Sarah Lazare - Israel Clamps Down on Dissent
As a tenuous ceasefire takes hold, the besieged Gaza strip
must contend with the path of death and destruction left by Israel’s month-long
military assault, including 1,939 Palestinian lives lost, 9,886 wounded, over
200,000 displaced, and more than 10,000 Palestinian housing units severely
damaged or completely ruined. Israeli critics of the “Operation Protective Edge” and
occupation say the attacks have also unleashed a fury of pro-war,
ultra-nationalist sentiment within Israel, escalating intimidation and violence
towards those who dissent: from the firing of journalists to the beating of
protesters to the harassment of Palestinian citizens of Israel.
“There has been a feeling in the air: it is dangerous to be
outspoken against the war,” said Haggai Matar, an Israeli journalist for +972
Magazine and a longtime activist against the occupation, speaking over
the phone withCommon Dreams from Tel Aviv.
Targeted for Being Palestinian in Israel
Mass protests throughout the West Bank
against Israel ’s
attacks on Gaza have been met with
severe Israeli repression, with at least three Palestinians killed by Israeli
fire. The Alternative Information
Center East
Jerusalem have been detained in protests, and over 150 indictments
have been filed.” The killings and arrests are in keeping with a well-documented
history of Israel ’s
deadly attacks on Palestinian protests. Palestinian citizens of Israel ,
who comprise 20 percent of Israel ’s
population, already face second-class
status in their own society, including legal discrimination, home
demolitions, detentions without due process, and more.
Recent weeks have seen an uptick in repressive measures
targeting this population. Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman recently called for
an economic boycott of businesses owned by Palestinian citizens of Israel
who participated in a late-July general strike to show their solidarity with Gaza
during the bombings. Numerous initiatives to monitor the online activities of
Palestinians have sprung up on Facebook, under names like “Concentrating those
who wish to destroy Israel .” According
to the Christian Science Monitor, these networks then inform
employers and school officials of alleged activity. And there are numerous reports of increased incidents of
harassment and attacks of Palestinians in Israel
for just walking down the street.
“There is an enhanced environment of intimidation for
everyone who opposes what the government is doing. It is doubly and triply bad
for Palestinian Israelis and Palestinians in East Jerusalem ,”
Sydney Levy, advocacy director for Jewish Voice for Peace, told Common
Dreams. “Israeli peace activists face harassment because of their
views. Palestinians who are citizens of Israel
face harassment for just being Palestinians.”
Not Safe to Protest
The past month has also seen an escalation of
ultra-nationalist mob attacks on anti-war protesters—including Israeli Jews. On
July 12, a mob of right-wing counter-protesters descended on an anti-war
protest in Tel Aviv. “When the sirens went off due to incoming rockets, the
police ran away and right-wingers began attacking people,” said Matar. “Some
were severely beaten.” He added that the attackers shouted ‘death to Arabs,’ as
well as for the deaths of the protesters. The attacks continued from there. “After each protest, when
people were dispersing, they were followed in the street and beaten up in the
alley or parking lot, and in one case a person got home and was attacked in
stairway going to his house,” said Matar.
An anti-war protest in Haifa on July 19, organized by the
socialist political alliance Hadash—the only joint Palestinian-Jewish party in
Israel—was met with a massive counter protest that “formed a circle around
where the demonstration took place,” said Matar. “People who got there late
were beaten up for saying they were going. People were beaten up for being
Arab. People were chased through the streets.” Haifa Mayor Yona Yahav joined in
the incitement, declaring, “Haifa
refuses to be a hotspot for protests and provocations. Anyone interested in
protesting against the global situation of the Middle East
should go elsewhere and to the halls of government, not in our city.”
Israeli writer Leanne Gale describes her
experience as the target of anti-leftist sentiment infused with misogyny,
including gendered insults and non-consensual physical touching and aggression
that she personally experienced in Jerusalem, as well as run-ins with the group
Lehava—which works to prevent ‘intermarriages’ between Jews and Palestinians. “I have never been more conscious of my womanhood,” she
writes. “I have never been more conscious of the intersection between being a
left-wing activist and a woman. I have never been more conscious of what this
means specifically in Israel .”
Crackdown on Dissenting Voices
“Reporters and news outlets, even those who dare be critical
in other times, all quickly line up with the governmental line saying that it
is to be expected to have political disagreements, but criticizing the military
is not legitimate,”writes Sahar
Verdi, Israeli activist and staffer for the American Friends Service Committee
who served three prison sentences for draft refusal.
Journalists deemed critical of the war have faced job
termination and censure. Prominent Israeli journalist Gideon Levy, who has
criticized the “dehumanization
and demonization of the Palestinians,” hired a personal bodyguard after
being attacked while broadcasting live from Ashkelon .
Israeli Knesset member Yariv Levin, chair of the Likud-Beytenu coalition,
recently called for Levy to stand trial for treason—a charge that, during war,
carries a death sentence.
Knesset member Haneen Zoabi—a Palestinian citizen of
Israel—has been suspended from most parliamentary activities for six months due
to a statement she made about the still-unidentified kidnappers of three
Israeli teen residents of West Bank settlements who were found dead in June.
She said of the kidnappers, “they are people who see no other way to change
their reality, so they are forced to use these means…at least until Israel
wises up, and until Israeli society opens up and feels the pain of the other.”
Meanwhile, numerous Knesset members calling for the ethnic
cleansing of Gaza and murder of
Palestinian civilians have faced no formal censure from within Israeli
government or the U.S.
This includes Knesset Member Moshe Feiglin from the Likud party who called in
late July for the “conquest of Gaza ”
and “elimination of all armed enemies from Gaza .”
Bar-Ilan University professor Mordechai Kedar stated in
July on an Israeli radio program that to stop the “terrorists” it is necessary
to rape their “sister or their mother.” “The level of rhetoric is really, really high,” said Levy.
“When you’re hearing death to Arabs, when you are hearing politicians talking
about how the IDF should rape Palestinian mothers in Gaza ,
when that level of rhetoric is out there in the environment, it is poison.”
Refusal from Within the Army
“We support anyone who refuses,” said Yotam Gidron, a
24-year-old Israeli reservist who co-organized and signed an open
letter published in late July, along with over 50 other reservists,
declaring their refusal to serve due to ethical objections to the military’s
actions. Despite a climate in which opponents of war are “regarded as
traitors,” Gidron explained to Common Dreams that an even
greater number of reservists are quietly dodging their service through “grey”
refusal.
As Dahlia Scheindlin reports in +972
Magazine, motives for resistance range from the personal to the political,
and of reservists who have openly refused orders to serve in Operation
Protective Edge, some have fled the country, while others faced prison time. Military resistance in Israel
dates back to at least 1970, when a group of students declared their refusal of
the draft in an open letter to then-Prime Minister Golda Meir. Annual waves of
conscientious objection include Jewish Israeli high school seniors, as well as
resisters from the Druze religious community — a conscientious objection
movement that is reportedly
growing, as well as ultra-orthodox draft refusers.
The joint letter of reservist refusal adds to this legacy by
declaring that all military positions, whether combat or administrative roles,
contribute to the ongoing occupation. Yael Even Or, one of the letter’s signatories and
organizers, wrote in
theWashington Post, “[A]lthough combat soldiers are generally the
ones prosecuting today’s war, their work would not be possible without the many
administrative roles in which most of us served. So if there is a reason to
oppose combat operations in Gaza ,
there is also a reason to oppose the Israeli military apparatus as a whole.” “If you oppose the war now you are regarded as a traitor,”
said Gidron. “It has been like that every time Israel
went to war, but it is worse this time.”
Resistance Continues
Despite the stifling climate, protests continue across Israel .
On August 9th, approximately 500 people filled
Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square to protest the war on Gaza ,
defying a police ban on such gatherings. “Because what is going on in Gaza
is so bad, people [in Israel ]
continue to go into street,” said Matar. “It is not that people are completely
silent.”
As global momentum for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanction on
Israel grows around the world, following a recent call from
Palestinian civil society for a renewed push in the wake of Israel’s assault on
Gaza, Israelis are legally prohibited from joining in BDS efforts, thanks to a law passed
by the Israeli government in 2011 that makes it illegal for citizens of Israel
to join in the economic, cultural or academic boycotts one the basis of linkage
to Israel. This was despite fierce opposition to the prohibition from within Israel .
Organizers urge that, given Israel ’s
repressive climate, pressure from the outside is critical. Said Matar, “The main thing to remember for [U.S. ]
citizens is that most Israeli wars are funded by U.S.
tax dollars and weapons. I think damage in Gaza
is something that you should be considering. Why you would be willing to go on
supporting Israeli policies?”
“Western governments should be flooded with calls for an
arms embargo on Israel, Israeli citizen Ofer Neiman writes
for the Alternative Information Center. “Complicit companies, institutions
and officials should be boycotted. Users of social media can stand up to Israel ’s
odious propaganda, which often portrays the state as a bastion of enlightenment
in the middle of a jungle.”
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License
Mirrored from Commondreams.org
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