Corruption is corruption, no matter in which community. We have had enough!

Salman Masalha ||

Of Turbans and Turbines

The country was in a frenzy last week due to the protest by Druze in the Golan Heights against the start of the construction of a farm of wind turbines on lands that belong to them. This protest elicited considerable solidarity among the Druze in the Galilee and on the Carmel as well, unleashing the suppressed rage among members of the community going back to the days of the despicable Nation State Law passed in by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government in 2018, a Basic Law, which has quasi-constitutional status, that defines Israel as “the nation-state of the Jewish people,” with no reference to equality, democracy or minority rights, as well to the passage in 2017 of the Kaminitz Law imposing harsh punishments on illegal construction, aimed particularly at non-Jewish locales.

At the outset, it is necessary to distinguish between the Golan Druze and the Druze in the state of Israel within the Green Line, the 1948 Armistice Line, on several parameters. With few exceptions, the Druze in the Golan Heights, an area Israel annexed in 1981 but which is recognized by the United Nations only as Syrian territory under Israeli military occupation, do not see themselves as citizens of Israel. However, the Druze in Israel proper are citizens who fulfill all the obligations citizenship entails, including military and civilian service. The solidarity of the Druze in Israel with the residents of the Golan Heights is only natural, just as has happened in the past with the Druze in Syria or the Druze in Lebanon or anywhere else in the world. This solidarity is comparable to the Jewish solidarity with Jews  who suffer from persecution in some other place, and all the more so, as in the case of the Druze now, when the injustice is just around the corner.

I have followed the claims raised on the pages of this newspaper and many of them are justified, beginning with the absence of a master plan in Druze locales to shaky infrastructures and ever-increasing population density and overcrowding. The rate of natural increase in a situation in which there are no approved plans for construction of additional housing is impelling young couples to build their homes on lands privately-owned by their families and wherever possible, without permits. Thus, everyone becomes a lawbreaker who, under the Kaminitz Law, must repeatedly pay heavy fines.

The protest by the Druze in the Golan is a completely different story. For years now the Golan Druze have been in conflict with the global renewable energy company Energix, which is supposed to operate the turbines. They are struggling against a small number of landowners in the community who were lured into leasing lands upon which to erect the turbines. At Energix, they claim that they have advanced the project over many years in coordination with the “spiritual” leader of the Druze community in Israel, Sheikh Mowafaq Tarif. Sheikh Tarif is now saying that the spiritual leadership of the community “supports the struggle of the Golan Druze, and the claim by the Energix company that the entire project was advanced in coordination with him is incorrect.”

A look at the succession of events indicates that apparently the sheikh’s statements would not pass a polygraph test. It turns out that since 2015 the “spiritual” leader himself was acting to promote the establishment of the wind turbine farm in the Golan Heights, and in an interview to the Hebrew-language news site Ynet he said that the state was discriminating against the Druze in the Golan Heights in that it was not permitting them to establish a wind turbine farm. “Instead of making positive use of the situation at this difficult time and helping the Druze in the Golan Heights, the state is creating more discrimination and more alienation,“ charged the sheikh. He expressed anger at the fact that only Jewish businesses were being allowed to establish wind farms. He apparently wanted to urge Druze entrepreneurs to take up the project as well.

It turns out that Energix not only worked in coordination with the sheikh himself but also employed an associate of his and member of his family. We learn this from a manifesto published in 2019 by Druze inhabitants of the Golan Heights against the plan for the turbine and the people behind it. It was published as a response to a statement published in Arabic and directed at the inhabitants of the Golan on behalf of the Energix company and signed by two people: The one signatory was its CEO Asa Levinger and the other, who boasted the title of president of the company, was none other than Saleh Tarif, the former Knesset member and minister without portfolio, who was forced to resign in the wake of a corruption scandal – a cousin of Sheikh Tarif, who since then has been following the sheikh around in Israel and abroad, like a shadow.

In that statement signed by Saleh Tarif, he tried to indicate the turbines’ great benefits for the inhabitants of the Golan Heights. Among the many lures he enumerated: “Taxes that will be paid to the local councils and scholarships for Druze students.” He was also able to add that the project will lead to “strengthening of the connection to the Druze tradition.”

Spiritual leaders with turbans on their heads are supposed to deal with spiritual matters and saving souls, and not with winning converts on behalf of their close associates and turbine entrepreneurs destined to rake in profits at the expense of destroying the lives and villages of the Druze in the Golan Heights. Corruption is corruption, no matter in which community. We have had enough!

Haaretz, June 29, 2023

For Hebrew, press here

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Left, Right - What’s the Difference?

Salman Masalha ||

Left, Right - 

What’s the Difference? 

Arab MKs have always sat in the opposition, but theirs is a simulated opposition, and will never be a real part of Israel’s democracy. This is an ostracized opposition – even the 'left' isn’t ready to count it

Time and again, the so-called left fails the civil test. This left seems to be stuck in the same nationalist muck that it claims to oppose. Here and there it presents positions that have the appearance of opposition to the right-wing Netanyahu government, but then it unwittingly reveals the depth of its attachment to the same ethnocentricity that the right expounds.

A prominent example of this can be seen in the type of views that Professor Zeev Sternhell expresses from time to time in this newspaper. In his most recent column, Professor Sternhell sought to delineate the opposition in the Knesset, which is supposed to constitute an alternative to the Netanyahu government. In theory, he says, “The opposition stretches from the social-democratic wing of Meretz to what’s left of Labor to Yesh Atid voters.” Professor Sternhell also calculates the potential Knesset seats that such an opposition could amass: “On paper, we’re talking a potential of 40 seats.” Though he then qualifies that estimate by saying that some of those he is counting as potential members of the opposition “are close to being radical nationalists and would refuse to join forces with the Arabs.”

It is precisely in this theory where the inherent problem of the Israeli “left” is found – the opposition in Israel is always reserved just for Jews. This theory is part of a deeply rooted philosophy within the left’s political discourse.
In despair over the bleak state of the opposition, in May of last year Professor Sternhell called upon the leaders of the “center-left” to look in the mirror and think about who is the leader that could save Israel: “Everyone in Yesh Atid and Zionist Union should look in the mirror,” he urged, insisting that they need to recognize that Ehud Barak is “their best chance, perhaps their only one” to gain power and save the country from an apartheid government.

It’s as if only on paper are there 120 Knesset seats, for in the Israeli political discourse, on the right and the left, the 13 MKs from the Joint List are never counted. They essentially sit in the Knesset as a fig leaf to adorn the Jewish state with the look of democracy.

Sternhell’s leftist theory of the opposition ascribes a separate category – Arabs -- to a fifth of the country’s citizens. Into this basket are poured all the “Arabs,” with no differentiation whatsoever, as if their number did not contain a mix of social-democratic, secular, traditional, nationalist, leftist and rightist voters. All are assigned a single label: Arabs.

Arab MKs have always sat in the opposition, but theirs is a simulated opposition, and will never be a real part of Israel’s democracy. This is an ostracized opposition – even the “left” isn’t ready to count it.

Instead of talking about Israeli parties in the Knesset that represent citizens from different social and political streams, the left also uses the generalizing term “Arabs” that perpetuates the built-in exclusion. Therefore this left, which purports to present an alternative to the current government, repeatedly falls into the trap set for it by the nationalist right under the leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu.

This is not how you break down walls between citizens in the name of equality and replace the government. Quite the opposite. Instead, it looks like this kind of opposition theory from the left essentially embodies the spirit of the recently passed nation-state law.
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Haaretz, Sep 06, 2018

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For Hebrew, press here

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The nation-state law basically gave a constitutional stamp of approval to that same campaign of divisiveness and racist spirit that led to the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin

Salman Masalha ||

From Rabin's Assassination to The Druze protest

The Old, Familiar Evil Wafting Through the Clauses of the Nation-state Law
In the city square, to which tens of thousands of citizens streamed Saturday night in solidarity with the Druze protest against the nation-state law, a new Israeliness was born. This was the same square, Malchei Yisrael Square, that due to events on a different Saturday night, November 4, 1995, changed its name to Rabin Square.

Everyone who seeks to live in a sane and egalitarian country must thank the Druze community for spearheading the public protest against the nation-state law, and putting the debate about it and its destructive consequences on the public agenda. The Knesset, which voted for this despicable law that distinguishes between citizens on the basis of ethnic affiliation, basically gave a constitutional stamp of approval to that same campaign of divisiveness and racist spirit that led to the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Yigal Amir, who shot the prime minister in the back, was merely an emissary of the same ideological spirit that envelops the house on Balfour Street these days.

It’s important to remind those who are trying to forget or make others forget, that it was this prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who led those people who incited against Rabin. The evil of those days was the same evil that wafts among the clauses of the nation-state law. In those days the land was filled with wild incitement against the prime minister, who with measured steps and with some hesitation, was trying to bring about a historic reconciliation with the Palestinians and lead Israel to a saner place.

We must also recall that the heads of the messianic right, first and foremost the king of inciters who now serves as prime minister, argued at the time against Rabin that he could not make any “fateful” decisions for the simple reason that “he has no Jewish majority.” Rabin’s government at the time rested on a majority that included a bloc of the so-called Arab parties. But Rabin was not deterred by the threats of the right-wing fanatics. A few days before his murder, he spoke with disgust on state television about the unbridled incitement against his policy, and used terms like “racism” and “apartheid.”

With the help of a democratic majority in the Knesset, Rabin tried to broaden the concept of Israeliness to include Arab citizens and their representatives. This was anathema to the zealots of the “Jewish tribe,” which included opportunistic and populist rabbis and politicians who embarked on a crusade of Jewish tribal incitement.

Thus, they paved the way for that inflamed emissary who destroyed the dream of Israeli sanity with three shots. Even then I thought – and even wrote in a piece that appeared in November 1995 under the title “The Israeli soul yearns” – that this assassination was essentially a “family honor” killing. It was murder to defend the honor of the Jewish tribe.

The nation-state law in its current version is a direct continuation of that same incitement. It is aimed at promoting the apartheid cure, from the school of the fanatic right, against the demographic blow that is evolving between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. It is further evidence that this government, with all its components and under Netanyahu’s leadership, does not intend to seek a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The messianic right seeks through this law to shackle any future government that might take steps toward resolving the conflict. Should that happen it won’t take long before this right will emerge from its dark holes and shout from the city square that “the government and the one who heads it doesn’t have a Jewish majority.”

The abominable nation-state law that was passed, is, therefore, also the constitutional stamp that the fanatic Jewish right, led by the prime minister and chief inciter, Benjamin Netanyahu, is imprinting on a future pardon for the assassin Yigal Amir. That’s why it must be removed from the law books, and responsibility for that lies with all Israelis.
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Haaretz, Aug 07, 2018

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For Hebrew, press here

Related article: "Anthym for the tribe of Israel", Nov. 1995

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The nation-state law has not one but several intolerable clauses. All those who spoke out against only two of its clauses are full partners to this fraud that is supposedly Israeli, humane and liberal .

Salman Masalha ||

Where Is This ‘Israel’ They Talk About?

In view of the Zionist debate over the nation-state law, it’s time to put things straight and make some unequivocal statements.

First, the nation-state law, which lawmakers of the Smotrich and Dichter breed have promoted, has not one but several intolerable clauses. All those who spoke out against only two of its clauses are full partners to this fraud that is supposedly Israeli, humane and liberal.

At first glance at its wording, one can see that the opening clause is groundless. This “Israel” that appears in it cannot be the “historic homeland of the Jewish people” as long as the borders of the “state of Israel” have not been drafted by those lawmakers who advanced the law, and as long as these borders have not been granted international recognition and legitimacy.

The third clause, which deals with “whole and united Jerusalem” as Israel’s capital, seems to be mistaken in the same way as is the term “Israel.” This clause is likewise groundless because this “Jerusalem” is extremely liquid. Nobody knows where its borders begin and end.

Clause 7, which raised a great tumult due to its blatantly racist wording, was replaced with the more general phrasing: “The state sees developing Jewish settlement as a national value.” This sentence is a renewed recitation of a Zionist principle, which has existed since this movement came into the world. There’s nothing new under the sun. This is how all the pre-state Zionist institutions acted and have been acting since Israel’s establishment. The state’s symbols – the flag, the menorah and the anthem – are the most blatant expression, reflecting the exclusion of one fifth of the state’s citizens.

As for the clause stipulating that Hebrew is the state’s “official” language, which changes the Arab language’s status from an “official” one to one with a “special” status – the Arab lawmakers in the Knesset have cooperated throughout the years with this process. If the Arab MKs had one iota of respect for their tongue they should have made all their speeches from the Knesset podium in Arabic. If you demand respect for the Arab language you should show it in action. The Arab MKs didn’t do so and with this behavior they pushed Arabic’s status with their own mouths out of the public sphere.

Suffice it to visit Arab communities to see that the Arabs themselves have downgraded the Arab language’s status, and signposts in Hebrew prevail in their streets and on their businesses. Nobody stopped the business owners from putting up signposts in Arabic. The Arabs themselves belittled Arabic’s status.

Every Smotrich, Dichter, Slomiansky, Ohana and their kind should know that the mere sound of their family name attests like a thousand witnesses to their origin and descent, which are alien to this place.

This must also be stressed. I, the oversigned, hereby announce to all and sundry: This country is my country and homeland, and anyone who even thinks of doubting this fact of life should be thrown into the dustbin of history. And the sooner the better.
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Haaretz, 20/7/2018

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For Hebrew, press here

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