Israel as a Democracy
Updated 2024-04-03
2024-03-02 Thousands protest in ‘Tel Aviv’, Israeli Police conduct arrests Israeli settlers protested on Saturday evening in “Tel Aviv”, condemning Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government policies regarding the Israeli captives held by the Palestinian Resistance in the Gaza Strip, calling for early elections.
Israeli media reported that thousands of settlers gathered in Kaplan Square in central “Tel Aviv” to protest against the government and demand an immediate detainee-captive exchange. The protesters at the “Azrael Junction” blocked the road in both directions, and Israeli police arrested seven demonstrators on charges of disturbing public order. Additionally, authorities recorded 15 traffic violations committed by the demonstrators. Hence, the Israeli police tried to disperse the demonstrators using force. https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/thousands-protest-in–tel-aviv—israeli-police-conduct-arre
2024-01-05 The myth of Israel’s ‘democracy’ w/Ilan Pappé | The Chris Hedges Report Israel’s status as a bona fide democracy is often taken to be a self-evident truth, but a more critical look at the history and reality of Zionism calls this into question. After all, how can a democracy exist in a country constitutionally defined as an ethnostate that can only exist through the suppression and gradual elimination of its Others? Israeli historian Ilan Pappé joins The Chris Hedges Report for a discussion on Israel as an inherently colonial, and therefore anti-democratic, project.
Ilan Pappé is a professor with the College of Social Sciences and International Studies at the University of Exeter in the UK, where he directs the European Centre for Palestine Studies, and co-directs the Exeter Centre for Ethno-Political Studies. Prior to coming to the UK, Pappé was a historian and politician in Israel. He is the author of several books, including The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1PKlV1JMBU
2023-09-23 Gatekeepers of democracy: The 3 women who are the Israeli gov’t’s biggest enemies By chance (or not), the government’s three biggest enemies, the gatekeepers of democracy and public services, happen to be women.
This year, Rosh Hashanah came at the end of one of the most challenging years in Israel’s history. The country is facing difficulties that run the full gamut of society: the economy, high cost of living, security, terrorism, and internal strife. Above all, this year has been marked by internal conflicts that have led to division among the Israeli people, tearing the country apart from within. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s sixth government, the most religious and extremist government in Israel’s history, promised stability and tranquility. And yet during the nine months of its existence, its leaders have not stopped to lay down their swords for even one moment.
From the judicial reform to the budget allocations for settlers and haredim and the daily attacks by coalition MKs on the gatekeepers – the Supreme Court and senior IDF and security establishment leaders – the Netanyahu-Ben-Gvir-Smotrich government has left no stone unturned in its comprehensive attack on anyone who does not toe the line. Ever since Justice Minister Yariv Levin’s belligerent reform roused the liberal camp, which launched unprecedented and massive weekly protests, the government has not stopped creating new reasons for the protesters to take to the streets and defend their cause.
Just this week, for example, Netanyahu and his coalition partners compared the demonstrators to Israel’s greatest enemies, such as Iran, the PLO, and BDS, which only fanned the flames of protest in Israel and in the US. https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/politics-and-diplomacy/article-760078
2023-01-11 Israel Was Never a Democracy: So why is the West Lamenting End of “Liberal” Israel? US Secretary of State Tony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan reportedly “hinted ” that the US government would also boycott “other right-wing extremists” in Netanyahu’s government. However, these strong concerns seemed absent from the congratulatory statement by the US Ambassador to Israel, Tom Nides, on the following day. Nides relayed that he had “congratulated (Netanyahu) on his victory and told him that I look forward to working together to maintain the unbreakable bond” between the two countries.
In other words, this ‘unbreakable bond’ is stronger than any public US concern regarding terrorism, extremism, fascism, and criminal activities. Ben-Gvir is not the only convicted criminal in Netanyahu’s government. Aryeh Deri, the leader of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, was convicted of tax fraud in early 2022 and, in 2000, he served a prison sentence for accepting bribes when he held the position of interior minister. Bezalel Smotrich is another controversial character, whose anti-Palestinian racism has dominated his political persona for many years. While Ben-Gvir has been assigned the post of national security minister, Deri has been entrusted with the ministry of interior and Smotrich with the ministry of finance.
Palestinians and Arab countries are rightly angry, because they understand that the new government is likely to sow more violence and chaos. With many of Israel’s sinister politicians in one place, Arabs know that Israel’s illegal annexation of parts of the Occupied Palestinian Territories is back on the agenda; and that incitement against Palestinians in Occupied East Jerusalem, coupled with raids of Al-Aqsa Mosque will exponentially increase in the coming weeks and months. And, expectedly, the push for the construction and expansion of illegal settlements is likely to grow, as well. These are not unfounded fears. Aside from the very racist and violent statements and actions by Netanyahu and his allies in recent years, the new government has already declared that the Jewish people have “exclusive and inalienable rights to all parts of the Land of Israel”, promising to expand settlements, while distancing itself from any commitments to establishing a Palestinian State, or even engaging in any ‘peace process’. https://www.blackagendareport.com/israel-was-never-democracy-so-why-west-lamenting-end-liberal-israel
2022-07-28 Ex-soldier: My commanders ‘handed me over’ to be raped by jailed terror convict Former prison guard says army tried to silence her, implores public to urge investigative committee over scandal that allegedly saw female soldiers ‘pimped’ to Palestinian inmates. “Hila” said she was “handed over” by her commander to a dangerous terrorist “so that he could hurt me and sexually abuse me again and again,” and added that other female guards suffered the same fate. She identified her victimizer as the person who has been named in the media in connection with “the pimping of female prison guards,” and claimed that in the prison he was known as the “commander.” Hila said that throughout her service at Gilboa Prison, “I became a prisoner, the private sex slave” of the convict.
According to Hila, the prisoner “controlled all the officers and staff, who listened to him and carried out his ‘commands’ without debate.” The man, she said, “walked around the prison freely, uncuffed, and with his filthy hands touched the bodies of female soldiers without consequence. Everybody knew, everybody was silent. Everybody was afraid. Everybody worked for him.”
Earlier this week the Ynet news site reported that a Palestinian prisoner convicted of terrorism, Mahmoud Atallah, was being investigated by police over sexual assault while behind bars. Atallah has been in solitary confinement since 2018, over a scandal in which an intelligence officer allegedly “pimped” female guards to him and to other Palestinian inmates, at his request. A female soldier who came forward said that she had been ordered to accompany Atallah around the facility, which gave him opportunities to assault her, including by groping her buttocks, while her bosses turned a blind eye. In exchange, Atallah, a powerful figure among the prisoner population, kept the facility quiet for the prison staff.
The reports alleged that the intelligence officer, Basha, had placed female guards in the facility’s security wing at the request of Atallah. Channel 12 news has reported three soldiers were involved in the case. In an interview with Channel 12 last year, Basha denied the allegations, saying they “aren’t true” and that the female soldiers had in fact been “agents” tasked — with their full consent — with extracting information from the inmates. https://www.timesofisrael.com/ex-soldier-my-commanders-handed-me-over-to-be-raped-by-jailed-terror-convict/
2016-07-16 IDF’s chief rabbi-to-be permits raping women in wartime Col. Eyal Karim, the IDF’s intended next chief rabbi, has previously provided misogynistic interpretations of Jewish law that consider female conscription ‘utterly forbidden’ and permits raping ‘attracting Gentile women’ as a way to keep up morale; female MKs and women’s rights organizations, incensed, call for his appointment to be cancelled.
The 59-year-old colonel was chosen to replace the outgoing chief rabbi, Brig. Gen. Rafi Peretz, who is stepping down after six years in the position. Karim has been serving as the head of the Rabbinate Department in the Military Rabbinate. He is an alumnus of the Bnei Akiva Nachalim and the Ateret Cohanim yeshivas, and he served previously as a combat paratrooper, eventually commanding their elite reconnaissance unit, before taking a break from the military and eventually returning to its rabbinate.
“What are the problems with conscripting girls to the army?” Karim replied, “In a situation that existed, such as in the War of Independence, that exposed the nation of Israel to an existential threat, and the reality is defined as actually pikuach nefesh (a Jewish concept that requires setting aside most religious restrictions in order to save a life —ed.), then women also participated in defending the people and the country, even though the reality wasn’t so modest. But currently, we aren’t in a situation of actual pikuach nefesh. “Because the damage to modesty that is likely to be caused to a girl and to the nation is decisive, the greats of the generation and the chief rabbinate have ruled that girls serving in the IDF is completely forbidden.”
The rabbi gave a more shocking answer on the same site when asked if soldiers were permitted to rape women during war. Karim replied that, as part of maintaining fitness for the army and the soldiers’ morale during fighting, it is permitted to “breach” the walls of modesty and “satisfy the evil inclination by lying with attractive Gentile women against their will, out of consideration for the difficulties faced by the soldiers and for overall success.” https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4827240,00.html
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