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Israeli Knesset plenum votes to investigate human rights groups
(Muzzlewatch) – The folks over at the Reut Institute are either really proud of themselves just about now, or are beginning to be just a little bit alarmed by the openly anti-democratic lengths Israeli legislators are willing to go to shut down what Reut inelegantly calls the “delegitimizers.” (First it’s human rights groups, and then?)
In an almost perfect display of Rumsfeldian logic, the influential Israeli policy institute has been urging and working with the Israeli government and diplomatic corps to crack down on human and civil rights, student and peace groups it insists are delegitimizing Israel. Their crime? Pointing out the government’s self-delegitimizing behavior, such as violating basic human rights standards when it comes to occupied Palestinians, providing limited civil rights to Palestinians inside the green line, or increasingly, throwing the whole concept of Western-style democracy out the window, even when it comes to Jewish Israelis.
If the latest news marks how Reut, the Israeli Foreign Ministry, and their many quasi-proxy organizations in the US plan on rescuing Israel from ever increasing global isolation, may [your higher power of choice here] help us all.
The latest today from Haaretz in Leftist groups: ‘Witch hunt’ against us will destroy democracy in Israel:
(Haaretz) – More than 20 years have passed since I served as president of Ben-Gurion University in Be’er Sheva, but I still take an interest in what’s happening there. So a recent headline in this newspaper caught my eye: “Im Tirtzu threatens Ben-Gurion University with donor boycott” (August 17 ). I asked myself how I would have reacted if I had faced such a predicament as the school’s president. Afterward I heard my colleague, BGU President Rivka Carmi, condemn the threat in a radio interview, but in the next breath she played down the significance of Im Tirtzu’s demand to fire left-leaning professors. Carmi holds the view that the university should ignore the organization and its letter.
I pondered her statements and came to a completely different conclusion: The threat posed by Im Tirtzu does not stand in a vacuum. Israeli society is on the verge of being consumed by a menacing wave of McCarthyism stoked by nationalist movements and publicity-hungry legislators. If we ignore this wave and it’s not stopped immediately, it will endanger – perhaps even destroy – Israeli democracy.
As I stated before, Dutch FP is in the hands of a Likudnik Uri Rosenthal who personally vowed to shut off funds to Palestinian Electronic Intifada.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
