In Israel, if you are a member of the left-wing community, those who champion the values of a democratic society, you are responsible to make certain that those who do not see eye-to-eye, i.e. the right-wing and frum, must be disqualified. Freedom of speech and opinion only apply to the Arabs and those not seeking to promote Jewish and Halachic values.
This has been the case over the years and it continues today as the political left is now targeting the Otzma Yisrael (‘עוצמה לישראל’) Party, head by MK Prof. Aryeh Eldad and Dr. Michael Ben-Ari.
After the Knesset years ago disqualified the party of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane HY”D, it set the precedent to target other right-wing platforms. In this case, what is objectionable is the use of the word נאמנות (loyalty) and “No Obligations No Privileges” in the campaign, referring to the Israeli Arab community.
The request to disqualify the party filed with the chairman of the Central Election Committee Supreme Court Justice Elyakim Rubinstein points out that the signs seen on hundreds of public buses “is intended to discredit a minority population and to lead to collective condemnation by the majority population against Israeli Arabs.” They challenge the “racist” nature of the election campaign, and feel this is sufficient to disqualify the party.
Eldad and Ben-Ari reject the allegation that the campaign is racist, explaining their contention is nothing more than a legitimate request for equality, adding anyone who interprets their words as racist simply fails to understand the basics of democracy.
They further explain they feel that one seeking equal rights and privileges should be called upon to share equally in the burden and responsibilities and this has nothing to do with the color of one’s skin or ethnicity.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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One Response
The Israelis never quite got down the idea of democracy, or for that matter, Freedom of Speech (they missed out on the part of allowing those whom you disagree with to speak freely – but that’s also true of a lot of American liberals). Remember that most Israelis are not from places such as the United States or Britain, which have long traditions of free speech and allowing free elections. Most Israelis are from countries in the Middle East or Europe, and especially Eastern Europe, which never had a tradition of democracy (or rather, had something they called “democracy” but by Anglo-American standards it wasn’t). In all fairness, Israel is a lot more democratic than, as an example, Germany or Russia were 75 years ago, and the Israelis are much nicer to dissidents than were the Germans and Russia of that period. People like Eldad and Ben-Ari would haven’t have lasted more than a few days in those countries before they got the famous “knock on the door in the middle of the night” – which is present but still uncommon in Israel, so far.