A Stain Upon Israel
JVL Introduction
The title is that of a Ha’aretz editorial – appalled at the Israeli government’s declaration of six prominent and internationally respected civil society organisations in the West Bank as terrorist organizations.
Such actions, says Ha’aretz, not pulling its punches, “are quintessential characteristics of military regimes, in which democracy in its deepest sense is a dead letter.”
It is followed by a statement by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, who work closely with many of the groups, seeing “This appalling and unjust decision [a]s an attack by the Israeli government on the international human rights movement.”
We await strong condemnation of this development by the Labour Party and, if they stand up for human rights at all, the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Jewish Labour Movement.
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25 Oct: we have added a statement from Israel from Academy for Equality,an organization of over seven hundred members of the academic community, committed to promoting a just and democratic future.
This article was originally published by Ha'aretz editorial on Sun 24 Oct 2021. Read the original here.
A Stain Upon Israel
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Hurrah for Haaretz! And yet people like Renton, HOPE not hate’s leaders and other windbags are signing up to the anti-Miller witch-hunt.
Why don’t they denounce the injustices committed against the Palestinians by the repressive Israeli government?
The Israeli government and the leadership of the UK’s Labour party seem to be sharing the same script!
First, mislabel in the most extreme and emotional terms those who call your behaviour to account.
Second, silence their voices, outlaw their people and destroy their organisations.
Linda, excellent comment.
I would also add, blame others for that which you are guilty.
It is not necessary to dwell on the transparently thin excuse of the Israeli state for banning human rights groups, i.e. links with the PFLP. Even were that true, so what? The PFLP is a legitimate political organisation.
However the true lesson to be derived from this naked attack on those who try to defend Palestinian human rights in the Occupied Territories is that it should finally show, to those who will not see, that there is no principled or fundamental difference between the Zionist ‘left’ and the Zionist ‘right’.
If ever there was a reason for the Israeli Labour Party and Meretz (the old Mapam) to say enough is enough this surely is it. How can they possibly justify banning Defence of Children International – Palestine? which campaigns against the cruel treatment of those as young as 12?
The fact that Merav Michaeli and Nitzan Horowitz prefer to keep their ministerial post on the grounds that Netanyahu is worse, should condemn them in the minds of any objective observer.
I was long in a minority when I argued that there were only tactical differences between Labour and Revisionist Zionism, that they were 2 sides of the same coin. How can anyone today argue differently?
We should only note that the ILP is the ‘sister party’ of the Jewish Labour Movement to note what the ‘antisemitism’ allegations were really about.
The fact that Dave Renton, an ex-Marxist, could write a whole book about the ‘antisemitism’ campaign without one word of criticism of the JLM speaks volumes.
Does the Israeli government not realise that this allows yet another comparison to be made between it and the odious former apartheid government of South Africa, which, likewise, banned, outlawed or proscribed any civil organisation, NGO, etc., which it considered not to serve the “interests” of the state – sometimes whole groups of them at a time.
There’s lots of additional details in this piece on the Electronic Intifada’s website. For example:
Some of the six targeted groups….. have cooperated closely with the International Criminal Court in its war crimes probe in the West Bank and Gaza.
Israel has long sought to defame and sabotage the work of Palestinian human rights groups seeking an end to Israeli impunity while senior Israeli figures and lobby groups baselessly accuse these groups of “weaponizing” the ICC against the US and Israel.
B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights group, said the designation was “characteristic of totalitarian regimes, with the clear purpose of shutting down these organizations.”
https://electronicintifada.net/content/israel-declares-war-palestinian-rights-groups/34166