Green light to go after leftists
JVL Introduction
A hard-hitting editorial in Haaretz anticipates the attacks on democracy to come.
It does so by telling the story of ultra-Orthodox journalist and commentator Israel Frey, who dared to suggest in a tweet that Palestinian resistance to occupation was legitimate.
It was alleged that his tweet constituted incitement to terror and violence as well as encouragement and praise of terrorism.
It didn’t, but the atmosphere in anticipation of the new Israeli regime is such that the simple expression of uncomfortable views is met with immediate reactions of hostility and harassment.
This is shown graphically in a short video clip from Breaking the Silence which follows the editorial below, with a young soldier teling an activist: “Ben-Gvir’s going to bring order to this place…You’re done for… I decide what the law is around here…“
This article was originally published by Haaretz on Tue 29 Nov 2022. Read the original here.
Green Light to Go After Leftists
It’s becoming increasingly clear that the Netanyahu/Ben-Gvir government will be the most ultranationalist government in Israel’s history. The government hasn’t even been formed yet, but both in the streets and in state institutions, some people already seem to have altered their mindset to match it.
On Monday, ultra-Orthodox journalist and commentator Israel Frey was summoned for questioning after a complaint was filed over his tweets. The specific pretext for the summons was something he tweeted in September. Frey says that due to this tweet, he was even fired last week by DemocraTV, where he worked.
He posted the tweet in question after police caught a Palestinian in Jaffa’s Clock Square with a bomb and gun in his possession. The Palestinian admitted that he planned to carry out a terror attack in Tel Aviv, and Frey praised him for having “looked for legitimate targets and avoided harming the innocent,” even terming him a “hero.”
As in every regime that persecutes its citizens and silences its opponents, in Israel, too, political opinions that run counter to the prevailing mood are suppressed, with help from informants. And indeed, the complaint against Frey was submitted by the B’tsalmo organization, whose profession is persecuting leftists. The complaint alleged that the tweet constituted incitement to terror and violence as well as encouragement and praise of terrorism.
This accusation is ridiculous. Frey’s tweet isn’t incitement to terror and violence, and it’s protected by freedom of expression. That should be especially true in a society as divided and polarized as Israel’s, where the conversation is always tense and rife with racism, generalizations and regular calls for shedding Palestinian and leftist blood.
In a democratic country, there are no grounds for criminalizing people over remarks that aren’t explicit threats or incitement to violence and putting them on trial over tweets. But in countries where democracy is under assault by the government, freedom of expression and freedom of the press are the first to be harmed. And that’s what is happening in Israel as well.
If so, it’s no surprise that the man slated to become national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, rushed to give the police his backing. The man who is the face of the new government even said on Tuesday that Frey is a supporter of terror. It’s hard to think of a better symbol of Israel’s degeneration – a student of the racist Meir Kahane, an admirer of the murderer Baruch Goldstein, a Kach activist who threatened former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin before his assassination, a man who has been indicted dozens of times and convicted eight times, is the one now deciding what is allowed and what isn’t, what is legitimate and what isn’t.
The investigation of Frey is another warning light for Israeli democracy. Even though Ben-Gvir is the man who will soon be supervising them, police would be wise to leave Frey alone and not summon him for questioning again.
The above article is Haaretz’s lead editorial, as published in the Hebrew and English newspapers in Israel.
This short video clip posted by Breaking the Silence gives a good indication of the new mood with a soldier saying provocatively to camera: “Ben-Gvir’s going to bring order to this place… You’re done for… I decide what the law is around here…”
This was demonstrated perfectly by another soldier from Friday's incident, who proudly told an activist (knowing he was on camera) that 'Ben-Gvir's going to bring order to this place… You're done for… I decide what the law is around here…" pic.twitter.com/qVi2mPUOCS
— Breaking the Silence (@BtSIsrael) November 27, 2022
What we are seeing in Israel is what happened in South Africa. Although White South Africa saw itself as a democracy it was inevitable that the police state that was the African lot would sooner or later creep into White society with the banning of the Communist Party, banning orders etc.
So too with Israel. The dictatorship and military regime that the Palestinians experience is creeping back into Israel. Israeli Palestinians have already experienced their own pogroms and the Police complicity in it. But Israeli socialists and leftists will also find that what happens in the West Bank will not stay in the West Bank.
It is not possible to maintain a democracy, even for Jews, when you are maintaining a military dictatorship across a Green Line that no one even acknowledges exists anymore
With the recent electoral results it should be no surprise that government will use harsher attempts to eclipse and silence legitimate Palestinian human rights protest, and the inevitable outcome of that policy is that there is an increasing risk of Palestinians seeking more radical means to get their protest noticed. Under international law it is legitimate for those oppressed violently to respond in kind. Anyone can understand that that is also natural justice, a course that any oppressed peoples might take, irrespective of race, ethnicity or faith.
It’s what you get when Democracy is corrupted by PR and Fascists
No matter who you vote for, the same Cockwombles are in control
Historically what happens when the people are left with little or no hope, where for the first time ever their children will not do better than them
Answers on the back of a 1st Class stamp
When the Israeli authorities are able to colonise large swathes of Palestine to create Jews / Zionist- only colonies and associated infrastructure, necessarily barring that land to the indigenous Palestinians and ethnically-cleansing them from it, with little condemnation from even pro-Palestinians, they are entitled to believe that there is nothing that they cannot get away with. The political and financial backing that they get from the USA and the huge Christian Zionist / Evangelical lobby incl. Pres Biden, and ex VP Mike Pence, will require pro-Palestinians to get together and importantly, to tell it like it is. We need to appeal to Christian Zionists to act a bit more Christian.
This is such a strange paradox. The Israeli state is adopting the mantle of its Nazi tormentors who slaughtered Jews during the Holocaust. Jews suffered unbelievable atrocities carried out by the extreme Right. Have Israeli leaders learned nothing from that experience. Do they believe the rest of the world will forgive them for the crimes they are committing. At the moment the support they are getting from the US and UK governments plus others makes them safe. Nothing lasts forever and opinions will change. Support will be withdrawn eventually . In the last few years one can see more and more public support is draining away. There will be some extremely difficult times ahead.