In 1949, George Orwell published his masterwork of fiction - Nineteen Eighty-Four, portraying a dystopian future in which every aspect of public - and private - life is controlled by the government, to the point where dangerous thoughts are considered a crime punishable by death, dishonour, exile, or at the least a lengthy prison sentence. Often viewed as an allegory for ultrafascism, the "thought police" of Orwell have always been viewed as a metaphor.
Today, that changed; in Israel.
Supposedly the "shining democracy" of the Middle East, three bills before the Israeli Knesset aim to change all of that. It was hoped that the inclusion of the ultra-right Fascist - Avigdor Lieberman - would blunt the edge of his extremist party. It appears that those hopes were short-sighted and naive.
The first bill, which was approved by the Knesset ministerial committee on legislation this week, would make the marking of Naqba punishable by 3 years in prison.
What exactly is Naqba? Falling on the same day as Israeli Independence Day, it is a day of mourning among Israeli Arabs and Palestinians, as a means of honouring the some 700,000 Palestinians driven from their homes in the Arab-Israeli War by groups such as Irgun and the Stern Gang (both of which are now considered terrorist organizations by the United States, Britain, and Israel).
At this point, I feel it necessary to dispel certain myths surrounding the Israeli War of Independence
Myth: Israel declared independence, and Egypt, Jordan, and Syria attacked for no reason other than they hated Jews
Fact: Egypt, Jordan, and Syria came to the aid of the Palestinians, who were - in the words of Israeli historian Benny Morris - "ethnically cleansed" from much of the mandate given to them by the British. The original mandate for the state of Israel divided British Palestine into two sections - 48% Israel, 52% Palestine. By the time Israel was attacked on 1 May 1948, Morris estimates that between 200,000 and 300,000 Palestinians had been killed, with another 700,000 fleeing their homes. The day Israel declared its independence is considered a day of mourning by those Palestinians and Israeli Arabs left, and rightly so. When close to one million people are either killed or forced to leave their homes, it is indeed cause for mourning.
The bill, put forward by none other than Lieberman, aims to make it a national crime to commemorate Naqba. To quote Tal Nahum, the party spokesman for Yisrael Beitenu, "The draft law is intended to strengthen unity in the state of Israel". Strength through unity; we've heard that one before.
You'd think, having chosen to criminalize the remembrance of the 700,000 who fled their homes, that Lieberman's party would have done enough, but it gets worse. The second bill, which went through its first reading in the Knesset this week, would make it a crime to call into question the legitimacy of the state of Israel as a Jewish State. All of this, while 20% of its population is Arab Muslim and Christian. In a democracy, there is this thing called Freedom of Speech. You cannot control what people thing. Haim Oron, leader of the leftist Meretz Party, exclaimed in the Knesset last wednesday "Have you lost all faith in Israel as a Jewish and democratic state? This crazy government, what on earth are you doing? A thought police? Have you all lost it?". Roni Bar-On, the finance minister in the previous Kadima government, asked "You want to punish people for talking? Soon, will you want to punish for thoughts?" The controlling of thought and speech is something that is inherently undemocratic. If Israel wants to keep its status as the "shining democracy" in the Middle East, it cannot let this bill pass.
But it gets even worse. A third bill, which is expected to come before the ministerial legislative committee tomorrow, enforces a "loyalty oath" on those seeking Israeli citizenship. A central tenant of Lieberman's election policy, it has been condemned by the entire Arab League, as well as the Higher Arab Monitoring Committee, have condemned the proposals, calling them "racist" and "fascist". The bill would also force Israeli Arabs - who are currently exempt from service - to serve in the IDF, despite the fact that they would inevitably end up taking up arms against their brethren on the other side of the the prison-wall that western journalism calls the "security barrier".
Not only have Israeli Palestinians and Arabs been excluded from their homeland, which has now been claimed and colonized by emigrants from Europe who have proclaimed it "a Jewish state"; not only have they been often treated as enemies by their own state, relegated to a "second class citizen" position; but now they are forced to accept it. The natural yearning for justice that the descendants of the 700,000 feel are now criminal in the State of Israel. Express loyalty, voice no opposition, and do not mourn your loss in public; that is the message being sent.
The quest to transform Israel from a Jewish democracy to a democracy is about to be criminalized. If apartheid did not already exist in Israel, it is about to. The actions of these ultranationalists are so absurd that they could have been in dystopian fiction, the Handmaid's tale to V for Vendetta to Nineteen Eighty-Four. The unfortunate part is that it is not fiction, but a sickening and horrifying reality.
Ebook , by Autumn Reed
6 years ago
3 comments:
Starting from the top:
1. To support the assertion that the Arab states attacked Israel to "save the Palestinians", you have to ignore Israel's public acceptance of the 1948 partition plan (and the Arab's rejection thereof); the public assertions of the Arab leadership that they would "throw the Jews into the sea"; and God knows how many other things.
Not only that, the fighting after the partition plan was adopted did not result in the deaths of 2-300,000 Palestinians and the expulsion of 700,000 Palestinians. The Palestinians left after Israel declared independence, and only about 2-3,000 Palestinians (and a equivalent number of Jews) were killed in the fighting before then.
Not only that, leftist scholars have repeatedly taken Morris' works wildly out of context; even he has condemned them for their charlatanism. What Morris has actually concluded was that the Palestinian exodus was largely due to Palestinians fleeing of their own accord in the face of the advancing Israeli forces, fearing that the atrocities Arab forces wreaked upon Jews would be returned upon them (admittedly aided by some of the fringe extremist groups in the Zionist camp.)
Morris even takes pains to point out that unabiguous cases of Israeli expulsion of Palestinians were not due to an actual "master plan", but rather were due to battlefield decisions and what was considered a military necessity. In contrast, the expulsion of nearly 1,000,000 Jews from Arab countries was completely planned out; funny that scholars like Chomsky and Finkelstein don't care to mention that.2. You'd think that the real catastrophe they should be mourning would be their consistent failure to accept peace agreements offered by Israel, whether in 1948, 1967, 2000, or now; or perhaps the fact that the Arab countries around Israel have used the Palestinian refugees as political pawns and/or disposable chattle in their fight to destroy Israel; or perhaps the fact that the persistent hatred and demonization of Jews by Muslims around the world is the only thing keeping them from having their own state, in peace, alongside Israel. But, instead, they protest against Israel's existence; a country that gives its Muslim citizens far more rights and opportunities than any other Muslim country in the Middle East. Couple that with the fact that Nakba rallies often, either implicitly or explicitly, call for the destruction of Israel, and I can definitely understand Lieberman's wanting to ban it.
3. Even if these bills are passed by the Knesset (which I'm not convinced will happen, as Labour will never agree to any of the bills), the Israeli Supreme Court will never allow them to become law. This is the court that has twice allowed Arab parties explicitly calling for the destruction of Israel to run in Israeli elections.
the figure of 2-3,000 is likely taken from Dershowitz. You've never actually read the original Morris books (Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict), where - on page 256 - he states that "Altogether about 200,000 to 300,000 Arabs" were killed in the fighting. Everyone, from Chosmky to Dershowitz, has asserted that the Palestinians were "ethnically cleansed".
Morris is used because he is one of the "official" Israeli historians. The context is not what I'm particularly concerned with, but the numbers.
Secondly, you fail to realize that it was the Arab League and the PLO that offered peace in 1982, and the Arab League and Fatah that offered peace in 2008, and Egypt and Jordan that offered peace in 1971. Israel rejected all three, resulting in its being invaded in 1973, and on it invading Lebanon in 1982 and Gaza in 2009. At the moment, the Arab League is willing to fully recognize the state of Israel in exchange for the creation of a viable Palestinian state, yet Israel is now the one who rejects peace accords.
Thirdly, I'd understand Lieberman's point of view if his own supporters didn't repeatedly chant "death to the Arabs" at his rallies, and if he hadn't called for Arab MKs to be "taken care of", or for Palestinians arrested in Israel to be "dumped into the Dead Sea".
Correction; Israel used to give Arab citizens full rights. If these bills pass, that will change.
Think before you act out of synapse, for your own good.
Even though I'm willing to leave the issue of Morris' scholarship at that, I find it hard to believe that Jewish forces that had (at first) more soldiers than personal weapons could slaughter 300,000 Arabs in such a short time. Even within the scope of his book (1881-1998) I have a hard time believing total casualties (let alone Arab casualties) could be so high. Could you at least lay out what the breakdown of the casualties is?
And on the subject of peace offers by Arab countries, what you fail to realize is that every single peace offer given by Arab countries requires Israel to accept all the refugees (and their descendents) that fled in 1948 and 1967. Doing so would mean the end of Israel as a Jewish state, as there would be a Palestinian majority in both countries; the Jews need look only at Lebanon to see what happens when Muslims turn from minorities to majorities in foreign countries. The Arabs, at least right now, do not want peace with Israel; rather, they are trying to destroy it by stealth, having failed with force of arms.
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