Monday, January 9, 2012

Israeli Democracy in Peril

Perhaps surprisingly, it was Israeli society that more closely resembled its neighbors in 2011. Developments within Israel seemed to predict exciting progress: A tent city sprang up in the center of Tel Aviv, and the J14 social protest movement mobilized some of the largest rallies in Israeli history with a call for greater equality and social investment. But most of the year?plus the start of 2012?has been characterized by the ever more visible fraying of Israeli democracy, as Israel?s lurch toward intolerance, fundamentalism, and xenophobia gathers pace. This phenomenon, unlike the J14 movement, was as much top-down as it was bottom-up. While radical settler youths were uprooting Palestinian olive groves, attacking Israeli progressives, and disabling IDF jeeps, members of the governing coalition in Parliament were advancing legislation to restrict the freedom of Israeli human rights NGOs, trying to prevent Israel?s Palestinian Arab citizens from commemorating their own history , and holding committee hearings on the ?anti-Israeli? activities of the American J Street organization (Likud lawmaker Ofir Akunis actually praised Sen. Joe McCarthy as a role model).

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=4eecfce5354f60b6477ac9b8d9dc05c1

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