Tuesday, August 22, 2023
From Ian:
Yisrael Medad: The Zionist Left’s 100-Year War Against the Zionist Right
Noa Tishby: Modern antisemitism on the rise | GZERO World with Ian Bremmer
Yisrael Medad: The Zionist Left’s 100-Year War Against the Zionist Right
In according with the Basic Law: Government, the 37th Government of Israel was formed on December 29, 2022 having presented itself before the Knesset, announcing its guidelines of its policy, its make-up, and the distribution of functions among the Ministers, and merited an expression of confidence. Parliamentary democracy, following multiple elections and inter-party negotiations, won out. A coalition with a clear majority assumed power. But, then, something happened.Legal Questions Raised About NGO Funding Judicial Reform Protests
The government decided to proceed with its policy goals that were presented to the electorate during the election campaign.
Almost immediately, the arena for civic debate moved from the plenum hall and committee rooms to the streets. Ministers of the government, and most specifically, the Prime Minister, now serving for the third time in that position, were labeled “fascists”, “Hitler”, “traitor”, “dictatorship”, “destroying democracy”, “regime changers”, practicing a “coup” and so forth. The discourse became poisoned. Hi-tech company owners began moving their funds abroad as if they were pro-Palestinian BDS supporters. Highways and streets were, and continue to be, blockaded and closed down to traffic as demonstrators invaded. Strikes were initiated of various professions. Colleagues in industry, professional unions and academia found themselves bullied and threatened if they did not join in.
In the Constitution and Law Committee room, we were treated to Members of Knesset leaping over the table and approaching the chairman, MK Simcha Rothman, in a threatening manner, screaming and squawking a most raucous noise. Posters at rallies were decorated with S.S. lightning rods and even a few swastikas were observed. And the guillotines and hanging ropes returned from the Balfour Street protests.
Former and current politicians and senior army officers employed an extreme menacing vocabulary including using arms, breaking through barricades, war (“What is needed is to move to the next stage, the stage of war, and war is not waged with speeches. War is waged in a face-to-face battle, head-to-head and hand-to-hand, and that is what will happen here,” said Ehud Olmert) and the inevitable comparison since Yair Golan’s infamous 2016 “Processes” speech to Nazi Germany 1933 (“There were Dichters and Gallants and Barkats and Yuli Edelsteins there too. Good people. But there was one man – Hitler and next to him disturbed fanatics like Goebbels and Gering,” said former IDF Chief Education Officer Nechemia Dagan) and more.
For those a bit new to Zionist politics or to those for whom history is perhaps too boring, permit me a compact and concise review of the 100-year war the Zionist Left has been waging against the Zionist Right. That struggle is not as much over values, goals, beliefs and p[olicies but rather who will control the institutions of power. The issues prior to 1948 were who will supervise the defense policy, who will be allowed to immigrate, who will be employed, who will receive land for settlement and who will be represent the Yishuv in various international forums. These face-offs continued into the first two decades of the existence of the state.
The divide, I would suggest, began during World War One.
Nonprofit organization Blue and White Future hauled in over 27 million NIS to fund protests against the Netanyahu government’s judicial reform legislation. This organization was established in 2009, many years before judicial reform was on the legislative agenda. The stated goals of this organization are to promote a two-state solution or a one-sided separation from the Palestinians. But as protests against the judicial reform continue, Blue and White Future is doing all it can to hide its original goals. Furthermore, its massive fundraising of protests against judicial reform legislation is raising questions about whether it has violated its legal status as a nonprofit organization.
The fundraising engine behind the judicial reform protests
Anyone interested in contributing to the protest against the judicial reform has been directed in recent months to donate through an organization called ‘Blue and White Future‘. This nonprofit organization provides the financial and organizational infrastructure for various protest groups such as ‘Brothers in Arms’. It is responsible for the “must resist” campaign that has been splashed on billboards across the country for the past few weeks. It is also behind the financing of a significant part of the protest’s field activities, transportation, and advertising, as well as supplying protest equipment and paraphernalia.
According to the crowdfunding campaign of ‘Free in our country‘, the organization’s conduit for raising funds, it is the “exclusive and official body that includes and finances about 150 different protest centers throughout the country” and supports “about 200 protest groups,” among others “doctors, architects, lawyers, economists, the high-tech industry, veterans of the defense establishment, students, military training schools and more.”
The budgets collected by the NGO is intended for “buses, stages, signs, flags, amplification equipment and screens, safety and authority approvals, branded clothing and more”, for “special projects – demonstrations in front of the houses of members of the Knesset, marches and the Democracy Outpost in Jerusalem, the shutdown of the economy”, and to “put banners balconies, bridges and billboards across the country”. For these purposes, the association has raised more than NIS 27 million in recent months.
Blue and White Future hides its real purpose
On various fundraising pages, Blue and White Future is described as an NGO “established with the aim of promoting democratic values in Israel” and that the current battle is to stop Israel from becoming a dictatorship, as a result of the judicial reform. This portrayal of the organization is actually false..
Blue and White Future NGO was founded well before judicial reform became a prominent topic of discussion. Its establishment took place in November 2009, a few months subsequent to the Likud’s electoral triumph and Netanyahu’s return to power.
The goals of the NGO, as stated in the organization’s documents from its inception until today, were completely different: “To strengthen and highlight the public support for the two-state solution for two peoples, Israel as a national home for the Jewish people and Palestine as the state of the Palestinian nation in order to preserve the nature of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state.” That is, the NGO was established in order to promote a political agenda, and specifically the idea of two states for two peoples. A close look at the organization’s activities over the years, including on its website and now on its Facebook page, will see that this is indeed the central issue it has engaged in.
Noa Tishby: Modern antisemitism on the rise | GZERO World with Ian Bremmer
Antisemitism feels like an ugly trend is back in fashion. And the numbers back that up.
Antisemitism is nothing new. An ancient Greek historian in the second century BCE railed against the “ridiculous practices” of the Jews and the “absurdity of their law.”
But lately, it feels like an ugly trend is back in fashion. And the numbers back that up. The Anti-Defamation League found 3,700 instances of antisemitic harassment, vandalism, or assault around the country last year, the highest number in its 43 years of tracking. And then there was the horrific attack at Pittsburg’s Tree of Life synagogue in 2018, which killed 11 people and remains the deadliest attack on the Jewish community in the United States.
At what point do extremist politics—whether on the Right OR Left—become hate? And where do you draw the line between criticizing Israeli policies and being antisemitic? To help me wade through these difficult questions is the Israeli actress, writer, and activist Noa Tishby. She served as Israel’s Special Envoy for Combating Antisemitism before Prime Minister Netanyahu dismissed her for speaking out against his controversial judicial reform agenda.
And later, an early look at a new film about one of Israel’s most controversial leaders (present Prime Minister excluded). Golda Meir, Israel's first and still only female prime minister, was beloved until her handling of the Yom Kippur War of 1973. Now a new film starring Helen Mirren tries to reframe her tarnished legacy.
