I don’t like to bandy about labels. But after reading this article in Ha’aretz about the rising popularity of Lieberman among Israeli youth, I don’t hesitate to express my concern about the growth of fascism in Israel [Fascism: a political philosophy, movement, or regime that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition]:
Sergei Leibliyanich, a senior, draws a connection between the preparation for military service in school and student support for the right: “It gives us motivation against the Arabs. You want to enlist in the army so you can stick it to them. The preparation gives you the motivation to stick it to the Arabs and we want to elect someone who’ll do that. I like Lieberman’s thinking about the Arabs. Bibi [Benjamin Netanyahu] doesn’t want to go as far.”
“Israeli Arabs don’t support the state and yet they receive money and a seat in the Knesset,” says 11th-grader Nicole Parnasa. “Serious measures need to be taken to make them aware of what they’re doing. Someone who doesn’t declare his loyalty to the state, who has no patriotism, should have his citizenship taken away. Anyone who’s against the operation in Gaza, for example – that’s a kind of disloyalty. Anyone who burns the flag, that’s disloyalty. The military operation was for the sake of the country, after we kept quiet for eight years, so now they don’t support it?”
“This country has needed a dictatorship for a long time already. But I’m not talking about an extreme dictatorship. We need someone who can put things in order. Lieberman is the only one who speaks the truth.” Adds Edan Ivanov, an 18 year old who describes himself as being “up on current events”:
“We’ve had enough here with the ‘leftist democracy’ – and I put that term in quotes, don’t get me wrong. People have put the dictator label on Lieberman because of the things he says. But the truth is that in Israel there can’t be a full democracy when there are Arabs here who oppose it.
I strongly opposed the banning of Kahane’s party Kach in 1992. It’s akin to a parent who sees his children fighting and slaps one of them while saying “don’t hit your brother!” If one truly believes in democracy then one has to let parties like Kach run, no matter how repugnant their platform. Besides, banning a party doesn’t destroy the ideology, just as killing a man does not destroy his ideas. Kahane still lives, and his name is Avigdor Lieberman. Yisrael Beiteinu is Kach without the yarmulkes.
Over the years, Kahane’s ideas grew in popularity and found more and more widespread support in Israel. Six years ago I wrote this piece on the comments of former chief “Bogie” Ya’alon. Besides portraying my encounters with Kahane and his ideas, you can find Ya’alon’s now famous words:
Ya’alon: “The characteristics of that threat are invisible, like cancer. When you are attacked externally, you see the attack, you are wounded. Cancer, on the other hand, is something internal. Therefore, I find it more disturbing, because here the diagnosis is critical. If the diagnosis is wrong and people say it’s not cancer but a headache, then the response is irrelevant. But I maintain that it is cancer. My professional diagnosis is that there is a phenomenon here that constitutes an existential threat.”
Haaretz: “Does that mean that what you are doing now, as chief of staff, in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, is applying chemotherapy?”
Ya’alon:”There are all kinds of solutions to cancerous manifestations. Some will say it is necessary to amputate organs. But at the moment, I am applying chemotherapy, yes.”
His successor, Dan Halutz of the Shehada incident, famously said:
[Interviewer] A pilot drops a bomb. A bomb kills people – sometimes those he planned to kill, sometimes not. Isn’t it legitimate to ask a pilot what he feels after he releases the bomb? Can we expect him to ask himself that question, and is it in fact asked in the IAF?
[Halutz] “No. That is not a legitimate question and it is not asked. But if you nevertheless want to know what I feel when I release a bomb, I will tell you: I feel a light bump to the plane as a result of the bomb’s release. A second later it’s gone, and that’s all. That is what I feel.
In the same interview, he called for those who criticized the IDF to be tried for treason:
“What I said to the pilots then, I say again here. All those people who talked about a flagrantly illegal order and threatened to hand over the pilots to the court in The Hague have simply gone off the rails, in my opinion,” he says. “Is this the public for which the Israel Defense Forces is fighting day in and day out? All those bleeding hearts who have the gall to use Mafioso methods of blackmail against fighters – I don’t recall that they ever threatened to turn over one of the arch-terrorists, the terrorists who have killed many Israeli civilians, to The Hague. What I have to say about those people is that this is a democracy, where everyone can always express his opinion. But not to be a traitor.”
Are you suggesting that members of the Gush Shalom (Peace Bloc) group who made those comments should be placed on trial for treason?
Halutz: “We have to find the right clause in the law and place them on trial in Israel. Yes. You wanted to talk to me about morality, and I say that a state that does not protect itself is acting immorally. A state that does not back up its fighters will not survive. Happily, the State of Israel does back up its fighters. This vocal but negligible minority brings to mind dark times in the history of the Jewish people, when a minority among us went and informed on another part of the nation. That must not happen again.
When the heads of the Israeli army spout such ideas, is it any surprise that the youth of the country, who are indoctrinated into believing that service in the army is the highest value and achievement, are attracted to a party based on an ultra-nationalist, militarist ideology? Is it any surprise that they see anyone who disagrees with the actions of the state as traitors? Is it any surprise that Lieberman, himself once a member of Kach, will soon head the third largest party in the Israeli parliament?
Tags: Feature, Israeli Army, Israeli Politics, Xenophobia