Folks,
The rather brave, honest, determined and pragmatic Peacenik David Grossman comes from a tradition of secular leftist Israeli and diaspora Jewish criticism from anti-Zionist Jews and Israeli Jews whom oppose settlement policies and the discriminatory policies and oppression of Palestinians by the Occupation of the Westbank and discrimination of Israeli Arabs, Bedouins (from the Negev desert), Druze and other Non-Jewish minorities within Israel by the Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People (Hebrew: חוֹק יְסוֹד: יִשְׂרָאֵל—מְדִינַת הַלְּאוֹם שֶׁל הָעַם הַיְּהוּדִי), informally known as the Nation-State Bill (חוֹק הַלְּאוֹם) or the Nationality Bill, an Israeli Basic Law which specifies the nature of the State of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people. he law was passed by the Knesset—with 62 in favour, 55 against, and two abstentions—on 19 July 2018 (7 Av 5778), and is largely symbolic and declarative in nature. However, it was met with sharp criticism internationally, including from several prominent Jewish American organizations, and has been branded as racist and undemocratic by some critics.
Both Anti-Zionist secular Jews and Israeli leftists and some centrist liberals oppose the settlement policies of successive Israeli governments, the growing influence of the Revisionist National Religious Orthodox Right, and the growing infuence of extreme right Kahanist, Kach party like, Ultra nationalist forces from within the Settler movement from the Westbank and the Israeli far right from within Israel. Political parties like the far-right, Ultrantionalist HaTzionut HaDatit (Religious Zionist Party) of the Israeli lawyer and far-right politician Bezalel Smotrich who lives in the Israeli settlement Kedumim in the Westbank, and the far-right Kahanist Otzma Yehudit (Hebrew: עָצְמָה יְהוּדִית, lit. 'Jewish Strength', or 'Jewish Power') party of the extreme rightwing (far right) Orthodox Jewish Israeli lawyer and politician Itamar Ben-Gvir.
Folks, the danger today is that Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu of Likud will form the most extreme right administration of the Western world in a coalition government of his Likud Party with HaTzionut HaDatit, Otzma Yehudit, the Ultra Orthodox Sephardic (Portugese/Spanish/Moroccan Jewish) and Mizrahi (Middle Eastern Arab, Iranian and Kurd Jewish) Haredi religious political party Shas of the Moroccan-Israeli politician Aryeh Makhlouf Deri (one of the founders of the Shas political party, and has served as Israel's Minister of the Interior, Minister of the Development of the Negev and Galilee, Minister of the Economy and as a member in the Security Cabinet of Israel) and the Ultra Orthodox political party United Torah Judaism, a Haredi, religious conservative political alliance in Israel, lead by the Ultra Orthodox Jew Yitzhak Issachar Goldknopf. A
Dutch Jewish journalist used the loaded term
Gesundes Volksempfinden in his very critical article about the political climate in
Israel and
the Israeli elections in the Dutch Jewish magazine het
Nieuw Israëlitisch Weekblad (the
New Israelite Magazine) which I read every week. (It is a weekly magazine).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nieuw_Isra%C3%ABlietisch_WeekbladGesundes VolksempfindenGesundes Volksempfinden, a German expression for 'common sense/opinion/experience of the people' is a concept that originated in German Romanticism in the 19th century and became notorious in the 20th century for its role in the legal conceptions of national socialism.
In the view of the Nazis, gesundes Volksempfinden was elevated to a source of law in criminal law, which could derogate from the law when it was convenient. Whether or not punishable was no longer what the legislator had made punishable, but what should or should not be punishable according to the (undefined) healthy views of the people. However, since press freedom was abolished in Germany after the Nazis came to power in 1933 and elections were no longer held, it was completely unclear whether this concerned or should concern anything other than what was presented to the population through indoctrination and propaganda about what it had to find.
Haredi JudaismHaredi Judaism (Hebrew: יהדות חֲרֵדִית Yahadut Ḥaredit, IPA: [ħaʁeˈdi]; also spelled Charedi in English; plural Haredim or Charedim) consists of groups within Orthodox Judaism that are characterized by their strict adherence to halakha (Jewish law) and traditions, in opposition to modern values and practices. Its members are usually referred to as ultra-Orthodox in English; however, the term "ultra-Orthodox" is considered pejorative by many of its adherents, who prefer terms like strictly Orthodox or Haredi. Haredi Jews regard themselves as the most religiously authentic group of Jews, although other movements of Judaism disagree.
The coming new Israeli government coalitionIf the Mew Israeli government coalition of
Likud,
HaTzionut HaDatit,
Otzma Yehudit,
Shas and
United Torah Judaism will be installed that will probably mean
the annexation of the Westbank and
the expansion of the settlements there, it will mean that
the freedom of secular Israeli's will be reduced, that
progressive and
conservative (
Masorti) and
Reform and
Reconstructivist religious Jews will have no to less rights than
Orthodox Jews, and that Jews whom immigrate to
Israel must be
Jewish according to
Orthodox Halakhic laws. The Power of
Revisionist Zionism and
Religious Zionism will grow at the expense of
Liberal Zioinism,
Labour Zionism and
secular leftist or moderate Centrist Israeli's. Non-Jewish African and Asian migrants will have a hard time in
Israel and
Israeli Arabs and
Palestinians as well.
Jewish ethnic thinking,
Jewish nationalism and
the dominance of the Orthodoxy and
Torah and
the Sabbath (from Friday sundown until saturday sundown) will grow.
Less freedom for
secular Israeli's and
Israeli Arabs. This will increase the tensions in
Israel between various groups. A
Kulturkampf (
cultural battle) of
Jews vs
Jews,
Jews vs
Arabs, an
increase of the violence within the Israeli Arab community which already exists. It is sad that
Israel is moving in this direction. Maybe
Israel is more Middle Eastern than I thought it was and that it is closer to the less democratic Arab and Iranian states close by. I hope that that is not the case and that
Peace gets a chance and that
Israel will stay
a pluriform and democratic state. Not a perfect state with it's occupation of the Palestinians and the large differences between rich and poor inside the country, but non the less a democratic state. I repeat
John Lennon and
Yoko Ono "
All we are saying is give peace a chance".
But I have to say that I am rather pessimistic about
Israel following Dutch (non-Jewish), International (non-Jewish) and Jewish media (Nieuw Israëlitisch Weekblad, i24, the Jerusalem Post, Haarezt, and Arutz Sheva (Hebrew: ערוץ 7, lit. 'Channel 7', the leftist American Jewish Democracy Now of Amy Goodman and the neoconservative (Republican party affiliated) American Jewish magazine Commentary of John Mordecai Podhoretz). To counter the Western and Jewish media and press I read and watch Al Jazeera English, Arabiya (English), Press TV, and the Turkish TRT World.
My main interest in
Israel has a subject and maybe selfish side to it. My interest was fed by
Dutch Jewish Zionists and
Christian Zionists,
Dutch Israeli's I met, the large group of
Polish Ashkenazi Jews (Polish and Yiddish speaking Jews from
Poland that moved to
Turkish Ottoman Palestine,
British Palestine and
Israel), American Jews that became
Israeli and thus the large influence in
Israel of the European Jews in the sense of architecture (Bauhaus buidings in Tel Aviv), food, music, politics, society, infrastructure, the Israeli army (which has party Polish roots, due to the Polish military training of the rightwing Irgun fighters by Polish army officers in the Karpat mountains in the late thirties), Labour Unions, agriculture and Israeli culture. Later I became fascinated by the rich diversity and ethnic, cultural and religious differences between Jews in Israel and the important and prominent role
Israeli Arabs play as doctors and nurses in hospitals, as restaurant owners and as pharmacists. Almost all pharmacists in
Israel are
Arab. I think that in
Europe and the
USA we have a distorted image of
Israel as a country of
Jews, one United people, which is far from reality. Jaga will know more about
Israel, Palestine and Jordan than me, because she has visited these places. The same counts for Karl who has been in Israel and Syria in the past.
Cheers,
Pieter
