Israel's Rightward Lurch Scares Some ConservativesTime: If there were any doubt about the direction in which the government of Israel is headed, another clear marker emerged in the overheated air of a Knesset committee room. On the table was a bill proposed by Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel Is Our Home), the right wing party headed by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman. The measure called for stripping the citizenship of any Israeli convicted of espionage, but the only Israelis under discussion were the country's Arab minority. The move follows a loyalty oath that Lieberman would make a condition for acquiring citizenship; calls for bans on Jews from renting property to Arabs; and street demonstrations demanding prohibitions on dating between Arab boys and Jewish girls...
Shin Bet, the shadowy domestic intelligence body charged with keeping the public safe from terrorism, delicately informed the lawmakers that it had no use for their sledgehammer... When even the secret police suggest that a measure goes too far, elected panels might find occasion to pause. Not the Knesset's Internal Security Committee, which passed the bill before midday...
Taking a page from neighboring authoritarian states, [Prime Minister] Netanyahu encouraged support for the law, appointing a panel to investigate independent organizations that are critical of government actions... Minister without portfolio Benny Begin, the arch-conservative son of Menachim Begin, told Israeli Radio that the measure broke from the conservatism he knew: This decision sends a warning signal -- here is darkness.'
Amnon Dankner, Ma'ariv [from the Hebrew Press translation service of the Israel News (Daily Summary of the Hebrew Media for embassies and journalists]: I have felt lately that it has become shameful to be an Israeli... Because it is fairly clear already that if our life here continues as it has been developing, then decent, moderate, balanced and humane people will not be able to live here...
It is now permissible to be a racist, and permissible to take pride in it, and it is permissible to kick democracy and take pride in that, and it is permissible to cause injustice and exploitation and trample people's rights, if the people in question are Arabs, and it is permissible to take pride in this too...
All the fine things that we say about ourselves, all the correct things that we say about the conflict, shatter in the face of our actions, which join together greed and an appetite for land, arrogance and cruelty and stupidity and malice, and wickedness and discrimination and exploitation of the poor...
For a man of my age... seeing Israeli society quickly changing its face and taking on a form that you never thought you would see outside your nightmares -- that makes the heart shrink. Starting to become ashamed of being an Israeli, and knowing with some degree of certainty that the shame will continue to grow, that is heartrendingly discouraging.
