Israeli Election 2022 – Peter Beinart argues that it IS “Business As Usual”
JVL Introduction
The important debate on the meaning of the growing support for the Far Right Religious Party continues. While many argue that to have such views at the heart of government marks a sea change; others, such as Peter Beinart believe that it is more a case of “plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose”.
Here Beinart notes the differences between the situation within which Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit Party has gained support and that even for heinous views such as Modi’s Hindu supremacy, or the anti-immigrant policies of Le Pen or Meloni or, indeed, in practice, those of the UK government). Beinart argues that “In Israel today, the political battle isn’t between group supremacy and equality under the law. It’s over how group supremacy can best be upheld”
This article was originally published by Jewish Currents on Mon 7 Nov 2022. Read the original here.
Israel’s Ascendant Far Right Can’t Be Understood by Analogy
In other countries, the right clashes with the center over the basic nature of the state—but Israel’s Itamar Ben-Gvir and his rivals are on the same page about ethnocracy.
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Great article and analysis very important to counteract nearly all the Israel clauses in the IHRA definition of antisemitism, which is beginning to look even more ragged than it did when the Euro Commission discarded it. It should now really be discarded, as its purpose is clear. To defend and give cover to a violent, racist, settler colonial state with an underlying ideology that is based on transfer and exclusion of the indigenous inhabitants, and to chill and prevent freedom of speech on Israel with the threat of expulsion and sanctions on anyone who dared to be outspoken. Israel is a country like no other as Beinart says, and Lapid’s and most Israelis have a fear that their state lacks legitimacy, as it conforms to no norms of International or humanitarian law. The rise of Ben-Gvir and Smotrich will make Palestinian lives even more at danger and risk.
This is a good article and I agree on Beinart’s main point viz. that the rise of Religious Zionism and Otzma Yehudit cannot be compared to the rise of the far-Right in Europe. They are different societies. The obsession of the far-Right in Europe is predominantly with refugees not their own Black/Muslim citizens although a considerable section pay homage to the White Replacement theory.
This is precisely what I argue in my article:
Israeli Elections 2022 – a Jewish Nazi Party Religious Zionism is now the Third Largest Block in the Knesset
The Elections Are Not All Bad News As the Hypocritical Zionist ‘Left’ is All But Eliminated and Meretz Loses Its Last Representatives
https://azvsas.blogspot.com/2022/11/israeli-elections-2022-jewish-nazi.html
What Beinart doesn’t mention is the virtual disappearance of the Zionist ‘left’. It has outlived its usefulness. Its death rattle has already gone on far too long. It has no purpose or indeed social base any longer.
We should not weep for the death of Labour Zionism. Its role in recent years has been either to prop up a far-Right coalition or to propagandise in support of that Right outside Israel. Their greatest strength today is in organisations devoted to sanitising Israel’s image such as the Union of Jewish Students and the Jewish Labour Movement.
The reality is that there is nothing the Zionist ‘right’ has done that Labour Zionism didn’t do before it