Israel – Informed Comment https://www.juancole.com Thoughts on the Middle East, History and Religion Fri, 26 Apr 2024 05:04:58 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.8.9 Zionism’s Expired Shelf-Life: Why Naomi Klein is right that it has become Pharaoh https://www.juancole.com/2024/04/zionisms-expired-pharaoh.html Fri, 26 Apr 2024 04:54:11 +0000 https://www.juancole.com/?p=218251 Oakland, Ca. (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – Previously I’ve argued that Zionism has run its course as a political movement, and accomplished its goal: The creation of a viable Jewish nation-state. I’ve also argued that Zionism under Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu (Bibi) has become a driving force in nurturing global anti-Semitism. He has perverted and mutated Zionism to where it has become a affront to the ideals of Torah and Judaism. It’s also become a threat to democracy in the US as well as Israel. With Israel’s embrace of American Evangelical communities over progressive Jews, and Bibi’s alliance with former President Donald Trump, he has meddled into American politics to promote Trump, who has proven to be the greatest threat to Western-style Democracy since World War II.

The Anne Frank House Center says that, “Zionism is about the pursuit of an independent Jewish state.” That was accomplished in 1948, and affirmed in bloody wars in 1956, 1967, 1973 and in various attacks and battles since then. On October 7 the Zionist military apparatus, for all its impressiveness, failed because of hubris. Modern Jewish history didn’t start then. The post-World War I San Remo Conference of 1920 was the genesis for current dynamics, when the artificial boundaries of the Levant were created by the victorious Western empires.  

Zionism is abused as a social and religious cudgel by the Evangelical movement, and has become another tool of divisiveness for the American far-right. Evangelicals, not Jews, comprise a greater plurality of Israeli tourism now, as more American and European Jews reject this narrative of a “false idol,” in the words of author and activist Naomi Klein. She wrote in a recent ‘Street Seder Address’ published in The Guardian, that Zionism “is a false idol that takes our most profound biblical stories of justice and emancipation from slavery – the story of Passover itself – and turns them into brutalist weapons of colonial land theft, roadmaps for ethnic cleansing and genocide . . . . . a metaphor for human liberation that has traveled across multiple faiths to every corner of this globe – and dared to turn it into a deed of sale for a militaristic ethnostate.”

Netanyahu’s virulent Likud form of Zionism, which he has now allied with the openly racist and even genocidal Religious Zionism and Jewish Power blocs, has created an image of the movement that is anathema to many progressive and leftist activists, and it fuels anti-Semitism as less informed people on the right and left conflate this ruthless ultra-nationalism with Judaism. Just as marriages can run their course, leading to a necessary divorce, the time has come for Jews to divorce Zionism. Bibi has become a literal Pharaoh to Palestinians.  Klein adds, “From the start it has produced an ugly kind of freedom that saw Palestinian children not as human beings but as demographic threats – much as the pharaoh in the Book of Exodus feared the growing population of Israelites, and thus ordered the death of their sons. It is a false idol that has led far too many of our own people down a deeply immoral path that now has them justifying the shredding of core commandments: thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not covet.”

Democracy Now! Video: “Naomi Klein: Jews Must Raise Voices for Palestine, Oppose “False Idol of Zionism”

It’s important to remember that “Judaism and Zionism are two distinct terms often intertwined, in reality, they represent rather distinct concepts with different historical, cultural, and most importantly, political implications,” as noted in The Business Standard.  They add, “Following the establishment of Israel, Zionism became an ideology that continues to support the development and protection of the State of Israel. Zionism, at its core, can be understood as a manifestation of Jewish nationalism.”  Judaism is a religion, while Zionism is a political ideology.

 The original anti-Zionists were, “from fringe Orthodox sects and maintain that Israel can only be regained miraculously. They view the present state as a blasphemous human attempt to usurp God’s role, and many seek to dismantle the secular State of Israel. However, unlike many gentile anti­-Zionists, Jewish anti-Zionists usually firmly believe in the Jewish right to the Land of Israel, but only at the future time of redemption.”  Though the Neturei Karta were the most visible of observant anti-Zionists, most Haredim in Israel continue that tradition with their refusal to participate in the military or support the embattled state.

Klein asserts that the Zionist ideology, “. . .  is a false idol that equates Jewish freedom with cluster bombs that kill and maim Palestinian children. Zionism is a false idol that has betrayed every Jewish value, including the value we place on questioning – a practice embedded in the Seder with its four questions asked by the youngest child. . . . Including the love we have as a people for text and for education. . . .Today, this false idol justifies the bombing of every university in Gaza; the destruction of countless schools, of archives, of printing presses; the killing of hundreds of academics, of journalists, of poets.” She calls this “scholasticide,” which is parallel to the burning of libraries and synagogues by Nazis.

The American Jewish Committee (AJC) is one of many Western Jewish organizations that continues to promote the false idol narrative.  They argue that anti-Zionism means that Jews “do not have a right to self-determination — or that the Jewish people’s religious and historical connection to Israel is invalid.” The AJC also says that, “Calling for a Palestinian nation-state, while simultaneously advocating for an end to the Jewish nation-state is hypocritical at best, and potentially anti-Semitic.” The polemical problem is that the Jewish nation is a powerful “fact on the ground,” though threatened by hostile outside forces. Israel is a political reality. But Judaism and Zionism are also threatened internally by Bibi’s leadership record of self-destruction, as his primary aim is political self-preservation. Israel’s economy and security are also undermined by the refusal of the Haredim to support the state and serve in the military.

Not only can Israel remain secure without Zionism; it may become more secure, as the provocations towards Palestinians would cease. The Temple Sunday School narrative minimizes, euphemizes and marginalizes what Palestinians suffered in the Nabka, concurrent with Israeli independence. It’s time to correct that false narrative, and recognize that Zionism has run its course.

The outpouring of objection to American funding of the Israeli war machine is unprecedented in size and scope. In turn the size and scope of government efforts to quash these protests is also unprecedented, now becoming evocative of Kent State in 1970. That’s the first thing that comes to mind when anyone proposes placing National Guard troops on a US college campus. Doing so would be a provocation and incitement for escalation, and that game plan appears to be unfolding.

Judaism and its offshoots, Christianity and Islam, have all been plagued by departures from their spiritual ethics into orgies of violence. We see this phenomenon in Bibi’s brand of imperial Zionism, Hamas’ and other extremist groups’ violent perversion of Islam, preferring an ideology of hate and misogyny, and the White Christian Nationalist movement in the US, fueled by Trump. The religions of Christianity and Islam have struggled to come to terms with secular modernity, and have seen powerful and violent movements during that struggle. Judaism has the spiritual Reform movement, but no corresponding social-political movement. Judaism came first and has an obligation to take the lead in creating a new paradigm, of a monotheistic, biblically-rooted tradition that nevertheless stands for tolerance and human rights for all. Jews must recognize that the shelf-life of Zionism has expired. Also important is that Judaism is a religion, not a form of ethno-nationalism, despite former President Trump’s attempts to dragoon all Jews into the effort to censor free speech over Palestinian human rights.

]]> The Ideological Coup: How Far Right Kahanist Extremists Became the Face of Israel https://www.juancole.com/2024/04/ideological-kahanist-extremists.html Thu, 25 Apr 2024 04:06:37 +0000 https://www.juancole.com/?p=218223 ( Middle East Monitor ) – Throughout history, fringe religious Zionist parties have had limited success in achieving the kind of electoral victories that would allow them an actual share in the country’s political decision-making.

The impressive number of 17 seats won by Israel’s extremist religious party, Shas, in the 1999 election was a watershed moment in the history of these parties, whose ideological roots go back to Avraham Itzhak Kook and his son Zvi Yehuda Hacohen.

Israeli historian Ilan Pappé referred to the Kooks’ ideological influence as a “fusion of dogmatic messianism and violence”.

Throughout the years, these religious parties struggled on several fronts: their inability to unify their ranks, their failure to appeal to mainstream Israeli society and their inability to strike the balance between their messianic political discourse and the kind of language – not necessarily behaviour – that Israel’s western allies expect.

Though much of the financial support and political backing of Israel’s extremists originate in the United States and, to a lesser extent, European countries, Washington has been clear regarding its public perception of Israel’s religious extremists.

In 2004, the United States banned the Kach party, which could be seen as the modern manifestation of the Kooks and Israel’s early religious Zionist ideologues.

The founder of the group, Meir Kahane was, in fact, assassinated in November 1990 while the extremist rabbi – responsible for much violence against innocent Palestinians throughout the years – was giving another hate-filled speech in Manhattan.

Kahane’s death was only the start of much violence meted out by his followers, lead among them an American doctor, Baruch Goldstein, who gunned down on 25 February 1994, dozens of Palestinian Muslim worshippers at the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron.

Hindustan Times Video: “‘Attack Rafah Or…’: Ben-Gvir Threatens To Bring Down Netanyahu Govt After IDF Troop Withdrawal”

The number of Palestinians killed by Israeli soldiers while protesting the massacre was nearly as many as those killed by Goldstein earlier in the day, a tragic but a perfect representation of the relationship between the Israeli state and the violent settlers who operate as part of a larger state agenda.

That massacre was a watershed moment in the history of religious Zionism. Instead of serving as an opportunity to marginalise their growing influence, by the supposedly more liberal Zionists, they grew in power and, ultimately, political influence within the Israeli state.

Goldstein himself became a hero, whose grave, in Israel’s most extremist illegal settlement in the West Bank, Kiryat Arba, is now a popular shrine, a place of pilgrimage for thousands of Israelis.

Particularly telling is that Goldstein’s shrine has been built opposite Meir Kahane’s Memorial Park, which is indicative of the clear ideological connections between these individuals, groups and also funders.

In recent years, however, the traditional role played by Israel’s religious Zionists began to shift, leading to the election of Itamar Ben-Gvir to the Israeli Knesset in 2021 and, ultimately, to his role as the country’s national security minister in December 2022.

Ben-Gvir is a follower of Kahane. “It seems to me that ultimately Rabbi Kahane was about love. Love for Israel without compromise, without any other consideration,” he said in November 2022.

But, unlike Kahane, Ben-Gvir was not satisfied with the role of religious Zionists as cheerleaders for the settlement movement, almost daily raids of Al-Aqsa and the occasional attacks on Palestinians. He wanted to be at the centre of Israeli political power.

Whether Ben-Gvir achieved his status as a direct result of the successful grassroots work of religious Zionism, or because the political circumstances of Israel itself have changed in his favour, is an interesting debate.

The truth, however, might be somewhere in the middle. The historic failure of Israel’s so-called political left – namely the Labor Party – has, in recent years, propelled a relatively unfamiliar phenomenon – the political centre.

Meanwhile, Israel’s traditional right, the Likud Party, grew weaker, partly because it failed to appeal to the growing, more youthful religious Zionism constituency, and also because of the series of splits, which occurred as a result of Ariel Sharon’s breaking-up of the party in and the founding of Kadima in 2005 – a party which has been long disbanded.

To survive, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has redefined his party to its most extremist version of all time and, thus, began to attract religious Zionists with the hope of filling the gaps created because of internal infighting within the Likud.

By doing so, Netanyahu has granted religious Zionists the opportunity of a lifetime.

Soon, following the 7 October Al-Aqsa Flood operation, and in the early days of the Israeli genocide in Gaza, Ben-Gvir launched his National Guard, a group which he tried, but failed, to compose prior to the war.

Thanks to Ben-Gvir, Israel, now, per the words of opposition leader Yair, has become a country with a “private militia”.

By 19 March, Ben-Gvir announced that 100,000 gun permits had been handed over to his supporters. It is within this period that the US began imposing ‘sanctions’ on a few individuals affiliated with Israel’s settler extremist movement, a small slap on the wrist considering the massive damage that has already been done and the great violence that is likely to follow in the coming months and years.

Unlike Netanyahu, Ben-Gvir’s thinking is not limited to his desire to reach a specific position within the government. Israel’s religious extremists are seeking a fundamental and irreversible shift in Israeli politics.

The relatively recent push to change the relationship between the judicial and exclusive branches of government was as important to those extremists as it was to Netanyahu himself. The latter, however, has championed such an initiative to shield himself against legal accountability, while Ben-Gvir’s supporters have a different reason in mind: they want to be able to dominate the government and the military, with no accountability or oversight.

Israel’s religious Zionists are playing a long game, which is not linked to a particular election, individual or government coalition. They are redefining the state, along with its ideology. And they are winning.

It goes without saying that Ben-Gvir, and his threats to topple Netanyahu’s coalition government, have been the main driving force behind the genocide in Gaza.

If Meir Kahane was still alive, he would have been proud of his followers. The ideology of the once marginalised and loathed extremist rabbi is now the backbone of Israeli politics.

 

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor or Informed Comment.

Creative Commons LicenseThis work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Via Middle East Monitor

]]> Red Lines and Rockets: Reframing the War on Gaza https://www.juancole.com/2024/04/lines-rockets-reframing.html Sat, 20 Apr 2024 04:15:18 +0000 https://www.juancole.com/?p=218145 Madison, Wisconsin (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – Barely a day after Iran fired drones, cruise, and ballistic missiles westward across the desert skies towards Israel, in response to Israel’s attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus, Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps commander, Hossein Salami, issued the following statement: “From now on, if Israel attacks Iranian interests, figures, and citizens anywhere, Iran will retaliate from Iranian soil.” If Iran stands by this declaration, it has issued a new red line in the simmering regional war Israel has instigated with its brutal destruction of Gaza.

Viewers accustomed to American media will likely blame Iran for any intensification of hostilities. In fact, however, virtually every act of aggression that has taken place in the region since October 8th is rooted in Israel’s ‘war’ on Gaza, which has deep roots not only in the European colonial past but in religious mythology and a Zionist ideology that is rigid, chauvinistic and exclusive. All three factors underscore the belief that Jews alone have a right to historic Palestine.

Across America, as the carefully choreographed Iranian “attack” played out like a fireworks display on our television screens, Hudia –a friend of mine in Rafah, Gaza—recorded her thoughts:

    “Was Iran allowed to attack Israel so that the world’s attention would be drawn away from Gaza? If so, it was successful. Here in Gaza, however, Israel’s destruction did not stop for one second. Iranian missiles broke apart in the skies to our east, but the drones and bombs over our heads remained intact until they exploded on the ground, scattering debris and human bodies.”

On Saturday morning, 13 April 2024, the Palestinian Ministry of Health reported 33,634 Palestinians killed and 76, 214 injured in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7th. By Monday morning, 15 April 2024, the death toll had increased to over 33,800 – an addition of nearly two hundred bodies—but global attention was now focused on Iran.

For the US and Israel this was a win. Herzl Halevi, Chief of Staff of Israel’s military, promised a response –a sinister pledge since Iran’s “attack” was supposed to have been the conclusion to Israel’s April 1st bombing of the Iranian consulate in Damascus in which Israel targeted what is considered sovereign Iranian territory, according to the 1961 Vienna Convention.

The Young Turks Video: “Israel Attacks Iran After Vowing Retaliation”

With this strike, Israel killed 16 people, including seven IRCG soldiers, two of whom were high-ranking officers, Mohammad Reza Zahedi and Mohammad Hadi Haj Rahimi.

Halevi and his associates in Israel understood the attack in Syria would have consequences beyond fulminations against the ‘Zionist entity.’ For the first time in its history, the Islamic Republic of Iran struck back at Israel. But this was little more than a face-saving measure.

Iran gave the US fair warning –allowing it to caution its embassy staff in Israel not to travel – and appears to have aimed most of its weapons at the Nevatim Air Base in southern Israel, where the F-35 that struck Damascus began its flight. This was a largely symbolic strike, one that aimed “to minimize casualties while maximizing spectacle.”

Iran is uninterested in regional war, least of all one that involves the United States. Why then are the Israelis so keen to hit back at Iran?

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has taken the opportunity to justify a retaliatory attack. He has openly sought such a war for nearly 30 years. Although US President Joe Biden told Israel the US would not participate in any Israeli action against Iran, he has repeatedly told Israel US support is “ironclad”. If Iran attacks Israel again US participation is therefore guaranteed.

The American Israeli tango taking place has other curious features. When the US bombed several Middle East targets after three American service personnel were killed at Tower 22 in Jordan, Iran called on allied militia groups to cease all attacks against US bases in the region. After the Israeli strike in Damascus the Iranians held the United States responsible, placing US troops in danger yet again.

Rather than express anger at Israel, the US, UK, and France blocked a UN resolution condemning Israel’s actions.  Iran’s offer not to hit back militarily if the UN condemned Israel’s actions was ignored. The United States was therefore instrumental in fueling Iran’s counterattack.

In Egypt and Qatar, Hamas negotiators have repeatedly demanded a permanent ceasefire in exchange for all the hostages taken on October 7th, yet Israeli negotiators have consistently refused insisting they must defeat Hamas in Gaza before the fighting stops. One result has been a surge in Hamas’ popularity across the Middle East; another is that the hostages remain in captivity. The US vetoed three UNSC resolutions demanding a ceasefire, abstained once, falsely claiming the resolution was “non-binding;” and continues to entertain Israel’s plan to invade Rafah.

With global attention focused on Israeli-Iranian tensions, Netanyahu can claim at least a partial victory. What better way to salvage Israel’s image, battered by its genocidal actions in Gaza, than to spearhead an assault against the “Axis of Resistance”?

Israel can again claim it is a tiny, beleaguered nation fighting valiantly against “terrorism” and Islamic ‘treachery’ with Hamas (and Palestinian Islamic Jihad) portrayed as the agents of Tehran. As such, Hamas is but one arm of the sinister ‘octopus’ whose head is the Islamic Republic and whose other arms include Hizbullah of Lebanon, Ansar Allah of Yemen, Syria, and various Iraqi paramilitaries.

For some in the West, Palestine is just a fig leaf covering the Axis’ greater goal of destroying Israel, instrumentalized by antisemites and shadowy anti-enlightenment villains determined to overthrow Western civilization. The protection of the Jewish State then becomes a moral duty.

Instead of being seen as a rogue nation pulverizing the Gaza Strip into oblivion, Israel will try to convince the world that its destruction of Gaza is to protect the world we know. If Palestinians have already been dehumanized to the extent that genocidal murder and displacement raise few eyebrows, they can be partly de-nationalized as well. Palestine will no longer be the central issue; our core Western values, of which Israel is a key representative, are under threat.

Is this the framework Netanyahu and his cohorts here and in Israel wish to reinforce? If so, they can ‘rightly’ conclude that demanding a ceasefire in Gaza and ignoring Iran’s attack are suicidal. Hudia writes,

    “Iran’s attack did nothing but divert attention from what’s happening here. Hundreds of Iranian drones and rockets evaporated into the atmosphere achieving nothing but heightened tensions with Israel, giving them greater license than ever to carry on with genocide and the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.”
]]> Israel’s Limited Attack on Iran Appears Aimed at De-Escalating Conflict https://www.juancole.com/2024/04/israels-escalating-conflict.html Sat, 20 Apr 2024 04:04:17 +0000 https://www.juancole.com/?p=218138 By Kian Sharifi

( RFE/RL ) – Israel had vowed to make Iran pay for Tehran’s unprecedented drone and missile attack on April 13.

But Israel’s suspected military response early on April 19 appeared to be limited in scale and scope and aimed at de-escalating tensions with Iran.

Tehran said it shot down three quadcopter drones outside the central city of Isfahan, which is home to key military and nuclear facilities. Unnamed U.S. officials said Israel used missiles in the attack.

Experts said the use of small quadcopter drones, which are unable to travel long distances, suggests the attack was carried out from inside Iranian territory.

Israel has not claimed the attack in Isfahan. But experts said the suspected Israeli response sent a clear message to Tehran.

Raz Zimmt, a senior researcher at the Israeli-based Institute for National Security Studies, said Israel’s use of quadcopter drones, if confirmed, suggests its aim was to “expose the vulnerability of the Iranian security forces” on their own turf.

Zimmt said the attack was not without its risks, but out of all the options available to Israel, it was possibly the least risky.

“At this stage, deniability is vital to lower the risk. I think that if Israel takes responsibility for what happened — and there is sometimes this tendency among Israeli politicians – this would make it more difficult, not impossible but more difficult, for Iran not to retaliate.”

CNBC TV Video: “Israel launches strike on Iran: Here’s what to know”

Reuters quoted an unnamed Iranian official as saying that Tehran “has no plan to strike back immediately.”

Israel has been accused of previously attacking military sites in Isfahan with small drones. In January 2023, a military factory was hit. Three months later, Iran said it had foiled a drone attack on a Defense Ministry complex in the city.

 

Farzin Nadimi, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute, told RFE/RL’s Radio Farda that if Israel was behind the Isfahan attack, it was carried out in a manner “that carried the least risk of an Iranian retaliation.”

Iran’s April 13 attack was a response to the suspected Israeli air strike on the Iranian Embassy compound in Damascus on April 1 that killed seven Iranian commanders, including two generals.

Tehran said its attack showed that a “new equation” had been established and that Iran would not let Israeli strikes on Iranian interests abroad go unanswered.

But on the same day as the Isfahan attack, Israel was accused of targeting air defense systems in Syria, a key ally of Tehran where Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps has a presence.

Zimmt said Israel wanted to send the message that “first, we retaliated, and second, we attacked in Syria and not just in Iran, meaning we are not ready to accept this so-called ‘new equation’ that the Iranians are trying to force on us.”

Mohammad Zarghami of Radio Farda contributed to this report.

Copyright (c)2024 RFE/RL, Inc. Used with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty

Via RFE/RL

]]> Shadow War no more: With Direct Warfare between Israel and Iran, is there any going Back? https://www.juancole.com/2024/04/shadow-warfare-between.html Tue, 16 Apr 2024 04:06:04 +0000 https://www.juancole.com/?p=218062 By Javed Ali, University of Michigan | –

For decades, Iran and Israel have been engaged in a “shadow war.”

Falling short of direct military confrontation, this conflict has been characterized by war through other means – through proxies, cyber attacks, economic sanctions and fiery rhetoric.

Events over the last few weeks in the Middle East have, however, changed the nature of this conflict. First, Israel – it is widely presumed – broke diplomatic norms by bombing an Iranian mission in Syria. The operation, in which 12 individuals were killed – including seven officials from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp Quds Force – ratcheted up the stakes.

It also crossed a new threshold. Never before had that many Quds Force or other Iranian military officials been killed in a single attack by Iran’s adversaries. Almost immediately, rhetoric from leaders in Tehran indicated Iran would respond swiftly and dramatically.

Then, on April 13, 2024, Iran responded by crossing a line it had, to date, not crossed: launching a direct attack on Israeli soil.

Iran’s attack against Israel was also qualitatively and quantitatively different than anything Tehran had directly attempted before. Israel Defense Forces spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said that it consisted of at least 170 drones, 30 cruise missiles and 120 surface-to-surface missiles. The attack was launched from positions in Iran, Iraq, Syria and Yemen.

In physical terms, the barrage caused little damage. Hagari said that 99% of the projectiles sent by Iran were intercepted by air and missile defenses, and that only one person was injured. For now, it appears that Tehran is content with its own response; the Iranian Mission to the United Nations posted a message on social media following the attack indicating that the operation had concluded.

But as an expert on national security and the Middle East, I believe the Iranian attack was not about inflicting physical damage on Israel. It was more about Iran attempting to restore deterrence with Israel following the Damascus incident and showing strength to its domestic audience. In so doing, Tehran’s leaders are also conveying the message that should Israel conduct more aggressive actions against Iranian interests, they are willing to escalate.

Friends, then longtime foes

Iran and Israel have been adversaries virtually since the Iranian Revolution in 1979, when the Shah of Iran fled the country to be replaced by a theocracy. New leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini broke the former regime’s ties with Israel and quickly adopted a strident anti-Israel agenda both in words and policy.

In the decades since, Israel and Iran have inflicted harm on the other’s interests in both the physical and virtual worlds. This has included major terrorist attacks backed by Iran against Israeli interests in Argentina in 1992 and 1994, Tehran’s backing of Hezbollah’s grinding insurgency against Israel in southern Lebanon, and the major operational support provided to Hamas that in part enabled the attacks on Oct. 7, 2023.

Meanwhile, Iranian officials have blamed Israel for the killing of senior military officials and scientists related to Iran’s nuclear program in Iran or elsewhere in the region.

The lack of open acknowledgment by Israel of the killings was to create the illusion of plausible deniability and implant doubt about who was actually responsible.

In recent years, Iran has relied heavily on its “axis of resistance” – militant groups in Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon, Syria and Gaza that share some of Tehran’s goals, notably in regard to countering Israel and weakening U.S. influence in the region. In the monthslong conflict sparked by the Oct. 7 attack, Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen and the Islamic Resistance in Iraq network have repeatedly attacked Israeli and U.S. interests.

‘A clear message’

So what comes next? A lot will depend on how Israel and the U.S. respond.

Officially, U.S. President Joe Biden has stated that in repelling the Iran missiles and drones, Israel had sent “a clear message to its foes that they cannot effectively threaten [its] security.”

But there are reports that Biden has warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Israel should “take the win” and could not rely on the U.S. supporting any offensive operations against Iran.

CBC News Video added by IC: “Israel vows retaliation after Iran attack”

A number of factors will determine whether Iran and Israel continue to launch more attacks against each other out in the open, or revert to shadow warfare.

These include how each side reads domestic sentiment. Netanyahu is already facing pressure based on his handling of the war in Gaza and previous domestic concerns regarding attempts to influence the Israeli Supreme Court, among other matters.

Likewise, inside Iran, the United Nations reports that two years after major public protests inside the country based on socio-economic conditions, the regime in Iran continues to ruthlessly suppress dissent.

Apart from domestic considerations, both Iran and Israel will also weigh the risks of more open confrontation against their current operational capabilities. Here, it seems clear that neither Iran nor Israel can decisively win a prolonged military campaign against each other.

Israel’s powerful military certainly has the ability to launch air and missile strikes against Iranian interests in the region, as they have already demonstrated in Syria and Lebanon for many years. And Israel probably could do the same for a short period of time directly into Iran.

But Israel would face major challenges in sustaining a prolonged combined arms campaign in Iran, including the relatively small size of the Israel Defense Forces compared with Iran’s military, and the physical distance between both countries. Israel has openly conducted military exercises for years that seem more focused on simulating air strikes and perhaps special operations raids against a smaller number of targets inside Iran, like nuclear facilities.

Moreover, launching a new front by directly attacking Iran risks diverting Israeli resources away from more immediate threats in Gaza, the West Bank and its northern border with Lebanon.

Of course, Israel has fought and won wars with its regional adversaries in the past.

But the conflicts Israel fought against its Arab neighbors in 1967 and 1973 took place in a different military age and prior to the development of drone warfare, cyber operations and support to Iranian-backed proxies and partners in Israel’s immediate neighborhood.

Wary of further escalation

A similar type of campaign against Iran would be unlike anything Israel has faced. Israel would no doubt find it difficult to achieve its objectives without a high-level of support from the United States, and probably Arab countries like Jordan and Egypt. And there is no indication that such backing would be forthcoming.

Iran, too, will be wary of further escalation. Tehran demonstrated on April 13 that it possesses a large – and perhaps growing – inventory of ballistic missiles, drones and cruise missiles.

However, the accuracy and effectiveness of many of these platforms remains in question – as evidenced by the seeming ease in which most were shot down. The Israeli and U.S. air and missile defense network in the region continues to prove reliable in that regard.

Given the realities and risks, I believe it seems more likely that Iran will seek to revert back to its unconventional warfare strategy of supporting its proxy axis of resistance. Overt attacks, such as the one carried out on April 13, may be reserved for signaling resolve and demonstrating strength to its domestic audience.

The danger is now that war has come out of the shadows, it may be hard to put it back there.The Conversation

Javed Ali, Associate Professor of Practice of Public Policy, University of Michigan

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

]]> Netanyahu, Empowered by Biden’s Grant of Impunity, baits Iran into his genocidal Gaza War https://www.juancole.com/2024/04/netanyahu-empowered-genocidal.html Sun, 14 Apr 2024 05:12:13 +0000 https://www.juancole.com/?p=218030 Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Despite all the hype about Iran’s largely symbolic barrage of over 200 drones and cruise and ballistic missiles, unleashed on the thinly populated Negev Desert (where it was mainly Palestinian Bedouins who were put in danger), the military significance of this action was minimal. An Israeli base was hit at Dimona, which houses the country’s nuclear warheads, but the government said that the damage was minimal. Almost all of the projectiles were shot down, by the Jordanian and Israeli and American Air Forces, or by anti-missile missiles. The only casualty appears to be a 7-year-old Palestinian Bedouin girl, who was seriously injured by a falling missile.

Iran struck because Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on April 1 had the consular annex of the Iranian embassy in Damascus bombed, killing high-ranking Iranian officials, including Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Zahedi and seven other officers of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). Those officials were there at the invitation of the Syrian government, and embassies are protected from military attack by the Vienna Convention.

Iran cited Article 51 of the United Nations Charter for its counter-strike on Israel, which guarantees states the right of self-defense. Embassies are considered national soil.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s clerical Leader, had said Wednesday at his Eid al-Fitr sermon: “The consulate and embassy institutions in any country are the soil of that country. The evil regime made a mistake and must be punished and will be punished.” He added, “The events in Gaza showed the evil nature of Western civilization to the world. They killed thirty-odd thousand defenseless people; aren’t these human? Do they not have rights?” He also said, “They showed what kind of civilization this is. A child is killed, in the mother’s arms. The patient dies in the hospital. Their power cannot touch … the men of the resistance; so they target the lives of family members, the lives of children and the oppressed, the lives of old men.”

Al Jazeera English Video: “Israel’s war on Gaza live: Blasts, sirens as Iranian missiles intercepted”

Iran’s permanent mission to the United Nations in New York wrote on X,

    “Conducted on the strength of Article 51 of the UN Charter pertaining to legitimate defense, Iran’s military action was in response to the Zionist regime’s aggression against our diplomatic premises in Damascus. The matter can be deemed concluded. However, should the Israeli regime make another mistake, Iran’s response will be considerably more severe. It is a conflict between Iran and the rogue Israeli regime, from which the U.S. MUST STAY AWAY!”

Tehran is saying that with this exchange, “the matter can be deemed concluded.” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is not looking for an all-out war.

It was not only the strike on the Iranian embassy that set the stage for Iran’s barrage, but also the six months of intensive Israeli bombing of the Palestinians of Gaza, in which the vast majority of those killed were innocent noncombatants, with 70% being women and children and many others noncombatant men. The death toll now stands at 33,686 Palestinians. Only a small clique of militants committed the horrific October 7 attack on Israel, without telling anyone else what they were planning. There is no military or other justification for using an artificial intelligence program to identify all members of Hamas’s paramilitary (some of which is the equivalent of a neighborhood watch for local security) and to murder them from the skies along with their spouses, children, extended families, and neighbors.

Iran is pledged to defend the Palestinians and has been made to look ineffectual and foolish by the ongoing Israeli atrocities, which have set the blood of the publics in the Middle East to boiling and much raised the esteem in which they hold Iran. The embassy strike was the last straw. If Iran did not reply to it at least symbolically, its credibility, and any deterrence it was perceived to have, became a joke.

Netanyahu for his part was attempting to provoke Iran, in the hope that Tehran would take the bait. He knew that even Washington had come to see Israel as the aggressor in Gaza, and that he was losing support in Congress. He knew that if the issue became an Iranian attack on Israel, the Western capitals would all rally around him and forgive him at least for a while for having brought the Israeli equivalent of Neo-Nazis into his cabinet and then gone Amalek on tens of thousands of innocent Palestinians.

In the end, Khamenei and the Revolutionary Guards let their devotion to the late Gen. Zahedi sway their emotions and they fell for Netanyahu’s trick.

Earlier on Saturday the naval section of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps boarded and confiscated a container ship in the Gulf of Oman that belongs to the company of one of Netanyahu’s billionaire backers. While this action violated the law of the sea and can’t be condoned, it was a wiser way of replying to the embassy attack than sending missiles against Israel. It hit Netanyahu where it hurts and no one would have cared about it in the outside world.

Now, we have to suffer with Netanyahu proclaiming his victimhood (he started it) and suffering through statements of solidarity with his fascist government in the face of the ayatollahs, with the ongoing genocide in Gaza cast into the shade.

As many observers are pointing out, this very dangerous situation was caused by President Joe Biden’s mishandling of the Gaza crisis. He should have cut Netanyahu off at the knees by January 1, once it became clear that the Israelis were implementing their notorious Amalek imperative, which implied genocide. By vetoing 3 United Nations Security Council resolutions demanding a ceasefire and by undercutting the only one he allowed to pass by branding it nonbinding, Biden let the butchery continue apace. It continued the past week, during which Israel continued to bomb the bejesus out of Gaza, to kill hundreds of innocents, and to starve them (despite phony pledges to let more aid in, on which Netanyahu did not follow through.)

Biden, UK PM Rishi Sunak and other leaders could also have defused the deliberate provocation of Iran by Netanyahu by simply condemning the embassy attack of April 1 and defending the Vienna convention. Again, the Iranian mission to the UN said this plainly:

    “Had the UN Security Council condemned the Zionist regime’s reprehensible act of aggression on our diplomatic premises in Damascus and subsequently brought to justice its perpetrators, the imperative for Iran to punish this rogue regime might have been obviated.”

Instead, Biden and his allies declined to condemn Netanyahu’s action, continuing the North Atlantic insouciance toward Israeli war crimes and continuing the implementation of their double standard whereby International Humanitarian Law applies only to white people. That is, there is not as much difference between Trumpian white nationalism and Biden’s foreign policy as it might seem on the surface, though Trump is of course far worse.*

—
*earlier syntax problem fixed.

]]> Are the United States and Israel heading toward a Divorce? https://www.juancole.com/2024/04/united-heading-divorce.html Sat, 13 Apr 2024 04:02:09 +0000 https://www.juancole.com/?p=218012 ( Foreign Policy in Focus ) – Critics of Israel once occupied the fringes of the debate in the United States. Then, in 2007, J Street was founded as a loyal opposition to the kind of Israeli politics that received uncritical support from the U.S. mainstream. By organizing “pro-Israel, pro-peace, pro-democracy Americans” in favor of a more enlightened U.S.-Israel relationship, J Street has opposed policies of the Israeli government without challenging the foundational principles of that country.

A more radical view, however, has been taking shape, thanks largely to the extremism of the Netanyahu government in Israel and the intransigence of a succession of U.S. governments. In 2020, influential Jewish intellectual Peter Beinart published a piece in The New York Times that effectively renounced the notion of a Jewish state in favor of a “one-state solution” in which Jews and Palestinians live together with equal rights in a single state.

Given a choice between liberalism and Zionism, many Americans are giving up on the latter. What started as a trickle has now become a noticeable stream, as Beinart writes in an article last month in the Times. The polling supports his analysis. Last year, Gallup revealed that sympathy among Democrats now favored Palestinians (49 percent) over Israelis (38 percent), a reversal never seen before in the polling. The gap within the Democratic Party is sharply generational. Among Democrats under the age of 35, 74 percent side with Palestinians compared to only 25 percent of those 65 and over.

Here’s an even more startling Ipsos poll, from last year. When asked about a situation in which the West Bank and Gaza remained under Israeli control, a majority of Republicans (64 percent) and Democrats (80 percent) said that they would favor Israeli democracy over its Jewishness. Without really knowing much about Zionism—most respondents in the poll either didn’t know about or were unfamiliar with the ideology—a majority of Americans have already gone down Beinart’s path.

U.S. politics hasn’t quite caught up with U.S. public opinion. In March, Senator Majority Leader Charles Schumer delivered a 44-minute speech on the floor of the Senate that called on Israelis to hold an election and essentially get rid of Netanyahu and his ruling coalition. Even though Schumer expressed his love for Israel and denounced Hamas, he still came in for considerable criticism from Republicans as well as from those who were aghast that he didn’t call for an immediate ceasefire in the conflict.

Like Schumer, the Biden administration has been shifting its position on Israel, but not enough to satisfy younger voters on the left. Together with Arab-Americans, these voters have made their voices heard in the primaries in Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Hawaii where the “uncommitted” slate has picked up 25 delegates so far. It may not be enough to tip the election—voters who are uncommitted in the primary are still likely to vote for the Democrats in the face of a potential Trump second term—but it still worries the Biden camp, which is behind in most head-to-head election polls.

The Biden administration has altered its policies toward Israel over the last months, though it might not seem like much of a change given that those policies haven’t ultimately made an impact on the course of the war in Gaza. However, combined with evolving public opinion, these incremental changes may well mark the beginning of a major course correction in U.S. foreign policy. After decades of military assistance and policy coordination, the United States is facing up to its irreconcilable differences with Israel, which could prompt one or both parties to file for divorce.

The Biden Shift

The deaths of over 30,000 Palestinians during Israel’s prolonged assault on Gaza—which was launched after the Hamas attacks of October 7—has certainly concerned the Biden administration. The president and his emissaries have tried to persuade Benjamin Netanyahu to be more “targeted” in his onslaught so that Israeli forces don’t kill quite so many non-combatants. Around 70 percent of Palestinians casualties so far have been women and children.

The Biden administration has also tried to persuade the Israelis not to launch a ground attack against Hamas in the southern city of Rafah, where so many Palestinians have sought refuge. And it has been pushing for a temporary ceasefire that could provide an opportunity for Israel to retrieve some of the hostages that Hamas and its allies still hold and for Gazans to get more humanitarian assistance to stave off serious food and medical crises.

The Israeli authorities have shrugged off U.S. criticisms and suggestions, often angrily, which has basically been the Israeli approach all along.

The most recent Israeli strike on a World Central Kitchen convoy of three vehicles, which killed seven aid workers, has prompted even more soul-searching within the Biden administration. The humanitarian organization provided the Israeli authorities with full information about its intentions and its route. Still, Israeli armed forces struck all three vehicles with pinpoint accuracy, even though the lead vehicle and the one at the back were separated by nearly a mile and a half. Nor were these isolated deaths. At least 196 aid workers have been killed in Gaza and the West Bank since October 2023.

Netanyahu apologized for the “tragic incident.” But it’s hard not to conclude that “more precise targeting” is not the issue in the Gaza war, given how precisely that convoy had been targeted. The issue is that Israel kills indiscriminately and with impunity. The issue is that the Netanyahu government is engaging in the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Gaza and, with the assistance of armed settlers, in the West Bank as well. The Israeli government seems determined to remove the material basis for a Palestinian state.

In the face of this policy, the Biden administration’s response is obviously inadequate. In addition to the failed effort to minimize civilian casualties, Washington has pushed for more humanitarian assistance to Palestinians in Gaza. Here it has had more success in changing Israeli policy—though the policy hasn’t been implemented at all crossings and, as Oxfam points out, “It is a drop of water in an ocean of need.”

The administration has not stopped supplying Israel with military assistance or attached any conditions on that aid, despite some congressional pressure. More than 30 House Democrats, including Nancy Pelosi, recently sent a letter strongly urging Biden “to reconsider your recent decision to authorize the transfer of a new arms package to Israel, and to withhold this and any future offensive arms transfers until a full investigation into the airstrike is completed.” The distressing part is that it took the killing of international aid workers, not the tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians, to prompt such a letter.

Guardian News Video: “Biden calls for Israel to push for ceasefire and says Netanyahu making a ‘mistake’ on Gaza”

As for the administration’s attempt to forestall an Israeli attack on Rafah, the Netanyahu government has announced on many occasions that it fully intends to “finish the job.” In this context, providing humanitarian assistance so that people don’t starve to death before they are killed in a military operation is a morally dubious position.

So, at what point will the Biden administration—or any U.S. administration—decide that its relationship with Israel is a net negative?

Best Friends?

The boosters of the alliance between Israel and the United States like to note that Israel is a democracy, one of the most prosperous countries on the planet, and “the largest American aircraft carrier in the world that cannot be sunk,” as former Secretary of State Alexander Haig once put it. President Obama was even blunter, “The United States has no better friend in the world than Israel.”

All of these statements are at best half-truths.

After various autocratic moves by the Netanyahu administration—the judicial “overhaul” designed to weaken the Supreme Court, the various corruption cases—Israel’s democratic credentials have become significantly tarnished. Meanwhile, the Palestinians who make up 20 percent of the population don’t enjoy the full citizenship rights of Israeli Jews. The same can be said about the country’s prosperity: half of Arab families in Israel qualify as poor compared to one in five Israeli Jewish families.

Nor is Israel America’s aircraft carrier. There is only one clandestine U.S. military base in Israel—a radar surveillance site with an unknown number of U.S. soldiers. Most U.S. soldiers based in the Middle East are in Kuwait, Bahrain, and Qatar (with other U.S. forces located in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq, Turkey, and Syria). On top of that, Israel frequently engages in military conflicts that run counter to U.S. interests.

As for friendship, the relationship has rarely been all that close. In 1956, the Eisenhower administration was furious at Israel’s occupation of the Sinai peninsula and threatened to withhold aid if it didn’t withdraw. Ultimately, Israel did (though it reoccupied the peninsula a decade later). In 1967, Israel attacked a U.S. spy ship in international waters, killing 34 seamen. In 1981, Israel bombed a nuclear reactor in Iraq, which was awkward for the Reagan administration since it was then allied with Saddam Hussein against the Iranians. And Israeli settlement policy in the West Bank has jeopardized relations with several U.S. administrations, beginning with George H. W. Bush.

The Balance Sheet

So, what does Israel provide the United States?

There’s an economic relationship, with Israel investing about $24 billion in the United States. That might sound like a lot, but it doesn’t make it into the top 20 (Singapore invests $36 billion, the UK $663 billion). Meanwhile, since 1946, Israel has absorbed $158 billion in unrestricted aid from the United States, more than any other country.

On the military side, the United States has benefitted (probably) from the sharing of intelligence. On the other hand, Israel kept its own nuclear program a secret from its American friends, so it certainly can’t be accused of over-sharing. Meanwhile, Israel has launched attacks in the region—Lebanon, Iran, Iraq, Syria—that have complicated (to put it mildly) U.S. objectives in the region. However, an argument can be made that Israel sometimes serves as a useful attack dog, taking more aggressive actions than the United States feels that it can make.

Israel used to be a bulwark against Soviet communism. But the Soviet Union is no more, and Israel did not join the sanctions regime against Russia after its invasion of Ukraine.

Israel was a more-or-less reliable ally for the United States in its various interventions in the Middle East. But that hasn’t always been the case. Israel’s anti-Iranian positions got in the way of forging a nuclear agreement with Iran. Israel’s invasion of Gaza has drawn the United States back into a military conflict with the Houthis in Yemen. And Israeli strikes in Lebanon and Syria threaten to turn the Gaza conflict into a region-wide war, which would be a nightmare for the United States (among other countries).

Then there’s the reputational issue. The United States has used its veto 45 times at the UN through December 2023 to defend Israel—which is more than half of the U.S. vetoes at the Security Council. Most of these vetoes were about Israeli settlement policy or treatment of Palestinians. In February, the United States was the only country in the Security Council to vote against the Gaza ceasefire proposal. The next month, however, the United States abstained from the vote, allowing the UN resolution to move forward, though it didn’t have any effect on Israeli policy.

The United States did a credible job rallying the world against the Russian invasion of Ukraine. That it has failed to do the same against Israel’s invasion of Gaza is obviously hypocritical. True, many countries are equally two-faced for rightly protesting Israel’s actions and doing little to nothing to push back against Russia’s violations of international law. The hypocrisy of other countries notwithstanding, the United States risks what remains of its positive international reputation by its support of Zionism over liberalism.

It’s long past time for the United States to reevaluate its relationship with Israel. The era of arms shipments should end (especially since Israel makes most of what it needs domestically). The recent congressional pushback is a start. The protective cover provided at the UN must end as well, since the United States is so out of step with international public opinion. The abstention on the most recent ceasefire proposal is also a positive sign.

The U.S. ending of its support of Israel as a Jewish state is a much heavier lift. After all, the United States is also a settler state, and there are powerful Christian forces that support the U.S. alliance with Israel for religious reasons. But the process that has begun within the American Jewish community, to choose liberalism over Zionism, must ultimately be the decision for U.S. policymakers as well. Divorce can be averted, of course, if Israel also chooses liberalism over Zionism. Since that’s not very likely at the moment, it might just be time to bring in the lawyers.

Via Foreign Policy in Focus

]]> Against genocide: A conversation with Ofer Cassif https://www.juancole.com/2024/04/against-genocide-conversation.html Sun, 07 Apr 2024 04:06:41 +0000 https://www.juancole.com/?p=217893

Ofer Cassif, a voice for peace and nonviolence within the Israeli parliament, speaks with Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb, Ela Gandhi, Michael Nagler and Mubarak Awad.

Waging Nonviolence ) – Dr. Ofer Cassif has ongoingly and courageously stood for the mutual security of Israelis and Palestinians by opposing the violence of Israel toward the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, and since Oct. 7 has spoken out against genocidal violence in Gaza as well as the violence of Hamas. For this, he was subject to a vote of impeachment from the Knesset on Feb. 19, which did not succeed. A voice of courage and dissent in a time of violence and escalation, Dr. Cassif is leading the way for peace and nonviolence within the Israeli parliament.

This is a recording of our webinar from March 22 with Dr. Cassif. Our hosts included Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb, Ela Gandhi, Michael Nagler and Mubarak Awad.

—

Stephanie: So, I just want to welcome everybody. I’m Stephanie Van Hook. I’m the executive director of the Metta Center for Nonviolence. This is Michael Nagler, the president of the Metta Center, and my teammate.

I’m the host of a radio show called Nonviolence Radio. I’m usually not seen on screen. So going from radio to television and webinars, is always a little bit strange for me.

So, the Metta Center exists – Ela’s here. Welcome, Ela. So, the Metta Center exists to help people practice nonviolence more safely and more effectively. We have a host of programs, including our radio show Nonviolence Radio.

You can find all of our programs at MettaCenter.org. And I want to thank our co-sponsors of this event, Waging Nonviolence. They are the best news source for nonviolence in the world. Very pleased to have their support. When we first had the opportunity to interview Dr. Cassif back in mid-October, Waging Nonviolence helped us immediately publish that on their website to help reach more people.

And many of you are here because of Waging Nonviolence, so thank you very much to Eric and Bryan and your team over there.

And I also want to give a shout-out to our friends at Meta Peace Team, who also helped to publicize this event rather widely, and on last-minute notice. So, thank you so much to our friends who are doing unarmed security and protection work and conflict de-escalation work with Meta Peace Team. They often have a presence in Israel, Palestine as well, and in the West Bank.

So, with that, I’d like to pass it over to our friend, Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb, and I will give you a fuller introduction when it’s time for your questions. But I’m just really grateful for you, Rabbi Lynn, and all of your support in helping get this event going. So, over to you, my friend.

Rabbi Lynn: Thank you and greetings to everyone who is here for this important conversation. I was asked to reflect on what it means to have a safe conversation, and that immediately broke my heart, because there is no safety in Gaza. And so, I, I feel in this moment willing to surrender that safety in order – my own emotional safety, in order to be fully present to this conversation.

And I’d like to begin just by mentioning saying the words of Palestinian poet Hind Joudah, who wrote this poem in the midst of the devastation of Gaza.

“What does it mean to be a poet in wartime? It means that you apologize. You apologize excessively to the burned-out trees, to the birds without nests, to the flattened houses, to the long cracks in the road, midsection, to the children, pallid in death and before it, and to the face of every grieving or murdered mother or father.”

This is the spirit in which we’re holding this conversation. And it has become a custom in many circles throughout Turtle Island, which is the Indigenous name of the United States, which is the colonial, one of the colonial powers that are driving this conflict. That we offer – we’ve been asked to offer, by our Indigenous relatives, land acknowledgment. And this is a land acknowledgment that I wrote in community with other folks over the years, including Indigenous activists.

“We, the colonial settlers living as guests upon Huichin territory, in my case, acknowledge the ongoing harms of genocide, colonization, and patriarchy. We walk this pilgrimage, which will be tomorrow, a Gaza interfaith ceasefire pilgrimage that has 1000 people signed up. We walk this pilgrimage to repair these harms and rematriate the land. In the spirit of the Chochenyo word for ‘in one place living together’, we offer this conversation and this pilgrimage as part of our reparations to return land to Indigenous people, including Palestinians, and heal the earth.

“We pledge to turn away from actions that lead to mass expulsion, land theft, environmental devastation, unjust extraction of resources, the destruction of sacred sites, and genocide. We have harmed. We have betrayed our spiritual values. We acknowledge these harms and pledge our devotion to creating a culture of repair. I hope that these words bring us into this circle of communities that wish to create cultures of repair.” Thank you.

Mubarak Awad: Thank you.

Stephanie: Thank you.

Well, I want to turn now to Dr. Cassif. He’s an Israeli politician. He’s represented the Hadash in the Knesset since April 2019. Back in February, they tried to remove him for his views on peace and security, being those of mutual peace and mutual security, for Israelis and Palestinians. And I just thank you so much, Dr. Cassif, for being here today. I want to thank you so much for your courage, –

Dr. Cassif: Thank you.

Stephanie: – and your witness, and in your perseverance and within the Knesset for human rights.

Dr. Cassif: Thank you.

Stephanie: How about you get us started and talk a little bit about your background, how you got involved in the Knesset, where you’re – where you’re coming from, and then a little bit about your impeachment trial.

Dr. Cassif: Well, first of all, thank you. Thank you, Rabbi Gottlieb, for what you said and quoted. Thank you all for having me.

And to be brief, because it’s quite a long story, and I’m afraid we don’t have the time. We cannot afford the whole story. So, my parents say that since they remember me before I remember myself, I was quite allergic to injustices.

So where – is this quotation from my mother, this is not self – you know, self-flattering, or something like that.

Also, it does go with me, since I remember I said I was involved here or there, in different struggles. Worker struggles, women struggles, and the Palestinian struggle, etc., etc. And when I just got first to the university, the first degree at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, so I began to be an activist.

I was, more or less, I was in a youth movement, you know, a socialist youth movement. But that’s too long to specify.

Metta Center Video: “Conversation with Dr. Ofer Cassif”

So, I just go ahead and refer to where and when I found myself in Hadash, which is based on the Communist Party of Israel. And I joined it in the beginning of 1988 when the First Intifada, the Palestinian uprising, had just begun. I think it was two or three weeks old, and I was sent by the military to serve in Gaza. See the irony? And I refused.

So, I was the first person to be imprisoned for refusing to serve in the military during the First Intifada. There were people who refused before me, but not in the Intifada. So, I emphasized that I was the first objector was imprisoned in the First Intifada.

And thereafter I was imprisoned another three times. So altogether I spent four terms in military prison, Israeli, for the same crime as it were, for refusing to oppress the Palestinians, to take part in the oppression and occupation of the Palestinians.

And then I joined the Communist Party and Hadash, and it’s 36 now since I joined the party. And I was afterwards a professor at the university up till 2019. I mean, I finished my PhD in England and post-doc in the States, etc. And then when I came back to Israel I also joined, again, to the Hadash and the Communist Party in which I am a member until now.

And in 2019, I was elected in our internal elections to be number three in our list. And ever since, I’m in the Knesset, although not everybody’s happy about it, as you know. Surprise, surprise.

So, just a few words, if I have the time, about the impeachment. In 2016, the Knesset, at the Israeli parliament, enacted a law which is obviously anti-democratic, to say the least. Which allows that a majority of 90 members of Knesset out of 120 that there are all together to impeach another member of the Knesset.

So, this is a clear-cut example of tyranny of the majority. And obviously, it cannot, you know, it cannot be reconciled with basic principles of democracy. In my view, this law and democracy are mutually exclusive by definition.

And it was never used, at least not the whole process, to be – again, I’ll try to be very short – but the process in impeaching a member of the Knesset by other members of the Knesset consists of three main components or elements or stages.

First, it must be collected at least 70 signatures of members of the Knesset to begin a motion. Once the signatures are achieved, then there is a discussion and a vote in the House Committee. If 75% in the House Committee vote for the impeachment, it goes to the plenum, and there there’s a need, as I said before, for 90 out of 120.

So, I joined a petition that was initiated by some Israeli activists in support of South African appeal to the International Court of Justice in The Hague. And then, obviously, what we are – the petition said two basic things. First, that the ongoing in Gaza should be investigated under the suspicion of genocide. And secondly, that the war should be stopped because the ICJ has the authority to order to stop the war.

And obviously that was very important for us in order to save lives, primarily of those who are systematically butchered on a daily basis, which is the Palestinians in Gaza. Mostly innocent civilians. We all know that at least 75% of the victims in Gaza are innocent civilians, mostly children. We know for sure that out of a more or less, 35,000 who have been killed, as we know, and we know that the death toll is going to rise, unfortunately. But up to now, we know more or less about 35,000, at least 15,000 of them are children.

So, since the government of Israel is not interested in stopping the bloodshed, to say the least, we found ourselves obliged, morally speaking, to appeal to the authority, to the internationally recognized authority, or – recognized by the state of Israel, by the way, as well – which is the ICJ.

I was accused by a member of the Knesset in supporting armed struggle against Israel because I signed this petition. So, see, the Orwellian, the irony of this situation because I signed the petition against violence, I was accused in supporting violence. It is as ridiculous as it sounds. And this is why I call it Orwellian, after George Orwell, of course.

So, they said because in order to impeach a member [notification] of the Knesset before, there are only two basis that they that such a motion can be done in the first place. Either supporting racism or supporting armed struggle against Israel. And so, I was accused in supporting the armed struggle against Israel and even supporting Hamas, which is total nonsense, totally nonsense, you know.

So, eventually they got the signatures. There was a motion in the House Committee in which almost unanimously there was a vote against me. But in the plenum, they got 86 votes against me. They needed 90. So, it failed. I must say that the fact that out of 120, 86 including people, members of the Knesset, were regarded as – not as rightist, but as center, you know, as Democrats or liberals, the fact that they voted some of them voted to impeach me with no reason, with no basis, It was a total and clear unlawful vote that should bother us, should bother us very much so.

Because it shows how much the public opinion in the Israeli society in general, and within the parliament in particular, radically moved to the fascist edge. And it’s still moving. So, it’s very dangerous. I’ll finish with that. I could give extra, but I don’t think you’re interested now.

Stephanie: Thank you, so much. We’re going to continue this conversation with you through our panelists. I’d like to invite Mubarak Awad to converse.

Mubarak helped launch the First Intifada, and he was exiled from Jerusalem by the Israeli government in 1988. He founded the Palestinian Center for the Study of Nonviolence. He’s the founder of the National Youth Advocate Program, and he’s founder and current president of Nonviolence International. Thank you, Mubarak, for joining us in this conversation. And we invite your participation. Thank you.

Mubarak Awad: Thank you. And thank you, Dr. Cassif, for a great struggle that you have within yourself and also with your colleagues.

Dr. Cassif: Thanks.

Mubarak Awad: I also have been so much surprised that even you got 70 votes out of 90. That’s too much. That means not only the left, or in Israeli society, are moving way, way to the right. And that is so much dangerous because many times Israelis say we have nobody to speak with, with the Palestinians. And now it’s turn around. Now it looks like we, as Palestinians, we see that there is nobody to speak with in peace within the Israeli Knesset.

And we are seeing that further and further, not only by politicians, by the public opinion, their vote and the about they are interested in finishing Hamas and following Netanyahu and his group to destroy Hamas and to continue. Even all the countries in the world telling Israel don’t, don’t, don’t. And Israel said to the whole world, “Go to hell, we are going to do what we want, and we are not even listening to you or having advice from you.”

And that becomes a very dangerous thing, not only for the Palestinian, but for the whole world. And the thought is that – the dilemma – what a country can do, what the United States can do, what Germany, France, Europe, Britain, and everybody, when a country like Israel decided, “No, we don’t want to listen to you, we don’t want to listen to the UN, we don’t want to listen to the International Law of Justice, and we want to do what we want to do.”

And then still we’re calling our self democracy. And is it? Israel got rid of the idea that Israeli society is a democracy or not? Is it just voting for a somebody who’s a prime minister like Netanyahu again and again? Is that a Democratic concept? And it’s dangerous. I felt so dangerous on that because also in Germany, Hitler was voted by the people and it’s a democratic thing.

So, it makes you think, what is democracy at this time and how we have to really think of democracy and what is the essence of humanity and how many people have to die, and still calling it a democracy or acceptable. And that’s not acceptable in my book at all. And, you know, when a child dies, the one child is too many.

And now we are looking at so many children, so many women, and the destruction is overwhelming. That the people in Israel are not seeing and still feel that destruction should continue. And there’s the tough part. And where the idea that you as a person stood firm and hard, and that is very courageous. You know, I know how Israel could destroy your name, could destroy with you all your family, could make life miserable for you. Because I went through a similar thing that you have.

Even the Israeli will have a casket in the street with my name. This is where my future is. And even I decided, no, I have to go to the Supreme Court and challenge the Israelis in the Supreme Court. And I find difficulty to challenge the Israelis when it’s – the judges there at that time, they didn’t run with favor to any person who is a Palestinian in a court.

I just went into a trap there, knowing that I would be still deported. Whatever the Supreme Court doesn’t have the will to come against the government. And you did that. So that is a very encouragement for me to hear you and to meet you. And God bless you.

Dr. Cassif: Thank you so very much. It’s very, it’s very moving what you said. I really appreciate that.

Stephanie: Would you like to follow up and comment on anything that Mubarak has offered here? Such as what is democracy look like, or –

Dr. Cassif: Are you asking me?

Okay. Yes. First of all, I don’t know if Mubarak heard me. I really appreciate what he said. It’s heart-warming. And I’m honored to hear such, you know, encouraging and good words from him. So, I really appreciate that. Thank you so much, Mubarak.

Mubarak Awad: Thank you.

Dr. Cassif: Look, I think in my view, the basis value in democracy is equality. I mean, it’s very even easy to prove that. You know, if I may, if I have the time.

Because, of course, you know, my PhD, and may actually I may say, my profession, is mainly political philosophy. So, I did, you know, dwell quite a lot on this issue. And my PhD is on democracy, by the way, specifically the philosophy of democracy.

So, I think that there are many debates and disagreements between different Democrats as to the very concept of democracy. What is it, exactly? What is the right balance between, for instance, equality and liberty? Because some argue that those two are in tension.

So just a second. Something [unintelligible]

I think it’s very easy to prove that modern democracy is based on the value of equality. How should we prove that? We have to ask ourselves, one of the main principles of democracy, even in its very minimal procedural perception, is the majority rule.

Why majority rule? With all, of course, limitations, because democracy, especially modern one, cannot stick to a majority rule that oppresses the minority or the individual. Of course, there are many limitations and checks and balances, as it’s normally called in the States.

But still, why the principle of majority rule exists? Because quantity should decide who is going to be in power, for instance. Why quantity? Because there’s no difference between the voters as far as quality is concerned. It was different, it – had it been different.

So quality, quality, not quantity but quality would have dictated the decisions. The only reason that quantity dictates a decision is because there is a sometimes implicit assumption that there’s no qualitative distinction or differences between individual human beings. In other words, we are equal. That’s the basis of democracy. Now, I’m saying this very superficially, let’s say, an introduction, because Israel was never a real democracy. It was never a real democracy. Since day one, it couldn’t. It couldn’t because it was never based on equality.

Even if I ignore, which I cannot, but just for the sake of argument, even if I ignore the crimes of the Nakba, the total destruction of the Palestinian people, the deportation, the massacres, etc., after the State of Israel was established, there was also, always, entrenched in to the system, Jewish supremacy. How can you refer to that as a democracy? That cannot be.

In our struggle, you know, my party specifically, since day one, we are the only party who was always been, you know, a partnership of Jews and Palestinians. In the Knesset as well. It’s a value for us, a supreme value. This partnership, this is brother and sisterhood.

So, we have been struggling all those 76 years to turn Israel into a real democracy, which means equality, real equality, profound equality. No supremacy to neither of the people there. Neither Jews nor Palestinians nor others. But since 1967, and the occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem, the situation has been in a continuous deterioration and escalation [ringing]. Because now it’s not only that there’s no equality as I defined it before. [ringing]

Now, there’s literally millions of people, nowadays, it’s 50% between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean, 50% of the people have no basic rights. Before we talk about the carnage that goes on in Gaza, the ethnic cleansing that goes on in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, etc., etc. Before we even mention that, basically, there are no basic rights to the Palestinian people, who live under the Israeli occupation. Not only to vote or be elected, but freedom of movement, freedom of expression.

Do you know, for instance, that there are Palestinian people who live in the West Bank under military rule for almost 60 years now? They live under military rule, which means they are living – they’ve been living under a military system and not a civic one. They go to military courts, normally, when they face trial. They are not allowed to demonstrate.

You know that according to the law, the military law, that Palestinians are subject to in the West Bank, if a Palestinian goes out to demonstrate peacefully in nonviolent demonstration, according to the law, one may be charged and sentenced to ten years in prison. What kind of democracy is that? And now, nowadays, in the last five months or more, we’ve been facing this terrible ongoing carnage in Gaza and destruction and starvation.

This is something that I must say that I’m in shock, to say the least, that the international community is silent. Totally silent. Sometimes, you know, they throw out to the air some condemnation, but they don’t do anything. And people are continuously killed in Gaza. I saw pictures of babies starving to death. Pictures that remind us of pictures from other places in the past. That’s unbearable. Unbearable.

And I put the blame first and foremost, of course, on the fanatics in Israel. And among the Palestinians, I have no sympathy for the people of Hamas, I must say. The carnage they carried out is unacceptable, too. So, I put the blame first and foremost on the fanatics. On the Israeli government, which consists of full-fledged fascists. But also on the intellectual community, and especially the so-called liberal democracies that don’t do anything. But just hope they will shortly, because otherwise this area is going to erupt even more.

Stephanie: Mubarak, would you like to follow up on that?

Mubarak Awad: That’s very much of an open discussion because if democracy is being silenced in most of the countries, what other system should we have, or how could we bring a system that is a just system? Is it the military? Is it a dictatorship? We don’t have – we were looking so much about the countries that we see here as a country that we could follow or everybody could use the same ideology from that country. We don’t have a country to follow.

Are we looking at something coming out of space or out of somewhere else that we say, “Hey, here is a just system, let’s do it.” And why – I’m not talking about the Israeli-Palestinian issue, why the whole world is so much confused and so much into either money and money and money, getting money rather than putting the effort in social justice. People, children, health. You know [sneeze], to cure the cancer rather than having military elements in every country. I mean, we have difficulties to look at. We have to start thinking of a better future for everybody.

And to have a better future, everybody, I think the border is something that has to be taken away from every country. No borders. I don’t believe in borders. To give the right for anybody to go anyplace because our world is so small, and we are limiting itself to only Chinese, Americans, you know, Palestinians. No. It’s we have to start looking at a different way of life, everybody, that we are equal. And that, I think, it will come. It will need a lot of work, but it will come. Thank you.

Stephanie: Dr. Cassif, would you like to respond?

Dr. Cassif: No, I totally agree. It reminds me of the famous song by John Lennon, you know, “Imagine.” Imagine there are no countries. So I totally endorse that. I don’t think it’s realistic nowadays. But as an idea, I totally embrace it.

Stephanie: Well, I’d like to, I’d like to turn next to Ela Gandhi. She’s joining us all the way from South Africa today. She’s a social worker, political activist in South Africa. She’s a founding member of the Natal Organization of Women, and served two terms in the South African parliament representing the African National Congress, ANC. She’s an honorary chairperson of the Gandhi Development Trust, and Phoenix Settlement Trust, and co-president of Religions for Peace International. And she’s also a very beloved member of the Board of directors of the Metta Center for Nonviolence.

Ela, thank you so much for joining us today. We’d love to have you now bring your perspectives and share a conversation with Dr. Cassif.

Ela Gandhi: Thank you so much. And thank you, Dr. Cassif, and Dr. Awad. Very interesting discussion.

I just want to turn to the South African experience. And to say, you know, the turning point for South Africa was when African countries became free, you know, our neighboring country. And when the British prime minister came to South Africa and, you know, they say it was the Wind of Change, Winds of Change speech, that he made in our parliament.

And that was like the turning point to when people began to think that some changes have to be brought about because that is what Mr. Macmillan, I think, was here. And he said in his speech that this change is inevitable.

Now, at this stage, is there any pressure? That’s my first question. Is there any pressure on the Israeli government to bring about change? Or are there just very powerful, and there’s no pressure for them to bring about change?

Dr. Cassif: Shall I?

Stephanie: Please.

Dr. Cassif: Okay. Thank you. First of all, thank you. And then nice meeting you, too. The current government, the current government of Israel, unfortunately, I don’t have any hope from the elements that there are in this government.

First of all, the vast majority, unfortunately, I can say that with pain, you know, I do not say that in order to mock them. I say that in real pain. We are talking a very about a very brutal government, and individuals within the government. Some of them are fanatics, bigots, who have no sense of human respect. Who have no sense, you know, sensitivity to human life.

It’s not my interpretation, they actually said that. You know, just to give you two examples – one a minister in the government, the finance ministry, perhaps, you know, his name, it’s Bezalel Smotrich. He actually said about the Israeli hostages who are dying there in Gaza, in addition to the Palestinians who are killed on a daily basis that we have mentioned before.

He said that they are not the most important thing. And he’s not the only one, because there’s this strong element within the Israeli government that believes that the role of the government is actually to bring upon us in kind of Armageddon. To bring upon us a huge war and bloodshed that, according to their, I would say lunatic beliefs, insane beliefs, will bring the Messiah and the third Jewish temple. They truly believe.

They say that Israel should not only kill the people, the Palestinians in – or deport the Palestinians in Gaza, but they argue – they had a huge conference a few months ago, two or three months ago in Jerusalem, in which they actually argued that the Israeli should reestablish the Jewish settlements in Gaza on the wreckage of Gaza.

And they don’t really care about the security of anyone. Obviously not of the Palestinians, but not even of the Israelis. So, unfortunately – and Netanyahu is very – first of all, he is a psychopath. I said that very clearly. I said it a few times in the different international and local media. In my view, Netanyahu is a psychopath.

He doesn’t care about the lives and well-being of anyone but himself. And because of that, he doesn’t care that thousands and thousands of Palestinians have been killed. He doesn’t care that the hostages, the Israeli hostages, are dying, and some of them, I guess, are already dead. He doesn’t care even about the lives of the Israeli soldiers. So, unfortunately, there’s no hope in his government.

And by the way, Benjamin Gantz and others who joined the government, their party was considered to be in the center, not a rightist one. It is arguably, of course, but they claim so. They said when they joined the government that they do so in order to relax the fanatics. But it seems that the other way round happened. Instead of stopping the bigots, the bigots are stopping them.

So, we see an escalation. I just watched the news, you know, a couple of hours ago, and Netanyahu said that Israel is planning to invade Rafah with or without the American support. That’s crazy. Now, in that sense, I must say that I’m quite pessimistic. But in the short run. I am optimistic in the long run. And I am optimistic in the long run for two reasons.

First of all, my comrades and I, we continue to raise our voice. We’ll never shut up. We’ll never give up. We’ll continue to raise our voice, and it penetrates. I know that this voice, although we are a minority, even I might say a persecuted minority, sometimes brutally and violently persecuted. But the voice is strong and loud, and it penetrates into the public at large. This is one reason why I’m optimistic. 

And by the way, that gives me the wind or the power to continue with all the difficulties. Because I’m – first of all, I’m totally sure and believe that this is the right way. But secondly, I believe that we are making a change slowly, gradually, apparently too slowly, but still, we are making a change.

And the second reason that I am optimistic is that you can already see the shift in the public opinion. You can see that the more and more people go out to the streets to demonstrate against the government, calling to impeach the whole government, and to raise their voice against the assault on Gaza, against the war. And it comes also more and more from families of the hostages. So, I believe that. But one thing is missing, and this is a pressure from the world.

We need to join forces and to – so to speak, to make a kind of a division of labor. Our labor is primarily to make the efforts to change the public opinion in Israel. And by that, changing the structure of the Knesset, the government, etc., and to move forward towards peace. And I’m not talking just about, you know, ending this terrible carnage in Gaza, terrible war. I’m talking about ending the occupation, reaching a Palestinian state. So, establishing a Palestinian independent state, so the Palestinian people is at last free.

And of course, to move forward to good neighborhood, to be good neighbors. That’s the only thing that can solve those problems we are dealing with now.

So this is our role to do that here in our society. But we do need your help. We do need the help of the international community. As long as, for instance, the United States vetoes decisions to stop the war in the Security Council, just to take one example, and I know that today the veto was casted by China and Russia.

So, of course, the United States is not the only one. But that’s what I’m saying, the international community. We need your assistance to put an end to this terrible bloodshed and to reach a just peace. Because that’s the only way that the peoples of this land which will thrive. And we can do that, but only if we do that together. We cannot succeed by ourselves. Thank you.

Stephanie: Thank you very much. Ela, would you like to respond to that?

Ela Gandhi: Yes, I would. I just would like to say that I agree with you fully, that the international community needs to do much more. Now, again, taking the example of South Africa, you know, we had anti-apartheid committees in almost every country of the world. And we didn’t only depend on governments.

So, it wasn’t – there were some governments that were, you know, sympathetic with our cause. But not all governments. But we still went around and organized the people. People in other countries. And those people put pressure on their governments as well as on our government by boycotting the sports, cultural boycott, boycott of – economic boycott. You know, any goods that come from the country were boycotted, obviously. And that was done by the people themselves.

They forged a broad unity. And, you know, and because of that unity in their country, they were able to pull off these kinds of boycotts. So, it was the anti-apartheid movement that was a great help for South Africa.

Dr. Cassif: Sure. I know.

Ela Gandhi: I know that our country is going to have a conference. I think it’s 9th of May, or it’s in the first week of May or so. That we intend to have a conference where we are inviting the international community, all our anti-apartheid organizations. We are inviting them to now link in solidarity with the Palestinian people.

But I think at the same time, it is important to have a unity within the Palestinians as well. They need to forge a strong unity, have a person like we had Nelson Mandela inside the country, and we had Oliver Tambo who was outside the country.

These were two people who were recognized by everyone. There was no division, you know, everyone agreed with them. And so, that broad unity has to be forged within the country and also in exile outside the country. So, two things, the anti-apartheid movement and the leadership. You know, a united – one person that people can say this is our leader.

It’s a very important aspect because unless you have that, you are going to have internal fighting. And once we are divided, it’s easy for the others to come in. And so, you know, we shouldn’t be divided. We should be very much united. So, I just want to throw those two things out for discussion.

Dr. Cassif: First of all, yes, I agree with you. Classically, any colonial or oppressive regime uses the infamous divide-and-rule policy, in order to undermine and to fail, just struggle of oppressed peoples.

So, in South Africa, it was, you know, Botha and later on [unintelligible] afterwards Botha and others when they tried, of course, to raise Chief Buthelezi, in order to undermine the ANC. And of course, in the end of the ‘80s, to some extent and in some areas, as you know better than me, of course the violent clashes between in [unintelligible] and the ANC, was on the rise.

This was in the service of the oppressive apartheid regime. Luckily, Nelson Mandela was accepted enough, internationally speaking, and of course nationally speaking, to exceed those cleavages. And we know that eventually he succeeded. And I, of course, salute Mandela and the ANC. And I personally many times, by the way, in the plenum with the Knesset in our parliament, I quoted Joe Slovo from his – he’s almost a character to imitate, you know. Joe Slovo, for me, is a hero. And I mentioned him quite a lot in the Knesset.  Or Chris Hani, for instance.

So, anyway, it is a terrible situation here that, again the divide-and-rule, between Hamas and the Fatah within the Palestinian people, is created and encouraged by the Israeli government and especially by Netanyahu. I mean, if I go back to the really terrible carnage that Hamas did on October 7, in which, by the way, I personally lost some friends were killed by Hamas. People who were my partners in the struggle, some of them. And were killed by Hamas on October 7.

So, when I go back to that, we put the responsibility, to a great extent of Netanyahu. Because Netanyahu and his governments, in plural, not only this government, governments in the last, more or less, 15 years, continuously, but carried out this divide-and-rule policy, consciously, strengthened Hamas and weakened the Palestinian Authority. And by the way, Netanyahu said that explicitly that he was interested in that.

In 2019, Netanyahu said that anyone who opposes a Palestinian state, like he does, must weaken the Palestinian Authority and strengthen Hamas. Even Smotrich said in 2015, and I quote, really, word-by-word, that the Palestinian Authority was a burden and the Hamas was an asset. Now, why did they say that?

First because they wanted this divide-and-rule, once they can say to the public in Israel and internationally as well, look, we want to speak with the Palestinian leadership, but there is no Palestinian leadership. There is the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. There is a Hamas fanatical organization in Gaza. Who are we going to speak with?

They manipulated the situation and created the situation in order to avoid any way of negotiations towards a liberation. Now, it’s not only words, Netanyahu literally, and it’s not a secret everybody knows about it in Israel and everywhere, that throughout the years, Netanyahu actually transferred millions of dollars from Qatar to Hamas.

This money was used by Hamas to dig those underground tunnels to attack Israel like they did on October 7. So as far as divide-and-rule is concerned, as far as the divisions within the Palestinian people, and the tragic, disastrous cleavage within the Palestinian people is concerned, we still – the Palestinians, I mean, still haven’t overcome this cleavage. And they put the blame on Israel, on the Israeli governments.

This is – and I agree with you, this should be – we should – this should be overcome. In order to overcome it, there is, in my view, perhaps others may disagree with me, I’m just speaking of my view. I think there is a Palestinian Nelson Mandela. And I’m talking about Marwan Barghouti. Marwan Barghouti is a Palestinian Nelson Mandela.

He’s been, I think now, 21 years already in Israeli prison. Last week, he was beaten hardly in prison by Israeli police. He’s the one who can lead the Palestinian people into a unity, a peaceful unity. Peaceful unity and lead the Palestinians to liberation. And it’s not a coincidence that the government of Israel wants him to stay in prison. I’ll finish one sentence, because I know that I spoke too much. Sorry, I apologize.

That’s something like, I think it was about 15 or 20 years ago. I don’t remember exactly, I’m sorry. There was a letter that Marwan Barghouti was one of its organizers, of prisoners, political Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli prisons from different factions, movements, and parties. From Islamic Jihad, Fatah, democratic formed, etc., etc. And they supported this letter in which they said that they accept the idea of a two-state solution. And they were going to refrain from the violent struggle, had there was an agreement with Israel to establish a Palestinian independent state in the territories that Israel occupied in 1967.

Marwan Barghouti was one, probably the leader of this project. The one who led the objection to this project was Yahya Sinwar, now the leader of Hamas. When the government of Israel in general, Netanyahu in particular, had to decide which Palestinian prisoners were going to be released to swap with this soldier, Gilad Shalit, if you remember, that was five years in the hands of Hamas, Netanyahu preferred to release Sinwar and not Marwan Barghouti.

He preferred to release the one who opposed the peace project and to keep in prison, the one who led the peace initiative. And I think that answers what you said.

Stephanie: Thank you. Ela, I will bring you and Mubarak back in a second. But I’d like to switch over now to our friend, Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb, to have some time to ask questions before she needs to leave.

She’s one of the first women to become a rabbi in Jewish history, and is a pioneer Jewish feminist, human rights activist, writer, visual artist, ceremonialist, community educator, and master storyteller. She currently serves as a board chair of Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity and is the author of several excellent books. She identifies as a Shomeret Shalom, a practitioner of Jewish Revolutionary Nonviolence. I will put her website in the chat. Thank you, Rabbi Lynn.

Rabbi Lynn: Thank you for the introduction, and thank you everyone for this conversation – this important conversation.

I’m going to switch gears a little bit and go back to putting us in a colonial context, which you’ve acknowledged. And that Israel has never been a democracy. I also want to acknowledge before I start this conversation that the whole Zionist myth of Jews being absent from the region for 2000 years and then returning home is exactly that. It’s a myth.

And I don’t want to erase Jewish people who are, who have a deep connection, especially what Israel calls Mizrahi Jews, or what Jewish people themselves here are calling SWANA Jews from Southwest Asia, as they want to avoid the whole concept of the Middle East, which is a colonial idea.

I want to ask you this. Clearly, we are in a different situation, different than South Africa, because there – the genocide. This is the word we need to use, genocide, which is intentional. Which has been evolving as long as I can remember.

I started coming to Israel – was in Gadna in 1966. You know, I’ve been leading delegations there. I studied in Haifa. I went to college. And even then, in that very brief moment of so many Jewish Israelis liking to go to the old city in Jerusalem, you know, and that sense of openness and exploration, that was shut down by 1973, really.

And since that time, being a traveler on the ground, often spending time with my dear friend Sami Awad, who is a third generation practitioner of a revolutionary Palestinian nonviolence, it is very clear that these stages toward genocide was part of every single Israeli government. And that a part of that, the 1973 – the so-called Oslo Accords, was actually the blueprint of apartheid.

And Palestinian laws of the land, political rights, judicial rights, the erasure of culture, all of these things leads me to believe that a two-state solution is only furthering a sense of isolation and apartheid. Especially given the genocide of Gaza, and the desire to ship everybody to Egypt, and to create an even small – that is the reality, and to create even smaller – so a smaller containing unit and then the West Bank.

So, there’s two questions I have, in this condition. One, I want to say there is an international solidarity movement. It is – we here in the Bay Area – a thousand people have registered for a ceasefire – a Gaza interfaith ceasefire pilgrimage tomorrow. Which we’re mapping the 22 miles on Ohlone land here in Huichin territory, from Gaza City to Rafah. That’s astounding, really.

And this, I’ve never seen anything like this here. People are disrupting the US government officials, and Biden is likely to lose the election over this. Because we see sectors of our society rising up in ways they never had. This is a moment for Palestine. Palestine has become the moral compass of the world.

One of our frustrations as movement builders, and, you know, I’ve been a member of JVP, Jewish Voice for Peace, for a long time too, is not really having a sense – beyond standing together, which is something that the American Jewish community likes. You know, the sense of we’re talking to each other, sort of on the Alinsky method, and finding almost transactional methods of being together, and maybe that’s what it’s going to take, you know, low wages, housing, those kinds of things.

But it never includes people from the West Bank or Gaza. These movements within Israel, as far as I remember, never really understand that, that Palestinians are – live ‘from the river to the sea, all people should be free’. And however that gets translated as a political solution, I feel like there is something about understanding the unity of the Palestinian people from the river to the sea, and that as long as that is not acknowledged. And as long as Israel doesn’t come to terms with its colonial history, not that – not that Jewish people don’t have history there, and emotions, and not that it’s – it is the homeland, you know, it feels like the homeland, and all that. But there’s a difference in the structures of governance, which have always been colonial, and Israel is no different.

So, it feels like we need to know where the pockets of solidarity are inside the Israeli state. And is the resistors’ movement growing like – is [unintelligible] a partner? Who are the partners that we need to lift up on that side? And on the other, it just feels cruel to ask, yes, Marwan Barghouti. And it also feels a little cruel to ask or to think about, where is the Palestinian Gandhi? Because as long as I’ve been alive – you know if it were – if the Palestinian Gandhi were Nelson Mandela, he would have been assassinated. You know, because this is Israeli policy, is to assassinate leadership.

And in this moment of genocide, where are the pockets of Jewish, Israeli, and Palestinian solidarity within 1948 and possibly between the other territories that we can that we can support and build this movement, this moral compass, this new reality that is upon us?

Dr. Cassif: First of all, you know, this debate about the one-state, two-state solution is an ongoing one. And there’s no chance we’ll cover all of it. I would just like to say regarding your comments, or question, I and my comrades in Hadash, we don’t have any ideological problem or principle problem with their one-state. We do argue that under the circumstance, realistically, the two-state solution is the only, reasonable now, under the circumstances.

Until the middle of the forties of the 20th century, the main – and other main, our belief in the party, the Communist party then, it was before Hadash was established, Hadash was established based on the Communist Party. But it is a kind of a wider coalition in the middle of the ‘70s, ‘76 – ‘77. But until then, since the party was established in 1919, until the middle of the ‘40s, we supported the one-state for Jews and Palestinians in Palestine. In the struggle against the British imperialism, it was in order to get the colonial – the imperialists out, and to establish a one-state where everybody between, as you said, the river and the sea.

But we changed our perception in the middle of the ‘40s, given that things have changed. You know, we have to adjust ourselves, to some extent, to reality. Otherwise, we won’t have any chance to change, and to achieve justice that we are only interested in.

So, we believe that at the moment, the only solution is a two-state solution and there – but of course, it also means that Israel itself must be democratized. That is to say that alongside is an independent Palestinian state in the old territories Israel occupied in June ‘67, the state of Israel proper must be democratized in the sense that I mentioned in the beginning. That it must be based on deep equality. There cannot be any kind of supremacy to anyone.

So, but if in the future, upon consent of everybody who’s involved, there is a will to transfer – transform the situation from two-states, to one-state or a kind of federation or confederation, so be it. But they at least they as a middle stage, there must be a Palestinian independent state.

So, this is, in brief, regarding what you say about the two-state versus one-state, etc. Now within the state of Israel, about two months ago, we formed the coalition, which is called the Peace Partnership. It consists of 44 different political and civil movements within Israel. Palestinians, Jews, and others. And we are all together in this partnership. Again, it is formally called Peace Partnership, 44 organizations.

We already organized a few demonstrations, Jewish-Palestinian demonstrations against the war, against the massacre, calling to release the hostages as well. We must be very clear about that to do, of course, against the occupation and the ongoing racism and oppression of the Palestinian people, etc. So, there are 44 different organizations with different emphasizes, and different publics, and we act together.

The program is – and this something that I didn’t mention thus far, and I imagine that you are familiar with that, that alongside the ongoing assault, a deadly assault on Gaza, there is an ongoing persecution against any political opposition within Israel. I mean, on top of what we said before about Israel not being, and never being a democracy. Since October 7, the government of Israel has cynically been using the situation in order to pursue the very same coup d’état that was under the sugarcoated term ‘judicial reform’ that you remember.

The government continues with this coup using the smokescreen of the war. And that means, for instance, that students, especially Palestinian citizens – I’m talking now about the Palestinians within Israel, citizens, peace activists, anti-occupation and anti-war activists mainly, but not solely Palestinians within Israel have been suspended from their universities studies, have been fired from their workplaces, have been arrested, have been beaten in demonstrations, solely because they tweeted, or posted, or said something that the government doesn’t like.

I’m not talking about supporting Hamas. I’m talking about objecting the war. I’m talking about expressing basic human sympathy for the children of Gaza. People have been persecuted and interrogated because of that. Until a few weeks ago, it was totally forbidden to demonstrate in Arab cities in this way under the auspices of the Supreme Court. Totally forbidden. We asked many times, Peace Partnership, those 44 organizations, and sometimes only Hadash.

We asked many times the police, because here we need a license, you know, permission to demonstrate. We cannot go to the streets and demonstrate without the permission if it exceeds 50 people and if it includes marching in the streets with signs etc. And it was not given, it was totally forbidden to demonstrate against the war. It’s a bit changing now, but still, I just read it recently today that yet again every Saturday evening there are demonstrations. And today there was two in Jerusalem and the police brutally, violently, beat the demonstrators, and tore apart the placards and signs.

So, I mentioned all that first to pinpoint the dire situation that goes on within Israel, alongside the of course, the massacre in Gaza. And secondly, in order to explain following whatever is said, is that there are many organizations, Palestinians and Jews together, that we act together against the war against the oppression, against racism, etc. So that’s another reason to be hopeful, by the way, following what I said before.

So, those are the ones who also need the international support. And I’m talking, first and foremost, moral support. There are many, many organizations, and I’m very proud to be part of this partnership. I hope I answered.

Rabbi Lynn: Yes. I think that’s the place where you left, that we need to connect more because there is such a huge – at least here in the United States, this is a moment where you see 1,000 black pastors going on a pilgrimage with Jewish Voice for Peace. You see, also people being fired from their jobs, and the same kinds of limitations and repression of free speech. It’s happening here, principally on campuses, where the weaponization of antisemitism is sort of taking over and trying to repress the moral outrage of what’s happening.

So, I guess the next question is, at least since we are the major suppliers of weapons, and we are the major GoFund Me campaign for Israel, we have to continue to think about how to build the movement of resistance between our societies and strengthen – because what you’re doing will strengthen us because there’s such isolation and doxing.

AAnd, you know, this has been going on for forever. But this is a moment, this is a moment where we really need to think about the tactics, be intentional about our tactics. And I pray for the right of return. You know, I know BDS, which I came out for in 2004, Boycott, Divestment, and Sanction, has been critical in waging educational campaigns in particular and building awareness. That’s here. But it includes the idea of the right of return. That is, that people do have the right to be compensated or return to everything that was stolen from them.

Dr. Cassif: This is part of – this has always been a part of our platform of Hadash. No debate about that.

Rabbi Lynn: Yeah.

Dr. Cassif: Yes, it’s part of our – formally part of our, you know, manifesto, if you like. And by the way, I had a very interesting – I think, I hope, an interview in the program of Christiane Amanpour, two days ago at CNN. And I said that – she asked me about, again, about the support of the United States, which I’m obviously very critical of. And I said, don’t send us means of war. Do send us means of peace.

Rabbi Lynn: Thank you for that. The reason I’m mentioning right of return is because it cover – it runs through – whether it’s one-state or two-state, as you suggested it, it still runs through both options in the sense that –Yeah, that people – there has to be some porousness about reparations for people. Thank you so much for your view.

Dr. Cassif: Thank you.

Stephanie: Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Well, Rabbi Lynn, thank you for joining us. Thank you for your time today.

Dr. Cassif: Thank you.

Rabbi Lynn: Thank you so much. It was great to see everybody.

Stephanie: Michael is professor emeritus of Classics of comparative literature at UC Berkeley, where he founded the Peace and Conflict Studies Program. He’s also the founder of the Metta Center for Nonviolence, and he is the author of The Search For A Nonviolent Future, The Third Harmony: Nonviolence in the New Story of Human Nature, a documentary at the same time. And he’s my news anchor, Nonviolence Radio. Michael, do you have burning questions for Dr. Cassif.

Michael: I do. Ofer, if I may, I will never have time to ask you all the questions on my mind. But I wanted to make an observation here that might be of some use, and that is that typically nonviolent struggles that get stuck in one mode, principally in the protest mode, they become very vulnerable. And the struggles that succeed are the ones that are flexible, and they have different modes of approach, and different strategies.

And so, I’m wondering if at this point we’re seeing some thinking about, for example, what Gandhi used to call constructive program. Where we build what we need without waiting for the opposition to give it to us. And as a matter of fact, Mubarak had some brilliant examples of that going back in the ‘80s where, as he said, “Every mother became every children’s parent.”

And there was cottage industry, village industry. I’m not sure, in fact, what form it would take, but I’m asking you, Ofer, if there’s some thinking that you’ve been hearing or hearing about of people thinking long term, what do we want this land to look like, and how do we build it alongside the necessity of demonstration and obstructive actions?

Dr. Cassif: Well, first, I must say that the October 7 upset the carts, you know, the apple carts. So, it’s very difficult to speak now about things that were almost obvious on 6th of October. It’s very depressing. But that’s the fact – that’s a matter of fact. We are trying when I say we, in a very wide, you know, definition, because we are talking about hundreds and thousands of people.

I think that one of the most important objects of nonviolence – not only of nonviolence resistance to the occupation and to ethnic cleansing, etc., but also, we also – be building bridges for the future. Is the ongoing, for instance, activities of Israelis and Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. For instance, olive harvest. Olives have been one of the most important, not only economically speaking, but also on the symbolic level. Those are very crucial for the Palestinian people in the West Bank, especially. The settlers, with the assistance of the occupation forces, have been assaulting, and, you know, their interrupting and bothering, etc., the Palestinians, especially during the olive harvests, for years.

So, many years ago, there was a project that began, and it grew stronger and deeper and wider, of Israelis who go especially, not only, but especially during the harvest season to the West Bank and together with the Palestinians, harvest the olives on the streets.

By the way, we’ve been assaulted by settlers many times as well. Israeli activists were beaten [unintelligible], the name of a 70-year-old woman. Her lungs were torn, ribs were broken by settlers, beat her with bats during harvest. No one, by the way, was arrested, interrogated, let alone charged. And this is only one example. But still, those people, including people who are 70 and 80 years old, continuously go to the West Bank.

Of course, we all made good friends as well. It’s not only a kind of, you know, just an instrumental connection or relation. It turned into an emotion and a close friendship in many places. I think those things are so important, and I think this is the future. This is the future because as I said, it’s not only a nonviolent struggle against the evil, and malicious atrocities done by the occupation and its proxies, but it’s also a way to build bridges for the future.

I think that’s what we ought to do. It’s very, very difficult now. Emotionally, I must say. Everybody is hurt, I mean, many Israelis, including peace activists, are still in shock and traumatized by the massacre of October 7. And on the other end, of course, Palestinians in the West Bank are traumatized by the ongoing carnage in Gaza. So it’s more difficult. That’s the reason they said before that 7 of October did upset the apple carts.

But people don’t give up. Even people who find it difficult, physically speaking, they don’t give up. And it’s so encouraging.

Michael: Yeah. There is a concept in the study of nonviolence called the paradox of repression, which made when a state has to increase its violence in order to maintain its superiority, it is basically writing its own death warrant.

I’m getting the feeling that we might be approaching a paradox of repression here because what has – what the IDF soldiers feel they have to do in Gaza, not to mention other peripheral areas and struggles are going on, are becoming unacceptable. And I mean this on two levels. First, it’s becoming less acceptable in the international community, and threatening the label that’s been placed on Israel for close to 75 years of victim –

Dr. Cassif: That’s true.

Michael: When that label starts to dissolve, then they become an ordinary – just another country that has to be judged by the standards of everybody else.

But also, we have this concept that has become well recognized recently called moral injury, which identifies the fact that when people have to carry out these horrendous acts, they themselves are so traumatized –

Dr. Cassif: True.

Michael: – to no longer, they can no longer maintain it. So, God forbid things could get any worse, but I’m wondering if you feel that we might be reaching that paradox where they cannot continue anymore in this violent trajectory and will be forced by the inner logic of this situation to bring about some kind of accommodation.

Dr. Cassif: I think it’s very interesting, because I said something not exactly the same, but something alike, just a couple of days ago, a few days ago, in a discussion. I don’t remember with whom, I’m sorry. I’ve had many, I must say. And I just actually quoted the philosopher John Stuart Mill. John Stuart Mill, the British – the Scottish philosopher. He coined the term benevolent despotism.

Now, what is benevolent despotism, is when a despot or an authoritarian holds the all power that can be used to oppress the subjects, but it doesn’t use those powers. So, in that sense, is a benevolent or good dictator. Because he is a dictator, he holds the power in his hands, but he doesn’t use them.

But at one stage or another, says Mill, that the benevolent dictator will have to decide whether he prefers to be a benevolent or dictator. Because once criticism arises, let alone resistance, if the dictator allows the resistance to go on because he wants to be benevolent, then you won’t be a dictator anymore. On the other hand, if it doesn’t want to lose his power as a dictator, it cannot continue with this benevolence.

So, in other words, I think that are – if you follow what I’m trying to say, it has something to do with the paradox you mentioned. This is another kind of paradox. And I think that for many years the Israeli governments, since 1967, at least, truly believed that they can be, you know, an enlightened occupier. There’s nothing like that. And now, I think that now more than ever, we face this kind of eruption of the internal contradictory between those two moments.

And in that sense, I think that this paradox is here. It’s here to stay. And it’s going to change things. One thing, if I may add, the reason that the Israeli media, apart from very, very few, doesn’t inform the Israeli public about anything that goes on in Gaza is precisely because they are afraid of this trauma that you mentioned.

So, most of the people in Israel don’t know what’s going on in Gaza. Partly because they are not exposed to it. The media doesn’t show anything. By the way, it’s not forced, enforced to do so by the government. They do that voluntarily, which is even worse.

And the vast majority of the people in Israel don’t want to know what’s going on in Gaza. And because they don’t want to see a villain in the mirror. That’s the issue. And that’s why they hate me, because I force them to look at the mirror. And I can do that.

Stephanie: Thank you. Thank you so much. You’ve been so generous with your time today. And I want to –

Dr. Cassif: That’s okay.

Stephanie: And I want to –

Dr. Cassif: My pleasure, my honor.

Stephanie: I just want to invite everyone to say goodbye. Mubarak Awad, Ela Gandhi, Michael, and you Dr. Cassif, I’ll end with you. So, Mubarak and Ela, please add your last comments.

Mubarak Awad: Well, thank you, so much. We appreciate that. And it’s very, very much of looking for the future, which we cannot just look at it. We have to change it ourselves. We have to be the agent of change there. And in regard to a democracy, I always want, feel that if a country is a democratic, when there is a thousand or 10,000 people demonstrate, the government, like in the United States, for example, the House or the Senate, have to have a meeting with those who are demonstrating to say what you are demonstrating. We are a democracy, let’s hear you. And that becomes a democratic.

The other thing that to understand the difficulty between – even in the United States, the hate, and the difficulty between Arabs, Jews, Muslims, Christians. So, what we decided that we took Philadelphia, as an example. And we have a Christian, we have a Jew, and we have a Muslim to go to a church.

And there is around 2000 churches in the Philadelphia area, and they have to go to every church and to say, “We want you to – we try to ask you to just pray as a church, okay. For the people of Gaza, for the children of Gaza.” And they are now 120 churches. They are welcoming them. They are saying, that’s great. And we are involving the churches.

And so there is something going – is a little bit, but at least the church start taking the responsibility of saying to the government, to Biden, have ceasefire, stop the killings, stop sending money, you know all that. And we didn’t ask them, we asked them just to pray, and then they figure out themselves what they do and that’s becomes very well. But thank you also, I appreciate that.

And then I want to say a message to the people from South Africa. I am and we as Palestinian, we thank you so much, lately. About South Africa to bring the issue of the Palestinian in the International Court of Justice. That lifts our spirit so much when it’s very down. Thank you.

Dr. Cassif: Thank you, Mubarak. Thank you so much.

Stephanie: Ela, any last comments from you?

Ela Gandhi: Thank you so much. You know, it gives us a bit of insight into what is really going on. There’s so much of misinformation that is coming on. And, you know, your talk has opened up that division for us. So, thank you, both of you, Dr. Awad and Dr. Cassif.

Also, we hope that to our conference is going to pave the way for, you know, for international groups to get together and do something about the issue. So, there will be discussions in various ways of applying pressure on the Israeli government to come to a settlement.

I think the one thing that concerns me is this question of one state or two states, and I think that maybe we need to have a discussion on what is the best solution. Because for me, a two-state solution can be possible, if both the states are equal. It can never be possible when one state is powerful and the other one is weak and dependent, as it is at the moment. Both states must be equal, and must be just as, you know, on the same thing as each other. And then only can the two-state solution succeed. That’s my opinion.

Also, one state, like we have here in South Africa, where we’ve got – we started off with a government of national unity. But at the moment we are also having a lot of struggles in South Africa. And, you know, I mean, we don’t have two different states, and it’s not possible to do that in South Africa. But we do have problems and that’s internal.

You know, it’s not necessarily racial problems. It’s problems about ideology, I think, more than anything else. Because, you know, the people for them, freedom meant that they would have access to various resources. Their lives would change for the better and so on. Which hasn’t happened. So, those are some of the issues that one can learn from.

So, going forward, maybe we should have more discussions like this. You know, perhaps focusing on what is the best solution, focusing on, after if there is a settlement, what happens afterwards? What are the aspirations of the people and so on. And how can that be satisfied? Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity. Thank you.

Michael: Ofer, [unintelligible]. And I do have a feeling that violence has overreached itself. It has weakened itself, and that therefore, we need to be very clear and strong about the alternative, about nonviolence at this point.

Dr. Cassif: Absolutely.

Michael: [unintelligible] opening. So.

Dr. Cassif: Okay, thank you so much. Bye.

Stephanie: Bye.

Dr. Cassif: Bye-bye.

Stephanie: And I’ll just invite anybody who is here and has links and resources. You can go ahead and email those to me, info@MettaCenter.org. And in our follow-up email, we will include those resources. So, thank you very much, everybody. Ela, [unintelligible] – everybody who’s here, thank you so much. Thank you.

Ela Gandhi: Thank you.

Michael: Wow.

]]> Israel on the Brink as Ultra-Orthodox Exemption from Military Service is Set to End https://www.juancole.com/2024/04/orthodox-exemption-military.html Sat, 06 Apr 2024 04:15:22 +0000 https://www.juancole.com/?p=217898 Oakland, Ca. (Special to Informed Comment; Featured) – On March 29, the Israeli Supreme Court ordered the government to stop subsidizing the academies and yeshivas (seminaries), whose students have been exempted from military service since Israel’s founding. This move, brought by Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara, was prompted by the expiration of prior government actions to maintain the exceptions, which sunset on April 1. With that, the Court ordered the government to suspend the educational subsidies for seminary students, if they don’t honor their military call-ups. Opponents call this, “bullying Bible students.” Others expressed the growing resentment over exemption, with the fastest growing segment of the populace enjoying government subsidies, while not contributing to defense during war. The cost of maintaining the subsidies to the Haredim (Ultra-Orthodox) has skyrocketed to about $136M or 500M shekels under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s (Bibi’s) government. Haaretz columnist Yossi Verter argues that they’ve created their own private kleptocracy. Then October 7 brought a new reality, making the exemption for this group, some 14% of the population now, untenable.

The Court’s decision was prompted by a petition filed by The Movement for Quality Government, the Brothers and Sisters in Arms and 240 other Israeli citizens. They object to exempting thousands of ultra-Orthodox draft-eligible people from military service. The government instructed the IDF not to draft the yeshiva students in June 2023, though the exemption had expired. The petitioners responded saying, “It’s very saddening that instead of understanding that something illegal is being done here – a government decision in violation of the law – the attorney general is enabling the continuation of the illegal situation and allowing the sinner to benefit. In fact, she is defending an illegal situation in court.”

In a gross act of hubris-chutzpah, Bibi promised his ultra-Orthodox parties that the legislation they want for extending exemptions will be passed. This would not be the first time Bibi has made promises to allies he doesn’t have the standing to keep, without cooperation from other parties unlikely to go along. He’s become well-accustomed to sacrificing Israel’s immediate and long-term interests for his own political survival, not unlike Donald Trump. And any such bill that might pass the Knesset will not pass the Supreme Court, judging by their recent actions.

 The exemption of yeshiva and rabbinical students from military service dates to the founding of Israel in the aftermath of the Holocaust. Most of the European and global rabbinate, libraries and scholarship history had been wiped out by the Nazis. The exemption was necessary to rebuild 20th Century Judaism from the ground up to re-stock the synagogues, universities and yeshivas. By most accounts, that was amply accomplished by the 1973 War. The original exemption applied to only 400 yeshiva students, at a time when the comprised a small segment of the population. Ironically, the Haredim were some of the original anti-Zionist, who opposed the creation of the Jewish State, which they viewed as an impediment to the return of the Messiah. So in 1948, their opting out of military service was not significant to security.  Now they comprise roughly 14% of the Israeli population, as noted above, and is the fastest growing demographic, creating a drag on the economy and military. They remained exempt from the conscription pool when the nation has never been more embattled with wars on multiple fronts.

In 1998, the Court dispensed with the exemption, as a violation of equal protection law. Since then, a series of short-term agreements through the Courts and Knesset kept it in place. The most recent one in 2018 expired on March 31, after which, Bibi tried and failed to negotiate with the Court to extend the deadline; and pass a law to permanently enshrine it in Israeli law.

The Court’s ruling validated what many exemption objectors argued all along, that the government could not subsidize the yeshiva students, while exempting them from the conscription requirements of all other Israeli citizens. This was an application of the American “equal protection” concept, enshrined in the 14th Constitutional Amendment. Israel had no such law until 2021.    

“How military exemptions for the ultra-Orthodox divide Israel” | REUTERS Video

This Court decision has fractured the Israeli government, which has been a delicate balance of ultra-Orthodox leaders and far-right secular groups promoting illegal settlements in Palestinian territory. If PM Benjamin Netanyahu does not defy his own Court (again), the Haredim might leave the government prompting new elections. But if the decision is not honored, some secular politicians might prompt the collapse. The Likud government is dependent on two ultra-Orthodox parties to keep the government in power, Shas and United Torah Judaism.

Haredim or Haredi are the most observant Jews adhering to every one of the 613 laws in the Torah, Talmud, the Midrash and other formal commentaries. Unlike the Chassidic Chabad Lubavichers, the Haredim are rigidly exclusionary towards other Jews, and self-segregating; while Chabad engages in secular outreach and is accepting of Jews who are not as observant. The self-exclusionary nature of Haredi is fueled by the fact that, “They teach their children to despise secular Jews. They do not recognize the state, they are anti-Zionist; to them, we are simply a cash register that must be robbed,” according to Haaretz columnist Nehemia Shtrassler.

The Court had given the government the April 1 deadline to submit a new bill and until June 30 to pass it, when it ruled the exemption to be a violation of “equal protection,” and thus discriminatory. The war cabinet consists of Bibi, along with Ministers Yoav Gallant and Benny Gantz. The latter two argue that Bibi’s proposal does not go far enough to meet the manpower needs of the IDF, and they want more Haredi men in the troops.  Most of the 287,000 reservists called up on October 7 have since been released, but will return to active duty soon. Many reservists resent being compelled to serve longer active terms, and want the Haredi men drafted.

The drama was elevated when Gantz, the former general, opposition leader and war cabinet member;  called out this untenable situation, and demanded new elections in September. Gantz suggested that early elections would provide Israel with international legitimacy, a direct reference to public comments by the US and other allies, over the growing objections to Bibi’s leadership, and the self-destructive nature of the far-right government. He said, “I believe Israeli society needs to renew its contract with its leadership, and I think the only way to do it and still maintain the national effort in fighting Hamas… is by having an agreed election date. ”  His comments elicited a harsh reaction from the Likud, dismissing the call as “petty politics,” claiming it would lead to paralysis, divisiveness and an impediment to freeing the hostages; as if they’re on track to accomplish any of this, and actually care about the hostages more than causing famine in Gaza. Bibi claimed that new elections would “paralyze the country,” as if he hasn’t already accomplished that. He follows the same double-speak playbook as Trump with the media.

But Gantz’s position also brought parallel, but different objections from fellow Opposition Leader Yair Lapid, who insisted that Gantz’s centrist position does not go far enough. Lapid said, “Israel cannot wait another six months until the worst, most dangerous and failed government in the country’s history goes home. As long as we are a democracy, there is a tool that changes reality. It is called elections. Election now!” This places Israeli opposition leaders in alliance with Sen. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. His dramatic Senate Floor speech last month called for new Israeli elections; and also called out Bibi for focusing more on his political survival than the security of his nation, or minimizing civilian casualties in Gaza. But it’s President Joe Biden’s move now to halt US aid to the Israeli war machine, to dignify Schumer’s rhetoric and legitimize his own.

The Bibi government is like to fall soon, a consequence of political over-reach for an untenable situation, and his own brand of hubris-chutzpah. After a series of inconsequential elections and back room bargaining, which yielded no majority; he managed to cobble a fractured government, composed of ministers with competing and conflicting agendas and interests. It was destined to fail from the beginning, and now they face a dilemma certain to bring it down. It’s a matter of time. Benny Gantz of the National Unity Party has declared that if new elections aren’t held by September, his party will leave the government.

]]>