“Only a few years ago, many of Europe’s far-right politicians were openly anti-Semitic. Now some of the same populist parties are embracing Israel to unite against what they perceive to be a common threat.” A disturbing account by Stefan Theil of how some members of the extreme far right in Europe are cosying up to Israel. Those invited to visit Israel by right-wing Israeli Chaim Muehlstein, included a Belgian politician known for his contacts with SS veterans, an Austrian with neo-Nazi ties, and a Swede whose political party has deep roots in Swedish fascism. They even went to Yad Vashem, to the evident horror of many who work there. But Nissim Zeev, a member of the Knesset who met with the visiting Europeans, was not bothered. “At the end of the day, what’s important is their attitude—the fact they really love Israel,” says Zeev, who represents Shas, an Orthodox right-wing party…

Gisha and Btselem respond to the absurd and dangerous Knesset attack on human-rights NGOs in Israel. “Civil society organizations”, says Gisha, “are at the very heart of a democratic society, and their role – our role – is to bring the actions of the Israeli authorities up for public scrutiny.” And Uri Zaki, U.S. director of B’Tselem, pulls no punches: “Last year, we witnessed a surge of anti-democratic, and often racist, legislation and rhetoric. Now, in the first week of 2011, the Knesset has launched a witch hunt against Israel’s human rights community.”

Two stories from YNets news tell it all: National Union MK Michael Ben-Ari referred to members of the leftist organizations as “traitors who must be persecuted at any cost”; and Avigdor Lieberman said, “These organizations are terror supporters whose only goal is to weaken the IDF, weaken its resolve to defend the citizens of Israel…”

Richard Silverstein writes: “Amnon Danker, former editor of one of Israel’s most popular dailies, Maariv, has written a scathing essay excoriating Israel and the current political situation there. The terms he uses are savage and unsparing. It’s rare for such mainstream cultural and media figures to speak in such unconditional terms about the state of latter-day Israeli society…

Richard Silverstein writes about Moshe Ben Zikri, recently elected “community adminstrator” for the neighborhood Pisgat Ze’ev (“It would be as if David Duke actually won that election when he ran for governor of Louisiana”). Zikri believes “there is an Arab ‘fire’ (yes, it appears the Carmel fire has become the reference du jour in the Israeli press) consuming Pisgat Ze’ev. His goal? To keep the neighborhood Jewish. That means, Arabs raus…”

Uri Avnery inveighs against those liberal Zionists, like Shlomo Avineri who sees no fascist tendencies in Israel and the leaders of Peace Now who act, he argues, as fig leaves legitimising Lieberman and the Netanyahu administration.

Police weighed in with tear gas, stun grenades and rubber bullets against Palestinian Israelis protesting at a right-wing march though the Arab town of Umm al Fahm. It was organised by groups allied to Kach, a movement (banned in 1994) that demands the expulsion of Palestinians from Israel and the occupied territories.
Some 1,500 police were reported to have been stationed in the town yesterday to protect the march and special paramilitary forces were used against the Arab counter-demonstration, as well as an undercover unit usually deployed at Palestinian protests in the West Bank…

Uri Avnery writes, penetratingly as ever, on the dangers of fascism in Israel. Revisiting the collapse of the Weimar republic we asks: “Why did the German republic collapse? This is an all-important question, because now people in Israel are asking, with growing concern: Is the Israeli republic collapsing?
FOR THE first time, this question is being asked in all seriousness. Throughout the years, we were careful not to mention the word Fascism in public discourse. It raises memories which are too monstrous. Now this taboo has been broken…Not a day – quite literally – passes without a group of Knesset members tabling a new racist bill…”

Demonstrate against the English Defence League’s rally in support of Israel, Sunday 24 October, 10.30am
Jewdas writes that “Yes says a real-life surfer rabbi from California, who’ll be joining the Jewish division of Britain’s new fascist movement, the English Defence League, on a show of love outside the Israeli embassy this Sunday.” Join the Jewdas protest from 10.30am: “Yidn, regardless of our different opinions on That Country Over There, (Birobidizhan, where else?) Friday nights in this country over here aren’t going to be too cushty for any of us shtetl-Jews if the British far right grow in strength and racial tensions increase…”

The Association for Civil Rights in Israeli (Acri) reports: Over the past two years, Acri has been increasingly troubled by expanding tendencies to harm Israel’s democracy. These trends are extensively surveyed in the State of the Democracy Report. The two chapters previously published deal with education system, and with the status of the Arab minority in Israel. The three future chapters will address the Knesset and the judicial system, free media, and freedom of protest and political activity.
A source of great concern is the fact that one of the key rings in which the Israeli democracy is threatened is the parliament itself – the very heart of democracy. Ahead of the upcoming opening of the Knesset’s Winter Session, we have drafted this brief review. It surveys the main aspects of anti-democratic trends in the Knesset…

Carlo Strenger writes: “Isaac Herzog is wrong when he says that fascism lurks at the fringes of Israeli society. It is now in the mainstream.”

Richard Silverstein writes: “I am usually loathe to use words like “fascism” in this blog to denote anything about Israel since the term is loaded, incendiary and draws fierce rebuke from apologists for Israeli policy here. But when I read polls like this one and see powerful graphics like this one published with the poll, then I realize there are many thoughtful Israelis who are thinking and publishing the same thoughts I have.”

Eight leftist activists who established the Facebook group “Im Tirzu – a fascist movement” are being sued. They have filed their defence which is to say that say Im Tirzu is indeed fascist and chauvinist…

Daphna Baram assesses the rising spirit of xenophobia, and the hunt for traitors and backstabbers in Israel: “The very right to have an opinion and a voice is now under grave threat”…

A disturbing follow-up to our earlier reports on the new war against the Bedouin in the Negev, highlighting the use of high school student volunteers in what Arab Negev News publisher Ata Abu Madyam called ‘a summer camp of destruction’. Max Blumenthal writes: “The spectacle of Israeli youth helping destroy al-Arakib helps explain why 56% of Jewish Israeli high school students do not believe Arabs should be allowed to serve in the Knesset – why the next generation wants apartheid…”

Gadi Algazi writes: What are the Bedouin accused of? How did their very existence become a “real threat”? The Negev, says Netanyahu, might become a “region without a Jewish majority.” This is truly a good one: you can move from region to the next throughout the country and discover that in a particular area within Israel, there isn’t a Jewish majority, for example between Kafr Qara’ and Umm al-Fahem, or between Sakhnin and ‘Arabe. Well, then don’t we have to do something against this threat? Yes, of course, and so we do! [...]

ACRI lists the most troubling initiatives of the Knesset’s summer session 2010 and warns of an alarming trend taking shape in the current Knesset, which flourished during the last session: the use of democratic processes by the majority, specifically legislation, to hinder freedom of expression, to harm Israel’s system of checks and balances, and to violate the rights of minority groups in Israel…

• Knesset members, From Kadima to The Kahanists, Signed a bill that says: Boycotting the products Of the settlements Is tantamount to Boycotting the State of Israel, And will be punished. A law that says that The settlements and Israel Are one and the same – Will inevitably intensify The world-wide boycott On the State [...]

Rela Mazali of Jewish Peace News introduces An Assault on Democracy by Ishai Menuhin, of the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, drawing attention to former Israeli judge and current legal affairs editor for the right-leaning and largest Israeli newspaper, Yedioth Aharonoth, Boaz Okon, who has “called a spade a spade using both the forbidden words; apartheid and fascism…”

Uri Avnery writes: “[A] paradoxical situation has arisen: parliament, the highest expression of democracy, is itself now posing a dire threat to Israeli democracy…No doubt can remain that Kahanism – the Israeli version of fascism – has moved from the margin to center stage…” “IF SOME people are trying to delude themselves into believing that the parliamentary mob will harm ‘only Arabs’, they are vastly mistaken. The only question is: who is next in line?”