Zionist Camp reveals its true, racist face
The party that some hoped would defend Israeli democracy from attacks by the right wing has now joined the assault.
By Gideon Levy
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Shimon
Peres is back, his name is Isaac Herzog. The evil wind of Mapai is also
back, it’s called Zionist Camp. Appease, appease, appease everyone; set
your sights on the right, only on the right, emulate it, stay away from
any courageous step. Sometimes one unfortunate decision is enough to
learn how the whole thing works. In the case of Zionist Camp it’s the
decision to support the disqualification of MK Haneen Zoabi (Joint List)
from running for the Knesset. With a left like this, we don’t need
Yisrael Beiteinu chairman Avigdor Lieberman anymore; Likud’s Yariv Levin
will do just fine.
The
only hope that Zionist Camp had managed to create was that at least it
would stop the crushing of democracy by the right wing. People like
Herzog, MKs Tzipi Livni, Shelly Yacimovich, Merav Michaeli and Stav
Shaffir know a thing or two about the dangers to democracy that lurk
here. They also know that democracy’s real test is in its attitude to
the Arabs and the radical left. Now this last hope has been dashed.
If
Zionist Camp disqualifies Zoabi, a brave, authentic and legitimate
candidate who hasn’t hurt a fly and who reflects the views of her
voters, the Arabs of Israel and lovers of democracy will know: On this
issue too, there is no difference between the right wing and this left
wing. After Herzog announced that “in the war on terror there is no
difference,” now there’s no difference in the war on “Zoabis.” So what
do we have this whole camp for? For Manuel Trajtenberg [the economist
identified with the 2011 social protests, now on the Zionist Camp
ticket]?
The
first thing the Arabs of Israel and their representatives in the
Knesset must conclude is: No cooperation with Zionist Camp, not during
the election and not after it. No voting for it and no recommending to
the president that Herzog form the next government. Herzog signed the
divorce decree himself, having already announced the exclusion of Joint
List from his government. He has to pay the price.
But
in its decision, Zionist Camp proved something much deeper and more
significant: In Israel of 2015, Zionism and democracy cannot go hand in
hand; there is an inner contradiction, inherent and unavoidable, between
contemporary Zionism and the rights of Israel’s Arab minority, and
there is of course also a deep contradiction between “Jewish” and
“democratic.”
From
that point of view, Zionist Camp has made a great contribution to the
truth: There is no such thing as “Jewish” and “democratic.” In its
decision, Zionist Camp has chosen “Jewish” at the expense of
“democratic”: Zionist Camp knows that behind the decision to disqualify
Zoabi is the transparent desire to remove all the “Zoabis” from the
Knesset. There is no such thing as a democracy, where elected officials
are prohibited from criticizing, as Zoabi is accused of doing, a member
of their own people for serving in a police force that kills other
members of their people.
But
a party that has chosen to call itself “Zionist Camp,” spitting in the
face of the Arabs, some of whom supported it in the past, cannot but
back the disqualification of an individual who threatens the Zionist
order and challenges Jewish privileges in a distorted democracy. Zoabi
should be disqualified, according to Herzog-Livni, because she endangers
the tottering ideological structure on which their camp relies, which
offers no solution to the Palestinian problem nor an answer for the
Arabs of Israel. This camp knows only how to trick and mislead, in the
best of its tradition. Livni wants to reach a settlement, but only to
realize her dream of a Jewish state, a nationalist dream in every sense
of the word. And Herzog only wants more negotiations, so there will be
peace and quiet.
Aware
of the slight damage the Zionist Camp could incur, it hastened to
“balance” its decision: It will also support disqualification of
ultra-right-winger Baruch Marzel. This preposterous balance, so typical,
is even worse in its hypocrisy. The serial criminal, the violent,
convicted thug is to the Zionist Camp comparable to Zoabi, who has never
been convicted of anything. But trust Zionist Camp and the Arab
sycophants. Soon enough we’ll certainly see Herzog and Livni touring the
Arab communities, eating knafeh, having photo ops with kafiyyeh-wearers
and uttering pithy slogans about democracy, peace and equality.
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