Israel’s War Crimes Shows Its Utter Contempt for
International Law
On a sunny Sunday lunchtime, some 250-300 people rallied
outside Brighton Town Hall to listen to speeches and a march to Hove Town Hall.
The occasion was the launch of a campaign to persuade Brighton & Hove
Council, the first in the country controlled by a (minority) Green Party
administration to institute a boycott of Israel. Proposed by Cllr. Ben Duncan, who was forced
to resign from the Green Party for calling the British Army ‘hired killers’
(what else are they? social workers?) Ben has been one of the few
Green Party councillors (now an Independent) to remain committed to direct
action. However it is difficult to see the Labour or Tory groups supporting the
proposal, which is due to come to the Council in October. Ben was also the
second speaker at the march.
The best speech was also the first speech, by Canon Paul
Ostreicher, a refugee from Germany in 1938 because of his Jewish heritage. Paul
has devoted his life to fighting for peace (a non-sequitur!) being Chair of British
Amnesty, expelled from the Church Peace Council for criticisms of the Soviet
Union among his other notable achievements. He was ordained as a Deacon in St
Paul’s Cathedral in 1959 and retired as canon of Coventry Cathedral in 1998. He
now lives in Brighton and made a fiery speech pointing out that the ANC and all
liberation movements were called ‘terrorist’ and defending the right of any
oppressed people to take up arms.
The march was a local one but despite that was larger than
the Zionist one last week which was a national one. At Hove Town Hall we
listened to more speeches, including one from the local PSC Secretary Barry,
before dispersing. Some people joined PSC members in taking part in an action against
the Robert Dyas shop in nearby George Street, Hove which stocks Sodastream
products. Barry laid heavy emphasis on our victory in closing the Sodastream
shop in Brighton, despite a vigorous Zionist campaign to keep it open.
Just a couple of criticisms or observations. Although the
demonstration was a healthy size, it was smaller than past demonstrations on
Gaza. Last time, during Operation Cast Lead 1,500 people marched through Brighton.
The missing factor was members of the local Arab and Muslim community. This was
an omission that needs to be rectified. PSC has always been able to tap into
existing networks of Palestinians and Arabs and we need to think carefully
about why that didn’t happen this time.
Secondly, despite having a Jewish Chair, Mike W, there was no speaker from a Jewish anti-Zionist or even non-Zionist organisation,
again for the first time I can remember. At a time when Israel claims its
actions are on behalf of all Jews everywhere this is an important omission and
should not be the subject of sectarianism. One of the main features of recent demonstrations
nationally have been the presence of a large Jewish bloc and we know from the
Sodastream demonstration that the Zionists find it difficult to explain away
the existence of Jewish opponents. I’m thinking of groups like Jews 4 a Just
Peace for Palestinians, Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods and the Jewish anti-Zionist
Network. This is at a time when British Jews are showing that they are not
interested in rallies supporting Israel’s barbarities. For the first time ever,
the Zionist Board of Deputies of British Jews has not even attempted to
organise a ‘rally in support of Israel’. Last time just 5,000 answered the call
unlike in previous years when up to 25,000 turned out.
End EDO, Brighton's Arms Factory, speaker
However overall the energy and commitment of those who did
turn out for the demonstration was commendable and if Israel’s attacks continue
and intensify we need to seriously consider a major demonstration on a Saturday. Tony Greenstein
Why Israel's Western 'values' are superior to its neighbours.
Jill Young is one of the Christian Zionists who sprouted at
the time of the Boycott of Brighton’s SodaStream shop. Here she is with a favourite placard of hers
extolling the virtues of Western
democratic values. As a fundamentalist Christian
Jill Young gets around!
The Bedraggled, Miserable and NATIONAL Zionist Demonstration - 200 strong
Zionism’s Last Call on the Jewish community was a triumph
for its anti-Semitic allies.
Zionism’s advocates in Brighton were flushed with success at their campaign to defend Sodastream,
even if it did lead to the closure of the Brighton store. The Zionists have now taken to harassing a Kurdish
demonstration and a ‘pop-up’
demonstration outside Robert Dyas.
Sussex Friends of Israel i.e. Simon
Cobbs of the fascist Jewish Defence League, decided to organise a ‘national’ demonstration in support of genocide in
Gaza. So last Sunday 17th August
the great demonstration was held. The
local Argus estimated that a magnificent 200 people
took part, a figure that would put Palestine Solidarity Campaign in Brighton to
shame if any local demonstration attracted even double that number. When we think that the last demonstration in support of the people of Gaza in London, on August 9th, attracted 150,000 people, we get a flavour of Simon Cobb's achievement.
A contingent from Antifa (Brighton anti-fascists) turned up to make it clear what they thought of this bunch of racists.
flying the Palestinian flag at the Zionists' demonstration
It is a sign of how demoralised Zionism’s supporters are
that they could not find more than 200 people for a march to raise enthusiasm
for colonial butcher.
90
year old Hedy Epstein, a survivor of an extermination camp, has been particular
active in the fight against racism. She
was on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla and was recently arrested in Ferguson,
Missouri protesting against Police racism.
Hedy Epstein - Extermination Camp Survivor still fighting racism - arrested in Ferguson, Missouri
With
the exception of a few disgusting individuals like Elie Wiesel, who repeats the
old canard, previously used against the Jews, that the Palestinians are guilty
of child sacrifices, most holocaust survivors understand that the racism they
experienced at the hands of the Nazis should not be visited on the Palestinians.
Henk Zanoli, who helped save a Jewish child from
deportation to concentration camps, said holding on to the medal would be an
'insult to the family.'
By Amira
Hass, Ha'aretz, August 15 2014
A
91-year-old Dutch man who was declared a Righteous Among the Nations for saving
a Jew during the German occupation on Thursday returned his medal and
certificate because six of his relatives were killed by an Israeli bombing in
the Gaza Strip last month.
In 2011,
the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum declared Henk Zanoli and his late mother,
Johana Zanoli-Smit, Righteous Among the Nations for having saved a Jewish
child, Elhanan Pinto, during the Nazi occupation of Holland. Pinto, born in
1932, was hidden by the Zanoli family from the spring of 1943 until the Allies
liberated Holland in 1945. His parents perished in Nazi death camps.
Suzanne Weiss speaking at the “Lift The Siege” rally in Toronto, 10 January 2009
Zanoli’s
great-niece, Angelique Eijpe, is a Dutch diplomat who currently serves as
deputy head of her country’s diplomatic mission in Oman. Her husband, economist
Isma’il Ziadah, was born in the al-Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza. The
couple has three children. Ziadah’s parents were born in Fallujah, on whose
lands the town of Kiryat Gat now sits. His father died in 1987.
On
Sunday, July 20, an Israeli fighter jet dropped a bomb on the Ziadah family’s
home in al-Bureij. The bomb killed the family matriarch, Muftiyah, 70; three of
her sons, Jamil, Omar and Youssef; Jamil’s wife, Bayan; and their 12-year-old
son, Shaaban. The bombing thus orphaned Jamal and Bayan’s other five children,
four daughters and a son, while bereaving Omar’s two sons and Youssef’s three
sons and a daughter of their fathers. The bombing also killed Mohammed
Maqadmeh, who happened to be visiting the family that day.
Zanoli,
an attorney by profession, heard about the killing of the Ziadah family from
his niece. As a way of expressing his shock and pain, he decided to return the
medal and certificate that were awarded to him and his mother (posthumously) as
Righteous Among the Nations. Because of his age and poor health, he did not do
so in person, but sent them by messenger to the Israeli Embassy in The Hague –
the same place where he received them in an official ceremony three years ago.
In the
accompanying letter, addressed to Ambassador Haim Davon, Zanoli began by describing
the price his family paid for resisting the Nazis and their successful effort
to save a Jewish child.
“Against
this background it is particularly shocking and tragic that today, four
generations on, our family is faced with the murder of our kin in Gaza. Murder
carried out by the State of Israel,” he wrote.
“The
great- great grandchildren of my mother have lost their [Palestinian]
grandmother, three uncles, an aunt and a cousin at the hands of the Israeli
army ... For me to hold on to the honour granted by the State of Israel, under
these circumstances, will be both an insult to the memory of my courageous
mother who risked her life and that of her children fighting against
suppression and for the preservation of human life as well as an insult to those
in my family, four generations on, who lost no less than six of their relatives
in Gaza at the hands of the State of Israel.”
Noting
that Israel’s actions in Gaza “have already resulted in serious accusations of
war crimes and crimes against humanity,” he continued, “as a retired lawyer it
would be no surprise to me that these accusations could lead to possible
convictions if true and unpoliticized justice is able to have its course. What
happened to our kin in Gaza will no doubt be brought to the table at such a
time as well.”
The
Israel Defense Forces Spokesperson’s Unit did not answer Haaretz’s questions as
to whether the Ziadah home was bombed by mistake, or if not, who in the house
was a target and whether the IDF’s legal department considers the death of six
civilians to be legitimate collateral damage. Its response said merely that the
IDF invests great efforts in trying to avoid civilian casualties, is currently
working to investigate all allegations of irregular incidents and will publish
its conclusions after this investigation is completed.
On 12 September 1935 the Nuremberg Laws were announced at a
mass Nazi rally by a Nazi physician Gerhard Wagner. On 15th September they were enacted by Hitler into law. The first was the The
Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honour (the second was the Reich Citizenship Law). They were two of only four laws passed by the Reichstag. Dr. Bernhard Lösener, the Interior Ministry official in charge of drafting anti-Semitic laws, was tasked with drafting a definition of who was a Jew and came up with anyone who had 3 or 4 Jewish grandparents (1 or 2 meant you were a mischlinge - mixed race).
Zionism never objected to the Nuremburg Laws
They were described by Gerald Reitlinger in The Final Solution (p.7) as ‘the most murderous legislative instrument known to European history”. Zionism however, as a racial Jewish political
movement had no objections to what was, after all, the fulfillment of their own
program.
So it is in Israel today that hundreds of protesters
demonstrated against the marriage celebration of a former Jewish woman and a Muslim
man, daring to equate it with Jewish lives lost during the holocaust. Can one imagine any other western (or indeed any other
civilised) state where people demonstrate against two people who, although of
different ethnic/religious backgrounds, wish to marry each other? In this country such opposition is confined
to marginal fascist groups like the NF or BNP.
In Israel it is part of mainstream Zionist politics.
Although it hides the fact, not least from many diaspora Jews,
in Israel there is no civil marriage.
You have to marry someone of the same religion, but whereas Christian
and Muslim marriage requirements are lax, to be Jewish i.e. part of the select,
is a difficult and lengthy process.
The demonstrations over this marriage says all you need to
know about Israeli politics and, incidentally, the nature of the Israeli court system, which in the case of high public officials, contrasts freedom of speech with the right to privacy.
Lehava Certificate that a business only employs Jews
The organisation Lehava which has organised these demonstrations is funded mainly by the Israeli state. Although the new Israeli President, Reuven Rivlin, whom Netanyahu bitterly opposed, has condemned the demonstrations, Netanyahu himself has said nothing.It is clear where this pro-American ‘moderate’ stands.
It is ironic that the 'Jewish' state, allegedly set up as a result of the holocaust, echoes Nazi discrimination against the Jews.
'An Act of Treason' according to the majority of Israel's Jews - ex-Jewish bridge Malka
Anti-Arab group urges supporters to bring loudspeakers and
horns to wedding of Mahmoud Mansour and Moral Malka
A Palestinian man and his Jewish bride-to-be are facing hostile protests in
the Israeli town of Rishon Letzion after Israel's high court refused their
application to ban demonstrations outside their wedding reception.
Mahmoud Mansour, 26, a Palestinian from Jaffa, has had to hire dozens of
security guards after an anti-Arab group, Lehava, published details of his
wedding reception online and called for Israelis to come and picket the wedding
hall.
The mob that Israel's courts allowed 'freedom of speech'
The group, which campaigns against assimilation between Jews and Arabs in
Israel, is angry that Mansour's bride-to-be, Moral Malka, 23, is Jewish,
although local media reported that she has already converted to Islam and the couple have had an Islamic
wedding.
"We've been together for five years, but we've never encountered such
racism. I always knew there were racists, but as long as you're not affected by
it, until you feel it in your own body, you don't know what it is,"
Mansour told Haaretz on Sunday.
The mob that Israel's courts allowed to demonstrate
"If it were someone from her family, I would understand, but these
people aren't related. Why do they care? Why are they getting involved? If they
think they'll get us to give up on each other, it won't happen." He said that hiring the security guards had cost over $4,000 (£2,400), half
of which was being paid for by the wedding hall, but the remainder the couple
had to find themselves. The court decided that protesters would be allowed to
picket the wedding, but only at a distance of 200m.
The wedding has become a national issue – drawing comment from even the
president on Sunday – underscoring the strength of feeling following Israel's
two-month confrontation with Hamas. On Sunday, peace talks in Cairo inched
forward but there was no sign of imminent agreement.
Zionist mob outside celebration
Lehava, which campaigns under the slogan of 'saving the daughters of
Israel', was revealed to have links with the Israeli government in a 2011
investigation by Haaretz, receiving up to $175,000 per year from the state,
over half of its operational budget. In 2012 the group distributed flyers in east Jerusalem warning Arabs not to
visit the mostly Jewish western side of the city, and has campaigned against
Jews and Arabs mixing on beaches and Jewish landlords renting to Arabs.
On Sunday's wedding, the group said: "Please come with positive energy
and bring loudspeakers and horns. We will ask our sister to return home with us
to the Jewish people who are waiting for her," reported Israeli news site
Arutz Sheva.
Other Orthodox Jewish groups have also entered the fray. Yad L'Achim,
another group that campaigns against Jewish and Arab assimilation in Israel
posted a blurred picture of the bride on its Facebook site, calling on Jews to
write to her and plead with her not to go ahead with the wedding.
The page, published on 13 August, has got over 2,000 likes and over 4,000
people have written responses asking the bride to cancel the reception and
leave her husband. Speaking to Haaretz, however, Mansour said he had also received many letters
of support. "We feel great, and that really gives us strength. They think
they'll break us, but we can't be broken. The opposite is true – we're getting
stronger," Mansour said.
"The wedding will go on as planned – it will be great. I'm not worried,
but it's troubling that on this day, which everyone waits for their whole life,
the happiest day of their life, I have to go to court. It's sad that such
things happen in this country."
That the marriage of Mahmoud Mansour and Morel Malka became a subject for public
debate is embarrassing and testifies to how low we have sunk. Could we imagine
a wedding between a Christian and a Jew becoming a national news item in any
European country? Indeed, the Lehava organization that launched a public
protest against this wedding is worthy of every condemnation. But we must remember
that racism didn’t start with Lehava: Israeli law doesn’t permit marriages
between people of different religions, and if Malka had not converted to Islam,
the two could not have married in Israel, where marriage is subject to
religious law.
Mob outside wedding celebration
Of course, such a couple can get married abroad and be registered as married
here in Israel, or they can live together and be recognized as a cohabiting
de-facto couple under Israeli law, but it’s worth remembering that.
We cannot merely be outraged by Lehava without addressing the manner in
which the ban on intermarriage serves in practice the notion that we must
“protect” Jewish women from the “Arab threat,” as Prof. Zvi Triger of the
College of Management has demonstrated in his research. While allowing Lehava to demonstrate, the Rishon Letzion Magistrate’s Court,
from which the couple sought an injunction, ordered the Lehava demonstrators to
stay at least 200 meters from the banquet hall – a compromise to which the
couple agreed. But was that far enough?
In a case where demonstrators sought to protest in front of the late Rabbi
Ovadia Yosef’s home, the High Court of Justice ruled that with regard to a
demonstration in front of the home of a public figure, the right to privacy may
trump the right to demonstrate. The court therefore ruled that one must assure
that one party’s right to assemble does not substantially impinge on the other
party’s right to privacy, and thus police were permitted to set reasonable
limits regarding the timing, place, and manner of the demonstration. The High
Court has reiterated this principle in several similar instances.
The Rishon Letzion court, therefore, could have taken these legal principles
into account when deliberating the couple’s request, and ruled against holding
the demonstration near the wedding venue altogether – even more so because at
issue was the marriage of private people, not public figures, giving the right
to privacy even greater weight.
It should also be noted that when a demonstration needs a permit, the police
is allowed to check whether incitement to racism is involved. While such
considerations ought to be invoked on very limited occasions, it should have at
least been grounds for keeping the demonstration even further away.
Given all this, one cannot ignore the gap between how Lehava’s right to hold
a racist demonstration near a private celebration was preserved, and the many
freedom of assembly violations we’ve witnessed recently: The police ban on an
antiwar protest in Tel Aviv 10 days ago; the many instances in which protesters
were arrested during social-justice demonstrations; and the 1,500 antiwar
protesters arrested over the past month, nearly all of them Arabs, as reported
here over the weekend. Apparently, problematic demonstrations against Arabs are
permitted, but Arabs who demonstrate are at high risk of arrest.
Under heavy
police guard, Mahmoud Mansour and Morel Malka held their wedding celebration
last evening in Rishon Letzion. Mansour, a young Muslim man and Malka, who was
born Jewish and converted to Islam, were surrounded by security guards as they
arrived at the Shemesh Aduma (Red Sun) wedding hall. Outside, about 150 meters
away from the entrance to the hall at the end of the street, some 200
right-wing protesters demonstrated against what they called “assimilation in
the Holy Land.” A counter-demonstration was held by the entrance to the hall.
Earlier
in the day, the court refused to prohibit the protest outside the wedding hall
where the mixed Muslim-Jewish celebrated their recent marriage, and ordered
protesters to remain at least 200 meters from the venue, which is located in an
area filled with supermarkets and other banquet halls.
The
Rishon Letzion Magistrate’s court issued the ruling after the couple applied
for an injunction to stop the demonstration organized by Lehava (which is both
a Hebrew word meaning “flame” and a Hebrew acronym for Preventing Assimilation
in the Holy Land).
Each
guest at the wedding was asked by police to identify themselves and answer
questions posed by police and security guards to prove they had been invited.
The protesters attempted to come closer to the hall a number of times while
cursing the couple, but the police moved them back to the area set aside for
their protest, as per the court’s instructions.
The
protesters shouted racist and threatening slogans such as “Death to leftists,”
and waved Israeli flags and blew the shofar. They carried signs saying such
things as “Daughter of Israel to the people of Israel,” and “Assimilation is a
Holocaust.” At the
counter demonstration they held flowers and sang love songs. Their signs said
things such as “Love for everyone,” “Only love will win” and “1,000 flames will
not put out love.” A few of the guests thanked them and honked their horns in
support.
A number
of the right-wing protesters complained about being unable to approach the hall
and swore at the guests and the counter protesters. Attorney Itamar Ben Gvir, a
leading Kahanist who represented Lehava in court, said the court’s decision to
allow the demonstration near the hall was “a victory for the freedom of speech.
Only this morning they tried to prevent us from protesting and I am pleased the
court accepted in practice our position and allowed freedom of expression. This
is a democratic country,” he said. “I think we have the right to protest
against assimilation. That is what we have come to do today,” said Ben Gvir.
The
couple lives in Jaffa and have already had a legal Muslim wedding; last night’s
event was only a celebration. The couple met five years ago and Morel converted
to Islam. Mansour said that up until the past few days they had not experienced
such blatant manifestations of racism. Malka said her mother, sisters and other
relatives were slated to attend; her father, however, is opposed to her
marriage to a Muslim and had declared that he would not attend the party.
In court
yesterday, the representative of the police proposed holding the demonstration
in a parking lot about 200 meters from the hall. Judge Iriya Mordechai ruled
that the protesters must remain at least 200 meters from the building, even if
they refuse the parking-lot space offered to them. She stressed that her ruling
was aimed at preventing friction between the demonstrators and the guests at
the event, which was held under heavy police guard.
“Regrettably,
the respondents’ actions to prevent the wedding, which have been carried out at
a sensitive time for Jewish-Arab relations in any case, have borne rotten fruit
and have stirred up a turbid wave of hatred and violence that will peak at a
moment that is known and predictable, like its results,” wrote attorney Yaniv
Segev on Mansour’s behalf in his request for the injunction. “It is almost
certain that the planned demonstration on the day of his wedding will spill
over into violent areas.”
Segev
called the judge’s decision precedent-setting, saying it was the first time an
Israeli court had approved the request of a private person to prevent a
demonstration near a private event.
Guy
Ronen, one of those behind the demonstration in support of the couple, said he
came to protest such gross invasion in private, personal matters. “It is a
wedding. The public arena must not interfere in it. The couple has the right to
choose their love. They are not a public institution.”
President
Reuven Rivlin commented on the wedding and opposition to it in a post on his
Facebook page. “There is a red line between freedom of speech and protest on
the one hand, and incitement on the other,” he wrote. “Mahmoud and Morel from
Jaffa have decided to marry and to exercise their freedom in a democratic
country. The manifestations of incitement against them are infuriating and
distressing, whatever my opinion or anyone else’s might be regarding the issue
itself. Not everyone has to share in the happiness of Mahmoud and Morel — but
everyone has to respect them. Among us and within our midst there are harsh and
sharp disagreements but incitement, violence and racism have no place in
Israeli society. These manifestations are undermining the foundations of our
shared life here in the Jewish and democratic, democratic and Jewish state of
Israel.”
Rivlin
concluded the post with a quotation from the Revisionist Zionist leader Ze’ev
Jabotinsky: “In the beginning God created the individual,” and added: “We are a
free people in our country, in opinion and action, and I wish the young couple
health, satisfaction and happiness.”
Nationalist
leaders head mass protest against wedding of Arab and Jew, warn danger of
assimilation greater than Hamas rockets.
Hundreds of protesters arrived to demonstrate Sunday night against the mixed
marriage of a young couple from Yafo: Moral, a 23-year-old Jewish woman
recently converted to Islam by her groom, Mahmoud Mansour, a 26-year-old Muslim
Arab.
At the protest led by the Lehava group which fights assimilation in Israel,
former MK Dr. Michael Ben-Ari addressed the crowd, saying "Moral, it won't
help you. They always will remind you that you're Jewish and where you came
from. The children you give birth to will never be treated as equal to
them." "They tell us that we're racist - let's see one Arab woman come marry a
Jew at this hall...then we'll see who's racist," added Ben-Ari to the
protesters. He was referring to the fact that a Muslim woman who marries a Jew
can expect to be murdered by her co-religionists.
As noted by Ben-Ari, in nearly all cases of mixed marriages with Arabs in
Israel, the Jewish partner is the bride. It is a well documented phenomenon that
such wives often suffer
abuse from their Arab husbands, and many require help to escape.
Ben-Ari noted that former Prime Minister Golda Meir, "a prime minister
of the Labor party, a representative of the left, etc. - when she spoke about
assimilation she said...'whoever marries and assimilates joins the six million
(Jews murdered in the Holocaust). She saw in what's happening here a
continuation of the work of (Nazi Leader Adolf) Hitler."
Six protesters were arrested for disturbing public order as over 100 police
officers were on site to secure the event at its Rishon Letzion wedding hall
venue. A court case Sunday morning allowed the protest providing it
stayed 200 meters from the wedding hall.
Nationalist public figure Baruch Marzel also spoke at the protest against
the wedding, a marriage Moral's father
refused to attend because of his opposition to his daughter's
disengagement from the Jewish people. "Two months ago we sent thousands of soldiers to prevent the danger of
Hamas in the south. But the danger assimilation poses to the Jewish nation is a
danger a thousand times worse," said Marzel.
Marzel called on Jews in Israel to wake up before "what happens abroad,
where every second Jew assimilates, arrives in Israel," in a reference to
the remarkably high
assimilation rates in America and Europe.
Small counter-protest against "racism"
Opposite the Lehava protest several dozen leftists held a counter-protest,
decrying the supposed "racism" of opposing assimilation. Jewish law
expressly forbids marriage with non-Jews who have not undergone a proper
conversion to Judaism.
The marriage has been garnering mass media attention, and was even commented
on by newly instated President Reuven Rivlin, who wrote on his Facebook page
Sunday "the revelations of incitement against (the couple) are outrageous
and worrying, regardless of whatever my position or that of another will be on
the issue (of mixed marriages)."
Responding to Rivlin's criticism, Attorney Itamar Ben-Gvir stated "it's
sad to hear that the state president is ignoring the danger of assimilation and
encouraging assimilation, instead of coming with us to protest this
disgrace." "I expect Mr. Rivlin to dedicate his time to the war on assimilation in
Israel and globally. Because today it's Moral, tomorrow it could be his
granddaughter," added the attorney.
Demonstration Against Mixed Marriages
Not long ago I wrote to you about the
racist-fascist atmosphere which prevailed in Israel just before the war on
Gaza. This atmosphere was initiated by extreme racist, national religious
groups. These activities are contrary to Israeli law, which forbids incitement
to racial or religious hatred. However, the government and police turned a
blind eye; the incitement was not opposed by the state
legal-educational-cultural apparatus. As a result, intolerance, racism and
hatred became the dominant mood in the streets. Many Israeli Jews, normally not
even politically right wing, succumbed to this racist mood and followed it
sheepishly. This atmosphere of hate and revenge coincided with the onslaught of
the war and fed the huge support for the government and the violence against
the tiny left which opposed the war.
Today I want to bring to your attention
yet a new example of the racism presently running wild in the country. The
difficulty of marriage between Jews and non-Jews in Israel is well known. There
is no civil marriage in Israel and "mixed" couples have to get
married abroad. Today's story is special because it takes the issue to a new,
uglier, level. I regard it as yet another indication of the
new phase that Israel has reached!
A Jewish woman and a Muslim man decided
to get married and Jewish racist organizations have called a
demonstration at the hall where they intend to celebrate their wedding
party. The couple have had to hire many guards and have appealed to the
court to rule against the demonstration.The police offered to allow the
demonstration to take place 150 meters from the hall where the party will take
place. Knowing how the Israeli police works in demos - they will, most
likely, cordon off the place with police barriers and create a "sterile
zone" between the demonstrators and celebrators. Every guest will have to
identify themselves to the police! As of this late hour (3.00pm - the
wedding is this evening!) the court has not yet ruled on the case. See the
article in Ha’aretz below:
