The Return of the Israeli Left
Over the past few years, the Israeli left and its supporters have become targets for right-wing attacks. Its movements, foundations and human rights groups have been harassed by the right and its representatives in the establishment and the Knesset, with the latter initiating anti-democratic legislation intended to hurt them. Of all those groups facing this intimidation, the New Israel Fund (NIF) tops the list. It is one of the strongest, most active charitable organizations in Israel, dedicated to promoting social and civic initiatives, and advancing pluralism and equal rights throughout the country.
The first group to take aim at the NIF was “Im Tirtzu,” a movement that defines its mission as “to bring Zionism back to the center.” It talks about the importance of the flag and the national anthem, about restoring the “Zionist dialogue,” and about the struggle against anything it perceives as being anti-Zionist. It is in the name of these catchphrases, most of which sound like some attempt to increase national pride, that Im Tirtzu launched a crass, often violent struggle against anyone it regarded as its opponent.
In May 2010, the movement published a report dealing with a supposed “anti-Zionist trend” in the country’s universities. The report paid particular attention to Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, which was actually the subject of its own, special report in November 2011. As part of its conflict with the university, Im Tirtzu approached donors in Europe and the United States, and demanded that they stop contributing to the institution, claiming that the university employs anti-Zionist lecturers who are harmful to Israel. This campaign caused considerable damage to the university and created an intolerable situation. Ben-Gurion University is, after all, an important institution and the only school in the country’s south that offers students a chance to pursue academic studies. Now, however, it found itself fighting for academic freedom and freedom of expression for its lecturers.
(snip)
The campaign was personal, violent and crass. It made use of terms and imagery that portrayed the NIF staff in general and Naomi Chazan in particular as traitors. Im Tirtzu went on to provide accommodating journalists with all sorts of biased and one-sided details and stories. It was a campaign that played on the most sensitive chords of Israelis, who felt that the whole world was against them anyway, and who were looking for an easy target to blame. There was no easier target than the Israeli left, which had long been perceived by large swathes of the public as collaborating with the enemy and “stabbing the nation in the back,” because of its criticism of Israeli governments over the years.
A group of left-wing Israeli activists refused to be silenced. At the height of the campaign, they launched a Facebook page entitled “Im Tirtzu Is a Fascist Movement (So There).” Over a thousand people joined it within days. Im Tirtzu, which has a track record of threatening to sue and shut down anyone who says or writes anything the group doesn’t like, responded by launching a defamation suit against the page’s founders, and asked the court to reward them 2.6 million shekels [around $720,000] in damages.
(snip)
This may have been just a minor victory in legal terms, but it was an important victory for freedom of expression in Israel and for the Israeli left, which has been afraid to raise its head for the past few years. These young people, who did not hold back and fought for their values and worldview, represent the return of the Israeli left, which can once again stand tall and proud. It is no wonder that Roi Yellin, one of the defendants, was also a strategist for the Meretz Party in the last election [January 2013]. Meretz, which branded itself as a left-wing movement and had no qualms about openly using the term “left,” doubled its representation in the Knesset. A clear, principled and straightforward approach proved itself more successful than some opaque one.
(snip)
The struggle against freedom of expression lies at the heart of Im Tirtzu’s activities. This struggle against academic freedom, artistic freedom and human rights groups is an attempt to limit freedom, if not to eliminate it entirely. Laws passed in the spirit of Im Tirtzu, which harm freedom of expression, have already been legislated, and include the Nakba Law and Boycott Law, which were passed by the previous Knesset.”
Continue reading @
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/09/im-tirtzu-israel-supreme-court-rulling-new-israel-fund.html
More on this subject @
http://972mag.com/jerusalem-court-okay-to-call-im-tirzu-a-fascist-group/78591/
= new reply since forum marked as read
and whether you mean it with a large or small "c".
It's doubtful that Knenin, or much of anybody else these days outsideo of the tiny handful of Stalinist theme-park countries, could fairly be called a "large-C Communist"
that is, an apologist for the horrors of old-type "actually existing socialism" of the Stalin-Brezhnev type.
Being a small-c "communist" does not make a person complicit in the nightmare of the Soviet Union under Stalin or China during the Cultural Revolution.
It's important to be very careful with terminology like that.
the man is the secretary of the Israeli Communist Party...so, in that sense, he is a "communist". Most likely, he simply believes in the traditional ideal of common ownership of the means of production...an ideal, whether it is workable or not, that is not in and of itself to blame for anything.
It's unlikely, however, that he's an old-school Stalinist(which is what most Americans mean when they ask if somebody is a "communist"
. That particular school of thought really doesn't exist anymore.
And you're right, the Communist Party, U.S.A, still exists...but it is too pathetic and irrelevant to matter in an discussion, because its tiny handful of members include a number of apologists for "Uncle Joe".
Having heard that answer, are you as yet satisfied?