the Labour Party that could see members (often labelled the hard left) suspended for using Zionist as a pejorative.

Herzog was referring to former leader Shelly Yacimovich and other party members who opposed his move to join the government. He added that his resignation from the leadership of the party following the failure of his negotiations to enter the Likud-led coalition would,

“provide dubious satisfaction to left-wing radicals… and the radical right who dragged along [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu.”

On Saturday, Herzog – who insisted in April that his party were no ‘Arab lovers’ – maintained that the failure of his coalition negotiations with the Netanyahu government had prevented him from taking “a step that would definitely have changed the entire region:”

With the launch of a regional diplomatic initiative, which I was planning with Netanyahu and international elements, Israel would for the first time have related positively to elements of the Arab peace plan and begun, for the first time, to negotiate with the Arab states.

Sayed Kashua is creator of the popular Israeli TV series ‘Arab Labour’ and was recalling an encounter he had with Herzog three years ago. His producer had suggested they offer the part of the character of a Labor politician based on Herzog to the man himself. In the course of their meeting the latter betrayed his casual racism towards Palestinian Arabs: Continue reading “Two sides of the Zionist Labour coin”

I had to read this twice, so sure was I that I had misinterpreted Phillips’ words. Framed by the usual vitriolic attack on ‘lefties’ and a scornful rejection of the European fascism/Israel analogy, the Jewish Chronicle columnist betrays an uncharacteristic unease with Israeli society:

In [Major-General Yair Golan’s] speech on, of all things, Holocaust remembrance day he said: “If there is one thing that is scary in remembering the Holocaust, it is noticing horrific processes which developed in Europe – particularly in Germany – 70, 80, and 90 years ago, and finding remnants of that here among us in the year 2016.”

The uproar over his apparent equation of Israeli society with Nazi Germany obscured other things he said which were sound. In an apparent reference to Sergeant Elor Azaria, whose trial for manslaughter after shooting a wounded Palestinian on the ground has divided the country, Golan said the IDF should be proud that it probes “problematic behaviour” with courage.

It is very troubling that so many Israelis seem not to grasp the moral distinction between shooting in cold blood someone who poses no threat and defending against attack. There are also disturbing trends indeed in Israeli society, from violent anti-Arab “hilltop youth” and “price-tag” terrorists to prejudice against Ethiopian Jews.

Phillips, alone, apparently believes one can disassociate Golan’s revulsion at the morally ‘flawed’ Israeli occupation forces, from his warning that Israeli society has become so callous, degraded, violent and bigoted in its rightwards drift that it resembles early 20th century European fascist regimes. Such is the muddle Melanie has got herself into, that the notorious Islamophobe can accurately illustrate fascist trends, without identifying them as such. And it doesn’t stop there; she seeks to bolster her anti-left rant by citing examples that can only give her readers pause for thought and win support for her opponents:

Yet demonising “the other” was what Golan was doing in comparing unidentified Israelis to putative or actual Nazis. That is also the signature motif of the left, demonising the non-left as fascists while accusing them of demonising “the other”.

In Israel, these are standard tactics. During the 2014 Gaza war Israel Prize laureate (and historian of French fascism) Prof Ze’ev Sternhell said there were “indicators” of fascism in Israel which was “on the brink of boiling over”, and compared the atmosphere to 1940s France. Last December Dr Ofer Cassif, a political science lecturer at the Hebrew University, called Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked “neo-Nazi scum” and wrote she was responsible for making Israel more fascist. He also told Israel Radio: “I think it’s fair to compare Israel to Germany in the 1930s, and not to the years of genocide.”

Ha’aretz does this all the time. Last December, Gideon Levy wrote that 2015 “heralded the start of blatant and unapologetic Israeli fascism”. I could go on, but you get the general idea.

Indeed we do, Melanie.

Elly Fryksos

We are told repeatedly that making any comparison between Israel’s actions and those of the Nazis is a form of antisemitism.

Reading the latest from Uri Avnery, a 92-year old Israeli writer and founder of the Gush Shalom peace movement, it seems that both he and the deputy Chief of Staff of the Israeli Army must bear this badge of shame. Today, in a piece entitled I Was There, Avnery enters the storm of controversy surrounding comments made on Holocaust Memorial Day by General Ya’ir Golan.

Wearing his uniform, Golan recalled “the awful processes which happened in Europe in general, and in Germany in particular, 70, 80, 90 years ago,” and confessed his fear at “finding traces of them here in our midst, today, in 2016.”

Avnery carefully examines what Golan said and to what extent they are true. “He compared developments in Israel to the events that led to the disintegration of the Weimar Republic. And that is a valid comparison,” writes the veteran peace campaigner who witnessed Hitler’s rise to power in person. “Things happening in Israel, especially since the last election, bear a frightening similarity to those events.”

Avnery’s article deserves to be read in full and can be found on the Gush Shalom website. Here is one excerpt:

The discrimination against the Palestinians in practically all spheres of life can be compared to the treatment of the Jews in the first phase of Nazi Germany. (The oppression of the Palestinians in the occupied territories resembles more the treatment of the Czechs in the “protectorate” after the Munich betrayal.)

The rain of racist bills in the Knesset, those already adopted and those in the works, strongly resembles the laws adopted by the Reichstag in the early days of the Nazi regime. Some rabbis call for a boycott of Arab shops. Like then. The call “Death to the Arabs” (“Judah verrecke”?) is regularly heard at soccer matches. A member of parliament has called for the separation between Jewish and Arab newborns in hospital. A Chief Rabbi has declared that Goyim (non-Jews) were created by God to serve the Jews. Our Ministers of Education and Culture are busy subduing the schools, theater and arts to the extreme rightist line, something known in German as Gleichschaltung. The Supreme Court, the pride of Israel, is being relentlessly attacked by the Minister of Justice. The Gaza Strip is a huge ghetto. 

Continue reading “Can Israel be compared to Nazi Germany? – A view from an Israeli who has witnessed both”