Israel Is silencing internal critics
JVL Introduction
Social media postings in Israel are now subject to intense scrutiny by a task force established recently by extreme-right-wing Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.
Supposed to monitor extremist speech, it is mainly spying on Palestinian and dissident Jewish citizens of Israel.
As human-rights lawyer Michael Sfard makes clear, he knows of no Jewish Israeli calling to “erase Gaza” or carry out a “second nakba” who is being investigated.
Meanwhile Nurit Peled-Elhanan (see caption above) has been threatened with dismissal from her college in Jerusalem for “displays of understanding to the horrific act of Hamas”…
There are many such cases.
“Crushing dissent and eliminating the political force of Palestinian citizens of Israel”, says Sfard are crucial to meet a strategic goal: the annexation of the occupied Palestinian lands and the establishment of a full, official ethnonationalist Jewish regime between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
RK
This article was originally published by the New York Times on Thu 2 Nov 2023. Read the original here.
Israel Is silencing internal critics
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Sir Kier Starmer is also v. good at silencing his critics. Let’s start talking about this too…?
https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/keir-starmer-asked-by-labour-members-to-resign-over-gaza-sta
If this was Soviet Russia Israel’s and our newspapers & leaders would be shouting and sneering, “Stalinism”!!
Well under the Government of Netanyahu Israel has become at the very least a rogue state at worst a Terrorist state.
Nurit Peled-Elhanan is an Israeli woman of unimaginable courage, who succeeded in transforming the mental agony of her child’s murder by Hamas in 1997 into something of immense value – a passionate advocacy for humanity and for the dismantling of the apartheid system which she holds jointly responsible for her daughter’s death. How ironic that the page devoted to her on the Sakharov prize website of the European parliament notes that
“Nurit Peled-Elhanan is a co-initiator of the Russell tribunal, an international peopleʼs tribunal established in 2009 to examine the role and complicity of third parties in the violations of international law committed by Israel against the Palestinian people. She is committed to defending the rights of Palestinians and urges support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanction campaign against Israel until such time as it complies with international law and respects Palestinian rights.”
Today the leaders of most European countries would characterise such advocacy as “antisemitic”. There is no clearer testament to the descent of Europe into a colonial racist cesspit than the fact that a Jewish woman awarded a prize by the European parliament in 2001 would now be shunned, and might even be arrested in some European countries, were she merely to express there that same solidarity with the Palestinian people for which 22 years ago Europe awarded her a prize.
Here is her prophetic denunciation of apartheid to a 2007 meeting in Jerusalem of “Women in Black” on its 20th anniversary:
http://www.gilasvirsky.com/nuritpeled2.html
Great story by George Wilmers, a courageous lady.
My thoughts on the European Countries that are not calling for a ceasefire and giving little criticism of Israel. When the US blew up the Nordstream Pipelines that were delivering reasonable priced Gas from Russia to Europe, Countries like Germany had major manufacturing problems with a lack of energy. Germany had already signed up a contact with Russia to have a Gas pipeline direct from Russia into Germany, the U.S. Proxy War in Ukraine forced them to cancel the contract. The Gas field under the eastern Mediterranean, stretches under Gaza, the US would love to control it and sell it to European Countries, this makes sense of why the US is sending $10 billion dollars of Arms to Israel including Missiles, Patriot anti missile battery, armoured land vehicles, special surveillance officers and more. Are the European Countries that desperate for Energy, they are reluctant to condemn Israel or even call for an immediate ceasefire?
I have read the “Women in Black” speech and find it deeply moving. I have no wish to make light of this wonderful speech byby scoring points off the dictatorial, insensitive and morally blind leadership of the Labour Party, but I can’t imagine that the vast majority of my friends and many of the people I know will have the heart to vote for someone as morally compromised as Keir Starmer over a matter as clear as the genocidal bombing of Gaza. Can we trust him, for instance, to deal with conflict between Westminster as defined by him and one of the other Nations or religious groups or any other minority groups within this United Kingdom?