Estamos en 2016. Digamos adiós al sionismo de una vez por todas

28 10 2016, Rebelión http://www.rebelion.org (Mexico)

Noam Rotem

972mag

Traducido del inglés para Rebelión por J. M.

Actualmente el sionismo es la valla que rodea al pueblo judío, otorgándole supremacía sobre las demás personas de esta tierra

El Estado de Israel es un estado sionista. Todos nosotros, los graduados del sistema educativo israelí lo sabemos. El primer ministro del primer gobierno de Israel lo dijo, Ehud Barak lo dijo, incluso el primer ministro Benjamin Netanyahu lo ha dicho. Esta declaración se puede encontrar en nuestros planes de estudios e incluso en el plan de estudios del ejército de Israel. Todo está bien, pero en ninguna parte he sido capaz de encontrar una definición formal

I love Miri Regev

October 2, 2016, +972 http://972mag.com (Israel)

By Alon Mizrahi*

I have never met Miri Regev, but it feels like I have known her my entire life. I grew up, like her, in a place where we were constantly reminded that some people are worth less than others.

I don’t know Culture Minister Miri Regev. I have never met her. But I have been surrounded by women and girls like her my entire life. And I think I know exactly what she thinks and how she feels.

Like myself, millions of others don’t know Miri Regev in the slightest, and yet just the mere mention of her name brings up strong feelings, for better or for worse. And this is because Miri Regev fits perfectly into the Israeli category that is not political by nature: if this is a script — and it is a script, lest you have any doubts — Miri Regev is the Moroccan girl from the periphery to whom rich, condescending, Ashkenazim do not take kindly. The girl who, as she stands

Right Wing Israeli Rapper ‘The Shadow’ Joins Ruling Likud Party

August 11, 2016, Forward http://forward.com (US)

Naomi Zeveloff

Yoav Eliasi, the Israeli rapper known as “The Shadow,” has suggested on his Facebook page that Israel should castrate dead Palestinian attackers in order to deter Muslim “martyrs” who believe they will meet 72 virgins in heaven. He also said that medical teams responding to terror attacks should “cut out the organs” of dead Palestinians for transplant in Jewish bodies.

For anyone familiar with Israel’s notoriously extreme “talkback” culture — in which online comments sections spiral into hateful discourse — Eliasi’s comments might seem

Netanyahu and Son Investigated for Using False Passport, Money Laundering Via Panama Account

July 16, 2016, Tikun Olam-תיקון עולם http://www.richardsilverstein.com (USA)

By Richard Silverstein*

Winston Churchill said after one of the earliest Allied victories during WWII: this is not the end, not even the beginning of the end.  Rather it’s the end of the beginning.  I think we’re more advanced in the case of Netanyahu.  We may have just entered the beginning of the end of his seemingly endless reign over Israeli politics.

Israeli social media has lit up with news of a new investigation of Bibi Netanyahu, his son Yair, and the PMO’s former chief of staff, Ari Harow.  This story has not yet been reported by an Israeli mainstream publication and

Likud/Israel Beiteinu bloc prepares ground for war and savage austerity measures

1 November 2012, World Socialist Web Sitehttp://www.wsws.org (Australia)

By Jean Shaoul

Days after the announcement of an early general election for January 22, the Likud party has overwhelmingly backed Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu’s plan for an electoral bloc with the ultra-nationalist Israel Beiteinu (Israel is our home), led by Foreign Secretary Avigdor Lieberman.

According to the polls, the bloc with Israel Beiteinu will give Netanyahu between 35 and 42 seats in the 120-member Knesset, more than twice the number Labour is expected to win, and an unprecedented third term as prime minister. It paves the way for an extremist government based on authoritarianism, militarism and xenophobia. It will be one committed to an attack on Iran and any country deemed a threat to Israel’s interests, a further assault on the position of the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories and, above all, a social and economic offensive against the Israeli working class.

Netanyahu’s objective in calling an early election and forming this electoral bloc—put on hold after an abortive attempt to bring the opposition Kadima on board last May—was to sideline his religious coalition partners and limit their ability to push him into making budgetary concessions on behalf of their social constituencies. Since Israel’s electoral system requires the electorate to vote for political parties not candidates, Likud will determine the position of its members on its list while maintaining the Knesset seat ratio between the parties: Likud 27, Israel Beiteinu 15.

In his speech unveiling the electoral bloc, to be called Likud–Beiteinu, Netanyahu declared, “One ticket will strengthen the government, it will strengthen the prime minister, and it will strengthen the country.”

He added, “We are asking the public for a mandate to deal with the security threats, at the top of which is stopping Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, and fighting terrorism. We are asking for a mandate from the public to continue the changes in the economy, in education and in the need to lower the cost of living.”

Lieberman said, “The merger is a combination of experience, force and unity. This is what Israel’s citizens expect. Given the challenges, we need national responsibility.”

Born in Moldova, Lieberman was in his youth a member of the right-wing Kach party outlawed in the 1980s. Since 1988, he has worked closely with Netanyahu and Likud, becoming Netanyahu’s chief of staff during his first term as prime minister in 1996. He left Likud in 1997 after Netanyahu signed up to the Wye River agreement that made some concessions—on paper—to the Palestinians, later forming his own ultra-nationalist party based upon Israel’s one million immigrants from the former Soviet Union. Israel Beiteinu became the third largest party in the 2009 election.

Lieberman supports the “transfer” of Israel’s Arab population to any putative Palestinian state, demands a “loyalty oath” to Israel as a Jewish state as the basis for citizenship, and labels Israeli Arab legislators as “traitors” and “terrorists” who should be executed for meeting leaders of Hamas, the group that rules Gaza. He has sought to introduce a raft of anti-democratic legislation aimed at outlawing dissent.

He is under investigation for corruption and may yet be charged with fraud, money laundering, breach of trust, witness harassment and obstructing the course of justice.

His opinions, once considered marginal, have now become part of the mainstream and respectable political discourse in Israel. His role has been to shift the entire spectrum of Israeli politics to the right.

A recent public opinion poll, not the first or only one, showed that 33 percent of respondents said they did not want Arabs to vote in parliamentary elections, 42 percent did not want an Arab neighbour, with a similar proportion saying it would bother them if there were an Arab student in their child’s class. It found that most Israelis would support apartheid-type conditions if the government were to annex the Occupied Territories, although most people oppose such annexation.

The response of Labour party leader Shelley Yacimovich was to say, “This step turns the Likud into Lieberman’s party. Tonight, Likud disappeared and instead there’s an extreme Lieberman party.”

She called on Israel’s “centrist” parties to unite to provide “an alternative to this extremist leadership.”

But most commentators agreed that such a coalition was unlikely, despite the fact that the opposition parties are expected to take around 60 seats. As Ma’ariv’s Shalom Yerushalmi pointed out, “There is no agreed-upon [opposition] leader and no consensus, and almost no union seems possible there”.

More importantly, that Yacimovich called for a pact with Kadima—the personal political vehicle of former prime minister and war criminal Ariel Sharon who split with Likud in 2005—demonstrates just how right-wing Labour has become. Labour no longer has any independent political existence or raison d’etre and is incapable of articulating any opposition to Likud’s domestic or foreign policy.

The same goes for all Israel’s small nominally left parties, including Meretz, the so-called Party of Peace, and the Stalinist-led coalition Hadash, which have endorsed the call for a centre-left bloc against Likud-Beiteinu.

Just last week, Yacimovich articulated positions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that are indistinguishable from Netanyahu’s.

She said, “We support the form of territorial compromise, the two-state solution, keeping settlement blocs, and oppose the right of return”.

However, settling Israel’s economic problems—by which she meant the demands of Israel’s financial elite’s—came first. She also supported Netanyahu’s attacks on Gaza which have killed at least seven people in the last week, saying, “These are complex operations that require a great restraint. I will not call the prime minister to initiate a military escalation, and I won’t criticize him. I stand behind his actions.”

Unable to articulate any policies to address the profound social and economic problems faced by Israeli workers, it is not surprising that Labour has made little headway in public opinion polls, despite the largest ever protests last year over housing costs and social inequality. There is enormous anger over the increasing poverty as wages have fallen in real terms for more than a decade, resulting in 1.7 million of Israel’s 7.8 million population living in poverty and 837,000 children going hungry every night.

While the opposition parties may feign outrage over some of Israel Beiteinu’s more blatantly racist and anti-democratic policies, they share the same standpoint, their commitment to Zionism. The Zionist project of establishing the state of Israel as a “homeland” for the Jews was based firstly upon the ethnic cleansing of close to a million Palestinians and systematic discrimination against those who stayed, and secondly, on capitalism where Israeli Jewish capitalists exploit, divide and police the working class of the region in its own interests and those of its patron, the United States. Such a state was and is fundamentally incompatible with democracy.

This perspective has left the former left parties incapable of challenging the more aggressive Zionist perspective that came to dominate under successive Likud-led governments. As both Zionist tendencies, right and left, recognised that the prospect of the Palestinians becoming a majority in a state whose citizenship is based upon religious identity constituted an “existential threat”, the nominally left Labour party joined Ariel Sharon’s Likud government, the most right-wing government Israel had known—and later Ehud Olmert’s Kadima-led government. Labour’s former leader Ehud Barak still sits alongside Netanyahu as defence secretary.

ACUERDO BIBI-LIEBERMAN: UNA LLAMADA DE ATENCIÓN AL MUNDO SOBRE ISRAEL

31 octubre 2012, Rebelión (México)

Larry Derfner*

972mag

Traducido para Rebelión por J. M. y revisado por Caty R.

Al unirse personalmente y llevar al partido gobernante del país a alinearse a nivel internacional con un despreciable neofascista, Netanyahu ha dado un paso importante para que Israel se acerque más a los límites de la tolerancia occidental. En última instancia, esa es una buena noticia.

La única manera de que Israel renuncie alguna vez a la ocupación y a su hábito de agresión militar es que vaya demasiado lejos y se convierta en un Goliat, de tal manera que el mundo occidental finalmente le pida que limpie sus actos o busque otro tipo de aliados. La unión anunciada esta noche entre el Likud de Bibi Netanyahu y Avigdor Lieberman de Yisrael Beiteinu para formar un gran Likud, "Likud es nuestro hogar", marca un paso importante en esa dirección.

Netanyahu tira piedras a su tejado. No sé si el nuevo partido va a ganar más escaños en la Knneset en las elecciones del 22 de enero de los que el Likud e Yisrael Beiteinu podrían haber ganado por separado, pero Netanyahu se ha ensuciado a los ojos del mundo, incluyendo a muchos de sus principales partidarios judíos en los Estados Unidos. Avigdor Lieberman tiene bien merecida una reputación internacional de que odia a los árabes e incluso de amante neofascista de la guerra (esta última etiqueta se la puso Martin Peretz, el estridente exeditor pro israelí de The New Republic).

El canciller Lieberman pide la expulsión, por medio de un intercambio de tierras, de cientos de miles de ciudadanos israelíes simplemente porque son árabes. Hizo una campaña electoral destacando el lema: "Sólo Lieberman entiende árabe”. Fue miembro del partido Kach a finales de 1970, algo que comprensiblemente niega, pero que los veteranos de Kach de aquella época lo juran. Lieberman fantaseaba en voz alta en la Knesset con la ejecución de los diputados árabes y amenazó con bombardear la presa de Asuán en Egipto. Además, por supuesto, ha estado bajo investigación de la policía de Israel por corrupción durante casi 15 años y podría enfrentarse a la acusación muy pronto.

Y ahora Netanyahu, que hizo de Lieberman su brazo derecho durante su primer mandato como primer ministro, se ha identificado totalmente con este tipo. Hubo un informe de esta noche en Canal 2 del buen comunicador Amnón Abramovitch anunciando que el acuerdo de unidad incluye que Lieberman ocupe el cargo de primer ministro al cuarto año de la próxima legislatura, ya que se supone que Likud Beiteinu ganará las próximas elecciones.

Mucha gente en Israel, Estados Unidos, Canadá y tal vez en otros países, y ciertamente muchos judíos en todo el mundo, creen que Netanyahu es un centrista, aunque sea por la mínima razón de que representa el consenso israelí. Pero incluso estas personas se dan cuenta de que Lieberman no es un centrista, sino que es la réplica israelí de Jean Marie Le Pen, del fallecido Jörg Haider, de Geert Wilders y otros entusiastas detractores de los musulmanes, sólo que es más militarista.

Y ahora hay una diferencia más, al contrario que Le Pen, Haider y Wilders, Lieberman y su partido se han unificado con el primer ministro de su país y con el partido gobernante.

¿Qué dice esto sobre el indiscutido líder político de Israel y sobre el propio Israel? Muchas personas de ideología moderada, aquí y en el extranjero, que estaban dispuestos a votar a Bibi, al que incluso llegaron a admirar, creo que ahora se sienten un poco enfermos. Es una noche terrible para este país, pero por desgracia no hay otra manera de que cambie la situación que se está dando en los últimos años si no es dándose la cabeza contra la pared, llegando al límite de la tolerancia occidental. Hay peores y más dolorosas maneras de que esto suceda que por el ascenso de Lieberman por lo menos en el Israel actual. Lenin tenía razón cuando afirmó que las cosas tienen que empeorar antes de que puedan mejorar, y seguro que esta noche se agravaron.

*Larry Derfner, escritor y columnista, trabajó para The Jerusalem Post, ha sido corresponsal en Israel del U.S. News and World Report durante muchos años y escribió artículos para el Sunday Times de Londres durante la Segunda Intifada.

Fuente original: http://972mag.com/the-lieberman-deal-a-wake-up-call-to-the-world-about-israel/58501/

NETANYAHU/LIEBERMAN UNITE FOR WAR

October 27, 2012, Global Research http://www.globalresearch.ca (Canada)

By Stephen Lendman*

American crimes of war and against humanity perhaps exceed all other rogue states in history combined.

Pound-for-pound, however, Israeli lawlessness matches the world’s worst. Long ago, it graduated from a regional menace to a global one.

It enforces barbaric occupation harshness. Its war machine threatens and attacks neighbors. It gets away with murder because world powers don’t intervene to stop it.

It wages intermittent war on Gaza. It murders innocent civilians. It uses illegal depleted uranium, chemical and other weapons. Nuclear missiles and bombs are stockpiled. It plans more war now.

Gazans know they’re vulnerable to Cast Lead 2.0. Iran long ago prepared to defend itself if attacked. Rogue Israeli coalition partner unity makes it more likely. Netanyahu and Lieberman represent Israel’s worst. They’re out-of-control warmongers.

Netanyahu heads Israel’s most extremist ever government. He exceeds the worst of Ariel Sharon and previous hardline leaders. He’s unfit to serve. He spurns democratic values. He deplores peace. He menacingly threatens war.

Lieberman is an ultranationalist extremist. He represents the worst of Israel’s lunatic fringe. Critics call him an embarrassment to legitimate government.

He’s a modern-day Kananist. Kahane headed Israel’s racist Kach Party. In 1988, Israel banned it. It was too extreme to tolerate. In his youth, Lieberman was a Kach Party member. He remains true to its ideological roots.

Israel under Netanyahu/Lieberman assures institutionalized racism in its worst form. Arab hatred is promoted. Rule of law principles and other democratic values are spurned. War for regional dominance is prioritized.

As long as these rogues govern Israel, Palestinians face horrific persecution short of total expulsion or outright extermination. But those possibilities can’t be ruled out.

Other regional states must brace for war. Even if not attacked directly, it may spill across their borders destructively.

On October 25, Haaretz headlined “Netanyahu, Lieberman to unify parties ahead of upcoming Israeli elections,” saying:

“The planned unification could have a far-reaching influence on the makeup of Israel’s next government….” Perhaps other like-minded parties will join them.

Netanyahu may have a “super-party” in mind too strong to unseat. He’ll have more latitude to further his destructive, hardline agenda. Lieberman will be his second in command. Together they menace Arabs, Jews, and others alike.

Netanyahu heads Likud. It’s hardline, anti-democratic, racist and militant. Founded in 1973, it united the right wing revisionist Herut party with Gahal and centrist Zionist parties. Its former prime ministers included Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Shamir, Netanyahu during his 1996 – 1999 tenure), and Ariel Sharon.

In 1999, Lieberman founded Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel is Our Home). It’s ultranationalist and revisionist Zionist. It represents the worst of Israel’s hardline right wing.

Uniting these two parties burnishes Israel’s credentials as an out-of-control menacing rogue state. Not all Likudniks are pleased. Haaretz quoted an unnamed senior party official saying:

“What does Netanyahu think? That he can dictate to us who we run with? We’re repulsed by this partnership with Lieberman. I don’t want to run with a person like (him), with the kind of values he stands for.”

Partnered with Lieberman, Likud will be “committed to advancing such controversial issues as the loyalty-citizenship bills….Why is Netanyahu going for this….It’s a very problematic move.”

Most Likudniks are hardline. They welcome the move or at least don’t object. Perhaps they see it as a way for super-party rule. Their own electoral chances may improve. At least they hope so.

On October 26, Haaretz headlined “With Lieberman at his side, Netanyahu’s war cabinet is on a one-way track to Iran,” saying:

Uniting these rogues “obligates the left-wing and centrist parties to offer an ideological and practical alternative….”

Both men don’t hide their intentions. They prioritize preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons even though they know Tehran has no program to obtain them.

Admitting it would undermine their plan to remove their main regional rival. Bogusly calling Iran an existential threat is red herring cover to enlist support for war.

Likud/Yisrael Beiteinu unity may “dissolve any domestic opposition to war, since after the election, Netanyahu will be able to argue that he received a mandate from the people to act as he sees fit.”

Once US elections decide who’ll be president, and which side of America’s duopoly will be strongest, getting America on board will be prioritized.

“In announcing the merger Thursday, Netanyahu has finally renounced his attempt to portray himself as a centrist….” With Lieberman as number two and potential heir, Likud will be more radicalized and aggressive than ever.

Expect like-minded extremists to fill top cabinet posts. Anti-war officials will be spurned. Domestic policy will also be hardened. Tougher neoliberal measures may follow.

Remaining checks and balances may disappear. Crackdowns will target resisters. Expect the worst. It’s likely coming. October US/Israeli war games may or may not signal war.

They’re allegedly intended to counter potential Iranian, Syrian, Hezbollah, and/or Hamas attacks even though none would occur except defensively in response to Israeli and/or US aggression.

Washington often holds joint exercises. Doing so doesn’t automatically signal war. Nonetheless, the possibility against Iran is real. Plans are longstanding. Updates are made strategically. Israel readies its own. It also prepared for homeland emergencies.

Perhaps it won’t be long before it’s known whether something imminent is planned. Regime change plans are longstanding. Israel wants a regional rival removed. Washington wants unchallenged dominance.

Virtually everything short of war was thrown at Iran unsuccessfully. War is the final option.

Stepped up Israeli attacks on Gaza, bombing a Khartoum weapons plant allegedly producing Shehab missiles for Iran, and very likely killing intelligence head of Lebanon’s Internal Security Forces, General Wissam al-Hasan, aren’t good signs.

Regional war games combined with domestic emergency preparations increase tensions. They weren’t eased by Netanyahu’s comments about attacking Gaza, saying:

“Today we engaged in exchanges against terrorist aggression that comes from our southern border in Gaza, but it actually comes from Iran and a whole terror network that is supporting these attacks.”

He’s itching for war. He wants Washington and Israel acting jointly. Let America lead, and he’ll ride shotgun. Perhaps post-November 6, he’ll get what he wants.

It depends on whether Obama or Romney feel the same way. Nothing’s known for sure, but signs look ominous. Brace for the worst.

A Final Comment

On October 25, Reuters headlined “Iran filling nuclear bunker with centrifuges – diplomats,” saying:

“Enrichment takes Iran closer to potential bomb material.” Western officials claim it’s “potentially boosting its capacity to make weapons-grade uranium if it chooses to do so.”

Activities are concentrated at its fortified Fordo plant. One unnamed diplomat said “I understand that they have installed all the centrifuges there.” Another said piping and other preparations must be completed to operate them.

Reuters cited nuclear experts Olli Heinonen and Simon Henderson saying “Iran may be able to accumulate up to four ‘significant quantities’ of weapons-grade uranium – each sufficient for one bomb – in as little as nine months from now.”

Even though it’s well-known that Iran has no ongoing nuclear weapons program, these, similar comments, and inflammatory headlines irresponsibly heighten tensions for war.

Separately, Ship to Gaza Sweden (Estelle) activists arrived home safely. Israeli commandos lawlessly interdicted their humanitarian mission in international waters.

Participants and crew were tasered multiple times. Some suffered burns and bruises. Others reported being handcuffed and dragged. Everyone was treated harshly.

They were imprisoned for several days. Their vessel, humanitarian cargo, and personal possessions were confiscated. Three Israeli citizens on board potentially may be charged with attempting to breach Gaza’s siege or violating Israel’s 1954 infiltration law.

Home in Canada, former parliamentarian and retired United Church Minister Jim Manly spoke publicly for the first time.

He’s glad to be back home, he said. He thanked everyone who expressed support. He called it “a privilege to be on the Finnish sailing ship, Estelle, as the representative of the Canadian Boat to Gaza and Gaza’s Ark movement and it was good to know that the members of that movement were working night and day to make our voyage a success.”

He explained Israel’s attack and violent treatment of activists on board. He called what happened an “act of piracy.” Israeli commandos “celebrated (it) by taking down the flag of Finland and running up the Israeli flag.”

He said it “replaced the skull and cross bones” for these type Israeli missions. “This pirate action dishonours the Israeli flag.”

It “must make many humanitarian Israelis deeply ashamed of their country. We were taken prisoner, brought into Ashdod, interrogated and taken to prison for three days before being deported for ‘having entered Israel illegally.’ ”

In prison, we “were subjected to indignities,” he added. “We need to put things in perspective. The real story is not our arrest, not even the hijacking of the Estelle in international waters. The real story concerns the death dealing chokehold that Israel holds over the people of Gaza.”

“The voyage of the Estelle and my participation in it was our attempt to rouse the peoples of the world to take action against this evil and to send a message of hope and solidarity to the Palestinian peoples of Gaza letting them know that they are not forgotten.”

“The blockade of Gaza has not yet been lifted, but be assured that we will continue our efforts until it has been and the Palestinian peoples can once again live with freedom and dignity.”

*Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

His new book is titled “How Wall Street Fleeces America: Privatized Banking, Government Collusion and Class War”

http://www.claritypress.com/Lendman.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour

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Hadash: the coming elections are about fighting for equality, social justice and a just peace

26 october 2012, The Israeli Communist Party http://www.maki.org.il (Israel) (Israel) info@maki.org.il   Neo-liberal and right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and fascist Foreign Minister Ivette (Avigdor) Liberman have agreed to join forces for a general election in the new year. Netanyahu and Liberman said Thursday they will present a joint list for the January 22 election without merging their respective parties, Likud and Yisrael Beitenu. Foreign Minister Liberman calls for expelling, by means of a land swap, hundreds of thousands of Israeli citizens simply for being Arab. He ran an election campaign highlighted by the slogan, "Only Lieberman understands Arabic." He was a member of Kach in the late 1970s, which he understandably denies but which Kach veterans from that era swear to. He’s fantasized aloud in the Knesset about executing Arab MKs and threatened to bomb Egypt’s Aswan Dam. He has been under Israel Police investigation for corruption for nearly 15 years, and could face indictment pretty soon.

(Hadash and Communist Party of Israel demonstrators in Tel-Aviv, June 2012: "For Peace and Social Justice."/Photo: Hadash)

Thursday’s union between the Likud and Yisrael Beytenu parties has resulted in a tie between the rightist and the centrist-leftist blocs, a preliminary poll released after the announcement found. The centrist-left, however, includes Hadash (Democratic Front for Peace and Equality – Communist Party of Israel) and two Arab parties. Hadash leader Dov Khenin said that a Netanyahu-Liberman government, would open three war fronts: "One on Iran, a second against the Arab-Palestinians in Israel and another on democracy." Therefore, Khenin continued, "the coming elections are about fighting for equality, social justice and against the occupation and for a just peace with the Palestinian people."

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 government back bill to limit funding for human rights groups

13 november 2011, Communist Party of Israel המפלגה הקומוניסטית הישראלית http://maki.org.il

The Ministerial Committee for Legislation today (Sunday) approved two bills that would limit foreign funding for Israeli human rights and peace organizations.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had already announced support for one of the bills, sponsored by two members of his Likud party - MKs Tzipi Hotovely and Ofir Akunis - which would cap foreign governments' contributions to "political" non-governmental organizations at NIS 20,000.

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beiteinu, meanwhile, is throwing its weight behind the second initiative brought for by party MK Fania Kirshenbaum, which would slap a 45 percent tax on foreign governments' donations to NGOs ineligible for state funding. Taken together, these laws would essentially shut down all human rights organization in Israel. The legislative proposals will now be sent to the Knesset for further discussion and three readings before they become law.

Of the 18 members of Israel Ministerial Committee for Legislation, 11 voted for the proposals, five objected while 2 abstained. In explanatory comments, the Israeli bill says it expressly intended to "bar Israeli organizations from receiving money from foreign governments and international groups such as the United Nations and European Union".

While the measure does not specify which Israeli organizations are being targeted, one of its sponsors, Likud lawmaker Akunis, cited the settlement watch group and peace movement "Peace Now," human rights in the Palestinian occupied territories group "B'Tselem" and a military watchdog called "Breaking the Silence" as foreign aid recipients.

The measure is one of several condemned as bids to muzzle critics of Israeli policies toward Palestinians who seek a Palestinian state on land Israel occupied in a 1967 war.

“YOU ARE FED UP?”

12 november 2011, Gush Shalom גוש שלום http://zope.gush-shalom.org (Israel)

Uri Avnery אורי אבנרי

“YOU CAN lie to all of the people some of the time, and to some of the people all of the time, but you cannot lie to all of the people all of the time.”

This slightly altered quotation from Abraham Lincoln has yet to be absorbed by Binyamin Netanyahu. He thinks it doesn't apply to him. Actually, that is the core of his entire political career.

This week, he was given a very instructive lesson. After being treated to dozens of cordial encounters between Netanyahu and Nicholas Sarkozy, Israeli TV viewers got a glimpse of reality. It came in the form of an exchange of views between the presidents of the US and of France.

Sarkozy: “I cannot stand him (Netanyahu). He is a liar!”

Obama: "YOU are fed up with him? I have to deal with him every day!"

That came after it was leaked that Angela Merkel, the German prime minister, told her cabinet that “every word that leaves Netanyahu’s mouth is a lie.”
Which makes it more or less unanimous.

BEFORE PROCEEDING, I must say something about the media angle of this affair.

The dialogue was broadcast live to a group of senior French media people, because somebody forgot to turn the microphone off. A piece of luck of the kind that journalists dream about.

Yet not one of the journalists in the hall published a word about it. They kept it to themselves and only told it to their colleagues, who told it to their friends, one of whom told it to a blogger, who published it.

Why? Because the senior journalists who were present are friends and confidants of the people in power. That’s how they get their scoops. The price is suppressing any news that might hurt or embarrass their sponsors. This means in practice that they become lackeys of the people in power – betraying their elementary democratic duty as servants of the public.

I know this from experience. As an editor of a news magazine, I saw it as my duty (and pleasure) to break these conspiracies of silence. Actually, many of our best scoops were given to us by colleagues from other publications who could not use them themselves for the same reason.

Luckily, with the internet now everywhere, it has become almost impossible to suppress news. Blessed be the online Gods.

A FEW weeks after Yitzhak Rabin was elected Prime Minister (for the second time) in 1992, I met Yasser Arafat in Tunis.

He was, of course, curious about the personality of the newly elected Israeli leader. Knowing that I was meeting him from time to time, he asked what I thought of him.

“He is an honest man,” I replied, and then added: “as much as a politician can be.”
Arafat burst out laughing, and so did everybody in the room, including Mahmoud Abbas and Yasser Abed Rabbo.

Ever since Sir Henry Wotton said, some four centuries ago, that “an ambassador is an honest man sent to lie abroad for the good of his country,” it is generally assumed that diplomats and politicians may be lying, and not only abroad. Some do so only when necessary, some do it often, some, like Netanyahu, do it as a rule.

In spite of the general assumption of mendacity, it is not good for a leader to be branded as a habitual liar. When leaders meet personally, in private and face to face, they are supposed to tell each other the truth, even if not necessarily the whole truth. Some personal trust is of great advantage. If a leader loses it, he loses a precious asset.

Winston Churchill said of one of his predecessors, Stanley Baldwin, that (quoting from memory) “the Right Honorable Gentleman sometimes stumbles upon the truth, but he always hurries on as if nothing has happened.” One of our ministers said about Ariel Sharon that he sometimes tells the truth by mistake. People asked how you could tell when Richard Nixon was lying: “Easy: his lips are moving”.

Rabin was basically an honest man. He hated lying and avoided it as much as he could. Basically he remained a military man and never became a real politician.
LAST WEDNESDAY was the 16th anniversary of his assassination, according to the Hebrew calendar.

The event was marked in Israeli schools by speeches and special lessons. What these citizens of tomorrow learned was that it is very bad to murder a prime minister. And that, more or less, was that.

Not a word about why he was killed. Certainly nothing about the community the assassin belonged to, or what campaign of hatred and incitement led to the murder.

The Ministry of Education is now firmly in the hands of a Likud minister, and one of the most extreme. But the trend is not confined to the education system.

In Israel it is practically impossible to obtain a picture of Rabin shaking the hand of Arafat. Rabin and King Hussein? As many post cards as you might wish. But Rabin’s peace with Jordan was an unimportant matter, like the US peace with Canada. The Oslo agreement, however, was a historic watershed.

Only people branded as “extreme leftists” – one of the worst insults these days – dare to raise the obvious questions about the assassination: Who? Why?

There is tacit agreement that the only person responsible was the actual assassin: Yigal Amir, the son of Yemenite Jews, a former settler and a student of a religious university.

Would he have acted without the blessing of one or more rabbis? Most certainly not.

Amir was led to do what he did by months of intense incitement. An unprecedented campaign of hatred dominated the public sphere. Posters showed Rabin in the uniform of an SS officer. Religious groups publicly condemned him to death in medieval ceremonies. Demonstrators in front of his private home shouted: “With blood and fire / we shall remove Rabin!”

In the most (in)famous demonstration, in the center of Jerusalem, a coffin marked “Rabin” was paraded around, while Netanyahu looked on from a balcony, in the company of other rightist leaders.

And most tellingly: not a single important right-wing or religious voice was raised against this murderous campaign.

By general tacit agreement, nothing of all this was mentioned this week. Why? Because it would not be nice. It would “split the nation”. Honorable citizens do not do this kind of thing.

Rabin himself cannot be acquitted of all blame. After the incredibly courageous act of recognizing the PLO (and thereby the Palestinian people) and shaking hands with Arafat, he did not rush forward to create an irreversible historic fact of peace, but hesitated, dithered, held back and allowed the forces of war and racism to regroup and counter-attack.

When the Kiryat Arba settler Baruch Goldstein carried out his massacre in the “Cave of Machpela”, Rabin had a golden opportunity to clear out the nest of fascist settlers in Hebron. He shrank back from taking on the settlers. The settlers did not shrink back from killing him.

WHAT HAPPENED next? This week a very revealing document was leaked.

It appears that on the day of the assassination, Netanyahu spoke with the American ambassador (and Zionist Jew) Martin Indyk. Netanyahu, remembering his part in the incitement, was obviously in panic. He confided to the ambassador that if elections were to take place immediately, the entire Israeli right-wing would be wiped out.

But Shimon Peres, the new Prime Minister, did not call immediate elections, though several people (including myself) publicly urged him to do so. Netanyahu’s assessment was quite correct – the country was outraged, the right-wing was generally blamed for the assassination, and if elections had taken place, the Right would have been marginalized for many many years. The entire history of Israel would have taken a different turn.

Why did Peres refuse to do so? Because he hated Rabin. He did not want to be elected as the “executor of Rabin’s testament”, but on his own merits.

Unfortunately, the public did not have the same high opinion of these “merits”.

During the next few months, Peres committed every conceivable (and inconceivable) mistake: he approved the killing of a major Hamas militant which led to a flood of deadly suicide bombings all over the country. He attacked Lebanon, which led to the Kafr Kana massacre, and had to withdraw ignominiously. And then he called premature elections after all. In his election campaign, Rabin was not even mentioned. Thus Peres managed to be (narrowly) defeated by Netanyahu.

I once wrote that Peres suffered his most grievous insult just a few minutes before the assassination. Amir was waiting at the foot of the stairs from the tribune, his pistol ready. Peres came down the steps, and the assassin let him pass, like a fisherman contemptuously throwing a small specimen back into the sea. He was waiting for Rabin.

The rest is history.