Only after the world runs out of patience with Israel will the public here demand change.
By LARRY DERFNERpeace now settlement rally 311(photo credit: MELANIE LIDMAN)
As the late, great V.I. Lenin said, the worse things get, the better they get. (Or did Mao say that?)Anyway, it’s all good. The anti-boycott law, the Nakba law, the loyalty oath(s), the hometown ethnic purity law, the Cuban-missile-crisis reaction to the flotillas – that’s what we want to see. This week, the Knesset’s going to vote to summon left-wing NGOs for public interrogation? Can’t wait.Keep it up, National Camp. Let your imagination run wild. Let the little Big Brother in you come out and play. Outlaw everything you ever dreamed of outlawing. Don’t be shy; go after thought-crime. Do your worst – please.This country has long since passed the point where it could be changed from within, when the balance of political forces here would keep the extremists in line – when the Right would be balanced out, more or less, by the Left.Forget it. Long gone. For the last five years, ever since Israel’s two successful moves of the 21st century – the withdrawal from Lebanon and disengagement from Gaza – were discredited in the public’s mind by the Kassams, the kidnapping of Gilad Schalit and the Second Lebanon War, there’s no balance.There’s no Right and Left anymore, only a Right and a Further Right, and they’ve taken Israeli politics down a one-way street.Inevitably, things have gotten pretty freaky around here. This latest law to penalize Israelis for supporting the boycott of the settlements was opposed by all of organized American Jewry, even Morton Klein, leader of its hawkish, Republican wing.So chalk up another win for the Further Right, which includes Bibi Netanyahu, who took credit for this atrocity. They’re on a roll; the antiboycott law and Glenn Beck in Knesset on the same day! What will they do for an encore? “After it approved the ‘Boycott Bill,’ I believe the Knesset will vote in favor of forming investigative committees that will close the loopholes in the law which allow extremists to harm the State of Israel,” said the Likud’s would-be grand inquisitor Danny Danon.I hope the Knesset Un-Israeli Activities Committee is formed, I hope it subpoenas every organization that ever got a shekel from the New Israel Fund, and when these organizations refuse to appear, I hope Danon sends the cops after their leaders.I hope thousands of lawsuits are filed against all the people coming out of the woodwork now and calling for a boycott of the settlements. (I’ve written against the boycott, but the anti-boycott law is giving me second thoughts.)
And while I was reassured at first that the Supreme Court would grant the many appeals being filed and throw this newest abominable law out, an oped by Yossi Gurvitz on the 972+ blog changed my mind. Describing the Supreme Court as the nation’s “fig leaf” before the world, Gurvitz wrote: “We should not go to the courts unless forced to – thus allowing Israel to be seen for what it is.”Amen. Let the majority’s will be done without any more interference from these ivory tower leftists in their robes.Let the anti-boycott law stand. Let them sue everyone in Peace Now and all the other organizations that support the boycott of settlements. Here, I’ve changed my tune – boycott the settlements! Sue me, too.It’s a great law, let’s use it. Let’s sue Safed Chief Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, along with the chief rabbis of Herzliya, Ra’anana, Rishon Lezion, Ashdod, Ashkelon and about 300 other rabbis, all of whom are promoting the boycott of gentiles trying to rent apartments from Jews. I’m sure that if the anti-boycott hasn’t been written in a way to protect these rabbis, it will be amended for that purpose – and that would also be good.Anything that’s bad is good. Each new crude, totalitarian-minded act makes Israel look that much worse to the democratic world, which brings the democratic world that much closer to running out of patience with this country, with what it’s become, with what it’s doing.Only when the democratic world runs out of patience with Israel will the public here demand change – out of fear of being ostracized.Until then, bring it on, National Campers. And to my comrades on the Left: No more fig leaves for this country, no more running to the Supreme Court. It’s too late for that, Israel is too far gone. This is not a time for checks and balances; it’s a time for polarization.The writer blogs at Israel Reconsidered (www.israelleft.com).
