facility:rabin square

Blaming Netanyahu is no solution to the Zionist left’s occupation complex
Not all of Israel’s disasters began with Rabin’s murder, and not all of its ills will end when Netanyahu is replaced. But when there is nothing to offer, all the blame is placed on Netanyahu.
Gideon Levy
Nov 25, 2018 2:45 AM
▻https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-blaming-netanyahu-is-no-solution-to-the-zionist-left-s-occupation-

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The Zionist left can’t deal with the most critical problem, the one that has shaped the face of Israel more than any other. It carries a great deal of guilt over the issue, it has no solution for it, and as a result it has lost its way. Aware of its situation, it has invented detours to divert attention away from what it’s incapable of addressing. The left has made up a narrative for itself that helps it to evade the main issue, which it also finds disturbing: After all, it is humane and moral. That way, it doesn’t have to confront the issue and to propose solutions.

In light of its losing its way, its complexes, its guilt feelings, the left redirects the debate to two, related issues: Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination and the hatred for Benjamin Netanyahu. The insane obsession with both issues stems from the left’s suppressed guilt over having no answer for the occupation, the issue that defines Israel more than anything else.

This fixation on Rabin’s murder and the no-less-compulsive hatred for Netanyahu are the refuge of the left from having to deal with Israel becoming a nation of occupation and apartheid, for which it has no answer. Neither Rabin’s murder nor the harm caused by Netanyahu should be taken lightly, but when they’re the main issue it’s a sign of a grave ideological crisis.

In short, this is the narrative the left has invented for itself: Rabin was about to solve the problem of the occupation and to establish peace. Netanyahu came along exactly then, incited to and caused the murder.

Rabin was murdered, Netanyahu inherited the position of prime minister from him and destroyed Israel’s hope. That was the moment “the country was finished for me,” in the language of the left.

This narrative is not baseless, it is just very exaggerated. The exaggeration is meant to blur reality. Rabin’s murder was a difficult event, but less fateful than the left makes it out to be. Netanyahu is a harmful prime minister, but not as harmful as the left would have it. It is very doubtful that Rabin would have brought peace; the road to peace was still very long, he had barely begun to travel upon it and even the beginning was problematic.

To attribute the occupation, the blockade, the terror and the wars to Rabin’s murder is a historical misrepresentation. It may be convenient for the left, because it acquits them of any guilt. The occupation, we must recall, did not begin with the right, and the settlements were not born with Likud.

The hatred of Netanyahu is no less excessive. He deserves the left’s criticism and fierce opposition, but the demonization and the reflexive attacks on every single action says more about the left than it does about Netanyahu. The left would have taken some of the exact same actions as he did, and perhaps even worse ones at that. The worship of security, for example, is identical in both camps. The support for the settlements, too, is much more similar than it appears.

Not all of Israel’s disasters began with Rabin’s murder, and not all of its ills will end when Netanyahu is replaced. But when there is nothing to offer, all the blame is placed on Netanyahu. He caused the murder, as a result the occupation was perpetuated, because of him Israel lost its way, only because of him.

Such a balm to the tormented conscience, such relief without demanding courage, is it to wallow in the murder and to blame Netanyahu; to light a memorial candle in Rabin Square in Tel Aviv and to demonstrate against corruption.

If that is the situation, then the left doesn’t stand a chance. When there is nothing to offer, it is impossible to win in the elections. It is of course possible to continue to talk about the two-state solution, at a time when there’s no longer anywhere to establish them — for which the left is partly to blame. It’s possible to continue to mutter “Jewish and democratic,” and to flee from the choice between these mutually contradictory principles, the meaning of one of which is unclear.

It is also possible to continue to promise peace negotiations, as if that were the goal, and to know that the left has nothing just to offer in them. It is also possible to rely on another messiah from the house of David who says nothing and is victorious in the opinion polls — but when there is nothing to offer, there is no way to win.

And of course, it is possible to do things in differently: to stop mourning for Rabin and hating Netanyahu, more than he deserves, and to propose a daring alternative, one that has never been tried. But that is too much for the Zionist left, the bogus Israeli alternative to the right.

Demonstrate with the Arabs - Haaretz Editorial -
The place of Livni and the other opposition leaders is in Rabin Square, alongside the Arab community. Their struggle is the struggle of all Israelis, Jews and Arabs alike

Haaretz Editorial
Aug 10, 2018 1:32 AM

▻https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/editorial/demonstrate-with-the-arabs-1.6364336

The demonstration called for Saturday night in Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square by the Higher Arab Monitoring Committee, which represents Israel’s Arab community, is the most important of all the protests that have taken place against the nation-state law. It’s also one of the most important demonstrations in Israel in the past several years.
No minority in Israel suffers as much discrimination as the Arab minority, which is also Israel’s largest minority. It is frequently the target of normalized, institutionalized racism. 
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The nation-state law, which has sparked civic protests throughout Israeli society, was engineered precisely in order to strip the Arabs of their rights and subordinate them to rule by the Jews, the lords of the land, even at the price of sacrificing civic equality. This worldview has characterized despicable racist regimes throughout history, and its implementation in Israel is a black stain not only on the history of the state, but also on that of the Jewish people.
The nation-state law is an especially ugly milestone in the right’s delegitimization campaign against the Arabs. It’s meant to mark them as enemies, as a fifth column; to cause strife between them and Jews; and to remove them from civil society. Given this, it’s regrettable that the leaders of the opposition, who warmly embraced the Druze community’s justified protest against the law, have decided not to attend this demonstration.
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>> In Show of Renewed Activism, Arab Israelis to Protest Nation-state Law on Saturday
Opposition leader Tzipi Livni, who came to the Druze demonstration last Saturday night, announced that she won’t attend the upcoming one because some Knesset members from the predominantly Arab Joint List “don’t share my view that Israel is the nation-state of the Jews.” In the same breath, she declared her belief in “equal rights for all.” She thereby proved that even the left has adopted the right’s propaganda. If, as she says, Livni believes in equality for all and opposes the nation-state law — the issues of the demonstration — why is it even relevant what Joint List MKs think Israel’s character should be?
Livni must meet the challenge that was posed to Israeli society by President Reuven Rivlin in his “four tribes” speech, in which he argued that Israel’s future depends on abandoning a worldview based on majority and minority in favor of one that is based on a partnership with the ultra-Orthodox and the Arabs, who don’t define themselves as Zionist. The place of Livni and the other opposition leaders Saturday night is in Rabin Square, alongside the Arab community. Their struggle is the struggle of all Israelis, Jews and Arabs alike.

Now Israel has a revolution of the pampered, in stages

Like the LGBT community, the Druze are fighting an erosion of their favored status – and just might help the country achieve a state based on justice

Gideon Levy - Aug 05, 2018 12:34 AM

▻https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-now-it-s-a-revolution-of-the-pampered-in-stages-1.6341321

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Israel is making progress. It’s ashamed and is even beginning to protest. Only part of it, probably a minority, remains in its comfort zone; a new light seems to be breaking through the darkness.

All of a sudden they’re saying apartheid. They dare ask questions about Zionism. Now the term “Jewish-democratic” doesn’t seem so natural anymore. Something creaks when you utter these words. There’s some hesitation when you say “the only democracy.” The protest of the pampered marches on.

The rally Saturday night in Rabin Square was still within the confines of relative comfort and indulgence, but much less so than previous such events. It was two weeks after the LGBT community demonstrated in the same spot for equal surrogacy rights – under the sponsorship of Meitav Dash Investments. Then came the Druze community, the most privileged of Arabs but Arabs nevertheless, demonstrating for more meaningful equality, this time under the auspices of former heads of the Shin Bet security service, the Mossad and the army.

This is a hopeful development. It’s true that a demonstration for freedom, equality and fraternity under the helm of former defense chiefs is problematic, almost grotesque.

When a former Shin Bet head like Yuval Diskin, a person responsible for despicable actions toward millions of people who have no rights, writes a pompous manifesto extolling “the value of equality,” “democratic protest” and “mutual respect,” reminding everyone that he’s the son of Holocaust survivors while talking about racism, it turns your stomach. The fact that most speakers at the rally were generals, both Jews and Druze, who during their service often brutally oppressed another nation, is also problematic.

It’s true that most of the Druze participants were demonstrating for their own interests, for the equality they believe is their due in return for their military service, without trying to serve as a bridgehead for a campaign championing equality for all, including Palestinians.

But we can’t ignore their contribution to the growing protest. Largely due to them the nation-state law has become possibly the most exciting civics lesson in Israel in recent years. Questions that were never asked are being raised, maybe only for a short time – yet this is really a shake-up. Maybe in response to the most ultra-nationalist government, a little opposition will finally make an appearance.

The elephant still stands silently in the middle of the room, with only a few daring to mention him, but some are throwing furtive glances at him. An establishment commentator on defense matters, Channel 10’s Alon Ben-David, has written that underlying the nation-state law is a strategic objective: “It paves the way for the annexation of millions of Palestinians and the loss of a Jewish majority. Will the law mark the beginning of the laying to rest of the Zionist dream?”

So we may be at the brink of an earthquake, more severe than the earthquake expected in Tiberias. The first signs on the seismograph have been noted. The road is still long, the agents of denial and propaganda are still well in control, but hope has been ignited.

Israel needs this shake-up so badly. We’ve had so many years mired in the muck amid the brainwashing, the lack of critical thinking and the civic indifference. We’ve had years of intoxication with power, moral arrogance, smugness and confidence that what was will continue, that everything is being done as it should be done and will continue forever. There has been a certainty that we’re right and the whole world is wrong. But maybe the time of doubts has arrived. There can be no better news.

Seventy years after the establishment of the state, the time has come for questions, for a real lesson in civics and democracy. Did we really deserve all this? Only we deserved it? Is it only ours? Is it only for Jews? By what right? Did all the non-Jewish people deeply connected to this land and who deserve the same rights, deserve everything we’ve done to them? Above all, hasn’t the time come to repair things?

This repair is still a long way off, but maybe it’s becoming clear that if it doesn’t arrive there won’t be a state here based on justice. Who knows, maybe Brig. Gen. Amal Assad, an occupation officer in Jenin and Lebanon and a Likud member, will herald the message: It’s apartheid or democracy.
Gideon Levy

Haaretz Correspondent

Learning to build rockets, in a Tel Aviv square
▻http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/1.582277

« War is good »

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Most of the #Israel #Science Day events in Rabin Square on Thursday were about some #missile or other, or anyway something to do with security. At the Israel Aerospace Industries tent at the entrance, children were being photographed. They could choose to have their photoshopped image beside a satellite, or flying on a missile somewhere up in the clouds, as though missiles were teddy bears.

Many children posted their photo on a missile on Facebook.

(...)

I ask if he thought children and youngsters’ minds should be soaked with weapons and war, and his friend says: “War is good.” The exhibition is a success.

Que n’a-t-on pas dit sur le #Hamas et le #Hezbollah sur ce genre de comportement ? Que n’a pas dit la #hasbara israélienne ?

#enfants #culture_de_guerre

African asylum seekers strike to demand rights, hold large rally in Tel Aviv

In an unprecedented protest, some 20,000 African asylum seekers march to Rabin Square to demand that Israel examine their asylum claims and stop arresting and detaining members of the refugee community.

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▻http://972mag.com/african-asylum-seekers-go-on-strike-hold-large-rally-in-tel-aviv/85034

#protestation #requérants_d'asile #marche #manifestation #Tel_Aviv #Israël #asile #réfugiés