As the process of ethnic cleansing continues in Jerusalem — Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed today that there will be no interruption — those outside Israel who are calling most loudly for the swift implementation of a two-state solution, frequently do so on the basis that this is what is urgently needed in order to ensure the survival of Israel as a “Jewish democracy.”
Stephen Walt writes:
In her scheduled address to the conference, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton should reaffirm the U.S. commitment to Israel’s existence but make it crystal clear that Washington will no longer tolerate Israel’s self-defeating policy on settlements. She should explain unambiguously that Israel faces a choice: It can end the occupation, embrace a genuine two-state solution, preserve its democratic and Jewish character and remain a cherished U.S. ally. Or it can continue the occupation of the West Bank and the siege of Gaza — a course that will eventually force it to abandon either its Jewish character or its democratic principles, and jeopardize its standing with its most important partner.
Member of the Knesset, Zevulun Orlev, has another proposal: any Israeli who denies that Israel is a democracy should be thrown in jail. He has said that those who “talk about a country belonging to all its citizens belong in prison.”
Today Ynet reports:
The current Knesset is the most racist Knesset since the establishment of the State, according to the Mossawa Center’s annual report on racism published Sunday. The report, published in honor of International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination being marked Sunday, reveals a 75% increase in discriminatory and racist bills submitted to the Knesset in the past year.
According to the report, 11 bills deemed “discriminatory and racist” were placed on the legislature’s table in 2007, while 12 such bills were initiated in 2008. However, in 2009 a full 21 problematic bills were discussed in the Knesset.
The Mossawa Center asserted that this is a worrisome trend and estimate that such bills will only increase if the Ministerial Committee for Legislative Affairs does not take immediate action against the phenomenon.
“A Knesset so active in discriminatory and racist bills against Arab citizens of the State has never been witnessed,” said the report’s authors, Lizi Sagi and Attorney Nidal Ottman.
Another report also published today, further underlines the intrinsically anti-democratic character of the Jewish state.
While a government decision was made that by 2012, non-Jews — who make up 25% of Israel’s population — should fill at least 10% of government positions, the facts on the ground in the Negev demonstrate the gulf between Israel’s democratic pretensions and the undemocratic reality. From a population of 200,000 Bedouin, 16 hold government positions!
As for Israel’s “democratic” future, the signs are clear. Nearly half of Jewish high schoolers recently polled said that they oppose Israel’s Arab citizens being allowed to vote. Among religious Jewish students — representative of what has become the most politically influential minority in Israel — 82% oppose equal rights for Arabs and Jews.
For four decades I heard numerous Israelis express “HATE” for Arabs while waxing prolix inconsistently with ever changing versions of the Holocaust. In their hasbara they have transferred their Holocaust psychosis to Arabs, not because they really hate Arabs but because they are conditioned by American indulgence to expect pampering every time they wax crazy in this way. And they’d have a point were it not for the hidden “exterminationist” final solution in both their advocacy and actions based on pretended hate. They never appreciated how uncommitted were the for sale commitments they got from the for-sale American politicians they deem “dumb Goyim.” As a result, they never came to see the Palestinian acts of suicide-terrorism as desperate cry for national freedom but as excuse to exterminate all Palestinians in pretended retribution. While all Jews decry the Nazis and their murderous Holocaust—an historic reality none can escape, not even the Zionazis– some Israeli see the Nazis as a model of how to achieve greater Israel. Arrogance has put them in power surrounding a far more realist and humanist Prime Minister than them. But despite the blind support of a few rich Diaspora Jews, most Jews see this “Zionazism” as gross violation of the Jewish Ethic. Unwilling to be part of so heinous a crime they bury themselves in Diaspora non-Jewish society in silence because they fear hurting their brethren. But AIPAC, like a blind dog, follows the voice whoever is in power in Israel. From supporting Rabin’s reaching out for peace they have gone to the neocons warmongers and the Zionazis when they seized power. “We’re not gonna let this schwartza Obama tell us what to do,” they swear in private. Yet not all Zionists who love Israel but live by the Jewish Ethic bow their heads in silence. As they raise their voices in moral outrage it is our duty towards them NOT to be “dumb goyim” and to NEVER be deaf to their moral outcry and NEVER assume that Jews the world over EVER speak with one voice, the voice in power in Israel. President Obama should not feel rage in response to the dumb chutzpah of these Israeli politicos kept on US taxpayer paid welfare. On the other hand, Obama should remember that a cat– even if you raised it caringly from kitten– will try to eat you if it thinks you are a mouse. Peace is at hand, beginning in the Israeli-Arab realm, and spreading throughout this world of two billion people once the Zionazis face a loving but firm American hand that declares “STOP! EXPAND NO FURTHER!” That kind of Obama “change” is a prerequisite to the change Israelis have dreamed of for 62 years; change from endless war to peace. Netanyahu needs us now to stand with him for peace and against the Zionazi creed of lebensraum through massacre.