WhatFinger


Undermining Israel as a Jewish state

“Racists” and “Fascists” and Miscreants



In America, one is called “racist” at the drop of the hat. This epithet is no longer limited to people who discriminate based on race but is used against people who voice any disagreement with leftist PC. If you are against multiculturalism, you are called a racist. If you are against illegal aliens you are a racist. If you are for limiting Muslim immigration, you are a racist. If you want to ban sharia law, you are a racist. If you reject a mosque at Ground Zero, you are a racist, and so on. It is immaterial whether you have good reason for your beliefs. The reason for such name calling is to inhibit you from expressing a contrary opinion. Unfortunately it works.

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In Israel, the appellation of choice by the left is ‘anti-democratic”, or worse, ”fascist”. Any effort to protect the state of Israel is attacked as a limitation of free speech and earns the proponents of the legislation that label. The Left argues that such legislation is anti-democratic and therefore, fascist. So if you are in favour of the Naqba Law which withholds government money from institutions or bodies that undermine the state, you are a fascist. If you voted for the anti-boycott legislation which protects the livelihood of institutions and Israelis living in Yesha, you are a fascist. If you want to demolish illegally built homes in eastern Jerusalem, you are a fascist. If you are in favour of a loyalty oath for all citizens, you are a fascist. If you favour an investigation of NGO funding, you are a fascist. If you want to enforce Israeli law against the Arabs you are a fascist. These defenders of democracy are in fact anti-democratic themselves. They see nothing wrong or anti-democratic in excluding rightists from academic faculties, in excluding rightists from the Israeli Supreme Court, in not giving equal time to rightists on National media, in denying a radio license to rightist Arutz Sheva, in fighting for a Judenrein Palestine, in their opposition to the will of the majority as expressed by the Knesset, in opposing educating children to embrace patriotism, Zionism and nationalism, in opposing people who criticize far left groups. They are also hypocrites. e.g.,They fully approve of the law that prohibits”insulting a public official” or of the arrest of Rabbis who endorse treatises of religious law that discuss the permissibility of killing enemy civilians in wartime. The most egregious thing they did in the name of democracy was to outlaw the Kach Party headed by Rabbi Meir Kahane as being racist. Kach/Kahane advocated separating Jews and Arabs, denying Arabs citizenship and expelling them. He saw them as a threat to Israel as a Jewish state. He has been proven right. His fellow MK’s preferred to be “democratic” and turn a blind eye to the obvious danger. Such expulsion constituted interference in political expression, and would clearly violate free speech norms in the US, In the name of free speech, he should have been allowed to make his case and voice his concerns. On the other hand the Arab MK’s can say and do whatever they want to undermine the Jewish state and nothing is done to shut them up. As a case in point, when Im Tirtzu issued a Report last year, condemning the New Israel Fund and others for financing far left NGO’s. The Left was outraged. Haaretz, published an article by Gideon Levy, called it “A McCarthyite movement”. Because Maariv had the audacity to reprint parts from this Report, Levy referred to them as “the tabloid daily that never shrinks from McCarthyism”. He came to the defense of these NGO’s as follows, “Oy, gevalt! There are nongovernmental organizations that want Israel to be a better, more just state, and that the New Israel Fund dares to underwrite.” Not so. Their real agenda is to undermine Israel as a Jewish state. Then in March of this year, Israel passed the Naqba Law which provides, “any body that is funded by the state, or a public institute that is supported by the state, will be barred from allocating money to activity that involves the negation of the existence of the State of Israel as the state of the Jewish people; the negation of the state’s democratic character; support for armed struggle, or terror acts by an enemy or a terror organization against the state of Israel; incitement to racism, violence and terror and dishonoring the national flag or the national symbol.” The fact that this law did not limit free speech but simply denied state funding to groups which sought to undermine the state did not prevent the Left from screaming bloody murder and the death of free speech. On the same day, the Knesset passed a bill allowing small communities in the Negev and Galilee to set up admissions committees. It seemed that many communities wanted to prevent Arabs from moving in, because it would change the nature and harmony of the communities and endanger Jewish girls. The Left fought this as discriminatory and unacceptable. They support a solution that creates a Palestinian state based on the separation of Arabs and Jews and even expulsion of Jews, but are against separation in Israel. The last outrage to upset the Left was the passing of the Anti-Boycott Bill. Naomi Chazan, the head of NIF in an interview in Haaretz under the title, Fighting for the Soul of the Israel, said “The Boycott Law is in some ways the most problematic in terms of basic rights in a democratic society. It touches on fundamental freedoms: freedom of expression, freedom of conscience, freedom of association and certainly also freedom to protest. The law rules out any possibility of protest. From the point of view of democracy, this is a wrong that almost beggars description. Every person who, for reasons of conscience, does not buy products made in the settlements becomes a criminal. “ A close reading of the law simply makes it a tort (civil wrong) to advocate or participate in a boycott against the State of Israel, which is defined as the “deliberate abstention from economic, cultural or academic ties with a person or with another body, only due to their affinity to the State of Israel, its institutions or an area that is under its control, in such a way that may harm him economically, culturally or academically.” It allows the court to impose punitive damages irrespective of the actual damage. The left believes that it is their inalienable right to cause such damage in the name of free speech. It doesn’t believe in the right of the state to protect its citizens and institutions from such actions. As Eugene Kontorovich points out in Does the Anti-Boycott Law harm Free Speech, “These criticisms [of the bill] are wrong as a matter of principle. More insidiously, they hold Israel to a standard never applied to other nations, and criticizes it for passing laws that are well within the western democratic mainstream.” The ZOA supported the law with these comments “Israel is under existential threat from many countries and peoples around the world. Israel is enduring an organized worldwide campaign to boycott, divest from and sanction (BDS) the Jewish state." The ZOA sharply criticized the New Israel Fund for having “falsely claimed that the bill “criminalizes freedom of speech,” and said that "Gush Shalom falsely states the law is ‘a death sentence for the right to freedom of expression.’ The anti-boycott law applies to any area under Israeli control. The global BDS movement targets all of Israel, even within the Green Line, and explicitly rejects the existence of Israel within any borders.” Commentary’s Jonathan Tobin, wrote,
“Those seeking to implement boycotts are not merely expressing criticism of government policies but are, in fact, waging economic warfare on Israel. Moreover, such boycotts are not merely symbolic efforts to chide the Jewish state on a particular issue but part of an insidious international conspiracy to strangle a nation." “If the majority of Israelis, and it would appear a majority of the country as well as the Knesset backs this measure, it is because they rightly see advocacy of boycotts as racist attacks on their very existence… Israel’s foes are not, as some in this country falsely assert, merely objecting to its possession of the West Bank and the city of Jerusalem but its very existence.”
While defenders of these NGO’s cry “McCarthyism” or “fascism” based on the unsubstantiated charge that Israel is limiting their free speech when, in fact, a review of the legislation will fail to uncover any such limitation. While doing so they clothe themselves with the beatific intent of defending Human Rights and making Israel a more just society. The truth is otherwise. The Goldstone Report, which accused Israel of all manor of war crimes, was largely compiled from material provided by what is often referred to as Israel’s “human rights community.” which includes B’tselem. Jonathan Pollack argues in his brilliant analysis of B’Tselem Witch Trials in Commentary
“In making such a profound contribution to the Goldstone Report, B’Tselem was performing the task to which it has truly dedicated itself: not the defense of human rights in the West Bank and Gaza, but the delegitimization of Israel and its existence as a Jewish state.
In many ways I view the activities of the human rights NGO’s as giving aid and comfort to the enemy. Such activities could amount to sedition or subversion, if not treason. They are truly miscreants. But as Naomi Chazan said, we are fighting for the soul of Israel. Will it be a state for all its citizens or a Jewish state. This fight cannot avoid the inherent conflict between a Jewish state and a democratic state. The “human rights organizations” are dedicated to preventing Israel from being uniquely Jewish or pursuing uniquely Jewish goals such as retaining Judea and Samaria. They do so in the name of democracy and human rights. For them Zionism is racism.


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Ted Belman -- Bio and Archives

Ted Belman is a retired lawyer and Editor of Israpundit.org.  He made aliyah from Canada in 2009 and now lives in Jerusalem.


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