Bernard Spiegal

Whilst Israel’s democracy warriors continue their mass protests against the Netanyahu coalition’s current and projected changes to the powers of the Supreme Court, the Israeli state’s murderous campaign against Palestinians in the OPT, East Jerusalem and Gaza not only continues, but is escalating before our eyes.

This appears not to be a source of major concern to a significant proportion of the protesting Israeli democrats who, in the main, are concerned to ensure that the oxymoron, a Jewish and democratic state, will continue to defy definitional gravity and remain the guiding principle of the Israeli state. This embeds discrimination and apartheid into its judicial system. 

B’tselem points out:

When it comes to violation of Palestinians’ rights, Israel’s Supreme Court neither holds effective judicial review nor keeps the security forces in check. It is willing to sanction almost any injustice based on unreasonable legal interpretation, and systemically ignores the context: that the appellants come from an unrepresented population governed by a strict military regime for more than 50 years, denied political rights and excluded from basic decision-making. The court thereby sanctions not only violations – but the occupation itself.

Not one perspective

Different perspectives are emerging from within the protestors.  Ha’aretz reports two distinct aspects, ones not easily, if ever, reconcilable.

Yiftach Golov, the international spokesperson for Brothers and Sisters in Arms (a leading group in the mainstream protest), says that while “it’s important to one day solve the [Israeli-Palestinian] conflict, this is not an immediate threat” to Israeli democracy.

Contrasted with:

Chen Alon, a co-founder of Combatants for Peace…says that although he supports the main protest, his group is “trying to pull [the mainstream] toward acknowledging that the occupation is the central problem in Israel’s democracy.”

As he sees it, the mainstream “wants to preserve the status quo,” which he describes as being a “democracy” that ignores the occupation and apartheid.

It’s interesting, isn’t it, that both perspectives deploy military terminology in their titles?

Perhaps of more significance – time will tell – as reported in an earlier post, are the dissenting voices emerging among younger people. It’s not clear at this stage how this will develop, what specific objectives they will decide to pursue but, as noted in that earlier post, the age profile of demonstrators is changing as younger people join the protests. 

The US, UK and Europe

There are some signs that US, UK and some European governments are viewing Israel more critically, eyes being opened by, for example, the pogroms against Palestinians in Hawara, along with the mass protests by Jewish Israelis against Netanyahu’s coalition assault on Israel’s judicial system.

But, in the main, these governments are bewildered, unready and unclear as how to respond to the combination of events now taking place in Israel and the OPT. These governments have strategically tied themselves to a state whose very existence contradicts what are claimed to be the fundamental principles underpinning western democracies. 

In these countries, public opinion and governments are drifting farther apart, with the public being far more critical of Israel, and more overtly pro-Palestinian than their governments which, perhaps in their more lucid moments recognise that they have wedded themselves to a deeply unattractive bride.  The role of international public opinion, is to assist in hurrying a divorce.

Meanwhile, Israel pursues its brutal crackdown in the OPT     

The scale of brutality Israel is imposing on Palestinians almost defies description. It’s as though we have exhausted all the words available to describe, to specify in detail the breadth and depth of what is perpetrated against Palestinians and indeed African refugees and asylum seekers. Even the word ‘Occupation’ begins to feel like an abstraction, somehow distanced from the maiming, killing, traumatising, that it necessarily entails.

Morally barren

The Israeli state has divorced itself from the moral sensibilities and ethical norms commonly thought to underpin democracies. This remains largely unacknowledged – or denied. Medical Aid for Palestinians reports that:

Israeli forces have also routinely obstructed and attacked Palestinian healthcare workers seeking to reach and treat the wounded, causing injuries to paramedics, damage to ambulances, and denial and delay of care to patients.

The harvest of Palestinian injuries and deaths is increasing from an already high level, fuelled as it is by a deep-rooted racism and colonising intent, one directly connected to the militarised organs of the Israeli state and their violent settler allies.

If you are a Palestinian, be you infant, child or adult, in the West Bank, East Jerusalem or Gaza you are a potential target of live fire. Defence of Children International – Palestine (DfCI-P) reports: 

Milad Monther Wajih Al-Raei, 15, was shot in the back by Israeli forces around 8:30 p.m. on September 9…opposite an Israeli military tower, near Hebron…During confrontations between Palestinian youth and Israeli forces, an Israeli soldier shot Milad in the back from a distance of about 20 meters (66 feet).

This is part of a wider picture.  Some six children a month – total of 45 as at 9 September – have been killed by Israeli security forces or Settlers thus far in 2023.

Palestinian children live in a hyper-militarized context where the Israeli military’s incursions into Palestinian communities to arrest and intimidate Palestinian civilians is the norm…Israeli forces routinely shoot to kill in situations not justified by international law with complete impunity. DfCI-P

Internal resources for change?

In a number of these blog posts, I’ve wondered whether Israel has the internal resources – ethical, psychological, imaginative, political – to reflect upon itself critically; to shed its self-imposed, self-defeating burden of maintaining and justifying a state founded on Jewish Supremacism.

Such a state is compelled to be an agent of oppression, to be ever building physical and psychological barriers; to condemn itself to be permanently on its guard, fearing always contamination by the Other. An afeared nation forced into a masquerade of eternal strength.