[I'm normally hyper-allergic to the fascism meme. But this guy does it so well the article was over before I objected. A good example of how much sharper the debate is in Israel than in the US and how much sharper what they are saying now -- in Haaretz -- than ever before. And sadly, how much less influence they have.]
May 18, 2010, 3:12 pm Haaretz Blogs
Special Place in Hell: Rebranding Israel as a state headed for fascism
No one knows fascism better than Israelis. By Bradley Burston
SHEIKH JARRAH, East Jerusalem - No one knows fascism better than
Israelis. They are schooled, drilled in the history, the mechanics, the
horrendous potential of fascist regimes. Israelis know fascism when
they see it. In others.
They might well have expected when fascism began taking root here, it
would arise at a time of a national leadership of galvanizing charisma
and sweeping, powerfully orchestrated modes of action.
But that would have been much too obvious to deny. And it would take
denial, inertia, selective memory, a sense that things - bad as they
are - can go on like this indefinitely, for fascism to be able gain its
foothold in a country founded in its very blood trail.
In fact, it has taken the most dysfunctional, the most rudderless
government Israel has ever known, to make moderates uncomfortably aware
of the countless but largely cosmetized ways in which the right in
Israel and its supporters abroad have come to plant and nurture the
seeds of fascism.
Wrote Boaz Okun, the mass-circulation Yedioth Ahronot's legal affairs
commentator and a retired Israeli judge, of Israel's ban on Noam
Chomsky: "The decision to shut up Professor Chomsky is a decision to
shut down freedom in the state of Israel.
"I'm not speaking of the stupidity of supplying ammunition to those who
claim that Israel is fascist," Okun wrote, "rather, of our fear that we
may actually be turning that way."
At the weekend, Israeli police riot troops waded into a thoroughly
non-violent sit-in near the entrance to this East Jerusalem settlement
zone, where Palestinian residents were expelled by Israeli court order,
to allow their homes to be taken over by Jews.
What was curious here was not the neck-wrenching brutality of the Yasam
riot police in their gunmetal gray uniforms, bristling with assault
rifles, clubs, tear gas and helmets, arrayed against the demonstrators,
most of of them Israeli Jews, some of them well past retirement age.
What was surprising was not the fact that several burly officers,
seeing a young Reshet Bet (Israel State Radio news) reporter - his
microphone clearly and unmistakably marked, interview one of the seated
demonstrators - jump him and drag him away in a headlock to a police
custody van.
In the end, what was peculiar was that the police seemed so entirely
bewildered, so completely lacking in clear orders, left on their own to
decide how to proceed in an arena of hair-trigger sensitivity. Fascism
with a confused face.
Why should we be concerned by any of this? Perhaps because we have made
our peace with a number of factors that can turn a society toward
fascism as a solution.
1. Losing a War.
We've lost two in the space of less than three years. Our targets,
Hezbollah and Hamas, are better armed and entrenched than ever. Our
strategic and diplomatic standing is in decline. Iran and Syria are
ascendant. And there is abundant reason to suspect that the Gaza War, a
major factor in the loss of our international standing, may have been
altogether avoidable, the huge civilian death toll indefensible and
unconscionable. This has, in turn, led to
2. International quarantine, a sense of being scapegoated, and a search
for an internal fifth column.
3. A radical redefinition of positive values.
Look no further than the name of Jerusalem's obscene Museum of
Tolerance project.
4. Olfactory fatigue
We have grown desensitized to the consequences of actively denying
basic staples and construction supplies to 1.5 million people in Gaza,
many of them still waiting to rebuild homes we destroyed.
We have grown inured to the appropriation of Palestinian-owned West
Bank land, to abusive treatment of law-abiding Palestinians at
checkpoints, to the ill-treatment and summary expulsion of foreign
workers, to racist, anti-democratic and, yes, fascistic rulings by
extreme rightist rabbis, especially some of those holding official
positions in the West Bank.
5. Fascism by rubber stamp.
"There are a million reasons why someone would be denied entry into
Israel," Interior Ministry spokeswoman Sabine Hadad said Monday, when
asked about the ministry's border policies in the wake of the Chomsky
ban.
"There may be a million reasons, but try to find a single criterion for
entry refusal and you'll hit a blank wall," said Association for Civil
Rights in Israel attorney Oded Feller. "The Interior Ministry simply
doesn't publish them, despite a court ruling that ordered them to do
so."
6. The sense that despite everything, all is well.
There will be those who argue that the fact that I, or my Haaretz
colleagues, are allowed to publish what we do, is proof that there is
no fascism here, nor evidence of a police state.
The fact is that were we not Israeli Jews, and part of an establishment
institution, any of us could find ourselves tossed out on the same
pavement, and with the same lack of due process and due explanation, as
Noam Chomsky.
7. The sense that there is a war on now, when there isn't.
8. Selective enforcement of court rulings. Routine defiance of same, in
particular by radical settlers
9. The 180-degree untruth that officials allow Israeli and Jerusalem
Arabs to do what they want, while cracking down on their Jewish
neighbors.
10. Equating criticism of the government with favoring the destruction
of Israel.
This has become increasingly felt beyond Israel's borders. In San
Francisco, the canary in the coal mine of free discourse within the
Jewish community, the Jewish Federation [JCF] recently revised and
tightened the terms under which it agrees to grant funds to
organizations.
"The JCF does not fund organizations that through their mission,
activities or partnerships ... advocate for, or endorse, undermining
the legitimacy of Israel as a secure independent, democratic Jewish
state, including through participation in the Boycott, Divestment and
Sanctions (BDS) movement, in whole or in part."
The guidelines go on to state that "Presentations by organizations or
individuals that are critical of particular Israeli government policies
but are supportive of Israel's right to exist as a secure independent
Jewish democratic state" are "generally in accord with the policy
statement," but "early JCRC [Jewish Community Relations Council]
consultation is strongly encouraged and the programming should be
presented within an overall program strategy that is consistent with
JCF's core values."
Can all this have spread this far, this fast? Because of Israel, have
Bay Area Jews who do not believe in a specifically Jewish state, now
forfeited their right to be part of the Jewish community? Have Jews who
love Israel but are seen as too critical, or who support a boycott to
make their criticisms manifest, been effectively excommunicated?
It's a free country, I guess.