What is Israel`s "democracy" ?

international | anti-war / imperialism | opinion/analysis Thursday July 31, 2003 18:36 by Séamus

What has been going on in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian West Bank and Gaza Strip is not only overtly tragic and deadly by all counts but is covertly an embodiment of Israel`s unique "democracy". Thanks to this unprecedented democracy, the entire Palestinian territories have been converted into a big prison where the sufferings of the Palestinian people are unbearable.

So far, more than 3000 Palestinians have been killed, about 45,000 injured and over 10,000 arrested since the Palestinian Intifada started in September 2000 following the provocative visit by Ariel Sharon to the holy al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied Jerusalem. Since then, Israel`s acts of mass genocide and brutal destruction have been at full swing against the Palestinian people. The anti-Palestinian bloodshed and destruction, maintained under the alleged banners of "combating terrorism", protecting Israel`s "security" and establishing "peace" continued unabated. Israel`s criminal and brutal acts were seen growing to make best use of the consequences of the US invasion and occupation of Iraq. ‏

The whole tragic state of affairs is the direct product of Israel`s "democracy" which is embodied in those criminal and inhuman acts against the Palestinians just because they want to resist the ugly occupation of a "democratic" state, to defend their own land and to achieve freedom and independence. This is virtually an integral part of Israel`s "alleged" democracy. This very democracy has been breeding terrorism and violence and successively producing racist and extremist Israeli leaders whose main pre-occupation is to perpetuate occupation and aggression, to expel -if not wipe out- the native Palestinian people and to set up a purely Jewish "Eretz Yisrael" state extending from the Nile to the Euphrates in the very heart of the Arab region. The "Jewish state" in the racist sense was explicitly expressed by US President George W. Bush and Israel`s Prime Minister Ariel Sharon during the recent summit in Jordan`s Aqaba. ‏

Premier Sharon, the well-known butcher and war criminal, topped the list of those racist and extremist leaders as he won the last "democratic" Israeli elections which were an embodiment of racism and extremism in Israel. Israel`s democracy continues to maintain anti-peace drive, support ultra-right Jewish groups, back racist settlers, terrorize the indigenous Palestinians and silence even Israeli pro-peace activists. ‏

Nevertheless, the Israeli Zionists and their backers continued blatantly to describe Israel`s ruling system as democratic, parliamentary and politically pluralist. They continue to allege it is the only democratic system in the region and it is unique in its social equality maintained among categories of the Israeli society. But the course of events has irrefutably shown that the Israeli "state" is a system of a racist and settler barrack whose main function is to militarize the entire society, change it into a complete settler entity and attain expansion and hegemony. Reference should be made to the fact that the constitution of this state (and its borders) are still not fixed with a view to making the implementation of the expansionist project open and to validating its racist nature. The so-called democratic and pluralist course ran in the direction of bringing Jews from different corners of the world and settling them in Arab Palestine. Relative representation and voting for lists of certain political parties is to make power sustainable in the hand of leaders of those parties, namely the Likud and the Labour. Those two rival and biggest parties, which belong to the same ideology of the Zionist project and represent two faces of the same coin, have been sharing power in Israel for more than three decades ago. ‏

Such democratic system moreover cannot hide its racist nature especially with regard to relations with the population. The political system`s relation with Jewish settlers who enjoy full rights and privileges is completely different from the relation with the native Palestinian Arabs. The indigenous Palestinians have been subject to racial discrimination, oppression, subjugation and a blockade and are deprived of their basic rights as "citizens". The Arabs are experiencing a state of apartheid reminiscent of Pretoria`s notorious system. Discrimination has also been at full swing between the Jewish "Ashkenaz" (known as Westerners) and the Jewish "Sevardim" (known ‏

as orientalists). Furthermore, the Israeli legislation and laws, including the "law of return", the "lands law" and the "law of the absentees" are all racist since they are based on setting up a pure "Jewish state". This structural contradiction between Israel as a "Jewish state" and Israel as a democratic state has been conflicting among all the Israelis. ‏

On the other hand, such democratic system cannot hide the domination of the military establishment on all walks of life inside Israel as this establishment has proven to be the actual ruler. Most ruling political elites came from different Zionist-Jewish military gangs such as the "Stern", the "Hagana" and the "Irgun" and from the ranks of the Israeli army. The leadership of the army has proven to be the shortest way to reach the top of the political leadership. Since its foundation, Israel was ruled by military leaders including David Bin Gurion, Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Shamir and Shimon Peres. Most successive Israeli leaders were chiefs of staff who turned into political leaders including Moshe Dayan, Yitzhak Rabin, Mordechai Gur, Ezra Weisman, Yitzhak Mordechai, Ehud Barak, Shaul Mofaz and Ariel Sharon. ‏

The Israeli democratic system cannot also hide the strong tie between it and the militarized Jewish society and the role this system play in serving the colonialist strategies of the American-Zionist imperialist centers in the entire Arab region and the world at large. Israel, whose lifeline is based on the unlimited US support, has been America`s strongest and unmatched ally and an advanced US base in the region. ‏

Activities of the ruling "democratic" authorities in Israel, which have been fully backed by the US, have been concentrating on wiping out the Palestinian Intifada, on crushing the resistance of the Palestinian people by the use of brutal military force, on enhancing the Israeli military arsenal which includes weapons of mass destruction and targets the Arab and Muslim peoples, on agitating further tension in the region and ‏

on blowing up a just and comprehensive Middle East peace based on ending all forms of occupation and aggression and on recognizing the legitimate Palestinians` right to liberation, freedom, self-determination and independence. ‏

After all, how can Israel be democratic? And what kind of this democracy which is ruled by a military junta and is based on killing others, occupying others` territory, masterminding terrorism and racism and refusing the widely-recognized just ME peace? ‏