Is Israel on the Verge of a Fascist Takeover?

[no_hypocrisy]

Fascists are raising their heads. The purveyors of hate, who until now have been spreading their poison at the margins, are now arriving at the center.

-snip-

Yitzhak Herzog, the Minister of Welfare in the Netanyahu government, a member of the Labor party, the grandson of a Chief Rabbi and the son of a President, said a few days ago that “fascism is touching the margins of our society”. He was wrong: fascism is not only touching the margins, it is touching the government in which he is serving, and the Knesset, of which he is a member.

Not a day – quite literally – passes without a group of Knesset members tabling a new racist bill. The country is still divided by the amendment to the law of citizenship, which will compel applicants to swear allegiance to “Israel as a Jewish and democratic state”. Now the ministers are discussing whether this will be demanded only of non-Jews (which doesn’t sound nice) or of Jews, too – as if this would change the racist content one bit.


This week, a new bill was tabled. It would prohibit non-citizens from acting as tourist guides in East Jerusalem. Non-citizens in this case means Arabs. Because, when East Jerusalem was annexed by force to Israel after the 1967 war, its Arab inhabitants were not granted citizenship. They were accorded only the status of “permanent residents”, as if they were recent newcomers and not scions of families that have lived in the city for centuries.

-more-


http://www.alternet.org/world/148597/is_israel_on_the_verge_of_a_fascist_takeover/

[Selatius]

1. Why not just move all the "permanent residents" into "reservations" and just make it official?

:sarcasm:

Seriously, if the social authoritarians really want to turn Israel into a latter-day South Africa, the only thing stopping them are the moderates and the progressive elements of Israeli society. They cannot win unless the good stand by and do nothing.

[aquart]

2. And what you want instead is....

Everybody behaving well? And if the Jews are just nice enough, that'll happen? Like Obama and the Republicans?

[Selatius]

3. How is it you paint "Jews" as one group in your question?

I essentially agree with the main crux of the author, that is "...it must awake from the coma, understand what is happening and where it is leading to, protest and struggle by all available means..."

[ensho]

4. its as if the country wants to commit suicide

the religiously insane have taken over Israel

[shaayecanaan]

5. Realistically?

Its hard to say. Israel once had a liberal electorate, a liberal government and a liberal judiciary. Now both the first and the second things are gone, and the liberal judiciary is all that remains.

The judiciary has stopped a number of the government\'s more controversial measures, such as the ban on Arab political parties. Eventually, though, judges get replaced, and obviously a right wing government will appoint right wing judges.

There are a couple of demographic changes as well. Obviously the Israeli Arab population is increasing, as well as the ultra-orthodox. Additionally, the State has refused to allow the construction of Arab villages for the past 50 years. Consequently, as the Arab population has expanded it has had nowhere to go except existing Jewish population centres. In places such as Nazareth, the government has refused to allow the construction of mosques, schools and so forth. There is obviously the possibility of a French-style intifada on the inside, if these problems are not addressed.

Historically, the countries that have fallen to fascism have tended to have weak institutions. Germany, Italy and Spain had weak judiciaries and a less developed sense of constitutionality. Both Britain and the United States have quite strong institutions, by comparison. Israel of course doesn\'t have a written constitution nor an unwritten one, and its institutions are only as strong as you would expect of a 60 year old state.

On the other hand, generally fascism has depended on some precipitous decline in living standards or some other form of societal collapse or misfortune in order to take over a political system.

[oberliner]

6. Which Israeli government did you consider to be liberal? nt

[shaayecanaan]

7. I would probably say the government of Eshkol was the most liberal

were he in power today the Palestinians and Israelis could probably reach a deal in under a week.