From: Michael Schwartz
Sent: Wednesday, July 13, 2011 9:15 AM
To: IRAQVIEWS-L@LISTS.SUNYSB.EDU
Subject: FW: Re: An outraged article in yesterday's Ha'aretz
Michael Schwartz
ms42@optonline.net
This article, published in the Israeli liberal newspaper, calls out the latest in a series of internal developments within
Quite amazing.
· Published 18:18 12.07.11
· Latest update 18:18 12.07.11
Israel 's boycott law: The quiet sound of going fascist
This is the one. This is where the slope turns nowhere but down. When the Knesset passed the boycott law, it changed the history of the state of Israel .
By Bradley Burston Tags: Palestinians Israel settlements Israel occupation Israel boycott
This is the one. Don't let what we like to call the relative calm here, fool you. When the Knesset passed the boycott law Monday night, it changed the history of the state of
In real time, a tipping point of great magnitude can sound a lot like nothing at all. But if the Boycott Law makes it past challenges filed by human rights and pro-peace organizations in
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Benjamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak and 10 other cabinet ministers already know this. That's why they failed to show up for the vote.
They stayed away because they know that this is the stain that may prove indelible. The Boycott Law is the litmus test for Israeli democracy, the threshold test for Israeli fascism. It's a test of moderates everywhere who care about the future of this place.
This is the one. This is where the slope turns nowhere but down.
Q. What is wrong with the law?
1. The measure curbs political freedom of expression in
2. The measure erases the legal differentiation between settlements and
3. The Knesset's apolitical Legal Advisor Eyal Yinon has ruled that the law's broad definition of "boycotting the state of
4. The effect of the law could be crippling to the efforts of all organizations and many individuals working for Israeli-Palestinian peace and enhanced freedoms and human rights within
Q. Who benefits from all of this?
For the hard right, this is a clear win-win. First, there is the language of the law, through which
Secondly, the more untenable the law, the more anti-democratic its spirit and the more delusional its provisions, the more it delights those within the pro-settlement power base. Furthermore, this increases the likelihood that the High Court – reviled by the far-right and radical religious - will strike it down, only adding luster to those who incite against the Court.
Q. Who is fighting the law?
The Gush Shalom organization Tuesday filed the first High Court legal challenge to the new law.
The Association for Civil Rights in Israel, the Coalition of Women for Peace, Physicians for Human Rights, the Public Committee Against Torture in
A number of
Q. How dare you call this a step toward fascism in
I'm pretty much no different from everybody else here - just learning by doing. I’m learning about fascism one step at a time. "Now they tell me," I'm thinking to myself. I’m learning that the success of the Boycott Bill is a textbook case of the quiet appeal, the brilliant disguise, the endlessly adaptable expertise in the workings of democracy , that help explain the progress of fascism in our time. So this is what I've found out so far:
At first, it doesn't feel like fascism. That's why it works.
At first, to people whose nerves are bleeding and torn and altogether shot from generations of bearing arms and bearing wars and bearing children who will face still more wars, and between them, chaos and trauma and fury and grief and going without, fascism can sound like quiet. It can sound like actual calm. It's an understandable mistake. What have these people had to compare it to?
To people who feel vilified on reflex and demonized by rote, this new direction of ours can feel like freedom. That's why it works in a place like this. While it's getting up to speed, fascism's just another word for nothing left to lose.
I have friends whose livelihood is bound up with preserving the sense that democracy in
And this was not only because the day began with Glenn Beck being hosted in the Knesset by Likud MK Danny Danon, the carefully coiffed Mad Hatter of Israeli Tea Party wannabes.
It was how the day ended that mattered.
Q. What's next in line?
A list of new bills, beginning next week, each designed to choke debate, gag protest, punish criticism, and/or cement the rule of the right. First up: The return of a bill to create McCarthyesque committees to investigate organizations the panels deem leftist. The bill was originally withdrawn for lack of votes in Knesset, but, buoyed by the success of the Boycott Law, the McCarthy Bill's sponsors now believe they can win passage.
Q. Do you see any cause for hope at all?
Paradoxically, the Boycott Law may yet prove to be a disaster for its primary sponsors, the settlement movement. First, there is the economic element. While the law appears to effectively annex the territories, erasing any legal difference between
But what may more effectively stymie the march toward fascism in
The former Peace Now activist, sounding pained and put-upon, condemned boycotts as inherently undemocratic and illegitimate. In terms that were as worthy a description as any of the Boycott Law itself, Steinitz called boycotting "a belligerent attempt to impose one's will on a public which thinks otherwise".
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