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update - 18:23 07/02/2010 |
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| Im
Tirtzu hides behind respectable mask of
'Zionism' |
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| By Gideon Levy, Haaretz
Correspondent |
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Tags: Israel news, Im Tirtzu 
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Binyamin Ze'ev is turning in his grave
once again: A McCarthyite movement has taken his best-known
slogan for its name. Im Tirtzu, which deceptively calls itself
a "moderate, centrist movement," gives a bad name to Herzl, a
democrat and liberal, who coined the phrase "Im tirtzu, ain zo
agada" (If you will it, it is no dream). The group's latest
trick: a dirty war against the New Israel Fund for its funding
of 16 organizations that provided documentation used in the
Goldstone report.
Oy, gevalt! There are
nongovernmental organizations that want Israel to be a better,
more just state, and that the New Israel Fund dares to
underwrite. Cities were plastered with posters featuring a
caricature of NIF president Naomi Chazan wearing a horn -
that's the level that the "movement" behind the campaign sinks
to - and with the last name of that reviled figure, Goldstone,
added to hers.
Maariv, the tabloid daily that never
shrinks from McCarthyism, hastened to publish a ludicrous
"expose" that is nothing more than a copy of Im Tirtzu's
report. The Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee
created a subcommittee to "examine the sources of funding,"
media personality Avri Gilad called for Chazan's dismissal and
the Jerusalem Post has already fired her as columnist for the
newspaper. It's exactly how McCarthyism operated.
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| There's no lack of fascist movements in Israel and
the wider world, nationalist, militarist and racist
organizations that don't pretend to be anything but. Im Tirtzu
hides behind the respectable mask of "Zionism." Under this
camouflage people hunt down all signs of democracy and
critical thought. Quiet, we're shooting, all the time. That is
their "second Zionist revolution," an Israel without the High
Court of Justice and without B'Tselem, militarist with neither
criticism nor supervision. If that is Zionism, then it's
better to be anti-Zionist.
Im Tirtzu's founder and
chairman, Ronen Shoval, is their handsome patriot - blue-eyed
and from the solidly bourgeois suburb of Ramat Hasharon, north
of Tel Aviv. He's not some bearded settler nutcase who burns
Palestinian fields. First, he tried his luck with the fight of
the reserve duty soldiers after the Second Lebanon War. Then
it was permissible to criticize a war, because Israelis died
in it. Operation Cast Lead must not be criticized because
nearly all those who died in it were Palestinians - and there
were a lot of Palestinian deaths. After that struggle died
out, this ridiculous Zionist turned to pursuing all
demonstrations of criticism of Israel.
The one-time
Habayit Hayehudi activist who now tries to wash his hands of
the fact - what won't some people do for their career - once
wrote that Israel cannot defend itself without the "protective
wall of Judea and Samaria." This same person, who is
completely devoid of all understanding of the essence of
democracy, is now crudely going after the New Israel Fund,
which since it was founded has distributed $140 million to
dozens of NGOs that pursue peace, equality and social justice.
Yes, these include charities that believe that Operation Cast
Lead wreaked a moral disaster on Israel and acted accordingly.
They took statements and published them - in other words they
fulfilled their purpose, in a professional and credible
manner. Even the Israel Defense Forces relied on their
sources.
Just as Richard Goldstone must be thanked for
formulating the IDF's next code of ethics, whether or not we
admit it, so, too, the NIF must be thanked for reinforcing
democracy. With an atrophied political system, a thwarted
justice system, media outlets that engage mainly in
brainwashing and an indifferent public - the nongovernmental
organizations have become the last keeper of the seal of
Israeli democracy. How lovely to show us and the world that
there's still someone left here who operates in a different
way; how encouraging to see that there are still alternatives
to the official mechanisms. True, they are funded from abroad;
no less, by the way, than Im Tirtzu or the right-wing NGOs
that expel Palestinians from their homes and award prizes to
rebellious soldiers from the right, but Im Tirtzu will not
take action against them.
How can we truly know what
happened in the Gaza Strip without Breaking the Silence, and
how can we know what is happening in the West Bank every day
without B'Tselem? But Im Tirtzu doesn't want us to know; it
wants to cover our shame. That, to it, is patriotism, but in
reality that is treason. How familiar the remarks sounded this
weekend by Iran's judiciary chief, Ayatollah Sadiq Amoli
Larijani, calling for fighting human rights organizations in
his country because they "confuse human rights with law and
order." Im Tirtzu and Maariv couldn't have said it better.
If you will it, Naomi Chazan with the horn on her
forehead is the beautiful face of Israel, infinitely more
beautiful than Im Tirtzu, which tries to put horns on us all,
the horns of a fascist state under the cover of Zionism.
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