Richard Silverstein

[Originally posted on this blog on 10/10/13]

The Israel Democracy Institute released its latest Democracy Index (summary and full findings), which I’ve covered here in the past. The findings, as I’ve reported before, confirm that by and large Israelis hold racist views and reject bedrock democratic principles, while believing that their country should be both Jewish and a democracy.

Just under 50% (48.9%) believe Israel should privilege Jewish citizens over non-Jews. Of those, younger Israelis showed an even higher preference for Jewish privilege (65%). 47% of Jews said that in terms of neighbors, their greatest aversion was to having an “Arab” neighbor. The survey, of course, perpetuates this racism by calling Israeli Palestinians by the common Jewish-used term, “Arab.” An even greater proportion, 56% expressed antipathy to having a foreign worker as a neighbor (among whom would be included African refugees). 42% of Palestinian respondents shared an aversion to a Jewish family as neighbors. 44% support policies encouraging Palestinian citizens to emigrate from Israel. This racist policy, known as population transfer, began in the 1970s as a hallmark of the Kahanist movement. But it became mainstream over the years (though the percentage of Israelis supporting it has gradually declined in recent years).

68% of Jews believe only they should be allowed to determine matters of peace and security, while 57% believe this should also hold true for economic matters. 31% (a plurality) believed that only Jews should be permitted to vote on any referendum on the final status of the Occupied Territories. 65% of Israeli Jews believe that Jews are “the chosen people.”

Of those, the majority tend to believe non-Jews should have no role in determining major national policy choices. The older the respondent the less likely they were to believe Jews were chosen. It should go without saying that these views are flagrantly anti-democratic and conflict with the view that most Israeli Jews hold that Israel is and should be democratic.

Richard Silverstein

[Originally posted on this blog on 08/01/14]

Introduction by Gilad Atzmon: The following is a superb article by Richard Silverstein. It explores the history and meaning of the IDF’s Hannibal Directive - an Israeli military protocol designed to prevent IDF soldiers from being captured alive by enemy forces. The directive orders commanders to take necessary measures, including endangering the life of an abducted soldier, to foil a kidnapping. In practice, the Hannibal Directive orders IDF combatants to kill their comrades in a case of abduction.

Silverstein is horrified by the directive and its ethical and legal implications. He also believes that such a homicidal protocol is inconsistent with the Israeli military’s alleged heritage of caring for its soldiers.

But Silverstein’s perspective may be mistaken. It must be noted that military and civil law are distinctively different domains. While civil law serves to protect societal and individual rights, military law serves the system as a whole. This explains, for instance, why collective punishment is common and even acceptable within the context of a military legal discourse. It serves the military’s interests as opposed to the rights of individuals. The amusing adage “military law is to law as military music is to music,” captures the ethical absurdity that is entangled with military Law.

The Hannibal Directive is consistent with Israeli national and military interests. From the point of view of Israel’s strategic interests, a captured soldier entails compromises Israel would prefer to avoid.

M.J. Rosenberg

[Originally posted here on 08/21/14]

The following piece by journalist David Sheen, a Canadian living in Israel since 1999 appears in Religious Dispatches, a blog published by the Annenberg School of Journalism at University of Southern California.

I am sending it out because we need to start paying attention to the ugly racism, including calls for genocide, that have been emanating from within the right wing of the Israeli and the American Jewish community.

We all hear Jews talking about the hate within segments of the Muslim community directed toward Jews. Too few recognize that our ultras are no different. We just ignore them and pretend they don't signify anything about us. They do. And now, suddenly, following the revolting Gaza campaign, genocide is actually being discussed, including by a top Israeli official. We can't ignore this, especially when these threats emanate from the same sector of Jewish and Israeli life that incited the murder of Yitzhak Rabin. These people are our Hamas or maybe our ISIS. We can't pretend they don't exist.

Earlier this week the Times of Israel published a post, written by American Yochanan Gordon, titled “When Genocide is Permissible,” which concludes with the following question:

If political leaders and military experts determine that the only way to achieve its goal of sustaining quiet is through genocide is it then permissible to achieve those responsible goals?

Last week, the man gunning for the top spot at the Anti-Defamation League, New York University senior fellow Thane Rosenbaum, authored an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal legitimizing Israel’s killing of civilians, telling Palestinians in Gaza that, because a plurality of their voting-age population voted for the political wing of Hamas in national elections eight years ago, “you forfeit your right to be called civilians… you have wittingly made yourself targets.”

M.J. Rosenberg

The following piece by journalist David Sheen, a Canadian living in Israel since 1999 appears in Religious Dispatches, a blog published by the Annenberg School of Journalism at University of Southern California.

I am sending it out because we need to start paying attention to the ugly racism, including calls for genocide, that have been emanating from within the right wing of the Israeli and the American Jewish community.

We all hear Jews talking about the hate within segments of the Muslim community directed toward Jews. Too few recognize that our ultras are no different. We just ignore them and pretend they don't signify anything about us. They do. And now, suddenly, following the revolting Gaza campaign, genocide is actually being discussed, including by a top Israeli official. We can't ignore this, especially when these threats emanate from the same sector of Jewish and Israeli life that incited the murder of Yitzhak Rabin. These people are our Hamas or maybe our ISIS. We can't pretend they don't exist.

Earlier this week the Times of Israel published a post, written by American Yochanan Gordon, titled “When Genocide is Permissible,” which concludes with the following question:

If political leaders and military experts determine that the only way to achieve its goal of sustaining quiet is through genocide is it then permissible to achieve those responsible goals?

Richard Silverstein

Introduction by Gilad Atzmon: The following is a superb article by Richard Silverstein. It explores the history and meaning of the IDF’s Hannibal Directive - an Israeli military protocol designed to prevent IDF soldiers from being captured alive by enemy forces. The directive orders commanders to take necessary measures, including endangering the life of an abducted soldier, to foil a kidnapping. In practice, the Hannibal Directive orders IDF combatants to kill their comrades in a case of abduction.

Silverstein is horrified by the directive and its ethical and legal implications. He also believes that such a homicidal protocol is inconsistent with the Israeli military’s alleged heritage of caring for its soldiers.

But Silverstein’s perspective may be mistaken. It must be noted that military and civil law are distinctively different domains. While civil law serves to protect societal and individual rights, military law serves the system as a whole. This explains, for instance, why collective punishment is common and even acceptable within the context of a military legal discourse. It serves the military’s interests as opposed to the rights of individuals. The amusing adage “military law is to law as military music is to music,” captures the ethical absurdity that is entangled with military Law.

The Hannibal Directive is consistent with Israeli national and military interests. From the point of view of Israel’s strategic interests, a captured soldier entails compromises Israel would prefer to avoid.

Silverstein writes, “The Hannibal Directive embraces a fascist perspective in which the individual is subsumed within the mass. He has no specific individual value unless he is serving the interest of the nation. And his interests may, when necessary be sacrificed to the greater good.” Silverstein is addressing the issue from an ethical perspective within the spirit of enlightenment. But Zionism and Jewish nationalism are inherently anti-enlightenment ideologies. Zionism denotes the birth of the ‘Jewish people,’ the idea that every Jew is an integral part of a larger collective with clear tribal interests that outweigh the individual. Accordingly, in an extreme situation, the interests of the tribe are far more important than the individual rights. The Hannibal Directive is a glimpse into the depth of the Jewish collective bond and tribal commitment. It exposes the level of commitment and sacrifice expected of tribal members.

Silverstein identifies the directive as fascist, but he should remember that Zionism predates Fascism and unlike Fascism that was largely defeated, Zionism has so far prevailed.

Richard Silverstein

The Israel Democracy Institute released its latest Democracy Index (summary and full findings), which I’ve covered here in the past. The findings, as I’ve reported before, confirm that by and large Israelis hold racist views and reject bedrock democratic principles, while believing that their country should be both Jewish and a democracy.

Just under 50% (48.9%) believe Israel should privilege Jewish citizens over non-Jews. Of those, younger Israelis showed an even higher preference for Jewish privilege (65%). 47% of Jews said that in terms of neighbors, their greatest aversion was to having an “Arab” neighbor. The survey, of course, perpetuates this racism by calling Israeli Palestinians by the common Jewish-used term, “Arab.” An even greater proportion, 56% expressed antipathy to having a foreign worker as a neighbor (among whom would be included African refugees). 42% of Palestinian respondents shared an aversion to a Jewish family as neighbors.

44% support policies encouraging Palestinian citizens to emigrate from Israel. This racist policy, known as population transfer, began in the 1970s as a hallmark of the Kahanist movement. But it became mainstream over the years (though the percentage of Israelis supporting it has gradually declined in recent years).

Stephen Lendman

After 28 months of conflict, Assad defeated Washington's best laid plans. Its Syrian National Coalition (SNC) opposition lacks effective leadership. It lacks legitimacy. It's an artificial construct. It operates extrajudicially. It resembles a gang that can't shoot straight.

On July 8, another leader resigned. After four months, self-styled prime minister Ghassan Hitto announced he won't "continue in (his) capacity as prime minister tasked with leading the interim government, though (he) emphasize(s he'll) 'continue working for the interests of the revolution and towards achieving its objectives."

Hitto's resignation came two days after SNC members elected Ahmad Asi-al Jarba president. The post's been vacant since Mouaz al-Khatib resigned in April. He cited frustration over lack of enough international support, internal divisions, and disarray among "rebel" factions. Washington hoped he'd become Syria's Hamid Karzai. Maybe Obama has similar aspirations for al-Jarba. Washington's war on Syria's no "revolution." There's nothing civil about it. It's US proxy aggression. Foreign death squad invaders want Islamofacism replacing Syrian sovereignty.

Repeated changing of the guard shows SNC ranks in disarray. Al-Khatib and Hitto couldn't resolve SNC divisions. Don't expect al-Jarba to fare better. Just causes close ranks effectively. Rogue operations feature self-aggrandizing, power-hungry opportunists.

They face overwhelming Syrian opposition. Most Syrians support Assad. They do so for good reason. They alone want to decide who rule them. They deplore outside intervention. Disorganized "rebel" ranks are no match for Syria's superior military. It continues making impressive gains.

Bill Van Auken

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud
Barak at the IDF air base in Hatzerim. (IDF handout, Haaretz)

A leaked memo that surfaced Wednesday provides a detailed blueprint for an unprovoked Israeli war against Iran. The publication of the memo coincides with multiple Israeli media reports indicating that such an attack may be imminent.

The memo was first published by US blogger and journalist Richard Silverstein and was subsequently picked up by the BBC and other media. Silverstein said that the document had been passed by a member of the Israel Defense Forces to a politician, and then on to him. He said it had been prepared for the eight-member Israeli Security Council as part of a bid by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak to convince other members of the government to support an early and unilateral Israeli strike.

The memo posted on Silverstein’s blog, Tikun Olam, states: “The Israeli attack will open with a coordinated strike, including an unprecedented cyber-attack which will totally paralyze the Iranian regime.” The aim is to shut down all communications between the Iranian government and military, leaving the country’s leadership in the dark about what is happening at key installations and bases. Carbon fiber munitions would be employed to shut down the country’s electrical grid.

Meanwhile, “A barrage of tens of ballistic missiles would be launched from Israel toward Iran,” the memo states. These would be fired by Israeli submarines from the Persian Gulf region against Iranian nuclear facilities at Arak, Ishfahan, Fordo and elsewhere. They would be supplemented by “a barrage of hundreds of cruise missiles” aimed at destroying the regime’s command and control capacity and decapitating Iran’s nuclear and missile development program, targeting the “residences of senior personnel.”

These attacks would be followed up by Israeli Air Force warplanes carrying out air strikes against “targets which require further assault.”

Clearly, such an assault would inflict massive civilian casualties while plunging the entire region into chaos.

Kevin Barrett
After America's Blog

There is no worse place to be a dissident than in the USA.

In many countries, people who cross the line in opposing the government risk incarceration, torture, or murder.

Until recently, it was hard for American dissidents to cross that line. If they wanted to get arrested for saying something subversive, mere ideas weren't enough; they would have to actually threaten to physically harm the President or another high official.

But the post-9/11 USA is no longer a beacon of human rights. As former President Jimmy Carter recently wrote in the New York Times, “The United States is abandoning its role as the global champion of human rights.” In his article, Carter points out that top US officials are now openly targeting US citizens for political assassination, “disappearance,” unlimited surveillance, and other forms of gross human rights abuse.

Since we now know that a secret National Security committee is ordering the murder of American citizens, and since we know the CIA has the power to easily simulate deaths from illness and accident, we might as well assume that every time a dissident dies unexpectedly, he or she has been murdered by the US government.

Consider the chilling words of Obama's information czar Cass Sunstein, who openly advocates that the US government should “disable the purveyors of conspiracy theories.” Sunstein's article “Conspiracy Theories: Causes and Cures” argues that “conspiracy theories” (by which he means the 9/11 truth movement) are so dangerous that the government should “cognitively infiltrate” 9/11 truth groups, “disable” those who spread these ideas, and possibly even make the ideas illegal.

Jonathan Cook
Jonathan Cook Blog

Israeli ID card with emblems of Kach and Nazi party superimposed

Mr Netanyahu has created a national unity government that more precisely reflects the majority mood: an unalloyed, aggressive and xenophobic rightwing consensus.

Israelis barely had time to absorb the news that they were heading into a summer election when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday pulled the rug from underneath the charade. Rancourous early electioneering had provided cover for a secret agreement between Mr Netanyahu and the main opposition party, Kadima, to form a new, expanded coalition government.

Rather than facing the electorate in September, Mr Netanyahu is expected to comfortably see out the remaining 18 months of his term of office. Not only that, but he will now have the backing of more than three quarters of the 120-seat Israeli parliament, leading one commentator to crown him yesterday the "king of Israel".

The announcement may have taken Israelis by surprise, but it fully accorded with the logic of an increasingly dysfunctional Israeli political culture.