Israel's boycott law: The quiet sound of going fascist
This is the one. This is where the slope turns nowhere but down. When the Knesset passed the boycott law, it changed the history of the state of Israel.
By Bradley Burston Tags: Palestinians Israel settlements Israel occupation Israel boycottThis is the one. Don't let what we like to call the relative calm here, fool you. When the Knesset passed the boycott law Monday night, it changed the history of the state of Israel.
In real time, a tipping point of great magnitude can sound a lot like nothing at all. But if the Boycott Law makes it past challenges filed by human rights and pro-peace organizations in Israel's High Court of Justice, then anything goes, beginning with democracy itself.
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Members of the Knesset voting on the boycott bill, July 11, 2011 |
| Photo by: Michal Fattal |
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Benjamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak and 10 other cabinet ministers already know this. That's why they failed to show up for the vote.
They stayed away because they know that this is the stain that may prove indelible. The Boycott Law is the litmus test for Israeli democracy, the threshold test for Israeli fascism. It's a test of moderates everywhere who care about the future of this place.
This is the one. This is where the slope turns nowhere but down.
Q. What is wrong with the law?
1. The measure curbs political freedom of expression in Israel in a number of ways, setting potentially significant – and dangerous – precedents. It allows any individual to, in effect, become a private law enforcement agency, empowered to bring lawsuits against anyone or any group the plaintiff accuses of having taken part in or even simply supported any action the plaintiff construes as a boycott against Israel, against the settlements, or even any individual Israeli, for any reason.
2. The measure erases the legal differentiation between settlements and Israel proper, regarding targeted boycotts against goods from the settlements as actions harmful to the state of Israel itself.
3. The Knesset's apolitical Legal Advisor Eyal Yinon has ruled that the law's broad definition of "boycotting the state of Israel", coupled with its "civil wrongdoing" or anyone-can-sue clause, may compromise freedom of expression where it comes to public debate over the fate of the West Bank. Prior to the Monday vote, Yinon stated that the law could be brought to bear against targeted boycotts "whose goal is to influence the political debate in connection with the future of Judea and Samaria, a discussion which has been at the heart of political debate in Israel for more than 40 years now."
4. The effect of the law could be crippling to the efforts of all organizations and many individuals working for Israeli-Palestinian peace and enhanced freedoms and human rights within Israel and the territories. The rabid anti-NGO campaigns of Im Tirtzu and other groups could escalate into a full-bore "lawfare" offensive, hauling them repeatedly into court and costing them prohibitive legal fees.
Q. Who benefits from all of this?
For the hard right, this is a clear win-win. First, there is the language of the law, through which Israel effectively and without fanfare annexes the settlements, and, in so doing, acknowledges that the settlements have annexed the state of Israel.
Secondly, the more untenable the law, the more anti-democratic its spirit and the more delusional its provisions, the more it delights those within the pro-settlement power base. Furthermore, this increases the likelihood that the High Court – reviled by the far-right and radical religious - will strike it down, only adding luster to those who incite against the Court.
Q. Who is fighting the law?
The Gush Shalom organization Tuesday filed the first High Court legal challenge to the new law.
The Association for Civil Rights in Israel, the Coalition of Women for Peace, Physicians for Human Rights, the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, and Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, have also announced that they will challenge the law in the High Court. Peace Now and the Solidarity (Sheikh Jarrah) movement have begun collecting thousands of personal pledges advocating boycotts against settlement.
A number of U.S. Jewish organizations have condemned the bill, notably the Anti-Defamation League, which generally refrains from criticizing Israeli government policy and actions. ADL President Abraham Foxman said the bill was a disservice to Israeli democracy. J Street and Ameinu were among other U.S. groups to denounce the law.
Q. How dare you call this a step toward fascism in Israel?
I'm pretty much no different from everybody else here - just learning by doing. I’m learning about fascism one step at a time. "Now they tell me," I'm thinking to myself. I’m learning that the success of the Boycott Bill is a textbook case of the quiet appeal, the brilliant disguise, the endlessly adaptable expertise in the workings of democracy , that help explain the progress of fascism in our time. So this is what I've found out so far:
At first, it doesn't feel like fascism. That's why it works.
At first, to people whose nerves are bleeding and torn and altogether shot from generations of bearing arms and bearing wars and bearing children who will face still more wars, and between them, chaos and trauma and fury and grief and going without, fascism can sound like quiet. It can sound like actual calm. It's an understandable mistake. What have these people had to compare it to?
To people who feel vilified on reflex and demonized by rote, this new direction of ours can feel like freedom. That's why it works in a place like this. While it's getting up to speed, fascism's just another word for nothing left to lose.
I have friends whose livelihood is bound up with preserving the sense that democracy in Israel is as sound as ever; that if it's under attack, it's only from enemies foreign and domestic. I feel for them now. They'll have to dismiss or minimize or ignore the Boycott Bill. They'll have to pretend. At first, they could hope that no one would notice or care. Not, as they say, bloody likely. Fascism, the human construction that it is, has its better days and worse, and Monday was the best ever.
And this was not only because the day began with Glenn Beck being hosted in the Knesset by Likud MK Danny Danon, the carefully coiffed Mad Hatter of Israeli Tea Party wannabes.
It was how the day ended that mattered.
Q. What's next in line?
A list of new bills, beginning next week, each designed to choke debate, gag protest, punish criticism, and/or cement the rule of the right. First up: The return of a bill to create McCarthyesque committees to investigate organizations the panels deem leftist. The bill was originally withdrawn for lack of votes in Knesset, but, buoyed by the success of the Boycott Law, the McCarthy Bill's sponsors now believe they can win passage.
Q. Do you see any cause for hope at all?
Paradoxically, the Boycott Law may yet prove to be a disaster for its primary sponsors, the settlement movement. First, there is the economic element. While the law appears to effectively annex the territories, erasing any legal difference between Israel proper, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, it may single-handedly spur an unprecedented world protest boycott on settler-produced goods. And thanks to the sweeping language of the boycott law, the poison written in smoke and fun-house mirrors, the boycott may extend to the Golan as well, in particular, to Yarden wines.
But what may more effectively stymie the march toward fascism in Israel are the budding doubts of the supporters of laws such as these. You could hear them on Tuesday, headed by Likud Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz, forced by the absence of Netanyahu and Barak to defend the law on his own.
The former Peace Now activist, sounding pained and put-upon, condemned boycotts as inherently undemocratic and illegitimate. In terms that were as worthy a description as any of the Boycott Law itself, Steinitz called boycotting "a belligerent attempt to impose one's will on a public which thinks otherwise".
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The settlers and their proxies are hungry for more and more... but now it is boycott big time and they will pay heavily for their actions. It is the death sentence on the settlement enterprice- Baruch Ha'sh-m.
Bradley Burston's trumpet-call sounding the death knell for democracy in the country (by the passage of yet another law abridging our civil liberties) is one we should all give credence to and view as an incentive to stand up collectively and take action to oppose those forces that are on a stealthy, insidious march towards a totalitarian system of government. What irony - while most of the Arab States in our neighborhood are striving to throw off the yoke of tyranny and oppression and yearn for a democratic society the country proclaiming to be the "only Democracy in the Middle East" is now on the way to renounce those democratic values and principles in favor of totalitarianism.
should have been wriiten for 2011.
And do you know why this is happening? Because you let it happen. You cede power to an undemocratic, largely religious, minority and theocracy is what happens. Take the power back.
The law does not stop anybody from boycotting anything. Its aim is to stop people for calling for a boycott of Israel. There is a booming business for some unscrupulous Israeli citizens to join Boycott-Divest-Sanction movement. Given their citizenship status it provides the legitimacy to the movement. Now they can be hit where it hurts - the wallet. The moral - if you don't like Israel, go elsewhere.
The left played games with the right for years. The right was legitimized and harassed and demoralized. From the Antelina, to the forced secularization of the sephardim, to blaming all rightist for the terrible assassination of Rabin, to establishing a special Jewish division of Shabak that only targets rightists and the list does not end. Well now the rightists are in charge and they are simply have learned well from their former leftist masters. But dont worry, Peres is still running the show behind the scenes.
Don't talk nonsense !
That is when rights of minorities are protected. But when government issues the bill with the intention to protect a minority ("settlers" is a minority in Israel - isn't?) the same advocates for the minorities call it "fascist". Could you explain this apparent contradiction?
settlers" is a minority in Israel? Settlers are outside of Israel!
If they were, they wouldn't be settlers.
Burston does not explain..he pontificates and spews out leftist nonsense. Why should a lefty explain anything when they are to busy trying to tear apart the very fabric of the country they live in. They will not be happy until they destroy Israel.. fools that they are..
Since Yeshayahu Leibowitz the term “fascist” is used on a regular basis by Jews to describe Israeli politics. The Likudniks are called totalitarians, the rabbis are called racists, our soldiers are called Judeo-Nazis. It is an inflationary term, used by polit-clowns who are playing verbal theatre in order to provoke but has nothing to do with reality. The fact that Burston can write what he wants belies him even more. If this government was fascist it would first and foremost silence the shmoks. The Germans called it “Gleichschaltung”, i.e. a tight control over all aspects of society. Each reader of Haaretz may judge himself how close we are to a totalitarian society.
if you'd read the article, you'd know that he's warning of progress toward fascism, not currently existing fascism.
Whining like I've never read.
Finally we could be fascist without pain, because we now have a bill that we are not obliged to pay. A law that defend the lawless, that legitimate what the majority in Israel are wanting to impose. Those laws that most people in the world oppose to (Forget them, they don't know what they do). I hope that the present Knesset will declare in a near future, without any doubt and considerations, the new Ten Commandements, that I,(a poor but honest fascist) am not authorized to proclaim in advance here. But I'II hope that soon Prime Miinister and Security Minister will come out from the wardrobe covered with boys coats and vote with our Parlament what God, in a moment of weakness, forgot giving to Moses in Mount Sinai. It does not matter that the dogs are barking to us, beloved comrades, this is a good sign that we are riding on the right way to Hell.
Democracy is a messy system. The benefits of it in the best of all worlds is a meeting of the minds, and thorough vetting of ideas proposed, from multiple perspectives. In the worst of all worlds, democracy is a rumor mongering system, in the internet age and easy one. I personally think that BDS is vague, opportunistic, deceptive, mean-spirited, harboring fascist thinking and possibly resulting in fascist and racist shunning. And, I think that some that advocate for BDS seek the reduction of human suffering, and believe that BDS will accomplish that. Who gets to speak? In a democracy, anyone.
It is arguable that Israel has been fascist from its inception. See the following: http://tinyurl.com/5wq262x
I also don't support the law, I'm not Israeli though so it doesn't affect me personally, but I think it's strange. I wouldn't boycott Israel, or any country, but I think that people have a right to boycott a country if they want to or to think that others should. No, the settlements are not in Israel, and I don't think that to boycott them is the same as to boycott Israel.
this law hurts the democratic principles on which it is based on the state of Israel. and transforming it into a fascist government! sorry!
is very much going, going, gone.
And so it is.
Steve got it exactly correct!
You mean the true jews who actually believes in Jewish ethics and are proud of them... or is it the weakness of the diasporah jew in contrast to the Jewish übermench of the Yesha. Our religion makes us strong, not weak. Return to Judaism.
Nothing happens in israel until it is disected,bisected,trisected. I'm surprised anything gets done day to day.
To me it sounded like the final bars of the Beatles' A Day in the Life.
The whole world tries to arrest Israeli soldiers and Israel political leaders for what they percieve as war crimes. World academia divests and boycotts Israel universitys but Israel isnot allowed to protect itself according to the left. Every day Burston serves up a negative opinion article. He is part of a very shrinking minority. Maybe its time for him to relocate.
Actually, Jewish stores and businesses were boycotted by the Nazis before the war started. The boycott of israeli products, ie those manufactured by Jews, is one that is being promoted by the left and the islamo fascists. In fact, the Islamo fascists are also boycotting jewish businesses, just like the nazis did. Is starbucks owned by Jews, ? So they boycott it all around the world, even though there isn't a starbucks in Israel!
If you care for Israel, then you would care about what is going on in plane sight for everybody to see. If this isn't stopped, it will end very badly.
There are over 30 branches of starbucks in Beirut alone, so there goes your theory Mr. Fascist.
According to Bradely and those of his kind, when its Israel that makes the law, it can only be black, bad and brutal. When its Belgium, Sweden, the US or China, just a part of democracy at work.
There is no constitution here and very respect for inaleable democratic rights of free speech. So what do we expect????????
I shall agree to Beitenu. I shall abide by the laws, be they unjust does not matter. I will salute the flag, or be jailed. I will renounce my Arab past, be it true is not the question.
If the right to free speech is to be protected it can't be done only to protect one side of the spectrum. Arresting Dov Leor and Yakov Yosef for expressing an opinion is ten times worse than this boycott law.
when I incite the killing of Jews? Or is that different than inciting the murder of goyim?
When a country needs to use torture, shoot the rock-throwing children whose grandparents you stole the land and property from and make dissent illegal, it's time to ask if it is a legitimate country, let alone a moral, decent one.
Not because Israel will resume talks after this... this is the lie Israel claims. But we all know Israel blocks the peace process because it wants to grab more lands. It will use every bit of things to waste time to achieve its objective. Which is why Arabs should just stop fighting and wait. Israel is destroying itself step by step. To those who dream of Palestine, the true Palestine, the one that existed before 1947, wait and let that cancer rot by itself. You can smell the stink 6,000 km away...
Absolute Sweden is like an 8-year-old boy who's got caught cheating and his excuse is 'well, everybody is doing it!' If some or all of your classmates are cheating, it means that your school system is flawed and needs to be reformed ... that, however, doesn't make you less of a cheater, it's not an excuse good enough to escape punishment, nor does it mean that your behavior doesn't need to be corrected .. if an 8-year-old can't get away with cheating with such lame excuse .. then neither could Israel get away with occupation and oppression of other people!! or does logic work differently in Sweden?
What "lame excuse" ? "Freedom of expression" is indivisible and must apply to Lord How-How the same way that you want to apply it to Israeli Lefties. Got it ?
The Israeli electorate is one of the most knowledgeable that there is. The settlements are not generally with in Israel. Otherwise Mr & Mrs Israeli would be flocking in their droves to go and live there. At the next election the Israeli electorate will throw out this government, and some sort of centerest coalition will replace it. All is not lost.
You are absolutly right. Israel is not a free society, Israel is not a democratic country, never was and is not now, but Israel is fascist state.
The extreme left has real issues and inconsistencies, as we learn anew daily.
not the boycott itself.
is not the question. The real problem, which the article shows very clealy is that if you ban the right to express a different opinion from the goverments one, that equals infiling yourself into the same row with all the suppressive states around you. This is one of the worst moves Israel has made in the last years. Sorry, but now she is really rapidly drifting away from being a democracy!
It may become a line if Israel loses its compass and allows either ultra-orthodox rabbis or ultra right-wing realms to dictate laws that seriously challenge one of the world's most vibrant democracies. However, this law can't be construed as a line, much less a "downward spiral". It is a polemic law, nothing more than that. Of course, Haaretz lay in wait to portray it as a line or a downward spiral, but as for now, it isn't.
Colombians who supported Uribe know the tactics of quiet fascism pretty well. You are one of them Fortuna...
Either you are ignorant, or a pathological liar...
We are talking about Israel, not about me. The fact you do the latter, is because you have no argument other than change the subject, talk about a Colombian president and throw arbitrary excrement on a poster whose preferences in her home country you don't know, and don't matter. Shame on you. Let's talk about this law.
Israel is one of the most vibrant democracies in the entire world. Proof of it is an anti-Semite like you can post 24/7 and spew his / her venom on a Zionist online newspaper without another name than 2Israel stinks". No arguments, except hateful personal attacks of a poster you don't know at all.
Why is a ban on advocating boycott of Israel any more fascist than the law banning boycotts of Arabs ?
Brown shirts used to say the same thing... long ago in some european country. Don't remember which one though...
The liberals are going banana again shouting wolf!! Pathetic as usual. Always criticizing Israel no matter what.
Gabriel. When you lose the right of freedom of speech and protest you no longer live in a democracy but a covert dictatorship.
Or is it just easier to slam people & walk away????
Laws like this and Libierman's loyalty oath or lose your citizenship bill make it impossible to defend Israel in the USA, and will isolate Israel even more
Any American individual or company can boycott Israel -- unless that company joins a foreign state's boycott against Israel as part of a commercial agreement. If it decides to boycott Israel on its own, it is perfectly legal. $1,000 to AIPAC if you can prove me wrong.
i couldn't say it better myself. slowly but surely we are loosing our freedom of speech.
We never had freedom of speech. We just think we do. You can say what you want and protest what you want, but you might as well be talking to the walls, they listen better than any Israeli politician does.
What is all the fuss about ? Israel is a free society .Who ever does not want to buy settlement products thats their choice .
They are often mislabeled in the EU, but it will not work in the long run. I and many other will see to it.