Tag Archives: democracy in the middle east

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The Divergent Faces of Israel – An Analyses

Dr. Lawrence Davidson

 

Dr. Lawrence Davidson

Dr. Lawrence Davidson

Part I – Zionist Reality

Last month Amira Hass, one of Israel’s best, bravest and most disliked journalists wrote a short piece in Haaretz entitled “When ‘fascist’ is not a rude word.” Here she tells us that “in fascist regimes the state is above all” and then notes that the sort of fascist style bills pouring out of Israel’s Knesset would “make Jean-Marie Le Pen and his daughter [the leaders of the far right party of France] look like amateurs.”

Could this be so? Could that singular country which, for 64 years made every effort to show but one face to the American public, the face of a Dr. Jekyl, be hiding the hideous features of a Mr. Hyde? Could it be that the “only democracy in the Middle East,” the friend and ally that allegedly reflects American values, the mighty dam protecting the West from the flood of Islamic radicalism, the supposed champion of gender equality in the patriarchal East, and the reliable, if indirect, source of financial support for 99% of the U.S. Congress, is morphing into a fascist state?
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Israel and “Those Real Democratic Rights”

Israeli Pirate Flag Silwan - (June 26 2010, Rebecca Fudala)

 

Israel and Those “Real Democratic Rights” – An Analysis (8 October 2011) by Lawrence Davidson

Part I – What “Real Democratic Rights”?

In his speech to Congress on 24 May 2011 Prime Minister Netanyahu boasted that “Of the 300 million Arabs in the Middle East and North Africa, only Israel’s Arab citizens enjoy real democratic rights.” This is, of course, a variation on the oft cited claim that Israel is “the only democracy in the Middle East.” Leaving aside places like Lebanon and now potentially Tunisia and Egypt, one can ask just how “real” are these democratic rights the Prime Minister claims for Israel’s Arabs? Here is some recent evidence that speaks to this question.

1. At the end of September 2011 the Israeli government announced “a plan to displace 30,000 native Bedouin Arabs [all of whom are Israeli citizens]…from their homes [in the Negev].” This would constitute “the biggest dispossession plan of Palestinians issued by Israel since 1948. It would forcibly relocate about half of the Bedouin population from their existing villages, which are older than the State of Israel itself….”

Why should Israel do this to the Bedouin? Is it to facilitate their enjoyment of their “real democratic rights”? Well not quite. According to head of the Regional Council of Ramat Ha-Negev, a Zionist settlement in the region, the reason goes like this, “I want the Negev to be Jewish….Jewish settlement must grow, must continue…..What do you mean by ‘they [the Bedouin] also have rights’! You know what–after all this it is no longer possible to conceal the core problem, which is the struggle over the land. Who does this land belong to–us or them?”

2. At the Beginning of October 2011 leaders of the Jewish settler movement announced their intention “to turn Palestinian population centers into another Srebrenica.” This was their reaction to the prospect of international recognition of a Palestinian state. Initiating Balkan style killing fields would represent a marked escalation of ongoing lower level terror tactics which have seen the destruction of Palestinian crops, the harassment of Palestinian adults and children, the practice of arson against mosques, and the occasional outright murder. While this threat was directed mainly at the Palestinians of the West Bank, the Israelis are bound by international law to see to their civil rights as well. And since Netanyahu’s vaunted claim implies Israel’s civilized, law-abiding status relative to the Arab states, that Palestinian population must be taken account of.

To show the extent of their respect for the rights of the Palestinians, settler rabbis have evoked the memory of their American-Israeli “saint and hero,” Barach Goldstein, whose claim to lasting fame is the massacre of Muslims at prayer in Hebron back in 1994. And, there has been much recapitulating of the message delivered in October 2010 by “the spiritual leader of Shas, the powerful religious political party….that the status of non-Jews is similar to that of beasts of burden….” And just how many “real democratic rights” do the animals of Israel have?

3. Just in case you think that these threats are hyperbole, take a look at reports and video on the recent pogrom-like violence near the settlement of Anatot. On 30 September 2011 Palestinians along with Israeli allies came to help a Palestinian farmer plant trees on land he owns near the settlement. They were attacked and beaten by settlers some of whom were armed policemen. The attackers have been accurately described as “nearly a lynch-mob.” Then on 3 October 2011 a mosque in the upper Galilee village of Tuba -Zangariyye was set on fire by arsonists who left behind the message “Price Tag.” This is a terrorist tactic used by Israeli right wing extremists. Every time the Israeli government gets in the way of their racist and expansionist ambitions (which really is not often enough) they retaliate with acts of terror against Palestinians.

Part II – Woeful Ignorance

The truth is that Arab-Israelis have always been second-class citizens, suffering systematic and state sanctioned discrimination. Most of them are effectively segregated out from the majority Israeli Jewish citizenry. In this way their “real democratic rights” are rendered largely symbolic. The only reason they are allowed to vote is because their votes cannot change the system that discriminates against them. The Palestinians in the Occupied Territories are even more vulnerable. They are not citizens at all and, even if Israel annexes the West Bank they never will be. This is because making them citizens would greatly enhance the likelihood that Arab-Israeli votes might, in fact, become sufficient to alter the system. The Zionists will never let that happen. If the choice is between democracy and keeping Israel a Jewish state, the Israeli establishment will jettison democracy without thinking twice. In fact, there is a portion of Israeli Jews who have already jettisoned any regard for “real democratic rights,” even for themselves.

It is interesting to note that 95% of the U.S. Congress seems oblivious to all this. Indeed, a good number of them recently went off on an all expenses paid (illegal) junket to Israel which objective observers might consider the equivalent of giving material aid to a terrorist organization. There is good reason to believe that this oblivious state of mind is not shared by many of their constituents, who are slowly but surely being educated about the criminal nature of Israeli behavior. Unfortunately these constituents have not, as of yet, made their representatives’ slavish attachment to Zionist lobby money and influence a voting issue. When will they do so? Perhaps soon after it is brought home to them that Israel, the “democracy,” has an unsavory resemblance to Alabama or Georgia in the 1930s and 1940s. If the settler rabbis have their way this likeness will grow rapidly and thus become harder to hide. Through their sacrilegious misreading of the Talmud, these holy men appear anxious to bless lynching on all days of the week except the Sabbath.

It is not only American Congressmen who are ignorant of Israel’s deteriorating national character. One might ask just how many Israeli Jews know how close they are to the precipice of pogrom violence or worse. Some of course do. In a 14 June 2011 piece by Ilan Peleg and Dov Waxman they tell us “We believe that unless immediate, serious and dramatic action is taken to improve the situation of the Arab minority and majority-minority relations, great dangers are in store for Israel. It is no exaggeration to say that domestic stability, Israeli democracy and future Israeli-Palestinian peace could all be undermined by a continued deterioration in Arab-Jewish relations in Israel.” But polls of Israelis show that the majority, caught up as they are in the dominant culture of victimhood and fear of the Arabs, are either ignorant of or unconcerned about the dangers of which Peleg and Waxman warn. Indeed, most of them want the Arabs segregated or just kicked out and therefore have no problem with their society’s deteriorating majority-minority relations.

Part III – The National Skinner Box

All of this raises some serious issues:

1. For most citizens the national environment is like a great big Skinner Box. In other words it is a hothouse of indoctrination. Americans were taught to hate and fear communists, Russians were taught to hate and fear capitalists, and Israeli Jews are taught to hate and fear Palestinians. Nation states do a good job at such indoctrination–making it part and parcel of the acculturation process. And, under the right circumstances, whole populations can easily move from hatred and fear to actual mayhem.

2. This sort of deep seated indoctrination results in nationwide habits of thought that are remarkably hard to change. Think of the inertia of a large body, say a planet, moving through space. It is going to take a lot of force to overcome that inertia, usually force of catastrophic intensity. To put it another way, whole populations trained to seeing the world one way, usually do not shift perceptions unless something really bad happens to them. That something can be military defeat, deep and unbridgeable societal divides leading to civil war, or the severe costs of isolation and economic boycott visited on them by the outside world. The severity of these forces are testimony to just how stubborn indoctrinated populations can be.

Any way you look at it, the situation for those Palestinians under Israeli domination is likely to get worse before it gets better. And it is going to take a force of catastrophic intensity to really change Israeli behavior. My money is on BDS – Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions.

 

Dr. Lawrence Davidson

Dr. Lawrence Davidson

 

Dr. Lawrence Davidson is professor of history at West Chester University. He is the author of numerous books, including Islamic Fundamentalism and America’s Palestine: Popular and Official Perceptions from Balfour to Israeli Statehood.

The author is a regular contributor to RamallahOnline.com.More articles can be found on RamallahOnline.com, Logos Journal, and Dr. Davidson also maintains an online blog, you can find it at http://www.tothepointanalyses.com

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Eric Cantor and the Provoking of American Antisemitism

Dr. Lawrence Davidson

Dr. Lawrence Davidson

Zionists of all stripes incessantly complain about antisemitism. They tell us that it is on the rise and that is why Israel is so important. They warn that when antisemitism inevitably reaches lethal levels Israel will be the only safe haven left for world’s Jews, including those oh so comfortable ones in the United States. The flip side of this alarmism is that the same Zionists are forever striving to turn the warning into a self-fulfilling prophecy. For instance, Israeli governments have behaved in such a brutal and illegal fashion toward the Palestinians that no self-respecting ethical human being can help but be indignant and angry. And, because of Zionist insistence that Israeli nationalism and Judaism are one in the same, half the world now thinks it’s the Jews who are collectively responsible for the sins of the Israelis.

The Israelis are not alone in acting in a manner that can only ruin the reputation of the Jews. For a long time American politicians have quietly allowed themselves to be dictated to by Israeli allied organizations such as AIPAC. This corrupting process is usually hidden behind a facade of propaganda incorrectly describing Israel as a strategic asset, the only democracy in the Middle East, and a country sharing American values. As a consequence the public has hardly noticed as the interests of the United States are shaped to conform to those of Israel–with very negative results for the American position not only in the Middle East, but within the entire Muslim world. But now the corruption has reached a new level, one so open and brazen that the likelihood of the American public taking notice has, correspondingly, become more probable. And, when notice is taken, the possibility of a rise in American antisemitism also presents itself.

For this dangerous turn of events we can all thank a Republican political leader by the name of Eric Cantor. Cantor is a Congressional Representative from the Richmond Virginia who is presently competing for the position of GOP House Majority Leader. He styles himself as one of the party’s “young guns.” So what is it that Congressman Cantor has done that may well contribute to the a heightened level of American antisemitism? On Wednesday, November 10th Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu was in Washington DC for a meeting with Secretary of State Hilary Clinton. But Cantor got to Netanyahu first and, according to the Congressman’s boastful press release, he “stressed that the new Republican majority will serve as a check on the [Obama] Administration ….He [Cantor] made clear that the Republican majority understands the special relationship between Israel and the United States, and that the security of each nation is reliant upon the other.”

How do we translate this? Essentially what Cantor did was tell the leader of a foreign country that he will protect that country from the official policies of the President of the United States–the person charged by the Constitution to carry out the nation’s foreign policy. Actually, the Congress, both Republicans and Democrats, have been supplying just this sort of protection for a very long time. But they have always done so surreptitiously. What is different with Cantor is that he has done this quite publically, letting us all know about it in a notice on his official stationary.

What Eric Cantor did on November 10th was illegal. He broke the law. The Law he boasted about violating is known as the Logan Act. This act makes it a felony for an American citizen “without authority of the United States” to interact “with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof” with the intent to influence that government’s behavior on any disputes with the United States. There are obviously disputes between the Obama administration and the Netanyahu government. And here comes Eric Cantor to tell the Israeli Prime Minister that he and the Republican Party will use the power of the House of Representatives to protect Israel from U.S. government policy. If that is not a communication made in such a way as to influence the behavior of a foreign power, nothing is! In addition, Cantor cannot claim ignorance of the law, for there can be no doubt that he is aware of the Logan Act. We know this to be true because he tried to use it against Nancy Pelosi in 2007 after she met briefly with President Assad of Syria. Pelosi, of course, met with the Syrian government with the full knowledge and approval of the State Department. Cantor, on the other, had no official sanction whatsoever.

So what did Cantor think he was doing on November 10th? The probable answer is that he was not thinking at all. Men like Cantor are so imbued with the notion of a “special relationship” that they have lost sight of the fact that Israel is a foreign country. After all, Israel has had a powerful special interest lobby operating in this country, distributing money to politicians on both sides of the aisle, for so long that it seems quite natural. Does Mr. Cantor realize that he can now be hoisted on his own petard–the Logan Act?

And herein lies the risk for American Jews. What seems so natural inside the Beltway, is losing its normalcy in the country at large. There is so much objectively unnatural about the U.S.- Israel relationship that if the general public actually starts paying attention things might turn nasty. There are the billions of dollars that go to a economically advanced country even when the US economy is hurting; there are all those UN vetoes that protect the same country in its incessant violation of international law; there is the fact that this money and protection is going to a land characterized by racist practices that would be illegal if carried out in the United States; there is the Israeli lobby’s involvement in the launching of the second Iraq war, and on it goes. What if the American people get angry about all of this? Who are they going to blame? The politicians? Probably. The Israelis and their Zionist lobby? For sure. And, because the Zionists are so insistent that Israel and Judaism are one in the same, the public may generalize out their discontent to American Jews in general.

It is hard to avoid the conclusion that Israel and its Zionist supporters, as well as the U.S. politicians who have so long cooperated with them, have placed American Jewry in potential jeopardy. Realization of that potential probably requires on-going economic bad times and foreign disaster. But how far are we from that? If things get bad enough, all it would take is a spark to reinvigorate an ancient prejudice that has long laid dormant in the U.S. I can think of no one more qualified, in terms of sheer unthinking brazenness, to ignite that spark than Congressman Eric Cantor from Virginia. Maybe that is what it means to be a Republican “top gun.”

Dr. Lawrence Davidson

Dr. Lawrence Davidson

Dr. Lawrence Davidson is professor of history at West Chester University. He is the author of numerous books, including Islamic Fundamentalism and America’s Palestine: Popular and Official Perceptions from Balfour to Israeli Statehood.

More articles can be found on RamallahOnline.com and Logos Journal

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Conned by Democracy: The Middle East’s Stagnant ‘Change’

In actual fact, nothing is changing – except for the insistence by some that it is.
In actual fact, nothing is changing – except for the insistence by some that it is.

In actual fact, nothing is changing – except for the insistence by some that it is.

Ramzy Baroud, 5 Nov 2010

Democracy in the Middle East continues to be a hugely popular topic of discussion. Its virtues are tirelessly praised by rulers and oppositions alike, by intellectuals and ordinary people, by political prisoners and their prison guards. Yet, in actuality, it also remains an illusion, if not a front to ensure the demise of any real possibility of public participation in decision-making.

Bahrain was the latest Arab country to hold free and fair elections. It managed a reasonable voter turnout of 67 percent. The opposition also did very well, winning 45 percent of the seats. In terms of fairness and transparency, the Bahraini elections could serve as an excellent example of how ‘things are changing’ in the Middle East. More, they might provide Western leaders, such as US President Barack Obama an opportunity to commend the contribution of American guidance to ‘progress’ in the region.

In actual fact, nothing is changing – except for the insistence by some that it is. Arab governments have made two important discoveries in the last decade.

The first discovery is that US interests cannot peacefully co-exist with true democracies in the region. Egypt had a rude awaking in 2005, when Muslim Brotherhood candidates won fifth of the votes, if not more. This was followed by the unmatched democratic revolution in Palestine when Hamas won the majority of the vote. The aftermath of both of these events was enough to remind both Arabs and the US of the folly of their so-called democracy project.

The second realization is that Arabs are not judged by the genuineness of their democracy; rather, the success of their democratic experiences is judged on the basis of how well they can serve and protect US interests. Since the democracy radar is measured by Washington, Arab countries deemed lacking in democratic reforms are often cited as promising and fledgling democracies in Congressional reports or White House statements. Countries deemed hostile to US economic and political interests are remorselessly shunned, as if their experiments with democracy could never yield anything of worth or consideration.

These two realizations led to a superficial change of course, forming a new trend that Shadi Hamid, writing in Foreign Policy, refers to as “free but unfair — and rather meaningless — election.”

Free elections are known to be the cornerstone of true democracy. Thus by giving the impression of freedom, automatically one tends to conclude fairness. But fairness is nowhere to be found, for if it truly exists then change becomes possible and is likely to follow. Those who have followed the new democratic experiences of some Arab countries will have observed that they have also been defined by the same political stagnation of the pre-democracy years.

American journalist, Sydney J. Harris once wrote, “Democracy is the only system that persists in asking the powers that be whether they are the powers that ought to be.” If Harris is correct, then whatever is underway in the Middle East is anything but democracy. Although new parliamentarians are elected, new faces flash on television, and an increasing number of women are paraded along with their male colleagues following each election, the powers that be remain unchanged, unhinged and truly unchallenged.

Most polls, whether conducted by Arab or non-Arab pollsters, indicate that the vast majority of Arab people view democracy in very positive terms. But the plot has truly thickened in recent years, when on the one hand democracy has become a household name in much of the Middle East, and not one ruler or government contests its virtues. Yet, no true democracy has in fact actualized in any shape or form.

Have Middle Eastern ruling elites figured out the democracy trick, the great con of our time? Have they realized that democracy in the Middle East is only what the White House says it can be?

Israel has mastered this very trick since the day of its inception. This is what Hasan Afif El-Hasan argues in his new and very instructive book, Is the Two-State Solution Already Dead? “The identity of the Israelis in their legal documents and ID cards is expressed in terms of their group religious affiliation as ‘Jewish,’ ‘Muslim,’ ‘Christian’, ‘Bahai,’ ‘Durzi,’ etc., where all privileges are conferred by the state on the Jews by virtue of being Jews, thus making Israel an religio-ethnocracy rather than a liberal democracy.”

Israel’s unique democracy is in fact getting more unique, as non-Jewish citizens of Israel are subjected to increasing levels of legal harassment and are constantly asked to jump through all sorts of political hoops to prove their loyalty to the Jewish state. Still, clever and persistent Israel has managed to present itself to the world at large, Arabs included, as being a model democracy.

This was and continues to be the original democracy con in the Middle East. It took some Arab governments decades to catch up and also present themselves as democratic, whatever the reality on the ground. This is not your everyday democracy scheme. It is particularly devious because it can boast of being free, fair and transparent – and the numbers would actually attest to that – but the political structure would still be construed in such a way that the freely elected parliaments are blocked from legislating effectively to challenge the powers that be. If any legislation is allowed to pass, through, say, unelected upper houses, and approved by the ultimate ruler (both usually serving as an insurance system against elected parliaments), it tends to be unimportant and largely decorative.

Since democracy is always a work in progress, for no country can claim to be perfectly democratic, then Middle East governments can always use this idea to justify their own shortcomings. Expectedly, the US tends to honor that, bestowing praise on their friends, and condemning their enemies – the former for courageously taking on democratic initiatives and the latter for failing the democracy test.

The great democracy con would not succeed, were it not for the fact that many players, including the US, are so invested in its success. As for the ordinary people, who are eager to see their rights respected, freedoms honored, and political horizons expanded, well, they can always vote – even if only their vote actually counts for nothing, and only further validates the very system they are trying to change.

- Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an internationally-syndicated columnist and the editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book is My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story (Pluto Press, London), now available on Amazon.com.