Unlike Iran, Israel won’t face sanctions

Zvi Bar’el writes: U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton got it badly wrong: Israel isn’t Iran, and comparing it to Iran – as she did during her remarks at a closed session of the Saban Forum where she expressed shock over the treatment of women in Israel – demonstrates either ignorance or malice.

First, Iran isn’t considered a democracy: It openly and proudly adopted a system of government in which a religious scholar is the supreme leader. Israel, in contrast, wears a facade of democracy even as a select group of religious scholars who are only ostensibly committed to the law dictate the state’s way of life.

Israel isn’t Iran. Iran officially and openly separates unmarried men and women in public venues. In Israel, such segregation is against the law, but in practice, it is alive and well and sneering at the law. In the army, on buses that serve the ultra-Orthodox community and in state religious schools financed by the government, segregation flourishes.

Israel isn’t Iran. In Iran, human rights organizations can receive assistance from a defined list of international organizations and institutions, “with the approval of the relevant government ministers,” as Iranian law puts it. In Israel, proposed legislation would bar some organizations from receiving any money at all from foreign governments, while others would have to run the gauntlet of a Knesset hearing to get an exemption from, or at least a reduction on, the 45 percent tax.

Israel isn’t Iran. In Iran, the supreme leader appoints the head of the judicial system. In Israel, the supreme leader uses every trick in the book to try to shape the Supreme Court’s composition to his liking without soiling the facade of democracy.

This is a difference of vast proportions. Iran doesn’t put on sanctimonious airs, doesn’t cluck its tongue at others, doesn’t disguise what it is and doesn’t try to sell its system of government to the world as “an island of democracy.”

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6 thoughts on “Unlike Iran, Israel won’t face sanctions”

  2. dickerson3870

    RE: “Iran doesn’t put on sanctimonious airs, doesn’t cluck its tongue at others, doesn’t disguise what it is and doesn’t try to sell its system of government to the world as ‘an island of democracy’.” ~ Zvi Bar’el

    SEE: “Israel’s bizarre decision to give up on education – and its future”, by Ami Kaufman, 972 Magazine, 12/03/11

    (excerpts) Last week I came across a disturbing story, one of many recently, where Haredi school boys threw stones at secular Jewish school girls. [because] The schoolgirls were singing. . .
    . . . what bothered me more about this particular incident was the age of the perpetrators. These were young boys or teenagers, already well versed on the issues of female singing and its dangers.
    What this incident shows more than anything else, is the education factor and how it will change this country. And it shows how incidents like the one above are going to happen again, and again and again.
    Much has been said on the demographics of the Haredi community and the pace at which it grows. But not many know of how huge an impact Haredi education already has on this state.
    These Haredi rock-throwing boys learn in a Haredi school.     That’s because there are four sectors to the Israeli education system: State, State-Religious, Arab, and ultra-Orthodox (Haredi)…

    ENTIRE ARTICLE – http://972mag.com/israel’s-bizarre-decision-to-give-up-on-education-and-its-future/28962/

  3. dickerson3870

    RE: “Iran doesn’t put on sanctimonious airs, doesn’t cluck its tongue at others, doesn’t disguise what it is and doesn’t try to sell its system of government to the world as ‘an island of democracy’.” ~ Zvi Bar’el

    SEE: In Israel, ‘fascist’ is not a rude word ~ by Amira Hass, Haaretz, 12/09/11
    The silence of Yad Vashem and other Holocaust memorial institutes to the recent rash of anti-democratic legislation is deafening.

    (excerpts) Hillary Clinton had not yet finished voicing her concern about what is happening in Israel before that industrious Knesset member from the Likud, Danny Danon, started rattling off another version of the list of bills about loyalty to the state (which have meanwhile been dropped ): “Every certificate issued by the state will oblige [the recipient] to sign a document with a clause declaring loyalty to the State of Israel.”
    An explanation was offered by Arutz Sheva, the settlers’ news website: No declaration – then no driver’s license, no identity card, no passport. Speaking to Razi Barka’i on Army Radio, Danon explained that this was indeed not enough for – watch out! – “the total solution.” Even Barka’i almost choked at the phrase.
    For one optimistic moment it was possible to think that Danon does not make distinctions on the basis of religion or nationality. “There are many people who act against the State that protects them,” he said. “Anyone who is not faithful to the State should not be a citizen.” That is to say, even kosher Jews whose loyalty is in doubt. However, a second later he clarified his intention: “The data about crime make it clear without any doubt that the Arabs in Israel treat the laws of the country with contempt. They have much higher crime rates than any other segment of the population.”…
    …The media, dizzy from these bills that make Jean-Marie Le Pen and his daughter look like amateurs, has stopped noticing the difference between an old bill and an amended one. Since the current bill is targetted at Arabs, it is not causing a stir. But what about the Jewish History departments at the universities, the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial institute, or the museum at Kibbutz Lohamei Hageta’ot? Their silence is no different from the general disregard of the issue, but it is deafening…

    ENTIRE COMMENTARY – http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/unlike-iran-israel-won-t-face-sanctions-1.400029

  4. sharon-marie

    Totally True…the differance between good and bad, one can appreciate what 40 years have done to Western civilisation ,through the words of horror from my Mother relating to international affairs .. lack of moral prudence…in Governments in the West its “Lawyers meglamanic Lawyers “…My father said their are 3 most dangerous people categories ..Police,Lawyers,Government =Power & Power always corrupts spews its filth upon the common folk the result is as we know today .

  5. Norman

    I am confused here, is the present Israeli leaders sprouting Stalin-ism or Hitler-ism? And the youth in the school throwing stones, are they not unlike the Hitler youth? Anyone?

  6. Abdulahi Abdi

    me too, i am very happy to see such story disclosed publicly. the horor Israelis are now striking back to the western and telling democracy is not for Israel’s internal affairs. how many HITLERs are there.

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