Is Israel a ‘Sick Society’? – Center East Monitor

For no matter motive, some mistakenly understand the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, as liberal, progressive, and even ‘pro-Palestinian’. In fact, none of that is true. This misconstrued depiction of an primarily Zionist and anti-Palestinian newspaper tells of a a lot greater story of how complicated Israeli politics is, and the way equally confused many people are in understanding the Israeli political discourse.

On 28 November, newly-elected Israeli President, Isaac Herzog, stormed the Ibrahimi Mosque within the Palestinian metropolis of Al-Khalil (Hebron) with lots of of troopers and plenty of unlawful Jewish settlers, together with the who’s who of Israel’s extremists.

The scene was harking back to the same incidence the place late Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, had stormed, together with 1000’s of troopers and cops, the Haram Sharif Compound in occupied East Jerusalem in September 2000. It was this specific occasion that unleashed the second Palestinian rebellion, Intifada (2000-05), which led to the killing of 1000’s.

Herzog’s gesture of solidarity with the Kiryat Arba settlers was an identical to Sharon’s earlier gesture, additionally made to win the approval of Israel’s burgeoning and influential right-wing extremists.

OPINION: With Herzog’s visit to Hebron, is Israel considering a microstate deal for the Palestinians?

Just a few months in the past, Haaretz had described Herzog as a “centrist, soft-spoken, ‘no drama'” one who had, at occasions, “felt misplaced on Israel’s stormy and fractured political battlefield”. In response to Haaretz, Herzog “could also be precisely what Israel wants.”

However is that this actually the case? Marvel at a few of the statements made by Herzog as he visited a web site the place twenty-nine Palestinians were massacred by a Kiryat Arba extremist, Baruch Goldstein, and the place many extra have been shot useless by Israeli troopers within the aftermath of the tragic occasion. Not solely did many Israelis have a good time the reminiscence of Goldstein with a shrine befitting of heroes and saints, however lots of Herzog’s companions throughout the provocative ‘go to’ are ardent followers of the Israeli Jewish terrorist.

“We now have to proceed dreaming of peace,” Herzog declared whereas marking the primary evening of the Jewish competition of Hanukkah contained in the Ibrahimi Mosque compound, which was beforehand emptied of its Muslim worshippers. Proudly, he “condemn(ed) any type of hatred or violence”. In the meantime, lots of of Israeli troopers have been terrorising 35,000 inhabitants of the outdated metropolis of Al-Khalil. These Palestinians, who are suffering each day violence by the hands of almost 800 armed Jewish settlers in Kiryat Arba, together with an equal variety of Israeli troopers, have been all locked in. Their retailers have been closed, their life was placed on maintain, their partitions coated with racist graffiti.

“If he had walked across the nook,” the Israeli information web site 972Mag reported referring to the Israeli president, “Herzog might need seen the graffiti on the partitions studying ‘gasoline the Arabs.’

Chances are high Herzog already understands – in truth, helps – such racism; in spite of everything, he was joined by the likes of Eliyahu Libman, who heads Kiryat Arba regional council, and Hillel Horowitz, the chief of the Jewish settlers of Al-Khalil. It’s these two males who preach extremism and violence in opposition to the Palestinians as a matter after all. Apart from internet hosting the Goldstein grave and shrine, the settlement has a park that carries the title of Meir Kahane, the religious chief of Israel’s most violent extremists.

In an emotional speech given by Horowitz within the firm of Herzog, the settler chief announced that the Israeli president’s violent storming of the Ibrahimi Mosque “reminds us that we didn’t take the land of foreigners.” He adopted with “Your go to right here strengthens our mission.”

From Horowitz, Libman, and their ilk’s viewpoint, their ‘mission’ has been an ideal success. They’ve managed to steer Israeli politics virtually completely in direction of the best. Even the “centrist, soft-spoken” president is now absolutely embracing their sinister mission.

However will Haaretz acknowledge this actuality? That the ‘liberal’ and ‘progressive’ editorial line they’ve allegedly championed for a few years has utterly failed, and purposely so, to depict the reality about Israel?

Examine Haaretz‘s optimistic portrayal of Herzog with their protection of the previous right-wing Israeli President, Reuven Litvin. The latter, on numerous events, and rightly so, was criticised for his pro-Likud political line and for his divisive function that contributed to an already fragmented Israeli political scene. However when Rivlin, in October 2014, had declared that “Israeli society is sick, and it’s our obligation to deal with this illness,” a Haaretz columnist lashed out suggesting that “Rivlin’s feedback are positively bursting with Jew-hatred”.

“First he known as Jewish society ‘sick’ – dredging up anti-Semitic tropes about Jews as carriers of cultural and ideological illness. Then he requested whether or not Jews are ‘respectable human beings’: Questioning their humanity itself,” the article argued.

In fact, the illness of “violence, hostility, bullying, (and) racism”, that Rivlin had then identified, may be very a lot actual. Different signs of this horrible illness additionally embrace navy occupation, apartheid, and genocidal violence like that incessantly meted out in opposition to the besieged Gaza Strip.

READ: OIC decries Israeli President’s visit to Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron

Whereas this Israeli ‘illness’ is turning into widespread information globally, with such organisations as Human Rights Watch and plenty of others describing it in probably the most trustworthy and blunt phrases, the overwhelming majority of Israeli society, together with their representatives and their ‘soft-spoken’ president, stay blind to it, shielded from the reality by their very own hubris, infatuated with their navy energy and intoxicated by the humiliation and violence to which Palestinians are subjected to, in Al-Khalil, in Gaza, in Jerusalem, and all through occupied Palestine.

There are not any indications that Israeli society, authorities, and media – ‘liberal’ or right-wing – will, on their very own, develop the required antibodies that may remedy the illness of racism, navy occupation, and apartheid. Sure, it’ll in the end be the Palestinian resistance that may make the decisive distinction of holding Israel accountable. However that may solely occur when the worldwide neighborhood takes a brave stance in advocating Palestinian rights and unconditionally supporting the Palestinian quest for freedom.

Whether or not right-wing, left-wing, or centre, Israel is dedicated to its navy superiority, its racism, and to the navy occupation greater than ever earlier than. The earlier we settle for this reality, and stop subscribing to the phantasm that change in Israel will occur from inside, the earlier the Palestinian individuals will lastly obtain the justice they want and deserve.

The views expressed on this article belong to the writer and don’t essentially replicate the editorial coverage of Center East Monitor.