Something is happening in Israel today that fills its citizens with trepidation

By Stephen Schulman

I sleep ill at night, my slumber is restless and I do not breathe easy. I sleep ill because I am worried. I worry about my beloved country. I worry about our children and our grandchildren. I worry for their future here and how this country will be, for what I see at the present leaves me deeply unsettled.

Over half a century ago, I left South Africa the land of my birth and came to live in Israel. Like many of my friends and fellow graduates of a Zionist youth movement, who came too, I was imbued with an idealism to help contribute to a Jewish state that was both liberal and democratic. After completing our studies, we left our families and came alone. We were not cockeyed optimists. We were perfectly aware that Israel was a young state born in especially difficult circumstances, coping with many problems. There was much to be done, but we wished to do our part. With the passing of time, we worked in our professions, did our army service, married and raised families. We are part of the country and feel pride in its achievements. However, something has changed, bad things have been happening and I am filled with trepidation.

”Ashkenazim may you burn in hell.”  “Not for nothing did six million die. I’m proud.  If only six million more would burn.”  Words that would make Goebbels, Streicher and all their despicable followers, knowing that their vicious antisemitism was alive and flourishing, beam with happiness and satisfaction. If anyone in his/her naiveté thinks that these foul utterances issued from the mouth of a most extreme neo-Nazi, they err gravely.  They were said by forty-nine-year-old Yitzhak Zarka, a Jew from Ma’ale Efrayim, a settlement in the State of Israel, who was relating to the anti-judicial overhaul protestors.

Zarka, in spewing his vicious and venomous hatred desecrates the memory of the six million martyrs, man, woman and child who were murdered in the Holocaust. It also deeply insults and defiles all the Holocaust survivors both from Europe and the Arab countries that fell under the yoke of Nazism. It insults the memory of my late father-in-law Meir who lost his entire family and my late mother-in- law Tsilla who while surviving the war, lost her father and a brother. It insults the memory of my dear friends: Yehuda whose family was persecuted in Libya and Uri who hailed from Iraq.

This individual’s sick jubilation over the Holocaust and his fervent desire for another one to occur to all the Jews of Ashkenzi (European) descent living in Israel and in the Diaspora does not suffice. In a feverish mind stoked and warped by a consuming and blind hatred, all logic and decency has long been defenestrated. In a twisted, perverted line of thought defying all comprehension, he curses them, for in his eyes, not only were the six million who perished deserving victims but they and all their descendants are of the same ilk as their murderers.

In any enlightened country, and as is happening in Europe, such pronouncements are considered a clear contravention of the law and would arouse public opprobrium. It goes without saying that the speaker or writer of them would be speedily hauled into court and prosecuted.

The Holocaust and the persecution and expulsion of Jews from the Arab countries is seared in Israel’s conscience. Zarka’s vituperative statement is clearly a criminal offense and it would be expected that the arm of the law swiftly reach out for him. It would be expected that he be publicly condemned by members of the government for his harmful statements.

Shockingly and shamefully, not so in present day Israel!

We have yet to hear of his prosecution, and silence reigns supreme. It is a silence both disgraceful and ominous and the reason is quite simple. Zarka is not just (like most of us) another common garden variety citizen. Zarka is a member of the Likud Party. Zarka is not a simple party member either. Zarka is a  faithful, veteran Likud activist who is highly esteemed by fellow members and greatly valued for his efficacy in garnering votes mainly among his fellow Sephardic (Jews who have come mainly from the Arab countries) citizens . Zarka is even more highly esteemed by quite a few Likud ministers in the present government for giving them his vital support in obtaining them a high placing in party elections. There is a well known adage: “Never bite the hand that feeds you votes!” Therefore this influential gentleman must be assiduously cultivated, his affection and loyalty secured and scrupulous care taken not antagonize him and earn his enmity. So, when he has a celebration like a birthday party, there is always an impressive bevy of fawning Likud party notables, including the Speaker of the Knesset and assorted ministers, bearing gifts, bowing and scraping, waiting patiently in the long line to congratulate, flatter, embrace and be photographed with the man of the moment.  Not for nothing is there a picture of him hugging and bussing our prime minister.

Bibi Netanyahu in his usual spin declared that the miscreant would be expelled from the party – which Zarka’s wife promptly denied and said would never happen. And, as to be expected, on the morn, he mumbled some lame excuse and claimed his grandfather was a Holocaust survivor. What difference does that make?

I sleep ill for there is a bad smell in the air. It is the stench of moral and ethical putrefaction. It is the stench caused by politicians, choosing to turn a blind eye and prefer self interest over moral obligation to their citizens. It is amoral Realpolitik at its ugliest. Not one Likud member of the Knesset, not one single minister from the same party, to their everlasting shame, has opened his/her mouth. It is not only the silence of assent. It is the silence that condones an egregious act that deeply offends so many citizens and harms the country’s social cohesion. It is the official stamp of silence that makes such behaviour the norm.

To add insult to injury, there are many of the party faithful who see no wrong, view it as a trifling incident and justify such behaviour. “I do not remember any other party that expelled any of its members for excessive anger,” was one mealy mouthed pronouncement.

Growing up in South Africa, antisemitism was par for the course and I experienced it in various ways. Nevertheless, never in my darkest dreams did I think that I would have to live in Israel in July 2023 to encounter it in its vilest and most toxic form and see its purveyor speak with impunity. Never in my darkest dreams, did I think that I would see such abominable behaviour accepted with equanimity by members of his party. Never did I imagine that not one minister in the coalition government (and our small country is gifted with 31 of them!), to their everlasting shame, would open his/her mouth in condemnation and disassociate him/her self from the speaker.

South Africa has Julius Malema, notorious for his abhorrent racism. It appears that we might have his doppelganger living here. How many of his repulsive clones walk around in our country?

Tragically, this sick behaviour is not an aberration. It is symptomatic of this culture of public and political discourse that is now eroding the very foundations of our society and has become a norm. Civility, politeness, mutual respect and common decency have long gone the way of the dinosaurs with rudeness, vulgarity, intolerance, insults and disrespect superseding them. Verbal violence: bullying, threats and intimidation is becoming commonplace.

Is this an exaggeration? Look no further than the floor of the Knesset and the behaviour of certain ministers. A few days ago, our Minister of Transport’s car was stopped at gates of an army base by a security guard. As she felt that her entrance was unnecessarily delayed and her pride hurt, in her arrogance and rage she ordered her driver to proceed regardless. Ignoring his pleas that he would run over personnel, she repeatedly shouted at him:

“Drive, drive, drive!”

With such an example it is no wonder that violence is no longer limited to being verbal and has become part and parcel of daily life.

My sleep is troubled. This is not the country I envisaged and I worry for the quality of its future. It took many generations to build but is being rapidly destroyed. What shall it be like for our grandchildren?

About the writer:

Stephen Schulman is a graduate of the South African Jewish socialist youth movement Habonim, who immigrated to Israel in 1969 and retired in 2012 after over 40 years of English teaching. He was for many years a senior examiner for the English matriculation and co-authored two English textbooks for the upper grades in high school. Now happily retired, he spends his time between his family, his hobbies and reading to try to catch up on his ignorance.

While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves.  LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).

Following Israelis expressing their anxieties within society today from protest to poetry, lay of the Land  publishes another in our ongoing series. From fractures in Israel society to a sharp rise in terrorism, the son of Holocaust survivors reflects through this poem of living on the edge. Even something as mundane as commuting on a bus, becomes in Jerusalem today an existential experience.
Is it paranoia or reality?
David E. Kaplan  Lay of the Land Editor

UNTIL 120 – A REALITY CHECK

By Solly Kaplinski

Every morning
I normally take the 6.57 Egged bus
to the light rail station in French Hill
The train is usually packed
but invariably, someone stands up for me
a sort of back handed compliment:
respect for the grey hair and
me coming to terms with my ageing self
– and my impending mortality
Until 120, I tell myself

The 70 faces are all present and accounted for
women burying their faces in the Shacharit prayers
lips moving furiously
young soldiers and border police
high spirited and seemingly deep in superficial conversation
eyes darting in all directions
reluctant children going to school glued to their cellphones
vatikim with empty agalot off to the shuk
Our cousins are also on board conversing animatedly
and a tower of babel cacophony of tourist and worker languages

Such a normal slice of life – like anywhere else in the world
the rush hour for those who open up the morning.
But my usual paranoid self gets the better of me – as always…
I am a child of Holocaust survivors you know
and I have lived with exploding buses and burnt-out restaurants
and Jew butchers on the loose
And I cast suspicious eyes on my fellow travelers
looking for anything out of the ordinary:
someone in disguise
an over-stuffed duffel bag
a hand in a bulging pocket or
holding a scrunched-up Rami Levi sakit
ready for coiled action

I step out into the sunshine and blue sky
at the Hechalutz station
And there’s a spring in my walk
I’m almost at the office

Until 120, I tell myself

_______________________________________

Shacharit: early morning prayers
Vatikim – seniors
Agalot – small shopping trollies
Rami Levi – a discount supermarket chain
Sakit – a plastic shopping bag
Hechalutz – pioneer

About the writer:

Solly Kaplinski headed up Jewish Day Schools in Cape Town, Toronto and Vancouver before making Aliyah with Arleen almost 25 years ago. His professional life in Israel is bookended by working at Yad Vashem and then at the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC). Solly is also the author of the novella A World of Pain: A Redemptive Parable? His three daughters, their spouses and an egalitarian minyan of grandchildren all live in Israel. 

While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves.  LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).

Israel should avoid replicating South Africa’s National Party shenanigans

By Peter Bailey

Counsel for the government of Israel, in applying for a postponement of the Supreme Court hearing on the Reasonableness Law said “The petitions involve historical, jurisprudential and doctrinal issues on a massive scale, and they likely lack precedent in the history of the High Court of Justice and other authorities. It’s doubtful that they have precedent in the entire Western world”. While there might not be an international precedent on the Reasonableness Law, there is certainly precedent material with regard to a democratically elected government trying to usurp the authority of a High or Supreme Court, and the end result.

The current situation in Israel is very reminiscent of political events in South Africa during the period 1951/1952 following the victory of the right wing Reformed Nationalist Party and its equally right wing Afrikaner Party partner in the 1948 general election. The primary objective of the governing coalition was to  pass legislation that would ensure its continuation as the governing party in a “democratic dictatorship”, by rigging the system. Ridding the voter’s role of the Mixed Race voters, colloquially referred to as Coloured voters, whose rights were entrenched, suited the Nationalist Party’s racial policies, while simultaneously removing a substantial block of voters who supported the opposition. Doing so would almost guarantee the coalition’s ability to hold onto power in future elections. This resulted in the Separate Representation of Voters Act of 1951, disenfranchising Coloured voters. The law was subsequently invalidated and set aside by the Supreme Court of South Africa as being unconstitutional, as it had not been passed by  the required two thirds parliamentary majority, but by the coalition’s slim 9 seat majority in the 150 seat parliament.

The response from the governing coalition was to pass legislation in 1952 titled the High Court of Parliament Act, which would allow a simple majority in both houses of Parliament to set aside any judgment of the Supreme Court of South Africa. The Legislature consisted of an upper house, the Senate, with its members elected indirectly by the four provinces, and a lower house, the Parliament, elected by White and enfranchised Colored voters. During 1953, the Supreme Court invalidated the High Court of Parliament Act, with the Chief Justice stating:

 “The so-called High Court of Parliament is not a court of law, but simply Parliament functioning under another name … Parliament cannot, by passing an act giving itself the name of a court of law, come to any decision which will have the effect of destroying the entrenched provisions of the (Supreme Court in the) constitution“.

The Government response to the Supreme Court ruling came in 1955 when the Senate was artificially enlarged with government appointed members who would ensure a two thirds majority, and so the Colored voters were soon disenfranchised with a contrived two thirds majority vote.

These attempts by the South African government coalition to set itself above the Supreme Court between 1951 and 1955, bear many similarities to the current attempts by Israel’s governing coalition to empower themselves to overrule the High Court with a simple majority in the Knesset. While the South African right wing coalition was able to manipulate the rules to its own advantage by maintaining popular support, the turn of events in Israel have shown that there is a huge groundswell of public disapproval of the intended law reforms.

Returning to the South African example, once the parliamentary vote was rigged to suit the governing Nationalist Party, there was nothing to hold them back from passing a plethora of discriminatory laws which entrenched the Apartheid policies of the government. These laws encompassed every aspect of life for non-White South Africans, defining who they could marry and where they could live and work. While these three factors were crucial to enable government policies, what became known as Petty Apartheid soon reared its ugly head. White facilities such as parks, churches, shopping centers, cinemas and sporting facilities were soon denied to non-whites, with Black, Colored, and Asiatic South Africans each having to develop their own racially exclusive facilities.         

Parallels between the racist policies of the South African government are very evident in the racist and divisive policies enunciated by the extreme right wing parties in Israel, as well as by some on the extreme right fringe of the Likud.  These extreme racist views do not permeate the whole coalition in Israel, with the ultra-orthodox component more concerned with looking after its own constituency, while the extreme policies are designed to attend to the wants and needs of its own largely nationalist religious supporters. This brings us to the sought after law reforms of the Israeli right wing, where the similarity with South Africa ends, as each component of the coalition wants similar changes to the judiciary for very different reasons and to attain divergent ends. This desire to change the judicial system is the only cement actually holding the current coalition together.

The prime mover of the law reform has been justice minister Yaariv Levin, whose grandfather hailed from Kroonstad, a bastion of Afrikaner nationalism in South Africa’s Orange Free State.  Levin might well have an agenda of his own, but appears to be acting in the best interests of his boss, prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu is facing several criminal charges with varying degrees of gravity, which he blames on the system, including the police, the attorney general’s office and the judiciary for fabricating. Laws dubbed as the Netanyahu Law have been passed to benefit the prime minister, with the courts apparently reluctant to allow laws with personal benefits to pass muster. So the Likud wants and supports legal reform to help to allow their leader to get off the hook.

Thrown into the mix are the extreme right wing Religious Zionism and Otzmah Yehudit parties, who would like legal changes allowing them to have free rein in the West Bank to bring about a de facto, and preferably de jure annexation of the territory by Israel. They would then probably look to introducing policies similar to Bantustan policies that held sway in South Africa during the Apartheid years. Creating Arabstans (including Israeli Arabs) looks well suited to fitting their world view of settling the Israel Arab conflict. Nothing less than a totally subjugated Arab population subject to Jewish rule will satisfy Israel’s racist extreme right wing parties.

Next up with a ‘wish list’ are the haredi parties – United Torah Judaism and Shas – representing the ultra-orthodox communities in Israel. They have an interest in changing the legal status in order to obtain maximum financial benefits for their congregants, while keeping their children out of military service. Their support for the coalition has been bought with handouts from Netanyahu that will be paid for by the Israeli taxpayers, with very few ultra-Orthodox counted  among the tax paying public.

The needs and desires of prime minister Netanyahu, his right- wing Likud members and his coalition partners remain focused on self-gratification; they are quite prepared to see the rest of Israel suffer the fallout, from destructive damage to the IDF, right through to an economic collapse.

This article began with South Africa and the 1948 National Party victory which ushered in  disrespect for the established rule of law and ended in 1994 with an economic collapse followed by  precisely what the Nats were seeking to avoid: Black majority rule.

Let me end off by expressing the hope that the end result of extreme right and ultra-orthodox aspirations don’t bring about the end of the Democratic Jewish State of Israel.

While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves.  LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).