ZIONIST HISTORY: A SHORT QUIZ

7 may 2012, Alternative Information Center http://www.alternativenews.org (Israel)

Neve Gordon*

Take this test to find out how much you know about the gradual shift in Israeli political thought over the decades.

Not long after Israel celebrated its 64th Independence Day on April 26, a friend prepared a quiz of sorts. She read out loud political quotes to about ten guests who were having dinner at my house, and asked us to identify the politician who had uttered each statement.

Truth be told, none of my guests did very well on the quiz, but I thought that readers acquainted with Zionist history might do better and would be able to identify the source of each of the following statements. There is only one rule to this game: all search engines, including Google, are off limits.

• "Does a bad law become a good one just because Jews apply it? I say that this law is bad from its very foundation and does not become good because it is practiced by Jews ... We oppose administrative detention in principle. There is no place for such detention."

• "We do not accept the semi-official view ... wherein the state grants rights and is entitled to rescind them. We believe that there are human rights that precede the human form of life called a state."

• "We have learned that an elected parliamentary majority can be an instrument in the hands of a group of rulers and act as camouflage for their tyranny. Therefore, the nation must, if it chooses freedom, determine its rights also with regard to the House of Representatives in order that the majority thereof, that serves the regime more than it oversees it, should not negate these rights."

• "We would propose that the Knesset enact a law of its own free will, limiting its authority and stipulating that it will not tolerate any legislation that limits oral or written freedom of expression or association, or other basic civil and human rights to be enumerated before the Constitution, Law, and Justice Committee."

• "The day will come when a government elected by our people will fulfill the first promise made to the people on the establishment of the state, namely: To elect a founding assembly whose chief function - in any country on earth - is to provide the people with a constitution and issue legislative guarantees of civil liberties and national liberty... For the nation will then be free - above all, free of fear, free of hunger, free of the fear of starvation. That day will come. I can sense that it is coming soon."

• "Some say that it is impossible for us to provide full equal rights to Arab citizens of the state because they do not fulfill full equal obligations. But this is a strange claim. True, we decided not to obligate Arab residents, as distinguished from the Druze, to perform military service. But we decided this of our own free will, and I believe that the moral reason for it is valid. Should war break out, we would not want one Arab citizen to face the harsh human test that our own people had experienced for generations."

Confused yet?

If you are having trouble identifying the author, you are not alone. After hearing the quotes, I, too, wondered why they were so difficult to decipher. But, following a few misguided guesses, I recognised the source of the difficulty. The quiz was counterintuitive, and not only because all of the statements were uttered by a single politician.

No doubt, time has done its work and what was once pronounced by the undisputed leader of the Israeli right, now sounds more like declarations coming out of the liberal and far left - such as Knesset Members from Meretz and Hadash. Even the head of the Labor Party, Sheli Yichimovich, does not oppose administrative detention, and does not dare to claim that "there are human rights that precede the human form of life called a state", probably for fear of losing potential voters.

My friend's quiz managed to expose just how far right Israeli politics, as well as the public discourse informing it, have shifted over the years; so much so that, within the current political climate, declarations once uttered by former Prime Minister Menachem Begin, who passed away 20 years ago, can now only be reiterated by leftists.

I have no doubt that if Menachem Begin, commander of the infamous Irgun militia from 1943-1948, were alive today and would utter these very same statements in the Knesset, his own party members from the Likud - as well as the Israeli majority - would condemn him. Today, citizens who hold such positions are simply called "traitors".

This article first appeared in Al Jazeera

*Neve Gordon is the author of Israel's Occupation and can be reached through his website.

ISRAELI SOCIETY MOUNTS RESISTENCE TO LEGISLATIVE ASSAULT ON DEMOCRACY

20 JulY 2011, + 972 http://972mag.com (Israel)

Dahlia Scheindlin*

When we look back on this period in Israeli history, I don’t want to wonder: “why didn’t Israelis fight for their democracy? Why did they stand by and let themselves be taken over by sham leaders representing repressions that belonged to the dark days of the last century? What was the birth of our state worth if it failed to guarantee us a democracy? I learned the Israeli national anthem as a child, and when I was very young, I used to choke up at the part that says “l’hiyot am hofshi b’artzenu” (to be a free people in our country).

I’m not alone. I wish there were more people flooding the streets in protest, following the passage of the boycott law last week, but I am encouraged by important voices of protest that continue to appear daily ever since last week. Here’s just a sampling:

1. One of Israel’s most talented authors, Etgar Keret, wrote a powerfully worded column in the largest mass-circulating daily Yedioth Ahronot, in the weekend edition. Keret shows how obvious and easy it is to do what 47 MKs and about half of the Israeli public were unable to do – separate feelings about the act of boycotts from the principle of democracy.

I never liked boycotts…when a friend called me about a year ago asking me to sign a petition calling for a boycott against Ariel, it was easy for me to say no…[but] When elected officials enact violent legislation which violates the individual’s basic rights, it is nothing less than a civic duty to break it. Had my country enacted a law prohibiting men from kissing in public, I would look on the street for the first man who does not reek of cigarettes or garlic and give him a passionate kiss. When our country chooses to prosecute and persecute people because they are trying to influence in democratic ways the future of the country where they live, then I must use this forum to call for a boycott of the settlements. ” [Thanks to Adam Keller for part of the translation - note, various other writers and intellectuals have written similar calls.]

2. The Israel Democracy Institute, which used to take moderate, upset-no-one positions in the past and preferred to hold a seminar on a controversial issues rather than make a statement, came out with a desperate call in an ad in Ha’aretz. In four years of working there, from 2006-2010, I don’t remember anything so emotional and unequivocal as this coming from the IDI. The large headline read: “Ben Gurion and Jabotinsky are turning over in their graves”

The founding fathers and the people of all movements and all streams – from Jabotinsky to Berl Katznelson, from Ben Gurion to Begin – entrusted us with a cherished endowment, one that commands us to protect it fearlessly: Israeli democracy. Those who signed the Declaration of Independence gave it its authority through their declaration that the state of Israel rests on the foundations of liberty, justice and peace…will provide equality of social and political rights for all citizens without distinction between religion, race, gender…To this day, we have not completed the promulgation of a Constitution that defines human and civil rights in Israel in the spirit of the Declaration of Independence. Worse, short-sighted legislation is eating away at the glorious Israeli democracy…Would the current Knesset members who vote for these laws sign the Declaration of Independence today? Don’t they see that their vote does not square with the values of the Declaration?…An unprecedented stack of bills have piled up on the floor of the Knesset, and from them blow the winds of anti-democracy…they subvert the foundation of Israeli democracy and endanger its existence.

3. A petition has been published in Haaretz, under the title “Boycott Law – No more!” The first 120 signatories appear in the paper and most of them are academics, lawyers, architects, engineers, social workers, social activists, writers, designers, psychologists and organizational consultants, environmentalists and Israel Prize winning physicists and private investigators. Within the text, it says “36 professors of law determined that “the law is unconstitutional, it is a mortal blow to freedom of political expression and the right to protest in Israel, sufficient to damage human dignity [a human right protected under Israel's Basic Law of Human Dignity and Freedom, one of several such laws that stand in for a constitution - drs]

4. A demonstration is being organized on Saturday night – in proper 2011 fashion, invitations are being disseminated on a Facebook page with the title: “Democracy takes to the streets: The government against the people – the people against the government.” At this moment, 1,359 say they’ll be attending – and it’s only Wednesday.

I want, I believe, I hope and I pray that thousands of people, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands – 7.75 million – will unite in support of our freedoms – all of them, for all of us.

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*Dahlia Scheindlin is a leading international public opinion analyst and strategic consultant based in Tel Aviv, specializing in progressive causes, political campaigns in many countries, including new/transitional democracies and peace/ conflict research. In Israel, she works for a wide range of local and international organizations dealing with Israeli-Palestinian conflict issues, peacemaking, democracy, religious identity and internal social issues in Israeli society. Dahlia is currently writing her doctoral dissertation in comparative politics at Tel Aviv University. The focus of her research is unrecognized (de facto) states. In the fall of 2010 she will begin teaching at Ben Gurion University. Dahlia writes a monthly column for the Jerusalem Report magazine and is a regular media commentator and guest lecturer.