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 basically Zionist and anti-Palestinian newspaper tells of a a lot larger 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 lots of unlawful Jewish settlers, together with the who’s who of Israel’s extremists.

The scene was harking back to an identical 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 explicit 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 equivalent 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?

Only some months in the past, Haaretz had described Herzog as a “centrist, soft-spoken, ‘no drama'” one that 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 among 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 lifeless by Israeli troopers within the aftermath of the tragic occasion. Not solely did many Israelis rejoice the reminiscence of Goldstein with a shrine befitting of heroes and saints, however a lot of Herzog’s companions in the course of 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 night time 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 previous metropolis of Al-Khalil. These Palestinians, that suffer day by day violence by the hands of practically 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.’

Likelihood is Herzog already understands – the truth is, 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 towards the Palestinians as a matter in fact. Other than internet hosting the Goldstein grave and shrine, the settlement has a park that carries the identify of Meir Kahane, the non secular 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 perspective, their ‘mission’ has been a terrific success. They’ve managed to steer Israeli politics virtually solely in direction of the proper. Even the “centrist, soft-spoken” president is now totally 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?

Evaluate 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 position 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 responsibility to deal with this illness,” a Haaretz columnist lashed out suggesting that “Rivlin’s feedback are positively bursting with Jew-hatred”.

“First he referred to 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 ‘first rate human beings’: Questioning their humanity itself,” the article argued.

In fact, the illness of “violence, hostility, bullying, (and) racism”, that Rivlin had then identified, could be very a lot actual. Different signs of this horrible illness additionally embody army occupation, apartheid, and genocidal violence like that incessantly meted out towards 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 lots 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 army 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, army occupation, and apartheid. Sure, it’s going to 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 army superiority, its racism, and to the army 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 creator and don’t essentially replicate the editorial coverage of Center East Monitor.