by Pat Oliphant

Israel's attempt to legislate loyalty to the Jewish state is proof of the failure of the Zionist/colonial project of Israelification.

by Azmi Bishara

What is behind the latest wave of legislative proposals flooding the Knesset agenda? I refer specifically to those intended to curb manifestations of Palestinian patriotism and to restrict the political activity of Arab Israelis.

The aim of these laws is to impose the Israeli nationalist creed by coercion. It's really that simple. Over the last decade, the Knesset has experienced several bursts of legislative activity seeking to restrict freedom of opinion and expression on the questions of the Jewishness of the state and the right to resist occupation. The advocates of these laws are indefatigable. If the proposals fail to pass through any of the necessary stages, they are resubmitted over and over again in the hope of wearing out their opponents.

Is Israel really heading towards fascism? Is its vaunted democracy on the wane? Or, I suppose, we could rephrase these questions as follows: Was Israel more democratic at some point of time than it is today and are liberal civic rights in that country being beaten back after having thrived at that particular point of time? What exactly is going on?

I would say that two developments are unfolding in tandem. On the one hand, Israel is experiencing a deepening of and expansion in the concept and exercise of liberal political and economic civil rights (for Jewish citizens). At the same time, there is an upsurge in ultranationalist and right-wing religious extremism accompanied by flagrant manifestations of anti-Arab racism. As a consequence, the Jewish citizen endowed with fuller civil rights (than those that had existed in earlier phases when Zionist society was organised along the lines of a militarised quasi- socialist settler drive) is simultaneously an individual who is more exposed to and influenced by right-wing anti-Arab invective.

The contention that Israel had at one point been more democratic and is now sliding into fascism is fallacious. It brings to mind our protest demonstrations in the 1970s and the earnest zeal with which we chanted, "Fascism will not survive!" Our slogans were inspired by the Spanish left before the civil war in Spain and by the Italian left in the 1930s. But, in fact, the context was entirely different. Israel was the product of a colonialist settler drive that came, settled and survived. Fascism is a very specific form of rule, one that does not necessarily have to exist in a militarised settler society that founded itself on top of the ruins of an indigenous people. Indeed, that society organised itself along pluralistic democratic lines and it was unified on a set of fundamental principles and values as a basis for societal consensus. As militarist values figured prime among them, there was no need for a fascist coup to impose them. Even Sharon, who, from the perspective of the Israeli left, seemed poised to lead a fascist coup was one of the most ardent advocates of women's rights during his rule. He also proved one of the more determined proponents of implementing the rulings of the Israeli Supreme Court, which is a relatively liberal body in the context of the Zionist political spectrum and within the constraints of Zionist conceptual premises. Israel has grown neither more nor less democratic. The scope of civil rights has expanded, as has the tide of right-wing racism against the Arabs.

Among the Arabs in Israel there have also been two tandem developments. The first is an increasing awareness of the rights of citizenship and civil liberties after a long period of living in fear of military rule and the Israeli security agencies, and in isolation from the Arab world. That period was also characterised by attempts to prove their loyalty to the state by dedicating themselves to the service of the daily struggle for material survival and progress in routine civic affairs. At the same time, however, the forces of increasing levels of education, the growth of a middle class, the progress of the Palestinian national movement abroad, the advances in communications technologies, the broadening organisational bonds among the Palestinians in Israel, and the cultural and commercial exchanges between them and the West Bank and Gaza combined to give impetus to a growing national awareness.

The Arab Israelis' growing awareness of rights has paved the way for an assimilation drive to demand equality in Israel as a Jewish state. Such a demand is inherently unrealisable, as it would inevitably entail forsaking Palestinian national identity without obtaining true equality. Instead of assimilation there would only be further marginalisation. However, this danger still looms; there are Arab political circles in Israel that are convinced that this is the way forward. At the same time, there is the danger that truly nationalist forces could lose their connection with the realities of Palestinians' civil life, by stressing their national identity exclusively with no reference to their citizenship or civil rights, or the conditions of their lives. This tendency threatens to isolate the nationalist movement from its grassroots, and this danger, too, persists although to a lesser extent.

The flurry of loyalty bills and the like reflects another phenomenon that has taken root among Arabs in Israel and that the Israeli establishment regards as a looming peril. This peril, from the Israeli perspective, is twofold. Not only can Palestinians exercise their civil rights in order to fight for equality, they can also take advantage of their civil rights in order to express and raise awareness of their national identity by, for example, commemorating the Nakba and establishing closer contact with the Arab world. Commemorating the Nakba -- the anniversary of the creation of the state of Israel and the consequent displacement and dispossession of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians -- is a relatively new practice for Arabs inside Israel, dating only to the mid-1990s. Before this -- until at least the end of the 1970s, before the spread of national awareness gained impetus among Arabs inside Israel -- many of them participated in the celebrations of Israel's independence day and offered their congratulations to Israelis on the occasion. There were no laws against commemorating Nakba Day, not because Israel was more democratic but merely because there was no need for such laws in the eyes of the Israeli establishment, since the Arabs were not commemorating it anyway. In fact, open demonstrations of disloyalty to the state as a Zionist entity were very rare.

But since that time, change did not affect Israel alone. The political culture of broad swathes of Arabs inside that country shifted towards more open expressions of their national identity. To them, there is no contradiction between this and the exercise of their civil rights. Indeed, they felt it their natural right to use the civil liberties with which they are endowed by virtue of their citizenship to engage in forms of political expression that the Israeli establishment regards as contradictory to its concept of citizenship. Naturally, the clash became more pronounced with the growing stridency of right-wing Zionist racism.

The citizenship of Arabs inside Israel has a distinct quality that I have been attempting to underscore for years. Theirs does not stem from ideological conviction or the exercise of the Zionist law of return. Nor is their situation similar to migrant labour or minorities who have chosen to immigrate to the country and who accommodate to the status quo, as is the case with immigrant communities in the US or France, for example. Their citizenship stems from the reality of their having remained in the country after it was occupied. They are the indigenous people. It is not their duty to assimilate to the Zionist character of the state and the attempt to transform them into patriotic Israelis is an attempt to falsify history, to distort their cultural persona and fragment their moral cohesion. A Palestinian Arab who regards himself as an Israeli patriot is nought. He is someone who has accepted to be something less than a citizen and less than a Palestinian and who simultaneously identifies with those who have occupied Palestinian lands and repressed and expelled his people.

It is impossible, here, to examine all facets of the phenomenon, but we should also touch upon a third trend, which is the growing degree of showmanship, sensationalism and catering to the forces of popular demand on the part of Knesset members. This trend is to be found in all parliamentary systems since television cameras made their way into parliamentary chambers. Parliament has become a theatre and a large proportion of MPs have become comedians or soap opera stars, depending on their particular gifts and/or circumstances. However, when the favourite drama or comedy theme is incitement against the Arabs, this can only signify that anti-Arab prejudices, fear mongering, abuse and intimidation are spreading like wildfire. This is the very dangerous and not at all funny part about the parliamentary circus. And it's going to get grimmer yet for Arabs in Israel.

In the Obama era, following the failure of Bush's policies, the Israeli government will be directing the venom of its right-wing racist coalition against East Jerusalem and Israeli Arabs. After all, it will be easier to focus on domestic matters, such as emphasis on the Jewishness of the state, than on settlements in the occupied territories. Some of the proposed loyalty laws, such as that which would sentence to prison anyone who does not agree to the Jewishness of the state, will have a tough time making it through the legislative process. However, merely by submitting the proposal, the racist MK will have killed two birds with one stone: he will have made a dramatic appearance before the cameras so that his constituents will remember his name come next elections, and he will have stoked the fires of anti-Arab hatred. Other laws may stand a better chance. The proposal to ban the commemoration of Nakba Day could pass like the law prohibiting the raising of the Palestinian flag, or it could fail because even on the right there are those who object to such a ban. It is also doubtful that this country could promulgate a law compelling people to swear an oath of allegiance, because the intended targets are not immigrants but citizens by birth. It would require quite a feat of constitutional re-engineering in order to render citizenship acquired by birth subject to a loyalty oath at some later phase in a person's life.

Naturally, no state, however totalitarian it may be, can impose love and loyalty for it by force, let alone a colonialist state that would like to force this on the indigenous inhabitants it had reduced to a minority on their own land. Certainly it would be much easier for Israel to prohibit manifestations of disloyalty than to legislate for forced manifestations of loyalty.

For many years I've been advocating a Palestinian interpretation of citizenship in Israel that Israel continues to reject, with consequences to myself that readers may well be aware of. According to this interpretation, the Palestinian Israeli effectively tells the ruling authorities, "My loyalty does not go beyond the bounds of being a law abiding citizen who pays his taxes and the like. As for my keeping in touch with Palestinian history and with the Arab world in matters that should be inter-Arab, such things should not have to pass via you or require your approval." Such talk was previously unheard of in Israel and it came as quite a shock to the ears of interlocutors used to liberal-sounding references to "our Arab citizens" who serve as "a bridge of peace" and proof of "the power of Israeli democracy". Rejecting such condescension, the new type of Palestinian says, "My Palestinianness existed before your state was created on top of the ruins of my people. Citizenship is a compromise I have accepted in order to be able to go on living here in my land. It is not a favour that you bestow on me with strings attached."

Apparently, more and more Arab citizens have come around to this attitude, to the extent that Israel has begun to realise that the material exigencies of life or gradual acclimatisation to Israeli ways and political realities will not be able to stop the trend. It has come to believe that only new laws will bring a halt to what it regards as dangerous manifestations of disloyalty. Such laws will be inherently oppressive but they will simultaneously pronounce the failure of Israelification.

Author's note: In his defence of the need for a law to punish with imprisonment those who refuse to recognise Israel as a Jewish state, MK Zevelun Orlev cited the "case of Azmi Bishara". According to this right-wing lawmaker, "this case" began when Bishara refused to recognise the state verbally, after which he proceeded to visit "the countries of the enemy" without permission and to "abet the enemy" in time of war. Naturally, the accusations are groundless. Azmi Bishara did indeed visit Arab countries, openly and without permission, because he refuses to subordinate the relationship between himself, as an Arab, and the Arab world to Israeli authority. However, as an opposition Arab Knesset member, Bishara had no information to hand to an "enemy" or anyone else for that matter. Meanwhile, his ideas on politics and other matters are in the public domain, having been published and discussed in Israel and elsewhere. The allegation of abetting the enemy in time of war was merely a cover-up for a political witch-hunt. Its leaders are now trying to create legislation so they do not have to concoct security excuses in the future in order to suppress the advocates of opinions such as those Bishara expresses.

An equitable distribution of Collateral Language!

Why this fanatical preference for waging the 'war on terror' against only 'Islamofascism' today? [An earlier version of this essay appeared here.]

Personally, I think that the fanatics of all 'religions' can be equally fascists.

It would not bother me so much if all such 'fundamentalist' fascist fanatics would be thusly labeled using the English language's choicest words, and equitably hung and then burnt at stake as monumental criminals after a stint in Guantanamo Bay with vicious dogs grabbing at their genitals and entirely reenacting for them the barbarisms that transpired in Abu Garib prison for good measure!

However, as a rather straightforward and ordinary Muslim, I do find it deeply offensive that:

a) only uniquely label our 'pirates' thusly disparaging only Islam unjustly after these 'pirates' have been deftly created/nurtured by the 'emperor' and now have germinated,

b) use them as a convenient excuse for "imperial mobilization" in the pretext of fighting an endless "War on Terror" as otherwise, "democracy is inimical to imperial mobilization", and "that exercise requires a high degree of doctrinal motivation, intellectual commitment", including a "sudden threat or challenge to the public's sense of domestic well-being" and "truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat" such as a "new pearl harbor",

c) profound morons on the planet, mostly the educated ones, and almost all of them living in the West - the supposed 'enlightened civilization' - and including some indigenously well placed 'Native Informants', continue echoing 'a', and conveniently ignore 'b' as the proverbial dancing/trumpeting/shitting monstrous elephant right in the nuptial bed that needs 'a' as much as fish need water!

So to equalize the 'American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives" on 'the Grand Chessboard', and as a plebeian computer scientist but well versed in identifying the 'most significant bits' of complex issues - just as the old wise man of antiquity, St. Augustine - let's call a spade a spade, shall we?

Fight Zionofascism (fascism of the Zionists - too well known to need an explanation), and Christofascism (fascism of the Evangelical Christians hell bent on bringing on 'Armageddon'), and Judeofascism (fascism of the Jews hell bent on asserting their 'god's chosen peoples' mantra that puts them beyond the pale of ordinary people's morality), and Neofascism (fascism of the neo-cons to conquer the world regardless of the cost to anyone else), and Atheofascism (fascism of godless atheists who seem to be in the majority among the imperialists du jour who play realpolitik with other peoples' blood), and last but not least, Uberfascism (fascism of all the Nietzscheian supermen in all cultures who think they are better than human beings and can run rough-shod upon ordinary mortals as their 'god-given' primacy imperative), in your own backyards in this holy "War on terror" - the 'highest order bits' upon which the real 'page faults' (in computer science geek-speak) - and the threat of 'Islamofascism' 20,000 miles away will automatically melt away without spending an additional dime as the insignificant and dependent 'lower order bit'.

Indeed, 'Islamofascism' will magically disappear from the international scene just as it was deliberately brought into existence by "God on your side" with people in foreign 'suits and ties' as noted in this open letter to the veritable 'ubermensch' Middle East Scholar Daniel Pipes.

Then we shall be left with the more harmless and normative struggle for Renaissance within cultures and societies - a social struggle normal for every generation in every epoch as human beings attempt to keep up with the 'modernity' of their times and continually attempt to overcome their demons of history and its concomitant cultural baggage - as opposed to the fabricated 'synthetic terror' that is criminally and most audaciously being cultivated for "imperial mobilization" today!

To rationally and efficaciously eradicate the synthetic curse of the 'islamofascists' and the attendant suicide bombers, requires first and foremost, to nullify with extreme and ruthless prejudice, its highest level gardeners, and their deliberate aiders and abettors and exponents in all guises. The weeds, without its deft cultivation and nurturing, will die out in due course. It is a monumental crime against humanity to kill the weed with the most inhuman 'shock and awe' and blithely call the shattering of the tabula rasa of innocent civilians surrounding them 'collateral damage', while leaving not only their mastermind covert-patrons to cultivate more, but the very act of 'shock and awe' in itself being its rather obvious deft cultivator. If someone ever kills my loved ones in a 'shock and awe' as 'collateral damage', they better kill me too, or in my abject insanity, I will surely loose my gift of being a human being first and become the worst criminal - an easy recruit for a gardener! Let me know if there is another human being on this planet who would remain immune from such insanity. In the statistical law of large numbers, one can harvest a thousand a day!

And what of the so called 'misanthropic' statements or doctrines in the Islamic scriptures? Well, let's begin with the far more blatantly misanthropic and tortuous content in the Rabbinical Talmudic literature first as noted by the Jewish 'native informants' themselves, shall we? Followed surely by the Zionist and Christian Zionist doctrinal literature of hate and 'Armageddon', and then of course the neo-cons' blatantly chauvinistic 'American Mein-Kampfs' in duplicate and triplicate editions. Surely the Islamic literature must also not escape full-spectrum scrutiny-in-context either. If there are doctrines in 'Islamic' literature which are misanthropic, as in any influential doctrinal system, let's expunge them, for any god that is selective, racist, particularistic, misanthropic, iniquitous, and preaches hateful doctrines of 'primacy' and 'might makes right', can only be man-made and therefore, can easily be eradicated in the 'civilized' modernity du jour!

Thus we should be able to not only equitably excise all such misanthropic garbage in all fascist doctrines - be they emanating from the minds of White House National Security Council, or from the penmanship of imperial thinkers, or the crooked fingers of mullahs, priests, and rabbis and the assorted self-righteous 'ubermensch' deviants of all stripes - but also charge their authors and exponents, whether alive or dead, and whether self-proclaimed prophets, presidents, emperors, professors, editors, think tankers, journalists, or national security advisers, as the worst monumental criminals to ever poison mankind's thoughts and acts and thus accordingly deposit the living among them into Guantanamo Bay with full military 'enemy-combatant' protocol.

For good measure, we can pass equitable global laws outlawing all misanthropic doctrines, be they practiced by the Jews, Christians, Muslims, Atheists, Neo-cons, Hindus, Europeans, Americans, Free Masons, et. al.

Indeed, to equitably identify, adjudicate, and suitably consign all such forms of hateful doctrinal fascism and their fascist exponents who continually hide behind 'legal cover' of powerful nations, a radical free-thinking dialog algorithm is proposed in "Dialog Among Civilizations: Whytalksfail?".

I suspect most everyone with an ounce of moral imagination would subscribe to such equitable distribution of collateral language and agree for a perpetual 'holy jihad' against all fascism. Even the erstwhile ZioNeoConoFascist literati cabal who possess imagination by the bucketful - moral or not - and love 'perpetual war', will surely join in. Nothing inspiringly new or terribly profound here beyond simple self-evident moral truths and obvious empiricism!

And the only point of rehearsing this ad nauseam by the non-fascists is because the manifest Machiavellian deceit is also rehearsed ad nauseam by the 'ubermensch' fascists and their academic exponents who are almost always beyond the pale of any 'earthly' justice system. To take down and refute one sentence of their lie almost takes 10 paragraphs. And they blithely go on synthesizing new ones - as an infinite number of lies are possible on any topic - all it takes is some Straussian imagination. And to bring to book even a single one of these monumental criminals seems to require the 'victors' justice' and an unconditional surrender in an Apocalyptic World War!

Okay, so having done all that hard intellectual work, i.e., dispelled the myths, unraveled the deceptions, and identified all the terror philosophies in ancient texts and their modern exponents, then what? Who will equitably implement the actual excising of these doctrines from among mankind?

We are merely defenseless civilians, we don't possess vast armies of conquest, or even for our self-defense against the fascists, nor 'WMDs', nor other means of initiating détente through any 'MAD' checks! And nor do we have any resources to reach the mainstream audience in the world's most powerful 'populist democracy' who are indeed the accomplice prime-movers of this 'imperial mobilization' by virtue of their zombie-like 'United We Stand' as 'Good Germans' behavior of continually 'looking from the side', as atrocities upon atrocities upon the ordinary 'lesser' human beings continue to mount while the 'populist democracy' stays veritably busy pursuing its "American Dreams"!

So one mostly ends up preaching to the equally impotent choir - with some cheerleading here and there - and then all of us go home after a day's worth of hard loquacious workout on the treadmill of in-efficacious protests as noted in "History is great fun to rehearse - what does it do for us today?" and in this open challenge of courage thrown to Amnesty International, USA.

What has changed since October 7, 2001 when Afghanistan was bombed into pre-history and today 6 years later? Iraq was still bombed in the interim! And this time around, Iran may be bombed with Nuclear Weapons! And us, the so called 'voice of conscience', are still occupied dispelling and unraveling the lies ad infinitum - while Muslims across the world continue to die in large numbers from ZioCon inspired American and British peoples' own horrendous weapons of mass destruction bought and paid for by the American and British tax payers! It's better to not mention the soldiers of economic conscription also needlessly dying at the behest of their masters wrapped in the false flag of patriotism, for they are, after all, bombing and killing another peoples on their own indigenous land and are thus the aggressors. They do have the choice to say no! I'll be content mentioning only their victims, for those are my peoples as human beings first - regardless of their race and religion and nationality.

As per the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials, all blame for aggression, and for "all the evil that follows", is laid upon those who initiate the first aggression. Yes even under the euphemistic but well worn mantra of "preemptive self-defense" - an idea deftly exploited by Hitler as he went in search and annexation mission for his 'Lebensraum' that caused the destruction of much of Europe, most of it due to Allied bombing of civilian centers to free the European cities from the clutches of the occupiers! Before you send your precious sons and daughters off to fight the fictional "War on Terror" - do remember these veritable lessons of 'victor's justice' subsequently enshrined into International Law not too long ago!

The author, an ordinary researcher and writer on contemporary geopolitics, a minor justice activist, grew up in Pakistan, studied EECS at MIT, engineered for a while in high-tech Silicon Valley (patents here), and retired early to pursue other responsible interests. His maiden 2003 book was rejected by six publishers and can be read on the web at http://PrisonersoftheCave.org. He may be reached at http://Humanbeingsfirst.org.

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