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Human Rights
Violations in YESHA
Yitzchak Bam
A democratic
government that respects civil rights finds it uneasy to deal with
massive actions of protest and civil disobedience. Citizens have
real power to influence the government, as governmental power to
control them and to preserve the public order is limited and
monitored by independent courts. According to these “rules of the
game” 10,000 determined protesters can make difference.
In the summer
of 2005, tens of thousands of Israelis tried to prevent the eviction
from Gush Katif and North Samaria by means of civil protest and
civil disobedience; youth blocked roads and families made their best
efforts to reach Gush Katif, despite police and army blockades. Had
the government played according to democratic rules, eviction from
Gush Katif would have been difficult and painful. However, it took
less than a week to pull the settlers and their supporters out. The
ease of the process can be explained by the fact that the
government, the police, the prosecutors and courts systematically
abused their powers and authority in order to suppress the protest
movement.
The police
abused its power using widespread brutality against the protesters.
The participants of non-violent (even though illegal) protest
actions were systematically beaten by police forces. The yardstick
of the brutality, which spread all over the country, from Safed in
the north, to Be`ersheva in the south, proved that these were not
singular and isolated cases of misuse of power by law-breaking
policemen, but a systematic abuse calculated to suppress and deter
the protesters.
The prosecution
abused its power to press charges for these crimes and imposed
pre-trial detention and others restrictions of liberty in cases that
didn’t justify such means. The prosecution and courts covertly, and
sometimes overtly, used the pre-trial liberty restrictions in order
to deter the general public and in order to convey a message of
deterrence to those planning to take part in protest. Such use of
arrests and pre-trial restrictions of liberty is illegal under
Israeli Law.
The Israeli law
regulating assemblies and public order almost have not changed from
the times of the British Mandate. On the other hand, Israeli law
regulating pre-trial arrest and detention powers is liberal and
progressive. According to the law, pre-trial detention or other
restrictions of liberty may be used if the accused is a threat to
public safety and security. Violent crimes, crimes against the
State’s security and drug dealing invoke presumption that the threat
to public safety exists. In cases pertaining to protesters against
the disengagement, the prosecution claimed, and the courts ruled,
that in “such difficult times” even non-violent offences against
public order show that the offender poses a threat to public safety
(as if s/he used violence or was a drug dealer), because of the
“ideological motivation” of the offender. Ruling so, the courts
abandoned their role as an impartial arbiter between the government
and citizens and mobilized to protest-suppression machinery.
All in all, a
massive abuse of police power and legal process, which was not
restrained by the courts, made it possible to suppress massive civil
protest and to evict Jewish settlers from their homes without
significant civil resistance.
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From
Winning the Heart to Winning the Land
Elyakim Ha`etzni
There is much
argument among the deported settlers, whether the methods chosen by
their leadership – restrained, passive and noble, hugging their
tormenters, sometimes weeping on their shoulders, displaying
Chagall-style scenes of Diaspora-Jews, going praying and weeping
into exile – whether this stance bore any fruits in the public
opinion of Israelis. The answer is in the negative. The net result,
as reflected in the pre-election polls, shows enhanced admiration
for Sharon and the army for a clean and efficient execution of the
deportation. Sharon is the winner, although all prognoses of the
settlers proved correct: The “disengagement” produced a hail of
missiles on the Negev and Ashkelon; the Hamas became the sole ruler
of Gaza; weapons and terrorists flow freely into the Gaza Strip;
terror is now perceived by the Arabs as the only proven means to
chase the Jews out.
The settler
leadership was neither ready to exact a political price from
Sharon’s establishment, nor to pay the necessary price – in police
brutality, mass arrests, in tarnishing their public image.
Therefore, the first lesson to be learned is: Don’t ask what the
people want, ask what they need. And be ready to pay the price. The
settlers relinquished radical, offensive options also because they
felt having a mission to “conquer the hearts” of the nation for
their ideals. It was a mistake. They should have done the exact
opposite: We have no intention to be “nice”. You need not love us.
Just respect us. The Arabs are not “nice”, and yet nobody would
dream to do to them what Sharon did to the Jews of Gaza and No.
Samaria, for fear of severe repercussions.
Therefore, when
the next wave of deportation approaches, some questions must be
asked. Is the existence of Jewish settlements on the Judean-Samarian
plateau, the struggle against “cleansing territory of Jews”, and
above all the Jewish birthright to each and every part of Eretz
Israel – in the center of our life?
Sharon pledges
that there will be no more unilateral “disengagements”. From now on,
he will travel only by the “Roadmap”. The next station on this
Roadmap is the establishment of a “Palestinian state with
provisional borders”. Meanwhile, Israel will be forced, in
accordance with the Roadmap – to make place for the
“provisory-borders state” by withdrawing from the whole central
Judea-Samaria plateau. True, even the Roadmap does not demand the
destruction of the Jewish settlements. Apparently, the UN, US, EU
and Russia were reluctant to put their signature on such racist,
“cleansing” doctrine. Sharon voluntarily took upon himself this
dirty job, and having completed the first stage of
Jewish-“transfer”, it is now a forgone conclusion that any further
progress on the Roadmap also entails total evacuation of the Jews
and destruction of their civilization.
The dimensions
of the next wave of destruction are estimated at approximately ten
times that of the first deportation: 80-100,000 Jewish settlers, in
80-100 communities and outposts. This will be accompanied by much
fanfare around the so-called “Settlements Blocks”, to be spared in
the meantime.
We are approaching
national elections. The deportation caused a severe national trauma.
But lo and behold, the next ethnic cleansing, spelling the utter
destruction of the whole settlement enterprise, is not even a topic
in the election campaign. Even the threatened communities themselves
are keeping an eerie silence in the face of the frightening clouds
hanging over their heads. This uncanny quiet reminds us of the
imperiled Jewish communities in the Diaspora and the strange
fatalism with which they met their fate. But we always thought that
the whole raison d’être
of Jewish sovereignty on their ancestral soil was – “never again!”
Therefore, the time has come to sound the tocsin in all the
settlements, and prepare the “Orange Camp” for the next, decisive,
battle. First and foremost: uncover the mask called “Settlement
Blocks” from the ugly face of destroying Zionism in the Jewish
heartland, and break the conspiracy of silence shrouding Sharon’s
next evil designs.
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From Tehran to the Twin Towers
and the Consequences of Appeasement
Mark Silverberg
In the Middle
East as elsewhere, only resolve in the face of terrorism is
respected. Anything less is perceived by the enemies of freedom as
weakness and vulnerability - both of which are fatal. Unfortunately,
for more than two decades, American foreign policy in the region
continually demonstrated an overwhelming lack of resolve in the face
of terrorist provocations. From the Carter to the Clinton
administration, American foreign policy was riddled with
indecisiveness, false post-Cold War security paradigms, a callous
disregard for the plight of the oppressed (favoring instead the
"stability" provided by Arab dictatorships), unprecedented faith in
multilateralism, and a dangerous post-Vietnam loathing of American
power.
As a
consequence, America protested, apologized, entered into ludicrous
written agreements with dictators, shied away from aggressive
action, and accommodated its enemies wherever possible, and, when
all else failed, it sought legal remedies for what were
fundamentally acts of war. It perceived acts of terrorism as
separate and distinct incidents rather than as a concerted attempt
to expel America and American influence from the region. Thus, when
Americans were kidnapped, held hostage and/or executed or when
American interests were attacked, it sent in its prosecutors rather
than it's marines.
In such an
atmosphere, America's enemies in the region concluded that the U.S.
was a "paper tiger" that neither could nor would
defend its people or it's national interests. It saw a nation that
spoke in principled terms, but was adverse to spending the blood and
treasure necessary to fight for them. This perception became
provocative. The monsters of the Middle East came to believe that
America was weak and could be defeated if it was constantly
humiliated. Only with the events of 9/11 would the sleeping giant
begin to understand the true nature of the culture that confronted
it.
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Washington’s Foreign Policy in the Middle East
Krzysztof Bojko
American policy vis-à-vis the Middle East and
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict stems from clearly defined
political objectives. First and foremost, there is a desire to
perpetuate its status as the primary political and economic factor
in the region, which manifests itself in ensuring the uninterrupted
flow of oil and disseminating democracy and human rights. In the
past, Washington took action to stabilize the situation in the
Middle East primarily by halting Soviet expansionism, providing aid
to Israel during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, by means of the 1978 Camp
David initiative and the Israeli-Egyptian peace and in building the
coalition against Iraq in 1991.
In terms of the Israeli-Palestinian issue, it
is worth noting the 1991 Madrid Conference, which was based on the
principle of “land for peace”. That was also the basis for the 2000
Camp David summit, sponsored by President Clinton. The outbreak of
the intifada in the immediate aftermath of the failure in
Camp David, at first had no impact on Washington’s policy vis-à-vis
the conflict. During President George W. Bush’s first term in
office, his administration refrained from any profound involvement
in the conflict. The President’s envoy, CIA Director, George Tenet
sought to achieve a cease fire between the parties and a return to
the negotiating table, without much success. The real change took
place in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack in the
United States and the significant increase in the influence of the
neo-conservatives in the administration. Washington’s embarking on a
global war on terrorism, including a wide-ranging war in Afghanistan
and Iraq, brought Washington and Jerusalem closer together. The
strengthening of the ties between President Bush and the Israeli
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon contributed to a chill in relations
between the United States and the Palestinian Authority, with the
Americans openly accusing Yasir Arafat of supporting terrorism.
Beginning in 2004, the Americans embarked on a broad initiative
designed to promote democratization in the region, with the
overthrow of Saddam Hussein the first step in a process meant to
include the Palestinian Authority. The political course of action in
the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was already proposed
by Washington, along with the Quartet, in 2003 in the form of the
“road map”, which centered on the concept of two states between the
Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River - Israel and Palestine.
Israel initiated the evacuation of the settlements in the Gaza Strip
and Northern Samaria. Arafat’s death on the one hand and the
Palestinian Authority elections scheduled for January 2006 on the
other, provide hope and the chance for a continuation of the peace
process in the Middle East.
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Tocqueville And American Foreign Policy:
With A Glance At Israel (1)
Paul Eidelberg and Will Morrisey
One customarily
refers all important questions concerning American politics and
society to Alexis de Tocqueville. For only the obtuse regard
Democracy in America as a mere historical document, a portrait of a
simpler time and place. Americans recognize themselves in
Tocqueville’s Americans, despite the industrial revolution,
high-tech, and the global village.
It may well be,
moreover, that Democracy in America can teach us much about Israel
and about many Israelis. Even though Israel (as the first author has
shown) is not a democracy from a political perspective, this does
not diminish Tocqueville’s potential relevance to this country
because by democracy he does not mean a form of government so much
as a way of life. In other words, Tocqueville is primarily concerned
about the sociological characteristics of American democracy, which
characteristics may also be found among many assimilated Israelis.
Still, one does
not usually refer questions of foreign policy to Tocqueville.
Nevertheless, that extraordinary philosopher saw that “a democracy
can only with difficulty regulate the details of an important
undertaking, persevere in a fixed design, and work out its execution
in spite of serious obstacles. It cannot combine its measures with
secrecy or await their consequences with patience.”
Tocqueville
would not have been surprised by the mistakes the U.S. made before
9/11. He saw that, given the democratic love of physical
gratification, “There are two things that a democratic people will
always find very difficult, to begin a war and to end it.”
How indeed can
the President of the United States arouse his fellow-citizens to
engage and persevere in a war against Islam, when Americans are
bombarded daily by media steeped in moral relativism, which saps the
will to win? And how does this President maintain moral consistency
when his country’s economy depends on Saudi oil, and when his
people, habituated to ease and comfort, will not long endure the
material sacrifices demanded by a protracted (and amorphous) war?
As for Israel,
how can it win a war against its enemies when Israel’s political
elites are forever intoning the mantra of peace, and when its
military, emasculated by the doctrine of “self-restraint”, lack
cardia, “heart”, and dynamis, “the will to fight”.
Americans and
Israelis can learn much from Tocqueville.
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The
Nightmare Scenario: London, England, March 15, 2007
Tony Blankley
The West, says author
Tony Blankley in his new book, is down to its last chance. Within
our lifetimes, Europe could become Eurabia: a continent overwhelmed
by militant Islam that poses a greater threat to the United States
than even Nazi Germany did. In The West’s Last Chance, you’ll
learn: * What really happens if Islamist terrorists acquire weapons
of mass destruction – it’s worse, and more likely than you think. *
How Europe is already well on its way to being a launching pad for
Islamist terrorism. * Why Europe’s plummeting birthrates could wreak
huge upheavals on the Continent – and how the United States could
face a similar fate. * What’s holding the US government back from
fighting the Islamist threat to the best of its ability. * Why the
US has ignored the lessons of WWII – lessons that could hold the
secret to winning the War on Terror. * How liberalism degenerated
from the war-winning policies of FDR to an ideology of Western
suicide.
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Ahmadinejad’s Call for Israel’s Elimination:
A Case Study of Incitement to Genocide
Manfred Gerstenfeld
In the last quarter of
2005, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made several genocidal calls for the
elimination of Israel. Ahmadinejad also threatened the West. These
statements were followed up by a number of others denying the
Holocaust. His views were supported by several senior Iranian
personalities. In the past, other senior Iranian leaders such as the
Ayatollahs Khomeini and Ali Khamenei and former president Ali Akbar
Hashemi Rafsanjani have made similar calls. Many lower level Iranian
officials have repeated these words over the years.
Ahmadinejad’s call for
the elimination of Israel led to many condemnations, including from
the UN Security Council and the European Union. This reaction
differed from Western silence regarding previous genocidal
declarations of Iranian leaders. This can be partly understood
against the background of strong American and European opposition to
Iran’s nuclear program. Ahmadinejad’s incitement enhanced Western
awareness of how potentially dangerous Iran is to their own
societies.
Several condemnations
linked Iran’s threat to the lessons of the Holocaust. Most Muslim
countries remained silent, though Turkey expressed disapproval. Few
voices outside Iran supported Ahmadinejad’s expressions. Among them
the Aksa Brigade, the armed wing of the Palestinian Fatah party,
which affirmed its support for the elimination of Israel. Also some
Muslim extremists in Europe supported Ahmadinejad’s remarks.
Israel undertook
diplomatic action which led to a Security Council resolution. It
also proposed the exclusion of Iran from the United Nations. Iran’s
threat of Israel’s extinction serves as a warning of the country’s
intentions toward the international community. Only time will tell
whether the Western reactions reflect a changing attitude on their
behalf, or whether the condemnations of Ahmadinejad’s words were the
result of a temporary combination of circumstances.
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On Metaphors
and Current Affairs
Kenneth Mischel
It’s fashionable now to
characterize the protean Jew-hatred sweeping across the globe as a
misguided reaction to tensions in the Middle East. As people
receive a steady diet of images of Israeli helicopters, tanks,
fences and checkpoints, these images disturb them so that some
cross the line separating anger at Israel to hatred of the Jewish
people.
Fashionable as this
common wisdom may be, it is patently false, because it relies upon
a false theory of cognition: the human mind is not a tabula
rosa, its thoughts passively formed by the imprinting of
images. The viewers of “disturbing” Israeli images surely bring
numerous thoughts to the viewing, many of them barely articulated,
many only partially formed. These thoughts are crucial in forming
their reactions.
What are these
thoughts? This essay explores what was said and written about Jews
and Israel in non-political contexts during the 1990s, a time in
which anti-Semitism appeared to be on the wane and acceptance of
Israel into the “community of nations” appeared to be moving
forward. Specifically, the piece examines the cheering rituals of
Dutch soccer fans, a Caldecott Award-winning children’s book,
Golem, and a prominent French philosopher’s meditation,
Heidegger and “the Jews".
Unconnected as these
three may seem, a common thread unites them. Each uses the
metaphoric style as cover while disparaging Jews or Israel not for
what they do, but for what they are. Such disparagement could not
have been directly delivered (until very recently), because it
would have exceeded the bounds of respectable discourse.
Accordingly, each of these sources disparages Jews or Israel
indirectly, using metaphors to do so. In a word: the
metaphoric style made it possible for the most recalcitrant of
deceits to openly reemerge in civilized society.
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