This 25 July 2014 video about Moshe Feiglin is called Israeli Politician Calls for Ethnic Cleansing of Palestinians.
From Israel National News:
Yossi Sarid Connects Feiglin with Hitler
(IsraelNN.com) Former Meretz MK Yossi Sarid has charged that Likud Knesset candidate Moshe Feiglin is a fascist and based his charges on a 13-year-old interview in which Feiglin stated that Hitler was “an unparalleled military genius.’ Feiglin also said in the same interview with the Haaretz newspaper, “Nazism promoted Germany from a low to a fantastic physical and ideological status.”
The same newspaper this week published an article by Sarid, who implicitly compared Nazism with the new Likud Knesset candidate list, which includes Feiglin and other strong nationalists. “The list’s color is as brown now as that brown house [Peace House] in Hevron,” Sarid charged. “Feiglin and his cronies…are not ‘radicals’ but fascists by any acceptable definition….They also [are] the bearers of severe personal disturbances, which hide behind a layer of patriotic make-up, under the camouflage of the Jewish faith.”
Feiglin is not just a ‘Likud Knesset candidate’ for the coming elections in Israel. Opinion polls expect the Rightist Likud to become the biggest party; which would mean that Feiglin would certainly become a member of parliament. And not just any MP: according to media reports, most Likud candidates are supporters of Feiglin rather than of official Likud leader Netanyahu. Netanyahu is more moderate than Feiglin; though I am afraid, “moderate” mainly limited to not publicly praising Adolf Hitler. It is horrible that in countries like Israel, Poland, and Russia, with so many people from families who suffered horribly from Hitler, some people now praise this biggest criminal of all time. And that people like that can become part of government coalitions, like happened in Poland. Or, maybe after the Knesset elections, become “kingmaker”, the most powerful person within the biggest political party, probably the core of the new government.
By the way, the Israel National News site has an advertisement by an anti gay religious group.
From the BBC:
Livni sparks Arab ‘transfer’ row
Ms Livni‘s comments echo the position of some of Israel’s most hard line figures
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni has sparked controversy by saying a Palestinian state would provide “a national solution” for Israel’s Arabs.
Politicians from the minority Arab community have demanded she clarify if it means that Arabs citizens will face loss of rights in Israel or expulsion.
Israeli politicians have long grappled with the issue of a growing proportion of ethnic Arabs in the Jewish state.
“Transfer” has been mooted explicitly only by far right-wingers in Israel.
Ms Livni is hoping to become Israel’s next prime minister, and opinion polls suggest she is in a close race with the right-wing Likud party.
Some Israeli politicians have suggested she may be trying to project a hardline image in an attempt to draw votes away from Likud. …
Meanwhile, a prominent far right-wing Likud member, Moshe Feiglin, has been demoted on the party’s candidate list.
Mr Feiglin, a settler who has espoused extreme anti-Palestinian views, was originally 20th but has been moved to 36th, making his election much less likely.
Party officials said the change was for technical reasons relating to the promotion of regional candidates; Mr Feiglin alleged it was politically motivated.
Netanyahu or Feiglin, Israel’s future still looks dark: here.
How far-right Israeli politician Avigdor Lieberman could rip away any pretence of moderate democracy: here.
Lieberman likely to face money-laundering charges: here.
French Comedian Dieudonné’s Contempt Towards WWII Nazi Death Camp Deportees Arouses Indignation: here.
Dear Kitty. Some blog 
Divested & upgraded, awarded & invaded
Here follow the December 9, 2008 press picks from what was published recently by different sources -posted by TOI-staff on Occupation Magazine. (Today, we posted articles; OM is updated each day of the week, by different editors. For earlier articles use the powerfull search function & view the sections.)
Activism:
Monday Dec. 15, Umm El Fahm – Jews and Arabs stand together against the Kahane racists
http://www.kibush.co.il/show_file.asp?num=30448
Solidarity visit to Hebron – Saturday, 13.12.08
http://www.kibush.co.il/show_file.asp?num=30446
Articles:
Activists, physicians, university teachers on board in 4th Gaza blockade-busting voyage
Saed Bannoura – IMEMC – Two Jewish academics from the UK, Emeritus Professor Jonathan Rosenhead and Research Fellow Mike Cushman, both from the Department of Management at the London School of Economics, have joined the latest `Free Gaza` boat in an attempt to enable Palestinian university students to pursue their studies abroad.
http://www.kibush.co.il/show_file.asp?num=30435
Unilever divests from Beigel & Beigel, after study exposes settlement connection
Merijn de Jong/Hilla Dayan – Unilever is the fourth multinational pulling out of the occupied territories, following Heineken, the Swedish lock maker AssaAbloy and Soda Club.
http://www.kibush.co.il/show_file.asp?num=30445
Gaza: Silence is not an option
Richard Falk – Ma`an – Karen AbyZayd, who heads the UN relief effort in Gaza, offered first-hand confirmation of the desperate urgency and unacceptable conditions facing the civilian population of Gaza. Although many leaders have commented on the cruelty and unlawfulness of the Gaza blockade imposed by Israel, such a flurry of denunciations by normally cautious UN officials has not occurred on a global level since the heyday of South African apartheid.
http://www.kibush.co.il/show_file.asp?num=30438
EU, Israel to strengthen ties despite objections
Barak Ravid-Haaretz & Ma`an – Israel and the European Union (EU) voted to upgrade relations on Monday, despite opposition to the agreement by human rights advocates and Arab states. Throughout some 18 months of talks on the upgraded relationship, Egypt, the PA and other Arab countries lobbied against it. At the least, the Arabs argued, the upgrade should be conditioned on an Israeli settlement freeze. Reportedly, Israeli Foreign Minister Livni achieved this result by assuring the Europeans that “Israel is committed to the peace process and will not build new settlements” and that “outside interference could cause failure”.
http://www.kibush.co.il/show_file.asp?num=30437
From refugee camp to European Parliament: Palestinian seeks EU seat
Ma`an – A Palestinian born in a refugee camp in Lebanon is now campaigning to represent Denmark in the European Parliament. Fathi Al-Abed is the head of the Danish-Palestinian Friendship Association and a member of the Danish Socialist People`s Party. According to Al-Abed there are 28,000 Palestinians living in Denmark, part of a 300,000-strong Arab and Muslim community, a significant number in a nation of only five million.
http://www.kibush.co.il/show_file.asp?num=30436
Encountering Peace: Who owns the water?
Gershon Baskin – Jerusalem Post – Every project concerning water in the West Bank and Gaza requires the approval of the JWC. This is not the case for any water project in Israel, even though the same water resources are in question. Israel relates to all of the water resources, which are all essentially shared, as under its exclusive ownership.
http://www.kibush.co.il/show_file.asp?num=30439
Bil`in, December 7: awarded and invaded
Martin Forberg – International League for Human Rights – Even if the invasion was only for a short time and the young people were released later, the violent “normality” of the occupation must not be accepted by the international public if there is any real will to have a sustainable peace between Israelis and Palestinians!
http://www.kibush.co.il/show_file.asp?num=30441
Shin Bet vetoed Arab Israeli`s job as mosque imam
Toni O`Loughlin – The Guardian – Since the establishment of Israel we have given the Arab minority the feeling they were second-rate citizens, said Dan Yakir, a lawyer from ACRI. They are very ambivalent about the state that defines itself as Jewish. The Shin Bet deems public criticism of the state`s Jewish character as security threats.
http://www.kibush.co.il/show_file.asp?num=30444
Israel to Open Commercial Crossings into Gaza after 34 days of near total closure
Justin Theriault – IMEMC/Ma`an – Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak decided on Monday that humanitarian aid will be allowed into the besieged Gaza Strip, after 34 days of near total closure. According to Nasser Serraj, the Assistant Undersecretary of the Ministry of National Economy in Gaza, Forty truckloads of food and medical supplies will be allowed through the Kerem Shalom crossing and 30 other trucks loaded with grain will pass through the Karni crossing. [Every time that the situation in Gaza becomes too desperate and draws too much international attention, Barak is easing the pressure just a bit (ed.)].
http://www.kibush.co.il/show_file.asp?num=30440
Extreme Right, settlement-friendly candidates do well in Likud primaries
Attila Somfalvi – Y-Net – Netanyahu`s ploy in the past weeks was to present a galaxy of “stars” adhering to the Likud, who were intended to give the party a “moderate, right of centre” image. This was foiled by the organized extreme right faction of Moshe Feiglin, active as “a party within a party”, succeeded to get many of its nominees placed in prominent positions in the Likud list of candidates and push aside Netanyahu`s favourites.
http://www.kibush.co.il/show_file.asp?num=30434
Earlier, recommended articles
Longing for the settlers of yore
Zvi Bar`el – Haaretz – “It was quiet in Hebron before the army decided to evacuate the ‘House of Domination,’ the elders of the settlements lamented last week, as if they had managed after generations of efforts to set the rules of the game and a ceiling for protection money. Everything was so wonderful, the Arabs knew their place, the torched vegetable stand knew what crime it had committed and the soldiers knew whose orders were supreme. Now the leftist High Court comes along with the damned police and they mess it all up”
http://www.kibush.co.il/show_file.asp?num=30420
Obama must help Israel break its territorial addiction
Alex Sinclair – Haaretz – “Israel is like an alcoholic, except we are addicted to territories, not to tequila. Just as an alcoholic denies that he has an addiction, we too deny ours by talking about “painful compromises” without making any, or by waiting until we have already resigned from politics before daring to tell truth, or by moaning about religious extremists while voting for factions which in turn give these fundamentalists our money. ” [Editor`s comment (VB): Thank you, Dr. Sinclair, for speaking up, may there be more US Jews who do so.
http://www.kibush.co.il/show_file.asp?num=30396
Daily headlines & action alerts in English http://www.kibush.co.il and Hebrew http://www.kibush.co.il/index_h.asp
Articles posted on earlier days are on top in the sections on the homepage http://www.kibush.co.il/#top#top
Also possibility of searching for articles back to 2004
—
TOI-Billboard is the weekly (approximately) ‘ezine’ of the independent THE OTHER ISRAEL bi-monthly (approximately) peace newsletter, existing since 1983, and published by its editors Adam Keller & Beate Zilversmidt.
The Other Israel printed issue – http://otherisrael.home.igc.org
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Gay Marriage Ban Inspires New Wave of Activists
“We said: ‘Why are we going to wait for the organizations to have a protest? They’re going to have to go through all their bureaucracies to get approval. Why don’t we just do it?’ ”
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Evangelical lobbyist quits after backing gay unions
Andrew McLemore
Published: Friday December 12, 2008
The spokesman for the largest evangelical group in the country resigned after telling National Public Radio that he backed same-sex civil unions.
Although Rev. Richard Cizik apologized for the remark, the damage had been done to his standing within the evangelical community.
Cizik “lost the leadership’s confidence as spokesman, and that’s hard to regain,” said Rev. Leith Anderson, the president of the National Association of Evangelicals, which has 30 million members.
The following is an excerpt from Cizik’s Dec. 2 interview with Terry Gross of NPR:
“I’m shifting, I have to admit. In other words, I would willingly say that I believe in civil unions. . . . We have become so absorbed in the question of gay rights and the rest that we fail to understand the challenges and threats to marriage itself — heterosexual marriage. Maybe we need to reevaluate this and look at it a little differently.”
His backing of gay unions isn’t the first time Cizik has angered the evangelical community.
More than two dozen fellow leaders of the NAE sought to oust Cizik for his outspoken support to fight global warming, which his detractors called a “relentless campaign.”
A letter signed by the leaders said Cizik ws “using the global warming controversy to shift the emphasis away from the great moral issues of our time,” which they defined as abortion, homosexuality and sexual morality.
Signatories included James C. Dobson, chairman of Focus on the Family, and Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Evangelical_lobbyist_quits_after_backing_gay_1212.html
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Uri Avnery
13.12.08
Tzipi?s Nation-State
IT SOUNDS like an invented story. And indeed it is.
In this tale, an American politician gets up and declares: The United States was founded by British Protestants who were persecuted in Europe for their Puritan beliefs. Therefore, the United States is an Anglo-Saxon Protestant state.
And he goes on: the United States is also a democratic state. Therefore, people with another background ? such as Native Americans, Africans, Latinos, Asians and Jews ? enjoy full equality. But they must know that the United States is an Anglo-Saxon nation-state, while they belong to other nation-states.
Sounds far-fetched? Indeed it is. No American politician would dream of uttering such a statement, even if he might feel it in his heart.
Here in Israel one can say such a thing, and nobody gets excited.
THIS WEEK Tzipi Livni did just that. She was speaking to high-school pupils ? the audience preferred by our politicians, who know that the great majority of them are conformists who will listen to anything without protest. Standing in front of these pupils, boys and girls, who will be called up by the army in a year or two, Tzipi disclosed her inner convictions.
Israel, she said, is a Jewish and democratic state. The Arab citizens enjoy full civil rights. But they must know that this is the Jewish nation-state, while they belong to another nation, and their nation-state will be the putative Palestinian state.
This statement did not arouse a storm, not on the spot and not in the media. It does not contradict the convictions of most Israelis. The public accepts the view that Israel is a Jewish state, and that its Arab citizens are, at most, a tolerated minority.
What is special about Tzipi Livni is her emphasis on the two words ?nation state?. She has made them into her trademark and repeats them at every opportunity. They give her statements a certain respectability, the halo of a thought-out world-view, which makes her sound different from Ehud Olmert, Binyamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak, who, of course, think exactly the same.
NO ONE denies that the world is divided into nation-states. The nearest thing we have to a world parliament is called the ?United Nations?, meaning ?United Nation-States?. The question is only: what is a nation-state?
In historical terms, the nation-state is a relatively recent phenomenon. Only a hundred years ago, large parts of Europe belonged to multi-national empires. It was the dynasty that united the empire, not the national identity of the subjects. The Austrian Empire included people of more than a dozen nationalities, and so did the empire of the Russian Czar.
Actually, the national idea crystallized only in the 18th century. More and more thinkers adopted the view that a society with a common origin, a common cultural identity, a common language (mostly), a common territory and (usually) a common religion should be united in a state of its own, which should belong to them alone, and enjoy national independence.
The timing was not accidental. All over Europe, mass education systems sprang up and all the peoples developed a national consciousness. Slovaks and Slovenes began to wonder why they should be subject to the Austrian crown, Lithuanians and Latvians no longer found it natural that they should be oppressed by the Russian Czar. At the same time, economic and technological advances demanded states big enough to sustain a modern economy and a large enough army to defend its citizens (and perhaps to attack neighboring countries).
The classic nation-state was France. It developed a French nation with a nationalist world-view and a national pride, and that imposed its language and culture on the peoples that became part of France either by agreement or by force ? Alsatians in the East, Corsicans in the South, Basques in the West, Bretons in the North. British nationalism absorbed the Scots, the Welsh and some of the Irish. The people that were swallowed up by the big nations generally accepted this and developed a pride in their new nations. The Corsican Napoleon Bonaparte was the Frenchman par excellence, and the Jew Benjamin Disraeli created the British Empire.
That was the heyday of the classical nation-state: a national state, homogenous as far as possible, which at most tolerated its minorities or persecuted them outright, that demanded national conformism within and made little pretense of morality in its dealing with other nation-states.
It seems that Tzipi Livni takes such a nation-state as her ideal. But developments have long since left that stage behind.
The nation-state has not died, but it has changed almost beyond recognition.
THE UNITED STATES, too, is a nation-state. But that nation is very different from the one Tzipi Livni is dreaming about.
The American nation is composed of all the citizens of the United States. Lithuanians, Argentinians and Vietnamese become members of the American nation the moment they receive their citizenship. The heritage of Washington and Lincoln is conferred on them together with their passport. They are not required to change their religion or skin-color.
The ultimate confirmation of the success of this system has been given by the election of Barack Obama, the grandson of a Muslim from Kenya. Throughout the stormy election campaign, no one seriously claimed that he was not a complete American.
The American flag and the American constitution unite this modern nation. The President does not swear loyalty to the Fatherland, but to the constitution. Not the skin-color is important, not the ethnic origin, nor religion or language. Only citizenship. Even the requirement that the citizen should know at least basic English is not enforced as strictly as it once was.
The term WASP ? White Anglo-Saxon Protestant ? has long since been reduced to a half-jocular appellation. Demographic experts predict that in not so many years, the Whites of European origin will be a minority in the American nation-state. But it seems that this piece of news did not arouse a storm of alarm and anger.
Everybody understands that the future and robustness of the US-American nation do not depend on the religion and race of the American people. Therefore, there is no ?demographic problem? in America. Neurotic demographers like our Arnon Sofer would be considered cranks over there.
AS IN several other areas, the United States is a model for the rest of the world in this respect, too.
In Europe, the old nation-states persist. Even after World War II, when the Europeans woke up from their fatal nationalist intoxication and came to the conclusion that they had to create a united Europe, they rejected the idea of a unified European nation on the American model. They did not establish the ?United States of Europe?, but rather a ?European Union?, which is composed of a large number of nation-states. Yet a German or a Frenchman of 200 years ago would not believe their eyes if they were to walk down Unter den Linden or the Champs Elisee today.
The European nations are changing. They are opening up to the world. The idea of a homogenous nation, based on a common origin, is fading. Slowly, perhaps too slowly, tolerance towards ?the stranger in our midst? is growing, and citizenship is granted to inhabitants with a different ethnic origin and religion, like Turks in Germany and Africans in France. It is a difficult process that does not always advance smoothly, but that is the direction.
It is also necessary for the very survival of the European nations. Their birth-rate is decreasing, there are fewer and fewer local workers to sustain the economy and pay the taxes to cover the pensions of an aging population. Europe needs a steady stream of new immigrants, and these will join the European nations.
Angela Merkel will not tell her Turkish citizens: ?You can enjoy equality here, but you belong to the Turkish nation-state?. One can hardly imagine Gordon Brown telling the British citizens of Pakistani extraction: ?Your nation-state is Pakistan.?
The Arab citizens of Israel can be compared to the Swedish citizens of Finland. These constitute about 6% of the population, but they play an important role in the economy and other spheres of life. All signs in Finland are bilingual. Finland belongs to all its citizens. Ariel Sharon?s advisor, Dov Weisglas, once said that ?peace will come only when the Palestinians become Finns?. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that peace will come only when we ourselves ?become Finns?.
The Israeli Arab citizens in Kafr Kassem and Um-al-Fahm, near the Green Line, can be compared to the Alsatians in France, who have been living there for untold generations. Several times in history they have belonged to Germany. The last time was when Adolf Hitler annexed them to the Third Reich. Nowadays, the Alsatians are as French as any, with equal rights and obligations, and other aspects do not interest anybody. Would the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, the son of a Hungarian nobleman, declare that ?the nation-state of the Alsatians is Germany??
I KNOW, I know, all these examples do not apply to us. We Jews are special. Fact is, God chose us.
But with all due respect to God and Tzipi Livni, I must tell the Kadima candidate: ?Madam, what you are saying is already a little obsolete.? Since Vladimir Jabotinsky was born 128 years ago into the Jewish minority in Odessa, much water has flown down the Dniester river, and I am not sure that even he would have signed Tzipi?s statement. When he wrote that in our future state ?the son of the Arab, the son of Nazareth and my son? would live happily together, did he mean that the Jewish state he was dreaming about would not be the state of its Arab citizens, too?
I believe that nation-states will continue to exist for a long time to come. It seems that this is the social structure contemporary people prefer for the time being. A person feels a need for national identity.
But it will not be a narrow, closed nation-state, compulsively homogenous, based on nationalist-religious-linguistic conformity, hostile to its neighbors. The new nation-state will be open and cosmopolitan, respectful of minorities, a state of all its citizens, integrated in a regional partnership, a part of the global economy, a partner in the joint struggle for the preservation of this little planet.
That may be the future. And when does the future begins if not today?
permlink: http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1229205376/
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Uri Avnery
20.12.08
Spot the Difference
A MAN was asked about his sons. ?I have three,? he said, ?but one of them is a complete idiot.?
?Which one?? they asked.
?Take your pick,? he replied.
In 51 days, we shall vote for a new Knesset and a new government.
Three big parties are competing for the prize: Kadima, Likud and Labor.
From there on, see the joke.
IS THERE a real choice? In other words, are there any real differences between the three parties?
As in the game ?Spot the Difference?, they are so tiny that one needs really good eyes to discover them.
There are, of course, political differences between the three. But what the three parties, and the three leaders, have in common is far more important than what divides them.
Binyamin Netanyahu says that this is not the time for peace with the Palestinians. We have to wait until conditions are ripe. Not on our side, of course, but on the Palestinian side. And who is going to decide whether the conditions are ripe on the Palestinian side? Binyamin Netanyahu, of course. He or his successors, or the successors of his successors.
Tzipi Livni says ? or so it seems ? the very opposite. We have to talk with the Palestinians. What about? Not about Jerusalem, God forbid. And not about the refugees. So about what? About the weather, perhaps? Tzipi?s plan, one has to conclude, is to go on talking and talking and talking, and never to reach any practical agreement.
Ehud Barak has not withdrawn his fateful pronouncement of eight years ago, when he came back from the failed (thanks to him) Camp David conference: ?We have no partner for peace.?
Not one of the three has stood up and told the public in simple words: I am going to make peace with the Palestinians in the course of 2009. This peace will include the establishment of a Palestinian state based on the pre-1967 borders, with agreed minor border changes on the basis of 1:1, turning Jerusalem into the capital of the two states and agreeing on a reasonable solution of the refugee problem, a solution Israel can live with.
Not one of the three has offered any peace plan at all. Only hollow words. Only spin.
Like the alternative offered by Netanyahu: to ameliorate the living conditions of the Palestinians. Living conditions under occupation? When 600 roadblocks in the West Bank prevent free movement? When every violent act of resistance leads to collective punishment? When death-squads go out in the night to liquidate ?wanted men?? Only a madman would invest money in such a territory.
ALL THE THREE are united in their view that Hamas must be eliminated. True, not one of them declares publicly that the Gaza Strip should be reoccupied ? something that is wildly unpopular both with the public and the army chiefs. But all three support the tight blockade on the Gaza Strip, believing that if the population has no bread and the hospitals no medicaments or fuel, the Gaza public will rise up and overthrow the Hamas regime. For now, the opposite is happening. This week a quarter of a million people ? almost half the adult population of the Strip! ? took part in a rally to celebrate the birthday of Hamas.
Not one of the three has stood up and said: I shall talk with Hamas and bring them into the peace process.
Neither did one of the three get up and say: I shall make peace with Syria in the course of 2009. The terms are known, I accept them, I intend to sign.
Perhaps all three of them secretly think so. But each of them tells himself/herself: ?What, am I crazy? To take on the Golan settlers and their supporters in Israel?? Someone who is not prepared to remove even one miserable outpost in the West Bank, for fear of a clash with the fanatical settlers there, will not take any such risk on the Golan Heights either.
ON THE other hand, all three have the same emergency exit: the Iranian bomb. What would we do without it! ?The main danger to the existence of Israel is the Iranian bomb!? declares Barak. Declares Tzipi. Declares Netanyahu. A finely attuned choir.
Since the beginnings of Zionism, it has been looking for ways to escape from the ?Palestinian problem?. Why? Because if the Zionist movement had admitted that there even exists a Palestinian people, it would have had to find a solution to the actual situation and to the moral problem. Therefore, a hundred different pretexts have been found, each in its time, to ignore the dilemma.
Nowadays the Iranian bomb fulfils this function. Here is a clear and present danger. An existential danger. Stop bothering me about the Palestinian problem. Nothing urgent there. It can be postponed for a few years (or a few generations). The Iranian bomb is what needs immediate attention. After we solve this problem (it?s not clear how) we shall be free to deal with the Palestinian nuisance.
Logic, of course, says the opposite. If we sign a peace agreement with the entire Palestinian people and put an end to the occupation, the Persian rug will be swept from under the feet of Ahmadinejad and the likes of him. When the Palestinians recognize Israel and make peace, the anti-Israeli Crusade (or, rather, Crescentade) will lose its steam.
OK, SO in matters of war and peace there is no difference between the three. But what about the other issues?
The economic crisis fills the headlines. All the candidates promise to deal with it. To find any difference between their pronouncements, one would need a microscope.
One might have expected Netanyahu to be different from the others. After all, he was the High Priest of privatization. To privatize everything, from steel cables to shoestrings. This dogma has now collapsed in the United States, and is collapsing in Israel too. Does this bother Netanyahu? Does it make him more humble? Not in the least. Now he demands, without batting an eyelid, massive state intervention. Like Livni. Like Barak.
State and religion? Not one of the three demands separation between them. Not one demands civil marriage, or the rolling back of religious coercion, or the calling up of thousands of yeshiva students. Not one demands the inclusion of the core subjects ? like English and mathematics ? in the curriculum of the state-financed religious schools. God forbid! God forbid! After all, all of them will need Shas and/or the Orthodox party tomorrow.
The Arab citizens? All of the parties court them ardently. But not one of them promises them anything real. Real equality? Only in words. Cultural autonomy? Of course not. The implementation of the recommendations of the government commission of inquiry that was appointed after the October 2000 killings? Not a chance!
And the list goes on. Subject after subject.
SO IS THERE really no difference between the three? Is a vote for one of them the same as a vote for any of the other two?
I would not go that far.
There are small differences ? but when we are dealing with fateful matters, even a small difference is significant.
Netanyahu, for example, brings with him a very rightist crew. They include fascist elements that must not be ignored. There is a danger that he would set up a government that would include ?extreme-right? (meaning: outright fascist) parties, on top of the rightist-orthodox Shas party. His victory would signal to the whole world that Israel has chosen the path to the abyss. It may also bring up the possibility ? the nightmare of Israeli politics ? of a clash with the United States, now led by Barack Obama.
The battered (and rightly so) Labor Party at least includes a social-democratic element that makes it different from the other two. It is weak but not entirely insignificant.
Kadima, that cross-breed of leftist rightists and rightist leftists, is in spite of everything better than Likud, from which most of its candidates have sprung. Netanyahu and Livni grew on the same tree, but on different branches. Tzipi may still surprise us for the better. If Netanyahu springs any surprises at all, that would be a miracle.
Aside from the three big ones, there are, of course, several smaller one-issue parties, each in its own niche, which address specific sectors of the public and which have at least a clear and honest message: the Arab parties, Meretz, the Orthodox list, Shas, the Liberman party, the ?Jewish Home? (formerly National-Religious party). Probably they will be joined by some new election lists. Each of them is a story in itself, but none of them will set up the next government.
The real story is between the Three Big, and it is a sad story indeed.
The choice between them is a choice between bad, worse and still worse. Between toothache, migraine and backache.
Nothing good will come out of this election. The question is only how bad the results will be.
THE CONCLUSION: This must not happen again!
Quite probably, the next Knesset, too, will not last for more than a year or two. Then there would be new elections, which might well be fateful.
On February 11, 2009, the day after the coming elections, those who seek change must start to think anew. Those who long for a democratic, secular, progressive Israel, an Israel at peace with its neighbors and imbued with social justice within, must decide to take matters into their own hands,
They must start a new intellectual and organizational effort to realize these important aims. No longer to be satisfied with voting for the ?lesser evil? but finally to vote for the greater good, and – together with sectors that have not been partners up till now – to work out solutions that have not yet been tried in ways that have not yet been tried. To bring about an Obama-like miracle.
Instead of the three good-for-nothing sons, a fourth son must appear.
permlink: http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1229805840/
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Olmert on Netanyahu:
“Netanyahu established Hamas, gave it life, freed Sheikh Yassin and gave him the opportunity to blossom,” he said, adding that the current political situation in the Palestinian Authority came about “because of the nonsense that was done while Netanyahu was prime minister.”
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1170359844280&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
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Saeb Erakat – PLO Negotiations A airs Department – As instructed by The Israeli Government, Israeli Police in Occupied East Jerusalem allowed settler Moshe Feiglin – Likud Knesset Member living in the illegal settlement of Karnei Shomron – to invade Al Aqsa compound, the third holiest site in Islam and a symbol for all Palestinians, in company with other Israeli extremists. This is an extremely provocative action, especially considering Feiglin`s inflammatory statements such as his call during the recent bombings to evict Palestinians from Gaza and settle Jews in their place, and such statements as “You can`t teach a monkey to speak and you can`t teach an Arab to be democratic. You`re dealing with a culture of thieves and robbers. Muhammad, their prophet, was a robber and a killer and a liar.”
Click to access Israeli_Government_Allows_Extremist_Settler.pdf
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