Israel's election: Disaster vs Calamity
The polls in Israel are closing in less than five hours. Never has there been less ideological space between the major parties. The three leading parties (if polls are correct), Likud, Kadima and Liberman's Yisrael Beiteinu are products of splits in Likud and are all descendents of the far right Jabotinskyist wing of Zionism. Liberman, who many call a fascist, would expand the current Bantustan system to include "Israeli Arabs" (ie Palestinians who have Israeli citizenship). Kadima would continue with the status quo, with some modifications, and Likud would expand the settlements more than Kadima and attempt to roll back what limited self-government the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza already have. Then we have the Labour Party led by defence minister Ehud Barak who talk peace but conduct war and allow settlements to expand while talking about how unfortuante that is. Even Meretz, the "left" party approved of the war on Gaza before belatedly disapproving of it. Hadash, the Jewish-Arab coalition led by the Israeli Communist Party says one thing in Arabic and a completely different thing in Hebrew. See: Hadash Web sites prove two-faced in view on Gaza war
If I were in Israel I'd probably want to vote for Da’am (Organization for Democratic Action), a small Jewish-Arab party that supports the rights of workers and women and is led by a Palestinian woman. It only received 2151 votes in the last election, failing to win a seat, and is unlikely to win a seat this time. But given the unlikelihood of their winning a seat I'd probably opt for Hadash.
Well, it looks like bombing Gaza paid off for Kadima (ugh!), but possibly not enough.
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni's Kadima Party was forecast to eke out a surprising victory in Israel's election Tuesday, but exit polls showed strong support for hard-line rivals that will make it difficult for her to form a coalition government.
The exit polls announced on Israeli TV stations said the centrist Kadima had a narrow edge over Benjamin Netanyahu's hard-line Likud Party. The results, if confirmed, marked a stunning turn of events for Mr. Netanyahu, who had held a solid lead in opinion polls until just before the parliamentary election.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090210.wisraelvote0210/BNStory/International/homeSome things that should happen here:
1) The Labor Party SHOULD immediately dump Ehud Barak as leader. I mean, shit, 13 seats? There's no way anybody can argue that that's an acceptable performance for that party.
1) The next leader of Labor needs to be from the dovish wing of the party. Barak's "Scoop Jackson Democrat" approach clearly failed to resonate with anybody, and with Kadima holding a death grip on the "hawkish center" part of the Israeli spectrum, Labor's only hope for a comeback is a leftwards swing.
3) Some sort of dialog needs to occur between Meretz and Hadash. between them, they hold close to as much support as Labor, and I suspect that Meretz' voters are to the left of its leaders on the issues. Perhaps between them they could evolve some new approach to the one state or two states question. If so, they could force Labor leftwards on security and even actual social justice issues(remember when Labor used to claim to be a "social democratic" party?).
4) Both of these groups are going to need to make fighting against austerity and privatization. These are the issues nobody addressed in this election, and as a result, the Israeli poor and working class basically had nothing to vote for.
5) All the major parties should make sure now that Yisroel Beitenyu does NOT get a place in government.
Whether any of these things will happen is another thing. I'm thinking none of them are too likely, sadly enough. The pointless fixation with so-called "security" is going to continue to keep reality at bay in Israeli politics.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________ Our Demands Most Moderate are/ We Only Want The World! -James Connolly
"Dovish wing" of the ILP? That is a joke.
Anway, no comments so far has focussed on the real story of this eleciton, the fact that the main Arab parties have been banned from participating by the direct edict of the election committee, and Balad and the United Arab List could participate.
In the light of this, making calls upon the relevant parties to adjust their platform to sway voters, and move the the process leftward is worse than a joke since it suggests the process is a legitimat democratic process.
The story of this election has nothing to do with infighting among the various Israeli fascist parties, including the ILP, which whole heartedly supported the ban on the participation of the main Arab parties.
I am dumbfounded actually that the people are breezing over these inconvenient facts about the banning of the Arab opposition and nattering on about election "strategy".
"Gee, I dunno? Vote for Anschluss or not? Oh never mind! there is no check box for no."
What "needs to happen here" is for every person to take the opportunity to point out the fraudulent nature or the Israeli election process, and the repression of the Arab opposition, every time the issue of the election process is raised. It is beging to appear that this inconvenient fact is slipping below the radar.
What does the article in the op do? Mocks at the fact that Ballad did not bother to translate their campaign material in to Hebrew... as if Likud Kadima and the ILP make a serious effort to do all their material in Arabic.. (ha ha ha!) and then goes on to unwittingly underscore that it is now apparently nearly impossible for Arabs to run in an Israeli election, unless their party is co-sponsored by Jews.
According to Uri Avnery, the possible winners in the Israeli elections range from female ultra-macho warmongers, to rabid right-wingers, to fascists to murderous rat-bastard psychopaths.
The Israeli Elections: Dirty SocksSO, HOW shall I vote?
I intend to draw up a list that will start from the worst down to the least evil. The last one on the list gets my vote.
Come on now, bone breaking is a lot more progressive than dropping cluster bombs on olive groves or incinerating babies in front of their mothers' eyes.
"Dovish wing" of the ILP? That is a joke.
Anway, no comments so far has focussed on the real story of this eleciton, the fact that the main Arab parties have been banned from participating by the direct edict of the election committee, and Balad and the United Arab List could participate.
The ban was overturned on appeal and the two parties did stand and elect members but this is a Pyrrhic victory. With the continued rise of Lieberman and all the parties from Labour on right voting to ban them I think it's just a matter of time before the election law is amended to ban those parties outright. The "Israel Arab" (read Palestinian citizens of Israel) turnout is understandably low and dropping and even if Palestinians aren't officially banned from voting I expect voter suppression techniques to intensify.
Cueball, I was always against the banning of those parties. Don't assume I was cool with it just because I didn't mention it in this particular post.
The results were tragic. Basically, the parties with humane values(Meretz, Hadash)only took about 7 or 8 percent of the vote. Everyone else voted for the death parties.
It's hard to see that there's any real reason for Israel to continue to exist if its political culture is going to be like this.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________ Our Demands Most Moderate are/ We Only Want The World! -James Connolly
This isn't tragedy, unless you seriously believe the Zionist project was ever a humanitarian endeavour, and not the genocidal larceny that it always has been.
The state of Israel is founded on theft and murder. What use is there pretending otherwise?
See, this is what happens when a nation bases their entire political system on a militaristic dick-waving contest
Edit: one of my friends just pointed out something interesting on his blog:
http://devinjohnston.ca/blog/2009/02/11/what-will-conservatives-say-abou...
Back when Canadian conservatives were arguing that a Liberal-led coalition would somehow be anti-democratic or constitute a coup d’etat, I made the point that coalition governments are the norm in most modern democracies including Israel. Tonight, I have been following the Israeli Knesset results on Haaretz. At the time of writing, 99% of the votes are counted and it looks like the centre-left Kadima Party has edged out the right wing Likud Party with 28 seats to Likud's 27. However, neither party achieved enough support to win a majority in the Knesset. Looking at how the remaining seats are distributed, it looks as though Likud will in all likelihood form a coalition government led by Benjamin Netanyahu. I wonder: now that a hardline Israeli political party is poised to lead a coalition government despite finishing in second place, will Canadian conservatives denounce it as an anti-democratic rejection of the will of voters?
"It's hard to see that there's any real reason for Israel to continue to exist if its political culture is going to be like this. "
Isn't that just like saying that Palestine shouldn't exist because they vote for Hamas? I don't exactly see the Palestinians voting in large numbers for humanistic social democratic parties.
The big showing for Netanyahu who campaigned on expanding settlements in the West Bank really says a lot about how much Israelis value secular Palestinian leadership and puts to rest the canard that 'rocket attacks' motivate their lust for more and more Palestinian territory. Fatah's strategy of rolling over is repaid with a sharp kick to the belly.
I assume that the reason why Hamas was firing rockets is because they WANT Netanyahu to be PM of Israel. It happens every Israeli election that as election day approaches, the number of terrorist attacks always increases because the fanatics on the Palestinian side want to have the most intransigent Israeli gov't possible so that they have an excuse not to negotiate.
Similarly, if Netanyahu forms a government, watch him attack the West Bank just before the next election in the Palestinian Authority - to help Hamas win so that he can then throw up his hands and say "You see, there is no one to negotiate with. I have no choice but to expand settlements".
"It's hard to see that there's any real reason for Israel to continue to exist if its political culture is going to be like this. "
Isn't that just like saying that Palestine shouldn't exist because they vote for Hamas? I don't exactly see the Palestinians voting in large numbers for humanistic social democratic parties.
Palestine as an independent country needs to exist because history has proven that it's impossible for the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the coming re-occupation of Gaza to ever be just or fair to the Palestinian people. Unlike the existence of Israel under the political culture that it now has, a culture that's going to be permanently right-wing, the existence of an independent Palestine can never be oppressive to anyone.
Palestine's leaders have been terrible. Still they can improve. Tonight's election results prove that Israel will never have a progressive or humane government again. And what's the point if it's just going to be right wing from now on?
Why, after tonight's result, would you still support Zionism, Stockholm? Israel has now forever abandoned your values. It's unworthy of you as a progressive person. It's voted to oppress the people of Palestine unto their tenth generation. Are you still going to pretend that anything positive comes of the existence of that state as currently constituted?
I really can't see how there could be any continued case against a single, secular democratic state. Even you, Stocks, would have to admit that the Israeli government will now never do right by Palestinians, and, as the imposer of right-wing economic policies, isn't doing right by Jews either. Why even pretend it's still worth it?
I write this in great sadness. What started as a national liberation movement has now given up anything even vaguely like liberation as a goal. Zionism is never again going to be anything but fighting for land for the sake of fighting for land. The dream of anything beyond that is now gone. Maybe it never actually existed.
This is the end result of nationalism. I think I have to back the single state solution now, as it's the only one that can possibly have a progressive, egalitarian, secular democratic future.
The only possible way is Jews and Arabs living together as equals. That can't happen under Zionism.
______________________________________________________________________________________________ Our Demands Most Moderate are/ We Only Want The World! -James Connolly
I think you're being very histrionic if you think that one election result means that a country is beyond redemption forever and ever. I think its absurd to assume that the existence of an independent Palestine can "never ever" be oppressive to everyone.
How do you know for certain that in an independent Palestine, Christians and Jews and Atheists won't be persecuted? How do you for certain that in an independent Palestine gays and lesbians won't be stone to death? (I'm not saying that this dystopia will happen - but it could). Already in Gaza, Hamas has committed all kinds of atrocities including torture and murder of people for no other reason than that they support Fatah instead of Hamas.
Right now both Israel and the Palestinian Authority are swinging to ultra rightwing extremist parties. MAYBE, there actually could be a one state solution in Israel/Palestine if Meretz won a majority in an Israeli election and if some socially liberal pluralistic party led by someone like Hanan Ashrawi won a landslide in Palestine. But the opposite is happening. People on both sides are voting for parties of that preach hate and violence. Trying to force people who clearly hate each other into the same country is like saying to a couple who keep beating each other until each has spent time in hospital that they are not allowed to separate and that instead they have to keep living in the same house and are condemned to keep beating each other up until the end of time.
If Indians and Pakistanis, Serbs and Croats, Tamils and Sinhalese and even Czechs and Slovaks can't live in the same country - I don't see Israelis and Palestinians ever doing so. The day you have a so-called"one state solution" in the Middle East is the day that every single state boundary in the world falls and we have world federalism.
"This is the end result of nationalism. "
Say that to Gilles Duceppe - or are you another one of these people who wants a two-state solution for Canada and a one state solution for everyone else?
I assume that the reason why Hamas was firing rockets is because they WANT Netanyahu to be PM of Israel. It happens every Israeli election that as election day approaches, the number of terrorist attacks always increases because the fanatics on the Palestinian side want to have the most intransigent Israeli gov't possible so that they have an excuse not to negotiate.
What a bunch of shit. Show the statistical evidence for this jingoistic and racist crap. Blaming the victims in these circumstances, where 1500 Palestinians have been killed is ridiculous. The fortunes of the Israeli parties were not bouyed up by the random and largely ineffective rocket attacks, that killed no one recently up until they intensified at the time that the reigning powers in Israel decided to bulk up their support by going on a rampage of killing Arabs in the Gaza Strip.
These totally out of left field assertions about Arabs, Arab culture, and their political parties have no place on a progressive board unless they are backed up by some kind of evidence, other than your pye eyed assertions.
Show me for example, any evidence whatsoever that attacks by Palestinian militants that are not directly related to operations and incitements by the IDF increase when Israeli elections are called.
If you can't provide any evidence for these assertions, then retract them, because they boil down to racist slander. The idea that Arab persons instigated the hyped up war fever in the run up to this election blatant fiction, which you have invented from whole cloth to support your weird ideas.
After about 10 year of reading you blame every single bad event that happens to Palestinians on hollywood stock charachter "crazed" extremist Arabs, the arguement that you are engaging in thoughtful analysis and not extreme prejudice is laughable.
Consider this: in 1992 Meretz won 12 seats. In 2009, *Labour* won 13 and Meretz appears to be down to 3.
BTW, Hadash, with 4 seats, has edged out Meretz.
Israeli elections have consistently moved to the right over the last 60 years. I wonder what effect the Law of Return has had on this ie. more recent immigrants voting for more right wing parties and/or whether people who used to vote for left-wing parties have moved to the right over time.
Yes they have been moving to the right. But I think it has gone beyond slippage/progression to the point where Jewish Israeli civil society is a cocoon... one that feeds nothing but the range from inhuman to more inhuman thought.
The margins for anything else among Israeli Jews passed the tipping point to non-visible if not vanishing.
I'm not ready to be so pessimistic, KenS.
It shouldn't be surprising, though. Israeli society is both under attack (figuratively more often than literally, but still) and at the same time has become chock-full of internal divisions - orthodox vs secular, Jew vs non-Jew, recent immigrants vs longtime residents. Circling the wagons and telling the rest of the world to go die in a fire is easier than solving the problems.
I assume that the reason why Hamas was firing rockets is because they WANT Netanyahu to be PM of Israel. It happens every Israeli election that as election day approaches, the number of terrorist attacks always increases because the fanatics on the Palestinian side want to have the most intransigent Israeli gov't possible so that they have an excuse not to negotiate.
What a bunch of shit. Show the statistical evidence for this jingoistic and racist crap. Blaming the victims in these circumstances, where 1500 Palestinians have been killed is ridiculous. The fortunes of the Israeli parties were not bouyed up by the random and largely ineffective rocket attacks, that killed no one recently up until they intensified at the time that the reigning powers in Israel decided to bulk up their support by going on a rampage of killing Arabs in the Gaza Strip.
These totally out of left field assertions about Arabs, Arab culture, and their political parties have no place on a progressive board unless they are backed up by some kind of evidence, other than your pye eyed assertions.
Show me for example, any evidence whatsoever that attacks by Palestinian militants that are not directly related to operations and incitements by the IDF increase when Israeli elections are called.
If you can't provide any evidence for these assertions, then retract them, because they boil down to racist slander. The idea that Arab persons instigated the hyped up war fever in the run up to this election blatant fiction, which you have invented from whole cloth to support your weird ideas.
After about 10 year of reading you blame every single bad event that happens to Palestinians on hollywood stock charachter "crazed" extremist Arabs, the arguement that you are engaging in thoughtful analysis and not extreme prejudice is laughable.
Great post Cueball. I was hoping someone with much more knowledge than I would counter Stockholm's horrible position.
I'm referring to Hamas and only Hamas. If you feel like extrapolating my comments as being a blanket statement about all Arabs - it only tells me that your arguments are so weak that you have to fall back on blatant lies and distortions of what other people are saying.
This on the other hand:
"This isn't tragedy, unless you seriously believe the Zionist project was ever a humanitarian endeavour, and not the genocidal larceny that it always has been. The state of Israel is founded on theft and murder. What use is there pretending otherwise?"
...can only be interpreted as a viciously hateful message singling out an entire nationality as being based on "hate and murder" you should be ashamed of yourself for posting a mesage so totally dripping with HATE.
Oh please! You are an apologist for genocide. How does that feel?
Will a moderator please tell these people that baselessly calling fellow babblers "apologists for genocide" is in TOTAL contravention of the rules of this board.
We can have some rationale discussion of the situation in the Middle East without ad hominem attacks.
I second Stockholm's plea for reasonable discourse.
There's also the growing religious population in Israel - with birth rates among the Orthodox being higher than among the secular and a growing number of the formerly non or anti-Zionist Haredi moving into the "religious nationalist camp". There's also been a change in immigration patterns - 30 years ago Americans and European Jews moving to Israel would usually be secular left wing utopians dreaming of life on the kibbutz. Now, they are more likely to be young religious zealots.
Emigration stats are hard to get but I suspect that moderate and left leaning secular Israelis are more likely to leave than their relgious counterparts.
This on the other hand:
"This isn't tragedy, unless you seriously believe the Zionist project was ever a humanitarian endeavour, and not the genocidal larceny that it always has been. The state of Israel is founded on theft and murder. What use is there pretending otherwise?"
...can only be interpreted as a viciously hateful message singling out an entire nationality as being based on "hate and murder" you should be ashamed of yourself for posting a mesage so totally dripping with HATE.
So, knowing the history of a settler state is now equivalent to hate? The state of Israel actually was founded on theft and murder. So were the states of Canada, the USA, etc.
I guess if I say that Canada was founded on genocide and theft of land from indigenous people (which is true) you would say that it is a hate message?
It is a plea for reasonable discourse.
People throwing around their wild theories about "crazed Arab extremists" has nothing to do with reason, and everything to do with prejudice. Especially when such is put forward without the least bit of substantiation.
Stocky has now run behind the moderators skirts and will let the ethnic smear stand.
Disgusting.
There are extremists on both sides - on the Palestinian side AND the Israeli side and they have a joint vested interest in keeping the conflict going. Its a not a "wild theory" that there are extremists on both sides who would rather keep fighting than accept anything less than 100% of what they want. The more bloodhsed there is - the more the hand of the extremists on both sides gets stregthened. If you actually read my entire post - you will note that I'm just as hard on the zealots on the Israeli side. you seem to think that its an "ethnic smear" to say that there are extremists on the Palestinian side. Does that make you an anti-semite for ever saying that there are any "extremists" on the Israeli side???
Dorit Naaman published this piece today. She writes "Israel is far from being a full democracy, and this last election campaign only exposed some of the contradictions, and deeply racist paradigms, on which the state has been established."
Kadima only did as well as it did because a lot of left of center voters abandoned Meretz and Labor (Hadash had its best showing ever, however) for Kadima to block Netanyahoo and Lieberman. The polls showed that after a brief bump, Kadima returned to where it was before the attack on Gaza. Its numbers did not move until the last week of the campaign when polls showed Lieberman's party to be surging.
I'm curious to what extent "strategic voting" occurs in Israel. Their electoral system is entirely based on PR - 20% of the vote = 20% of the seats, period. There aren't any electoral districts at all.
There is still some strategic voting. First of all, since a party needs to win 2% of the vote to qualify for any seats, people who are thinking of voting for a small party that is hovering near the threshold (ie: the Green Party) might decide not to risk "wasting their vote". The other factor is that there is some tradition in Israel (though its not a hard and fast rule) that the President gives the party with the most seats the first crack at forming a government - so when at the last minute suddenly it looks like a tossup between Kadima and Likud for which will be the biggest party - people who had been planning to vote for smaller parties on the left or right might switch at the last minute to one of the big two - not unlike some stupid people in canada thinking that they have to vote Liberal to make sure the Liberals end up as the biggest party.
Looking at the election results I have a hard time finding a viable coalition led by Kadima other than a Grand Coalition with a very limited political programme. It looks like Netanyahu will be the next PM.
I tend to agree.
With Avigdor Lieberman as defence minister.
But on the Israeli side of this tidy dichotomy the extremists control the fourth most powerful military in the world, are given three billion dollars of weapons per year by their sugar daddy/uncle, and have nukes.
"This isn't tragedy, unless you seriously believe the Zionist project was ever a humanitarian endeavour, and not the genocidal larceny that it always has been. The state of Israel is founded on theft and murder. What use is there pretending otherwise?"
...can only [sic] be interpreted as a viciously hateful message singling out an entire nationality as being based on "hate and murder" you should be ashamed of yourself for posting a mesage so totally dripping with HATE.
Maybe you should try breathing into a paper bag before posting.
The Zionist massacres and terrorist attacks against the indigenous population drove over 700,00 Palestinians out of their homes and into exile, allowing the Zionists to steal their land. In other words, the Zionist state is founded on murder and theft. This is hardly an outrageous assertion.
So if you can blame every ill in the Middle East on "Zionism", what do you blame the situation in Sri Lanka on? "Sinhalism"? And is the situation in Tibet all about evil "Sinoism"? and i guess we can blame the situation in Chechnya or in Kosovo on "pan-slavism"?
You have two people fighting over a piece of land. "Zionism" is irrelevant to the situation now and the use of the word "Zionism" in such a pejorative way verges on being anti-semitic. If you don't like the policies of the Israeli government - that's all you have to say. There are about 6 million Israelis, the vast majority of whom are Jewish and most of whom aren't particularly religious and probably don't know Theodore Herzl from a six foot hole in the ground. They are just people born in Israel who speak Hebrew and to them its their country and they their reaction to having rockets fired at them is about the same as how we in Canada would react if rockets from Kanesetake were constantly falling downtown Montreal.
For all the lofty language - that's really all it is - two ethnic groups each with their own version of history - fighting over a piece of land. Let's not pretend there is anythingmore to it than that.
"Every ill in the Middle East"? Get a grip there, Stock. I blame the creation and maintenance of the state of Israel on Zionism, nothing else.
This eyelash-batting about a few ineffectual rockets becomes sillier every time it is invoked. During the six-month truce between Hamas and the Israelis there were hardly any rockets fired, and none of them caused any more damage than sporadic anxiety. The IOF was still killing Arab women and children during that time mind you, but that doesn't count, does it?
Few of whom were refusinks when called to do their obligatory IOF service, and most of whom think the Gaza Ghetto massacre was justified.
People have been killed and injured by these Hamas rockets. If really has such bad aim and if they really aren't capable of doing any damage - why launch any at all? It is a certainty that just as sure as night follows day - rockets launched from Gaza will absolutely definitely lead to Israeli retaliation. The only conclusion is that Hamas WANTS Israel to attack Gaza because that's the only thing that their rocket attacks can possibly lead to.
If there is some other strategy behind launching the rockets, i'd like to know what it is - because it sure isn't advancing the cause of the Palestinians...or maybe it is - someone explain to me what Hamas hopes to accomplish to firing rockets at Israeli cities.
"Few of whom were refusinks when called to do their obligatory IOF service, and most of whom think the Gaza Ghetto massacre was justified."
...all of which is counterbalanced by all the Hamas militia members who think that suicide bombings on civilian targets in Israel is justified.
I'm glad i don't leave in a part of the world where so many people on both sides has been so dehumanized.
That's all there is to it? The Israeli hate, open racism, embrace of fascism, ethnic cleansing, Jewish only roads and pass laws, theft of land, destruction of agriculture, the daily brutality and humiliations, the Gaza Ghetto, all of this is a mere spat to you? What a knucle-dragging jerk you are.
I wouldn't call it a "spat". Ethnic groups fighting over a piece of land can lead to a loss of millions of lives on both sides. The bloodiest war in history was WW1 - and guess what - it wasn't about Zionism!! it was about a power struggle between countries. In the last two years over 2 million people have died in a war in the Congo - i don't think either side was fighting in the name of any particular "ism" - they are just struggling for power.
I realize some people would rather try to "blame the Jews" for the whole conflict (just like some people in Germany think the Jews are responsible for WW2 and WW1) - than acknowledge that its just people fighting for land.
I'm sorry if by disputing your claim that "Zionism" is some inherently evil ideology I've ruined your fun.I'm sure that if someone tried to link suicide bombings in Israel to "evil Islamism" you be shrieking "racist" at them.
Then again, maybe the Greeks and the Turks aren't just fighting over Cyprus - its all about "evil genocidal Hellenism".
Way to prove the point Stocky.
What if people were to go around saying: "oh but you don't understand, WWII was just about people fighting over some territory. What else is new? Nazism, Fascism, Socialism, its all just another 'ism'. I know it spoil your fun to dispute your claim that Nazism is an inherently evil ideology... and I realize some people would rather try to "blame the Germans" for the whole conflict..."
LOL.
Fucking fascists are all the same. Just change the names around. They can't even see that they are saying exactly the same thing because they are so stuck in their personal ethnic prejuduce. It's a sickness, really.
No Stocky, I blame the German Facists for WWII, not the German people. Just like I blame the Israeli fascist for the oppression of Palestinians. And guess what? They call themselves Zionists.
There are Israeli socialists who also call themselves Zionists. The use of Zionist as a pejorative a la liberal in the United States is wearying.
Was the calling of Stockholm "an apologist for genocide" fair game on Babble?
Yes, it was. I don't know what else you would call a person who continually spoke of those nasty rockets being fired upon the people of Israel without showing even remote concern for the people of Palestine, except to blame them for their own genocide.
All of this in the points above and here you are Caissa, defending Stockholm, who apparently needs no defending.
I've expressed concern about the loss of life on both sides countless times. I'd like to know whether you ever give a hoot about the victims of suicide bombings and rockets in Israel - or are you an so-called apologist for genocide as long as its directed at Israelis.
Yes, it was. I don't know what else you would call a person who continually spoke of those nasty rockets being fired upon the people of Israel without showing even remote concern for the people of Palestine, except to blame them for their own genocide.
The population of both gaza and the West Bank have continuously risen. If this is "genocide" then it's the most incompetent genocide ever.
Yeah, in WWII also. It was tragic, the senseless killings of Allies and Nazis. And Afghanistan, imagine, the villagers from Kandahar and the villagers from Nova Scotia. Just so senseless, all that loss of life. And the thousands of Palestinians and the
dozensones of Israelis. What's it all about? Life is just so fucked. People dying. I wish it would all just stop. They shouldn't die, they should live.In Kabul? Sri Lanka? You're obviously not talking about Israel.
Excellent point. And you've helped me along to some self-awakening. Since October 2001, I have hoped and preached for the Afghan people to militarily defeat their invaders - which will happen one day very soon. But your eloquent remarks have made me realize that in so hoping, I have actually become an apologist for genocide as long as it's directed against U.S., Canadian, and NATO invading troops!!!
Thank you for clarifying the profound difference between victim and murderer. Imagine, all these years, I had it all backwards!
As far as I'm concerned the only way that anyone is a so-called apologist for genocide is if they try to argue that the Nazis were justified in building gas chambers at Auschwitz. Regrettably wars kill people and that is tragic, but bandying around the word genocide to describe any deaths at all in any conflict only cheapens the meaning of the word. If EVERY time anyone dies in a war it is "genocide" - then if everything is genocide nothing is genocide.
Dude, it IS genocide, and only you appear to think otherwise.
Obviously, in your view anytime people from the side you root for die - you call it "genocide" and anytime people from the side you oppose die - its "collateral damage" - how convenient.
Labor comes in fourth in the Israel election, behind three more explicitly RW parties. Now, could someone explain to me how Israel Jews are somehow NOT to be held responsible for their government's actions?
Martin, Labour was led by the Defence Minister responsible for the recent Gaza massacre. It is hard to think of many things more depressing than Israeli elections for anyone in favour of social justice and peace. But I don't see the point in placing collective responsibility on all 'Israeli Jews', there are exceptions and it can't be easy being one in that society.
Labor comes in fourth in the Israel election, behind three more explicitly RW parties. Now, could someone explain to me how Israel Jews are somehow NOT to be held responsible for their government's actions?
Well, in terms of willingness to reach a deal with the Palestinians, there's little difference between Kadima and Labor.
Funny you should raise this issue now. Earlier today I read something that covers much the same ground:
In reality, the basic problem stems from the principles on which Israel was founded, that is, that it is legitimate for certain persons, by virtue of a property acquired at birth (to be “Jewish”) to occupy the land of other persons on whom the accident of birth failed to confer that property.
Invoking the Bible or the holocaust as justification for that occupation changes nothing as to its intrinsically racist character, that is, the fact that it is based on a crucial distinction between individuals solely related to their birth.
This racist aspect is clear to the victims and to all those who identify with them, especially the populations of the Arab-Muslim world and parts of the Third World, to whom the Zionist project recalls previous painful experiences of European colonialism. But it is almost never acknowledged in the debate in the West.
It must be stressed that this is not a matter of “ordinary” racism, of the attitudes that are unfortunately held by many individuals – a subjective and largely passive racism, regrettable but with limited consequences. Here it is a matter of an institutionalized racism, enforced by the structures of the State. Now, it is usually such State racism that is considered in our Western democracies to be an attribute of the “extreme right”, and that is denounced as “incompatible with our values”, “contrary to modernity and the Enlightenment”, and so on.
This is the racism that led to a general condemnation of Apartheid in the Republic of South Africa and its ruling ideology. The only exception is Zionism, even though it is an ideology that legitimatizes an institutionalized racism.
I don't know if there is any likelihood of this happening, but it would be possible to keep both Lieberman and Netanyahu, who are electoral allies, out of government.
Shas, UTJ plan obstructive bloc against Lieberman
Such a government would have:
Kadima 28
Labour 13
Shas 11
UTJ 5
National Union 4
Jewish Home 3
Meretz 3
Total 67
Of course, it would be much better to include Hadash and the United Arab List instead of National Union and Jewish Home. Perhaps this is not the year for that.
Shas had been in the previous Kadima-led coalition, but would not reach a deal with Livni, causing the election. A bad gamble on their part: they dropped from 12 seats to 11. To stop Lieberman, can they admit they were wrong?
National Union and Meretz together? Don't think so.
It looks like it will be one of two coalitions, both headed by Netanyahoo. Either Likud will head a far right coalition of 65 seats, or Kadima will join Likud with Lieberman's party and one or more of the religious parties. Labor and Meretz are headed into opposition either way.
What's really interesting are the trends that were revealed in the election.
Just like America got divided into blue states and red states, Tel Aviv and jerusalem are becoming polar opposites. Almost half of jerusalem residents boted for either UTJ (the Ashkenazi ultra-orthodox party) or Shas (the Sephardi) ultra-orthodox party and Likud and Yisrael Beiteinu both did well with Kadima gettting smoked and Labout getting even more smoked. The story is jsut the opposite in tel Aviv which is alrgely secular. But given that the orthodox population is rising many many times faster than the secular population, we can only guess at how things will go 20 years from now...
Don't forget the impact of the huge influx of Russian Jews. They tend to be very anti-religious, but also very authoritarian and hawkish on security issues (these are people who probably want an Israeli equivalent of Vladimir Putin!).
Well, from teh link someone psoted above, it seems the haredi (ultra-orthodox) parties are not too fond of lieberman. Lieberman wants to bring in civil marriage and to relax standards on conversion. he's more of a foreign policy hawk. The orthodox parties are more about religious issues.
Ha'aretz was reporting earlier this week that Meretz and Labour are talking about merging.
A little late for that. Both failed their constituencies, especially Labor.
"There should be no mistake about the election results, while no significance should be attributed to Livni's personal accomplishment; it is meaningless. Israel chose to go right; it chose conservatism and fascism, and it did so in an unequivocal and blatant manner. . . .
Given Kadima's Knesset list and the fact it is merely a derivative of Likud, with most of Kadima's members not really undergoing an ideological metamorphosis, the Right's victory in Israel is not only unequivocal in mathematical terms. It is a crushing win. Let's not cover up this fact or its implications.
Labor must not dare consider the corrupting idea that guided it in the past 30 years - in the name of "national responsibility" of course - to join, as a fifth wheel, yet another rightist government and continue to push our political history into the realms of chaos and apocalypse. We are there anyways thanks to you.
. . . .
Labor is the party that pulverized the fundamental political order of coalition and opposition and enabled the Right to recycle and rehabilitate itself after each failure.
Had Labor realized back in 1984 that being in the opposition is not about going to a barren land, but rather, it's a mission and there is no democracy in its absence, perhaps we would have been in a different era by now.
However, labor always preferred the comforts of power, and by doing so consistently built up the strength of the Right, while eliminating itself. Meanwhile, no suitable ideological-political response to the rightist rule was created."
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3671144,00.html
I reas a really fascinating in-depth analysis of the Israeli election results and recent political trends on dailykos:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/2/13/153335/529/485/697179
"
Beware: A Long Diary
This diary is long even by my standards. If you have an unshakeable preconceived notion about Israelis being fascists or Arabs being at fault, then we don’t need each other anyway and you are free to go off on a 200-comment flame war elsewhere. To all the rest, even though the dynamics (as usual) are simple and universal, the details are a bit convoluted. Moreover, people with some of the facts and a lot of prejudice have been promoting analyses which take even more detail to debunk. I am trying to make the IP101 texts focused, but given that the price of text in kilobytes is so cheap, I’d rather aim for clear, comprehensive and interesting writing, than for soundbites and punchlines. So thanks in advance for bearing with me.
Right Wing Nation?
The bare electoral facts are dismal. Israel’s outright rejectionist bloc – that is, all parties that oppose Palestinian independence in any meaningful form – has won 65 seats out of 120. On this point, Israeli election pollsters (notoriously "a bit off") have been correct. Among these 65 MK’s you will find a range of charming ideas – from kicking Palestinians out of the country, to stripping Israeli Arabs of their citizenship, to intense studies of how to build the Third Jewish Temple (on the ruins of the mosque sitting there, I presume) - to just believing Arabs are not quite as human as us (a belief currently held among many shades of Israel’s Orthodox spectrum)..."
And in related news...
Christians in Jerusalem want Jews to stop spitting on them
"I'm sure the phenomenon would end as soon as rabbis and well-known educators denounce it. In practice, rabbis of yeshivas ignore or even encourage it," he says.
Evyatar says he himself was spat at while walking with a Serbian bishop in the Jewish quarter, near his home. "A group of yeshiva students spat at us and their teacher just stood by and watched."
Lieberman has been outed as a former follower of Meir Kahane:
If the Obama administration confirms the report that appeared last week in Haaretz, and which was not denied by Lieberman, the Yisrael Beiteinu leader may not be granted a visa to enter the U.S. The close cooperation between Israel and the U.S. on matters of strategy, defense, economics, commerce, tourism and transportation means that ministers charged with relevant portfolios often visit the United States.
A new MK, Michael Ben-Ari of the National Union, confirmed that he had been a member of Kach while it was headed by Meir Kahane and may face similar restrictions.
Kahane won
If Kahane were alive and running for the 18th Knesset, not only would his list not be banned, it would win many votes, as Yisrael Beiteinu is expected to do. The prohibited has become permitted, the ostracized is now accepted, the destestable has become the talented - that's the slippery slope down which Israeli society has skidded over the past two decades.
There's no need to refer to Haaretz's startling revelation that Yisrael Beiteinu chairman Avigdor Lieberman was a member of Kahane's Kach party in his youth: This campaign's dark horse was and is a Kahanist. The differences between Kach and Yisrael Beiteinu are minuscule, not fundamental and certainly not a matter of morality. The differences are in tactical nuances: Lieberman calls for a fascist "test of loyalty" as a condition for granting citizenship to Israel's Arabs, while Kahane called for the unconditional annulment of their citizenship. One racist (Lieberman) calls for their transfer to the Palestinian state, the other (Kahane) called for their deportation.
Now the instigator of the new Israeli racism will apparently become the leader of a large party once again in the government. Benjamin Netanyahu has already pledged that Lieberman will be an "important minister" in his government. If someone like Lieberman were to join a government in Europe, Israel would sever ties with it. If anyone had predicted in Kahane's day that a pledge to turn his successor into an important minister would one day be considered an electoral asset here, they would have been told they were having a nightmare.
But the nightmare is here and now. Kahane is alive and kicking - is he ever - in the person of his thuggish successor.
There is one key difference between Lieberman's party and what Kahane represented. I think that the so-called "Kach" party wanted to expel all Arabs from all the occupied territories and have Israel occupy essentially everything between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River and they were opposed to any Palestinian state of any kind. Lieberman - racist as he is - actually wants a two state solution and in fact he wants the Palestinian state to be even bigger than many people in the "mainstream" have ever favoured. He wants to forcibly crave out areas of pre-1967 Israel that have Arab majority populations and join them to Gaza and the West Bank so that Israel has new boundaries that are almost devoid of Arabs.
Its interesting that back in the 70s and 80s supporting the creation of a Palestinian state in any form was considered a fringe leftwing sentiment in Israel. Now you have people on the far right favouring it. Remember that Sharon left Likud and formed Kadima because he wanted to unilaterally withdraw from Gaza etc...while the old-line Likudniks were against that and wanted the occupation of Gaza to continue.
There was bigger news than the election coming out of Israel last week.
Israeli model Bar Refaeli lands Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue cover
Was the timing of this announcement a coincidence, or did ZOG plan it to distract everyone from the election results?
Haaretz seems to be leaning to the ZOG theory...
Bar Refaeli in Gaza
...The branding project is not meant to influence Congressmen's votes on aid to Israel, or Barack Obama's stance on the settlements; it aims to alter an image in the long run. It confronts Israel's most difficult problem in the world: the difference in the way Israelis perceive themselves and the way they are perceived abroad...
...Bar Refaeli is expected to prove that Israel is like the West. The young women of Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas are not photographed in bathing suits. Neither are Egyptian or Saudi Arabian girls - an advantage perhaps that stresses our belonging in the Western cultural club. In Israeli eyes, a photo of Refaeli on an airliner makes us more American and Western.
According to CBC Radio this morning Lieberman has thrown his support to Netanyahu.
Not a surprise. The question is whether Livni and Kadima can resist the pressure, internal and external, to join the right-wing coaltion without a rotating PMship. I'm hoping she, and they, don't, giving the majority of Israelis what they apparently want, a Masada coaltion.
"But Lieberman conditioned his support for Netanyahu on the Likud leader forging a broad coalition, including his rival, Kadima chairwoman Tzipi Livni.
"[There are] three possibilities from our point of view: A broad government, which is what we want. A narrow government, that will be a government of paralysis, but we don't rule out sitting in it. And the third option is going to elections, which will achieve nothing," the far-rightist told Peres."
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1065464.html
There was bigger news than the election coming out of Israel last week.
Israeli model Bar Refaeli lands Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue cover
Was the timing of this announcement a coincidence, or did ZOG plan it to distract everyone from the election results?
Apparently, leonardo DiCaprio is considering converting to Judaism to marry her. Man, they will produce some beautiful, Jewish kids.And for whom did she vote?
She endorsed Livni right before the election. I'll give her a pass, though, for being so stunningly hot.
Did you ACTUALLY just post that?
OINK, to the tenth power!
_________________________________________________________________________________________________ Our Demands Most Moderate are/ We Only Want The World! -James Connolly
As I figured, Lieberman is throwing in with the Likud party. Looks like it's gonna be Natanhyu. Bet the Iranians hope the Russians hurry up and deliver those new anti-aircraft missiles. Bet they're going to need them.
It seems that the most warlike, right wing bloc that Israel has seen in a long time is coming to the fore. And that's saying a lot.
All I can say is 'stand by to stand by' on this one.
"War is a racket" - Gen. Smedley Butler, USMC
Chairwoman Tzipi Livni ended her meeting with Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday, after the latter refused to include the "two states for two people solution" in his government's basic guidelines.
"Two states (one for the Israelis and one of the Palestinians) is not an empty slogan," Livni said as she left the meeting. "Unity is not just sitting in a government together. It also means sharing a way."
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3678490,00.html
Um, yeah, could we keep the blatant, disgusting sexism out of this thread? And off our web site? Thanks, that would be fabulous.
Jebus H. Fucking Crispies.
Why would he have to convert to Judaism to marry her?
Moreover, SCC you expose your surface and trivial nature by saying "Man, they will produce some beautiful, Jewish kids." Say nothing of your sexist shit that others have taken exception to.
Lighten up, remind! It was a joke!! We Jews are known for poking fun at ourselves. It's all in good fun.
As to why he would have to convert, I would suppose because that's what she said has to happen. There was some headline I read about it but have no idea at this point where it was.
Piss off with telling me to lighten up, sexist banter is not okay, thanks! You objectified her and whatever children she may have. I do not call what you stated poking fun at Jews.
Apparently, leonardo DiCaprio is considering converting to Judaism to marry her. Man, they will produce some beautiful, Jewish kids.
Apparently DiCaprio couldn't handle the pressure, and bolted.
Leonardo DiCaprio has decided to break up with his Israeli model girlfriend Bar Refaeli, it has been claimed.
The Titanic star is said to have made the decision because he felt that Refaeli wanted to get too serious too quickly, People reports.
A source said: "They're taking time off for the time being, they've split. It could just end up as a break but for now they're doing their own thing."
Another added: "She wanted to move faster than he did, she wanted to move in together so he broke it off."
Oh, the humanity!
The conspiracy deepens
So, is a thread on the last horrible Israeli election going to drag on until the NEXT horrible Israeli election?
How the Netanyahu gov’t undermines Israeli democracy
Several actions by the current government are intended to deny the opposition its essential freedom of action
One of the basic principles of a democratic regime is that it allows all citizens to participate in it equally. The basic assumption is that the faction currently in power will be removed someday, and that the opponents of the government are allowed the same rights in spreading their ideas. Another basic assumption is that a change of government is a healthy thing; a regime that makes its replacement difficult is already on the way to dictatorship or at the very least an authoritarian regime. In a democratic regime, or at any rate in a society imbued with a democratic ethos, the government does not change the rules mid-game, particularly not in its favor.
This is how we should view the series of bills persecuting the left that have been proposed by the Netanyahu coalition in the last two years. Let’s deal with one of the latest, one that Haaretz notes (Hebrew) will be debated tomorrow by the ministerial legislative committee, which under this government is the fast track for “private” bills (i.e., those not proposed by the government or a party but by MKs without the support of either)....