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Home > Extreme Takeover: Why Many Are Calling Israel's New Government the
'Most Racist' in History
________________________________________
Extreme Takeover: Why Many Are Calling Israel's New Government the 'Most
Racist' in History
By David Sheen [1] / AlterNet [2]
May 24, 2016
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With the announcement that hard-right Avigdor Lieberman would soon use his
powerful position as Minister of Defense in the Israeli cabinet to advance
additional anti-democratic legislation, members of the old Israeli political
establishment could scarcely contain their apprehension. "Lieberman is the
new Kahane [3]," read the title of an op-ed by a former two-time Israeli
minister, a reference to the founding father of Israel's first fascist
party.
"Israel is not a democracy anymore [4]," lamented the former Speaker of the
Knesset, Israel's parliament, at a huge protest in Tel Aviv, the heart of
the Israeli left. At the same mass rally, a liberal lawmaker called the
coalition the "most racist government [5] in Israel's history" and assailed
the leader of the centrist Labor Party for his willingness to work in
partnership with Netanyahu. About 15,000 citizens answered the call of
organizers that night, assembling for a raucous "Emergency march: Standing
up for democracy while we still can."
But that was over five years ago. The former Israeli minister who called
Lieberman the "new Kahane," Yossi Sarid, is now dead. The liberal lawmaker
who named Netanyahu's government the most racist in history, Nitzan
Horowitz, has since retired from parliamentary politics. Today, warnings of
the increasing racism pervading Israeli society and guiding its populist
leaders come not from members of the left-wing Meretz Party, but rather from
decorated Israeli generals, including many notorious for their involvement
in atrocities against Palestinians.
In a Holocaust Memorial Day speech three weeks ago, the Israeli army's
deputy chief of staff warned that the country was beginning to resemble Nazi
Germany [6] in the 1930s. Last week, the army's former chief of staff
resigned his post as defense minister, claiming that the country had been
taken over by extremists [7]. And on the weekend, a third former chief of
staff, defense minister and prime minister responded to this resignation
with the charge that Israel "has been infected by the seeds of fascism. and
it's just the beginning [8]."
That these ominous warnings are emerging from trusted alumni of Israel's
security establishment and not the country's few remaining bleeding heart
liberals demonstrates how the national discourse has shifted to the hard
right, and how the Israeli left has disintegrated into insignificance.
The progressives who organized a protest [9] this past Saturday night
against Lieberman's imminent admission to the coalition only managed to draw
about 300 participants [10]. This figure amounted to only one-50th the size
of the crowd that the Israeli left had fielded in Tel Aviv to demonstrate
against Lieberman's anti-democratic machinations back in January 2011 [11].
Since that time, Israeli citizens have gone to the polls twice more to elect
Knesset representatives, in 2013 and 2015. At each opportunity, people have
voted in a government even more racist than the last. Last week, Netanyahu
announced he would expand his slim coalition by reintroducing Lieberman's
far-right Yisrael Beiteinu party to the government, increasing its racist
quotient even further.
Filmed West Bank shooting put chain of events in motion
In recent years, Netanyahu doubled funding for Jewish-only settlements [12]
in the West Bank, and ordered the demolition [13] of Bedouin villages within
Israel so that Jews-only townships could literally be built atop their
ruins. He rounded thousands of non-Jewish African refugees into desert
detention centers [14] and deported thousands more back to the tortures they
fled from. He launched two separate full-scale [15] attacks on Gaza, killing
over 1,000 civilians, including hundreds of women and children while
reducing much of the territory to ruins.
Despite all of these developments, Israel has continued to enjoy the
enthusiastic backing of its premier patron, the American government. Even
when Netanyahu publicly declared on the eve of the most recent national
election that he opposes [16] the creation of a Palestinian state,
Washington continued ahead with fantastical plans to reignite the long-dead
"peace process."
The Obama administration is now offering to increase U.S. military aid to
Israel from $3 billion a year to a whopping $4 billion a year, but the
signing of the deal has been delayed due to Netanyahu's refusal. Indeed, the
prime minister has demanded that the record figure be increased up to $5
billion a year [17].
If it were not for the intrepid actions of a humble shoemaker two months
ago, grumblings about the government's incessant march to the far right
would still be left to Palestinian activists, their international allies and
progressive Jewish partners who are dismissed by Israeli leaders as
self-haters and worse. As a witness to a horrendous but all too common
scene, the Palestinian resident of the West Bank city of Hebron set off a
chain of events that would remove the mask from the Netanyahu government and
expose the extent of Israel's downward spiral.
On March 24, Imad Abu Shamsiya [18] captured on high-quality video an
Israeli army medic executing in cold blood an injured and immobilized
Palestinian man who presented no physical threat to anyone around him. When
the damning footage Abu Shamsiya had passed on to human rights campaigners
went viral, careening through the foreign media, it exposed a political rift
that has apparently been brewing for some time in the Israeli government.
This past weekend, Aluf Benn, the editor-in-chief of Israeli daily Haaretz,
called the video "the dynamite that blew up the Netanyahu-Yaalon government
[19]."
Israeli reactions to the execution removed the mask of liberalism
During the first 48 hours following the video's release, the incident held
the attention of foreign media outlets. Put on the spot to defend Israel's
undeserved reputation as a democracy that respects human rights, Netanyahu
first condemned the killing [20].
But as global interest dwindled, Netanyahu reversed course, publicly
empathizing with the shooter and his family. The traditional base of
Netanyahu voters began taking to the streets to express solidarity with the
medic, and leaders of Knesset factions to the right of Netanyahu's ruling
Likud party began openly advocating on his behalf. As prominent hawks
demanded amnesty for the medic while their rank-and-file embraced him as a
hero [21], Likud loyalist and Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon resisted the
far-right rhetoric and continued to condemn the medic's actions.
To be sure, Yaalon is not now and has never been a leftist, not by a
longshot. As army chief of staff, he compared Palestinians to a cancer that
must be treated with chemotherapy [22], and as defense minister he supported
segregating West Bank buses [23] by race and religion. Serving in
Netanyahu's cabinet, he called the Israeli anti-settlement activists of
Peace Now a "virus [24]" and accused the army whistleblowers Breaking the
Silence of committing "treason [23]." Worst of all, Yaalon personally
directed Israel's merciless 2014 attack on Gaza, Operation Protective Edge.
How could such a man suddenly find distasteful the execution of a single
Palestinian, especially one who was accused of attacking Israeli soldiers
before he was felled and later killed?
Condemning the medic-executioner enabled Yaalon and other members of
Israel's old guard to profess egalitarian values and portray themselves as
civilized, even while their hands dripped with Palestinian blood. In the
words of Mekomit Magazine analyst Haggai Matar [25], the difference between
the Israeli officials like Lieberman who support the actions of the
medic-executioner and those who oppose his actions like Yaalon is the
following:
"The former already dropped all the masks, the pretension to 'purity of
arms' and 'enlightened occupation', while the latter want to return to the
days in which you could both rule over millions of human beings under a
military regime and also feel like a light unto the nations. To both operate
separate legal systems and send children to the army, to kill and be killed
in the name of the settlements, and for those kids to also not be racist,
heaven forbid. To continue all of that, and to also not be criticized for it
by the international community."
Yaalon eventually came to the defense of the army deputy chief [26] who had
compared rising racism in Israel to Germany in the 1930s and doubled down on
his dissent by encouraging [27] army brass to go public with their ethical
concerns, even if they aren't shared by the government of the day.
To quash internal resistance, Netanyahu announced that he would terminate
Yaalon as Defense Minister and replace him with Lieberman, a far-rightist
whose open hatred of Palestinians and eagerness to expel them from the
country, if not outright execute them, is well-known and well-documented
[28].
Lieberman named Defense Minister-in-waiting, Glick made Member of the
Knesset
Like the rest of the coalition government's non-ultra-Orthodox partners,
Lieberman was a Netanyahu protege who eventually emerged from under his
boss's wing to found his own party, a vehicle for votes that could be
brought under Netanyahu's premiership in exchange for important ministerial
appointments.
When Israelis last went to the polls in the spring of 2015, multiple members
of Lieberman's party were under investigation for using the powerful
positions they had been appointed to for their own economic interests. On
election day, Israeli voters reduced the party's representation in the
Knesset by more than half, from 13 seats to just six. At that time,
Lieberman's weakened hand and damaged image made him a less desirable
political partner. But after just a year on the opposition benches, the
voting pubic seems to have forgotten [29] all about Yisrael Beiteinu's
financial scandals [30].
As a condition for his inclusion, Lieberman has demanded that the government
agree to implement the death penalty [31]-only for Palestinians, never for
Jews. And though his voter base is fiercely secular and often
disenfranchised by religious rules that forbid citizens who aren't
full-blooded Jews from marrying, Lieberman has agreed to forego his civil
marriage bill and give in to Netanyahu's ultra-Orthodox coalition [32]
partners on matters of synagogue and state. Lieberman's arrival will
compound Netanyahu's already anti-Palestinian policies, and it won't slow
down the government's gallop toward religious fanaticism.
An apocalyptic messianist enters government
Yaalon's decision to quit the Knesset altogether means he will be replaced
in parliament by the next legislator on the Likud list: Temple Mount
activist Yehudah Glick, who counts himself a member of the Likud's hardline
"Jewish Leadership [33]" faction. During Israel's 2014 assault on Gaza, the
faction's leader called to ethnically cleanse the strip of Palestinians and
for Jews to recolonize it in its entirety.
But even more frightening than Glick's territorial ambitions are his
dominionist initiatives. In recent years, Glick has been the public face of
a vigorous political campaign to expand Jewish access to the al-Aqsa mosque
compound, considered the holiest site in Islam after Mecca and Medina, and
the last place in the country which is still nominally controlled by
Muslims. Glick skillfully depicts this demand as a modest push for Jewish
prayer rights, while he passionately preaches for a Jewish temple to be
built on the hallowed ground and for daily animal sacrifices to replace
those Jewish prayers.
While mainstream Orthodox Judaism holds that the construction of a Jewish
temple on that same site where another Israelite temple existed 2,000 years
ago can only follow from an act of god, radical messianists hope to
jumpstart that process. In recent years, Glick has worked with Miri Regev, a
right-wing stalwart who currently serves as Culture Minister, and many more
hardline lawmakers [34] to increase the Jewish presence on the mosque
compound, hoping to create a critical mass of support for a plan to apply
full Jewish control over the site.
The constant forays by Glick and his followers into the Al Aqsa compound,
usually under the guard of Border Police who restrain and attack Palestinian
protesters, has helped bring tensions in Jerusalem to a boiling point and
played a critical role [35] in inspiring the ongoing Palestinian rebellion.
While Israel's deposed Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon was neither a friend of
Palestinians nor a partner for peace, his departure signals the end of an
era in which Israeli leaders could have at least been expected to mouth
platitudes about the military's moral code. Now Netanyahu must contend with
his new coalition members, from the demagogic Lieberman to the zealot Glick.
Just before his swearing in as a new member of Knesset, Glick took another
trip [36] to the Al Aqsa compound. In a private meeting, Netanyahu pulled
Glick aside to express his anxiety: "This is the last time you do this to
me," the prime minister exclaimed.
David Sheen is an independent journalist and filmmaker. His website is
www.davidsheen.com [37] and he tweets from @davidsheen [38].
Share on Facebook Share
Share on Twitter Tweet
Report typos and corrections to 'corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx'. [39]
[40]
________________________________________
Source URL:
http://www.alternet.org/grayzone-project/israels-government-just-became-more
-extreme-ever
Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/david-sheen
[2] http://alternet.org
[3] http://www.haaretz.com/lieberman-is-the-new-kahane-1.336296
[4]
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jan/16/thousands-israelis-rally-rights
-organisations
[5]
http://972mag.com/tel-aviv-sees-largest-leftwing-demonstration-in-years/8655
/
[6]
http://www.alternet.org/grayzone-project/holocaust-remembrance-day-israel-ar
my-deputy-chief-warns-israeli-society-exhibiting
[7] http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.720653
[8] http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.720715
[9]
http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Hundreds-protest-new-government-deal-in-Tel
-Aviv-454594
[10] http://twitter.com/mekomit/status/734091247044952065
[11] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hj5sdG0pNcQ
[12]
http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/netanyahu-s-government-has-quietly-double
d-funding-for-settlements-says-finance-minister-1.477204
[13]
http://972mag.com/bedouin-village-in-negev-to-be-destroyed-jewish-settlement
-to-be-built-on-site/56875/
[14]
http://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20150420-israels-abuse-of-african-refugees-
exposes-zionisms-xenophobia/
[15] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Israel%E2%80%93Gaza_conflict
[16] http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/elections/1.647212
[17] http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.720959
[18]
http://mondoweiss.net/2016/03/video-meet-the-brave-shoemaker-who-filmed-isra
eli-soldier-executing-a-palestinian/
[19] http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.720572
[20]
http://www.alternet.org/grayzone-project/watch-israelis-rally-soldier-who-ex
ecuted-palestinian-rage-netanyahu-not-cheering
[21]
https://electronicintifada.net/content/video-inside-tel-avivs-death-arabs-ra
lly/16411
[22] http://www.haaretz.com/the-enemy-within-1.35604
[23] http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.710073
[24] http://www.haaretz.com/vice-pm-ya-alon-peace-now-is-virus-1.282283
[25] http://bit.ly/1TjuSKq
[26] http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.718043
[27] http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.719747
[28]
http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/05/18/five-things-you-need-to-know-about-israe
ls-new-putin-loving-defense-minister/
[29] http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=33803
[30] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vObdmTR1-YQ
[31] http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.720896
[32] http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.721076
[33] http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.720805
[34]
http://mondoweiss.net/2016/02/when-i-have-the-opportunity-to-do-it-i-will-li
kud-lawmaker-vows-to-demolish-al-aqsa-mosque/
[35]
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/09/al-aqsa-tensions-trigger-clashes-west-
bank-150929130038368.html
[36]
http://www.timesofisrael.com/pm-chides-incoming-mk-glick-for-temple-mount-vi
sit/
[37] http://www.davidsheen.com/
[38] http://www.twitter.com/davidsheen
[39] mailto:corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx?Subject=Typo on Extreme Takeover: Why
Many Are Calling Israel's New Government the 'Most Racist' in
History
[40] http://www.alternet.org/
[41] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
Home > Extreme Takeover: Why Many Are Calling Israel's New Government the
'Most Racist' in History
Extreme Takeover: Why Many Are Calling Israel's New Government the 'Most
Racist' in History
By David Sheen [1] / AlterNet [2]
May 24, 2016
AddThis Sharing ButtonsShare to FacebookShare to TwitterShare to Google+More
AddThis Share optionsShare to Email
With the announcement that hard-right Avigdor Lieberman would soon use his
powerful position as Minister of Defense in the Israeli cabinet to advance
additional anti-democratic legislation, members of the old Israeli political
establishment could scarcely contain their apprehension. "Lieberman is the
new Kahane [3]," read the title of an op-ed by a former two-time Israeli
minister, a reference to the founding father of Israel's first fascist
party.
"Israel is not a democracy anymore [4]," lamented the former Speaker of the
Knesset, Israel's parliament, at a huge protest in Tel Aviv, the heart of
the Israeli left. At the same mass rally, a liberal lawmaker called the
coalition the "most racist government [5] in Israel's history" and assailed
the leader of the centrist Labor Party for his willingness to work in
partnership with Netanyahu. About 15,000 citizens answered the call of
organizers that night, assembling for a raucous "Emergency march: Standing
up for democracy while we still can."
But that was over five years ago. The former Israeli minister who called
Lieberman the "new Kahane," Yossi Sarid, is now dead. The liberal lawmaker
who named Netanyahu's government the most racist in history, Nitzan
Horowitz, has since retired from parliamentary politics. Today, warnings of
the increasing racism pervading Israeli society and guiding its populist
leaders come not from members of the left-wing Meretz Party, but rather from
decorated Israeli generals, including many notorious for their involvement
in atrocities against Palestinians.
In a Holocaust Memorial Day speech three weeks ago, the Israeli army's
deputy chief of staff warned that the country was beginning to resemble Nazi
Germany [6] in the 1930s. Last week, the army's former chief of staff
resigned his post as defense minister, claiming that the country had been
taken over by extremists [7]. And on the weekend, a third former chief of
staff, defense minister and prime minister responded to this resignation
with the charge that Israel "has been infected by the seeds of fascism. and
it's just the beginning [8]."
That these ominous warnings are emerging from trusted alumni of Israel's
security establishment and not the country's few remaining bleeding heart
liberals demonstrates how the national discourse has shifted to the hard
right, and how the Israeli left has disintegrated into insignificance.
The progressives who organized a protest [9] this past Saturday night
against Lieberman's imminent admission to the coalition only managed to draw
about 300 participants [10]. This figure amounted to only one-50th the size
of the crowd that the Israeli left had fielded in Tel Aviv to demonstrate
against Lieberman's anti-democratic machinations back in January 2011 [11].
Since that time, Israeli citizens have gone to the polls twice more to elect
Knesset representatives, in 2013 and 2015. At each opportunity, people have
voted in a government even more racist than the last. Last week, Netanyahu
announced he would expand his slim coalition by reintroducing Lieberman's
far-right Yisrael Beiteinu party to the government, increasing its racist
quotient even further.
Filmed West Bank shooting put chain of events in motion
In recent years, Netanyahu doubled funding for Jewish-only settlements [12]
in the West Bank, and ordered the demolition [13] of Bedouin villages within
Israel so that Jews-only townships could literally be built atop their
ruins. He rounded thousands of non-Jewish African refugees into desert
detention centers [14] and deported thousands more back to the tortures they
fled from. He launched two separate full-scale [15] attacks on Gaza, killing
over 1,000 civilians, including hundreds of women and children while
reducing much of the territory to ruins.
Despite all of these developments, Israel has continued to enjoy the
enthusiastic backing of its premier patron, the American government. Even
when Netanyahu publicly declared on the eve of the most recent national
election that he opposes [16] the creation of a Palestinian state,
Washington continued ahead with fantastical plans to reignite the long-dead
"peace process."
The Obama administration is now offering to increase U.S. military aid to
Israel from $3 billion a year to a whopping $4 billion a year, but the
signing of the deal has been delayed due to Netanyahu's refusal. Indeed, the
prime minister has demanded that the record figure be increased up to $5
billion a year [17].
If it were not for the intrepid actions of a humble shoemaker two months
ago, grumblings about the government's incessant march to the far right
would still be left to Palestinian activists, their international allies and
progressive Jewish partners who are dismissed by Israeli leaders as
self-haters and worse. As a witness to a horrendous but all too common
scene, the Palestinian resident of the West Bank city of Hebron set off a
chain of events that would remove the mask from the Netanyahu government and
expose the extent of Israel's downward spiral.
On March 24, Imad Abu Shamsiya [18] captured on high-quality video an
Israeli army medic executing in cold blood an injured and immobilized
Palestinian man who presented no physical threat to anyone around him. When
the damning footage Abu Shamsiya had passed on to human rights campaigners
went viral, careening through the foreign media, it exposed a political rift
that has apparently been brewing for some time in the Israeli government.
This past weekend, Aluf Benn, the editor-in-chief of Israeli daily Haaretz,
called the video "the dynamite that blew up the Netanyahu-Yaalon government
[19]."
Israeli reactions to the execution removed the mask of liberalism
During the first 48 hours following the video's release, the incident held
the attention of foreign media outlets. Put on the spot to defend Israel's
undeserved reputation as a democracy that respects human rights, Netanyahu
first condemned the killing [20].
But as global interest dwindled, Netanyahu reversed course, publicly
empathizing with the shooter and his family. The traditional base of
Netanyahu voters began taking to the streets to express solidarity with the
medic, and leaders of Knesset factions to the right of Netanyahu's ruling
Likud party began openly advocating on his behalf. As prominent hawks
demanded amnesty for the medic while their rank-and-file embraced him as a
hero [21], Likud loyalist and Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon resisted the
far-right rhetoric and continued to condemn the medic's actions.
To be sure, Yaalon is not now and has never been a leftist, not by a
longshot. As army chief of staff, he compared Palestinians to a cancer that
must be treated with chemotherapy [22], and as defense minister he supported
segregating West Bank buses [23] by race and religion. Serving in
Netanyahu's cabinet, he called the Israeli anti-settlement activists of
Peace Now a "virus [24]" and accused the army whistleblowers Breaking the
Silence of committing "treason [23]." Worst of all, Yaalon personally
directed Israel's merciless 2014 attack on Gaza, Operation Protective Edge.
How could such a man suddenly find distasteful the execution of a single
Palestinian, especially one who was accused of attacking Israeli soldiers
before he was felled and later killed?
Condemning the medic-executioner enabled Yaalon and other members of
Israel's old guard to profess egalitarian values and portray themselves as
civilized, even while their hands dripped with Palestinian blood. In the
words of Mekomit Magazine analyst Haggai Matar [25], the difference between
the Israeli officials like Lieberman who support the actions of the
medic-executioner and those who oppose his actions like Yaalon is the
following:
"The former already dropped all the masks, the pretension to 'purity of
arms' and 'enlightened occupation', while the latter want to return to the
days in which you could both rule over millions of human beings under a
military regime and also feel like a light unto the nations. To both operate
separate legal systems and send children to the army, to kill and be killed
in the name of the settlements, and for those kids to also not be racist,
heaven forbid. To continue all of that, and to also not be criticized for it
by the international community."
Yaalon eventually came to the defense of the army deputy chief [26] who had
compared rising racism in Israel to Germany in the 1930s and doubled down on
his dissent by encouraging [27] army brass to go public with their ethical
concerns, even if they aren't shared by the government of the day.
To quash internal resistance, Netanyahu announced that he would terminate
Yaalon as Defense Minister and replace him with Lieberman, a far-rightist
whose open hatred of Palestinians and eagerness to expel them from the
country, if not outright execute them, is well-known and well-documented
[28].
Lieberman named Defense Minister-in-waiting, Glick made Member of the
Knesset
Like the rest of the coalition government's non-ultra-Orthodox partners,
Lieberman was a Netanyahu protege who eventually emerged from under his
boss's wing to found his own party, a vehicle for votes that could be
brought under Netanyahu's premiership in exchange for important ministerial
appointments.
When Israelis last went to the polls in the spring of 2015, multiple members
of Lieberman's party were under investigation for using the powerful
positions they had been appointed to for their own economic interests. On
election day, Israeli voters reduced the party's representation in the
Knesset by more than half, from 13 seats to just six. At that time,
Lieberman's weakened hand and damaged image made him a less desirable
political partner. But after just a year on the opposition benches, the
voting pubic seems to have forgotten [29] all about Yisrael Beiteinu's
financial scandals [30].
As a condition for his inclusion, Lieberman has demanded that the government
agree to implement the death penalty [31]-only for Palestinians, never for
Jews. And though his voter base is fiercely secular and often
disenfranchised by religious rules that forbid citizens who aren't
full-blooded Jews from marrying, Lieberman has agreed to forego his civil
marriage bill and give in to Netanyahu's ultra-Orthodox coalition [32]
partners on matters of synagogue and state. Lieberman's arrival will
compound Netanyahu's already anti-Palestinian policies, and it won't slow
down the government's gallop toward religious fanaticism.
An apocalyptic messianist enters government
Yaalon's decision to quit the Knesset altogether means he will be replaced
in parliament by the next legislator on the Likud list: Temple Mount
activist Yehudah Glick, who counts himself a member of the Likud's hardline
"Jewish Leadership [33]" faction. During Israel's 2014 assault on Gaza, the
faction's leader called to ethnically cleanse the strip of Palestinians and
for Jews to recolonize it in its entirety.
But even more frightening than Glick's territorial ambitions are his
dominionist initiatives. In recent years, Glick has been the public face of
a vigorous political campaign to expand Jewish access to the al-Aqsa mosque
compound, considered the holiest site in Islam after Mecca and Medina, and
the last place in the country which is still nominally controlled by
Muslims. Glick skillfully depicts this demand as a modest push for Jewish
prayer rights, while he passionately preaches for a Jewish temple to be
built on the hallowed ground and for daily animal sacrifices to replace
those Jewish prayers.
While mainstream Orthodox Judaism holds that the construction of a Jewish
temple on that same site where another Israelite temple existed 2,000 years
ago can only follow from an act of god, radical messianists hope to
jumpstart that process. In recent years, Glick has worked with Miri Regev, a
right-wing stalwart who currently serves as Culture Minister, and many more
hardline lawmakers [34] to increase the Jewish presence on the mosque
compound, hoping to create a critical mass of support for a plan to apply
full Jewish control over the site.
The constant forays by Glick and his followers into the Al Aqsa compound,
usually under the guard of Border Police who restrain and attack Palestinian
protesters, has helped bring tensions in Jerusalem to a boiling point and
played a critical role [35] in inspiring the ongoing Palestinian rebellion.
While Israel's deposed Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon was neither a friend of
Palestinians nor a partner for peace, his departure signals the end of an
era in which Israeli leaders could have at least been expected to mouth
platitudes about the military's moral code. Now Netanyahu must contend with
his new coalition members, from the demagogic Lieberman to the zealot Glick.
Just before his swearing in as a new member of Knesset, Glick took another
trip [36] to the Al Aqsa compound. In a private meeting, Netanyahu pulled
Glick aside to express his anxiety: "This is the last time you do this to
me," the prime minister exclaimed.
David Sheen is an independent journalist and filmmaker. His website is
www.davidsheen.com [37] and he tweets from @davidsheen [38].
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
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Report typos and corrections to 'corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx'. [39]
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Source URL:
http://www.alternet.org/grayzone-project/israels-government-just-became-more
-extreme-ever
Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/david-sheen
[2] http://alternet.org
[3] http://www.haaretz.com/lieberman-is-the-new-kahane-1.336296
[4]
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jan/16/thousands-israelis-rally-rights
-organisations
[5]
http://972mag.com/tel-aviv-sees-largest-leftwing-demonstration-in-years/8655
/
[6]
http://www.alternet.org/grayzone-project/holocaust-remembrance-day-israel-ar
my-deputy-chief-warns-israeli-society-exhibiting
[7] http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.720653
[8] http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.720715
[9]
http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Hundreds-protest-new-government-deal-in-Tel
-Aviv-454594
[10] http://twitter.com/mekomit/status/734091247044952065
[11] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hj5sdG0pNcQ
[12]
http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/netanyahu-s-government-has-quietly-double
d-funding-for-settlements-says-finance-minister-1.477204
[13]
http://972mag.com/bedouin-village-in-negev-to-be-destroyed-jewish-settlement
-to-be-built-on-site/56875/
[14]
http://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20150420-israels-abuse-of-african-refugees-
exposes-zionisms-xenophobia/
[15] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Israel%E2%80%93Gaza_conflict
[16] http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/elections/1.647212
[17] http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.720959
[18]
http://mondoweiss.net/2016/03/video-meet-the-brave-shoemaker-who-filmed-isra
eli-soldier-executing-a-palestinian/
[19] http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.720572
[20]
http://www.alternet.org/grayzone-project/watch-israelis-rally-soldier-who-ex
ecuted-palestinian-rage-netanyahu-not-cheering
[21]
https://electronicintifada.net/content/video-inside-tel-avivs-death-arabs-ra
lly/16411
[22] http://www.haaretz.com/the-enemy-within-1.35604
[23] http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.710073
[24] http://www.haaretz.com/vice-pm-ya-alon-peace-now-is-virus-1.282283
[25] http://bit.ly/1TjuSKq
[26] http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.718043
[27] http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.719747
[28]
http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/05/18/five-things-you-need-to-know-about-israe
ls-new-putin-loving-defense-minister/
[29] http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=33803
[30] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vObdmTR1-YQ
[31] http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.720896
[32] http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.721076
[33] http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.720805
[34]
http://mondoweiss.net/2016/02/when-i-have-the-opportunity-to-do-it-i-will-li
kud-lawmaker-vows-to-demolish-al-aqsa-mosque/
[35]
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/09/al-aqsa-tensions-trigger-clashes-west-
bank-150929130038368.html
[36]
http://www.timesofisrael.com/pm-chides-incoming-mk-glick-for-temple-mount-vi
sit/
[37] http://www.davidsheen.com/
[38] http://www.twitter.com/davidsheen
[39] mailto:corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx?Subject=Typo on Extreme Takeover: Why
Many Are Calling Israel's New Government the 'Most Racist' in
History
[40] http://www.alternet.org/
[41] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
