Zeev Sternhell :Apartheid under the law
In
the past, a story was famously told in Israel about a clash between
Golda Meir and Justice Minister Haim Tzadok, who disagreed with her in a
cabinet meeting. At the end of the meeting, she went over to him and
told him she thought they were friends. Yes, he replied, but I’m also
the justice minister of Israel.
His words reflected the governmental culture of yore, a culture that current Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked
and her post-fascist party deem infantile. But the crude violence she
propagates is much more dangerous than the primitive vulgarity of
Likud’s Miri Regev, David Amsalem or Oren Hazan.
This
is all nothing new. What’s new is the way the attorney general is
kowtowing to the will of the justice minister and her party. Shaked
wanted Avichai Mendelblit from the beginning, apparently because she
knew from what cloth the former cabinet secretary was cut regarding
issues critical to the government – the occupation, the settlements and
Palestinian rights.
And now he’s supplying the goods. How is the heir to Haim Cohen, Aharon Barak and Yitzhak Zamir
not embarrassed to revoke his professional opinion concerning the
“illegal outposts” – as if the rest were legal – while brazenly
sanctioning the minister’s request to steal Palestinian land, both
private and public, for the “public need” of the settlers; i.e., to pave
roads for Jews only? This is what the rule of law has come to in
Israel.
Based
on the figures reported by Nahum Barnea in Yedioth Ahronoth last
Friday, an extensive amount of territory is to be expropriated and, for
the convenience of the occupiers, construction will be prohibited “only”
on some of it. This isn’t the first intolerable act of an apartheid
system that receives a legal seal of approval. High Court petitions
against the move will surely be filed, but they may not be enough to
bring this policy to an enduring halt. Settlement advocates dominate in
the government and the army, so there’s no real way to stop it.
So
there is no recourse but to call on public opinion, the media and the
universities to apply pressure. There is an urgent need for a broad
campaign on American and European campuses, and in EU institutions,
against this apartheid. The Israeli public is an equally important
target, and in the absence of an active opposition party, the social
justice organizations must reach this audience.
If
a genuine opposition existed in Israel with a worthy leader, it would
be shouting from every possible platform that the policy of theft and
dispossession is destroying whatever remains of the possibility of
separating from the Palestinians via the establishment of a Palestinian
state. Who will fight this government? Certainly not someone who thinks
that groveling and ideological kowtowing to the right are the recipe for
getting elected.
It’s
important to stress that there’s a big difference between appealing to
groups that, for historical reasons, can’t identify with Labor, and
signing on to the right’s crude nationalism. This nationalism is a
violent and destructive European phenomenon that has nothing to do with
the culture of North African Jewry, any kind of Jewish identity or the
Jewish religion. To win the hearts of the people who live in the
country’s outskirts, it’s not necessary to support the occupation and
settlements, which does nothing to redress social injustice – just the
opposite.
Thus
a party that wants to replace Likud in power must first convince people
that it has an alternative national policy. This goal will not be
achieved by making foolish statements
about how peace can be reached with the Palestinians without evacuating
a single settlement, or by being complicit in turning Judaism into a
means of control and oppression of people who had the misfortune not to
be born Jews.
Commenti
Posta un commento