English translation of the new anti human rights organizations Knesset bill






















5 Comments on “English translation of the new anti human rights organizations Knesset bill”

  1. 1 anonymous said at 6:53 pm on June 17th, 2010:

    This is my last comment on your blog because today I came to understand that just by being here I am supporting you.

    I hope this bill doesn’t pass, but I challenge you to think carefully about why this is happening. It is not happening because of a rightward shift in Israel – the same Likud and Netanyahu are in power as 11 years ago, and in fact this Likud has accepted a two-state paradigm. In fact, Kadima won more votes than Likud last election even with all of Olmert’s screw-ups.

    The reason this is happening is that people like you have thrown Israel out the window with your incessant attacks about everything it does while excusing the Palestinians and their refusal to make peace. The problem is that because you are Jewish or Israeli and Jewish, you have provided the perfect cover for those people and groups who want to seriously harm Israel and make it into some mythical “Palestine” as if there was ever a Palestine of any sort, mythical or not.

    Most of the serious and most harmful anti-Israel activists are Jewish or Jewish and Israeli. You serve as a mask for people who want to destroy Israel. It is not accidental that Goldstone is Jewish.

    But you, Noam, should know better. You know, for example, from personal experience, that while the IDF is a big lumbering organization that makes mistakes, it is an army that checks itself to prevent unnecessary casualties on both sides. You know, from personal experience, that while there are certainly some soldiers who hold the Palestinians in contempt (among them Beduin and Druze soldiers), most soldiers would rather have peace and the army itself is not disposed to either brutality or to wanton murder.

    Reading your blog would lead a person to think otherwise about Israel, about the IDF, about Israelis and about Israeli politicians. I’m not a utopian and I believe that Israel’s faults should be criticized, but a rational and fair approach is the only reasonable way to do this. You are not reasonable and neither is B’Tzelem. Adalah is ridiculous and so are the several other organizations this legislation is targeting.

    The Israelis are under severe pressure because of you and people like you, that’s why they are now closing in on themselves. What’s left when no matter what you do, there are shills from among your own people who support the enemy? Armies on every side, Arab leaders constantly threatening, Israeli Arabs on the offensive with a mission to make Nakba part of a new constitution, and then Jews and Jewish Israelis are now being the most vocal critics.

    And lo and behold, here you are criticizing the latest Israeli reaction. What did you think would happen? Did you think they would make peace when the other side won’t even discuss serious proposals like Olmert’s? Did you think they would move back to 1949 lines and give up the kotel to people who don’t even believe Jews were there? How stupid do you think the Israelis are?

    Sure, you want the occupation to end. Fair enough. But all the rest of it? The endless attacks on Israel? Come on.

    Imagine, for a moment, that you had used all this energy to point out the unfortunate positions of the Palestinians in this conflict. Imagine if you had used your voice to convince other Leftists and anti-Israel activists to target the Palestinian leadership instead of Israel. You know you couldn’t because you would be shut up, but imagine if you did. Perhaps then, instead of feeling empowered, the Palestinians would today feel threatened and in trouble so that they have to make peace and could not postpone it indefinitely.

    Would this legislation have come up in the Knesset then? Never. And there might even be peace.

    It’s you and the far Left and the not so far Left and your friends the Islamists who want to destroy Israel. You have killed the center and you are killing Israel. The irony is that you are killing it so that it can become another Lebanon and eventually another Gaza. That’s when you will have your supposed “justice.” Then you can write, if they let you, about kneecapping opposing party members, or dark visits in the night or legally sanctioned murder of “traitors.”

    Here, look at this article. If you start planning now, you can blame the next war on Israel as well, or just plan how to accuse them of war crimes:


    You don’t have to respond, I’m not coming back.

  2. 2 noam said at 2:35 am on June 18th, 2010:

    Anonymous – I’m sorry to hear you won’t be coming here anymore. Still, there are a few things I have to answer, if not for you than for other readers.

    First, though I hold very critical views on the current Israeli policies, if you followed this blog from the start, you would have realized I deal with other things as well, especially political analysis. But since Netanyahu’s government came into power, there has been a change in the political atmosphere here, and I think my writing reflects it.

    You claim that the criticism on Israel is a result of the action of a small number of. I don’t agree. But even if it was true, the real question is whether this criticism is justified or not. Saying that Israelis are becoming anxious and hostile because of the way they are portrayed in the world, so they abandon basic democratic principle, is a strange argument as well. I believe Israelis should get the message and change their ways, not kill the messenger.

    I’m glad you brought up B’tzelem in your comment, because it captures the whole debate. You say: since people who hate Israel and wish it destroyed use B’tzelem’s reports against Israel, let’s shut down B’tzelem. I say: let’s check if what B’tzelem is saying is true, and if so, let’s fix it, because this is what really matters. This goes for other issues as well. If the Israeli parliament passes a law banning human right organizations or limiting freedom of speech for Arabs, you say we should not report it, because it gives the country a bad name. But in these cases, it’s a bad name it deserves.

    As for your political analysis regarding who is to blame for the situation, the tendencies among Palestinians or the actions of the IDF, you know we are in disagreement (though most of our arguments weren’t on facts, but on their meaning). It’s OK to have different opinions, and you are always welcomed here to debate these issues. But what you ask now – just like what the Knesset would like to do with its new bill – is to stop the debate.

  3. 3 meika said at 3:19 pm on June 19th, 2010:

    All countries are myths. No country has a right to exist. Peace is not an optional extra.

  4. 4 Henry said at 4:41 am on June 20th, 2010:

    Israel is ruled by the eight bankers families which own the private FED. Without them nothing goes either in Israel or anywhere in the capitalist world.

  5. 5 Kalman said at 11:37 am on June 24th, 2010:

    Henry is a certifiable lunatic. I wonder why he writes in this thread.

    BTW A proposed piece of legislation is not the same as a passed law.

    One can propose legislation to force elephants to fly by flapping their ears but getting it passed and enforcing it is about as probable as Henry having a working brain.