Neo-fascists Threaten the West. In Israel They've Already Arrived

From America to Austria, belligerent, xenophobic ultra-nationalism is rising. But its hold on power in Israel is far more secure — and uncontested.



I hear a lot of Israeli liberals saying that yes, things are bad here, but they’re bad everywhere. On the one hand, Avigdor Lieberman is running the army, a majority of Israelis believe the soldier who executed a prone Palestinian in Hebron behaved “responsibly,” and it’s gotten so that even Roni Daniel, Channel 2 news’ superhawk, is wondering whether his children should leave the country.

But on the other hand, they point out, America has Donald Trump. In Austria, the party of Jorg Haider just came within an inch of taking over. In France, Marine Le Pen is the rising power. All over Western Europe, even in Scandinavia, the neo-fascists are gaining strength.

So Israel isn’t alone in its slide into the swamp of belligerent, xenophobic ultra-nationalism — it’s happening in the most “enlightened” countries of the West. We’re in no worse a political predicament than they’re in, according to this view.

But this view is mistaken; our political predicament is worse. In the 21st century, the forces of belligerent, xenophobic ultra-nationalism have a much stronger, more secure hold on power in Israel than they do in any Western country (not counting Eastern Europe). 

Netanyahu has been elected prime minister four times, and each of his governments is more right-wing than the last. Meanwhile, the so-called center and center-left parties grow increasingly antagonistic toward the Palestinians and the Israeli Arab parties, until it’s become a bad joke to refer to them (except Meretz, the lone party of the Zionist left) as a liberal opposition. And now their leader, Isaac Herzog, has left them more divided and weaker than ever.

In Israel today, the right-wing powers-that-be are only getting more right-wing and more powerful; except for the Supreme Court (to a limited degree), there’s nothing and nobody to hold them back. 

In America today, the situation is quite different. The president, now in his eighth and last year, is Barack Obama, the sort of liberal politician who has become extinct in 21st-century Israel. And even if the grotesque Donald Trump does win the November election, the Democrats, with their larger share of the electorate, will have a good chance of beating him the next time. The Republicans have no hope of ruling American politics without challenge for nearly a generation like the Likud and its allies have done here. Over there it’s the Democrats, davka, who have such a hope. 

In Austria, the Freedom Party, running on the anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant platform common to all European far-right parties, came within 0.7% of the vote to winning the presidency. But not only did it lose, the winner was a member of the liberal Green Party. And even if that result gets turned around in the coming years, the liberals will almost certainly remain contenders for power in Austria, unlike what’s happened in contemporary Israel.

In other Western European countries, even France with its National Front, the demagogic, nativist parties and movements are growing — but they are all still at a far remove from having national power such as that enjoyed here by Yisrael Beiteinu, Habayit Hayehudi and current-day Likud.

Since World War II, Western Europe has developed a strong liberal, tolerant consensus; this is fraying due to the large influx of Muslim immigrants and refugees and the influence of radical Islam in their ranks, but it remains the norm. By contrast, liberalism and tolerance for Arabs, while always a stream in Israeli politics, only came to the fore during the Oslo years — and even they were interrupted by Netanyahu’s first term. Since Oslo imploded in 2000, this stream has been steadily drying up — except during the anomaly of Sharon’s disengagement from Gaza – while the racism and militarism of the right keeps running stronger.

Western Europeans have problems with immigration, refugees and jihadism, and often with economics; these problems may grow to the point where they derange the public and the neo-fascists start taking power. But this hasn’t happened yet, and there’s a very good chance it won’t.

Israel, on the other hand, is a tiny ethnic-religious minority in a hostile region on a permanent war footing with its neighbors. Israel believes (wrongly) that it has done everything it can to make peace and been turned down, and so it trusts its security to the subjugation of the Palestinians and the periodic bombing of Syria and Hezbollah, with no expectation or even reasonable hope that things will change.

This is a much more deeply entrenched and volatile problem than the Western Europeans, or, certainly, the Americans have been dealing with.  What ails Israel is the sort of condition that’s just made for a long-term takeover by belligerent, xenophobic ultranationalists, which is what’s happened here and hasn’t happened there. No, unfortunately, this is not a Western country we’re living in.


read more: http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.722407


This week the only man found guilty of burning a family, incliuding a little baby, alive  last year was let out of prison.   He's a member of Lehava, the movement shown in the picture, who practically run the settlements now and who are backed by Lieberman, just made Defence Minister by Netanyahu.

Haaretz owner Amos Schocken has written an open letter appealing for online subscribers. Not surprising considering that Haaretz’s circulation is as low as a 6.1% market share of Israeli print media according to market research carried out for the last half of 2013.
Put simply, the views of Haaretz are utterly unrepresentative of the Israeli public and political system at large. Yet, Haaretz is still considered to be the paper of note by outsiders who consider it to be the Israeli equivalent of the New York Times (no surprise then that Haaretz has embellished this image through a partnership arrangement with the NY Times as the publisher of the Times’ international edition).

Schocken urges readers to subscribe to Haaretz’s website. In contrast to a journalistic mission statement, this is how he promotes his paper:
By doing so, you will become a partner in the ongoing effort to shape Israel as a liberal and constitutional democracy that cherishes the values of pluralism and civil and human rights. You will become a partner in actively supporting the two-state solution and the right to Palestinian self-determination, which will enable Israel to rid itself of the burdens of territorial occupation and the control of another people.
Schocken also claims:
To put it plainly: If news is coming out of Israel, it is coming from Haaretz more often than not, and if views are sparking controversy, debate and reflection throughout the Middle East or the Jewish world, they either came from Haaretz or are playing themselves out in our op-eds, comments and blogs.

In this he is correct. Despite its low circulation, Haaretz is the newspaper of choice for foreign journalists, commentators and political figures, many of whom share parts of the same agenda as stated by Schoken. While there is nothing wrong in this by itself, Haaretz has taken its agenda-driven mission to an entirely new level, particularly through the reach of its English-language website, which it uses to push its agenda far beyond Israel’s borders. Indeed, Haaretz has, in the past, demonstrated that it is more concerned with its international audience than its domestic Israeli one. Haaretz, unable to exercise any meaningful influence on domestic politics uses its English-language website and print newspaper to encourage external pressure on Israel.

Haaretz is referred to as a credible source and so many negative stories that appear in the international media do so as a result of an initial Haaretz story. Yet, Schocken himself has admitted that Haaretz is anything but objective. And just how far is Haaretz prepared to go to push a political agenda? There appear to be few red lines when one considers the hateful writing of Haaretz star columnist Gideon Levy who won the 2012 Dishonest Reporter Award for manipulating an opinion poll to “prove” that Israel was an apartheid state. And correspondent Amira Hass who brazenly defended Palestinian stone throwing even if it could cause Israeli fatalities.

Schocken’s mission statement is also noteworthy by what it omits. While he is happy to employ positive terms such as “liberal,”pluralism,” and “civil and human rights” what about “Jewish?” This speaks volumes for a media outlet that often looks like it is embarrassed by Israel’s identity as a Jewish and democratic state.

Schocken’s appeal reveals that Haaretz is striving not for objective and accurate reporting but for promoting a political and campaigning agenda. It is incumbent, therefore, that the foreign media see Haaretz as a political entity rather than a primary news source. Even more so than Haaretz, foreign journalists should refrain from promoting their own political agendas when reporting on Israel. Using Haaretz as a cover for biased reporting is unacceptable.
While Haaretz is a product of Israel’s vibrant democracy and press freedom, it also plays a major role in the demonization of Israel. Amos Schoken’s open letter sadly acknowledges that Haaretz is anything but an unwitting accomplice.

http://honestreporting.com/haaretz-admits-its-politicized-agenda/