http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Editorials/Article.aspx?id=266456
This year, as in previous years ahead of Holocaust Remembrance Day, the media have focused heavily on the severe poverty and substandard living conditions of many Holocaust survivors.
Newspapers, radio, TV and the Internet have featured profiles of Holocaust survivors living in rundown flats that lack basic utilities.
Survivors who were on the receiving end of the lethal hatred that swept across Europe are disappearing, and many of those who remain are in desperate need of aid. Over the past year alone, about 12,000 Holocaust survivors have passed away – more than one every hour – according to data published this week by the Foundation for the Benefit of Holocaust Victims in Israel based on a survey carried out by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee-affiliated Myers-JDC-Brookdale Institute. If in 1961, during the trial of Adolf Eichmann, the 500,000 survivors living here made up about 25 percent of the population, today there are just 198,000, about 2.5% of the population.
Probably the most infuriating pieces of data from that same Myers-JDC-Brookdale Institute report – based on a survey of 52,500 survivors supported by the foundation – is that 5% complained they did not have enough to eat. In Israel of all places, it is essential that everything be done to ensure that no Holocaust survivor goes hungry or is left without proper medical care.
However, the annual publicity campaigns that sweep the nation at this time of year with the implicit message that not enough is being done for Holocaust survivors – and that the State of Israel is to blame – project a distorted picture of reality. Over the past year the government has increased the amount of annual aid to Holocaust survivors by NIS 6 million to NIS 206m. In addition, the Conference for Material Claims Against Germany and various charities also contribute to the welfare of the survivors.
One cannot help but wonder whether these campaigns are motivated by the desire on the part of various charity organizations to exploit Holocaust Remembrance Day as an opportunity to fund-raise not just for the survivors but also to perpetuate expensive administrative infrastructures that employ hundreds.
Allegations of fraud at Hazon Yeshaya, a charity that claimed to feed Holocaust survivors, have probably not made it any easier to raise money.
Campaigns that focus on the poverty of survivors also create an image of them as charity cases, when, in reality, many of those who lived through the hell of the Shoah somehow found the strength to put all that behind them and embark on the daunting challenges that faced the fledgling Jewish state – fighting our many enemies, absorbing immigration and creating a society made up primarily of refugees and immigrants.
As Holocaust scholar Hanna Yablonka has pointed out, the vast majority of survivors who came to Israel focused on rebuilding their lives and building the new Jewish state – and they were wildly successful, worthy of being called heroes.
“Most survivors found a core of inner strength that is hard for us to comprehend,” noted Yablonka.
“Their collective story is one of personal and human victory.”
Holocaust survivors have left their mark in every field from building and construction to the IDF, industry, law and culture. They became prominent painters, graphic artists, poets, writers, dancers, actors, academics and cultural icons.
Indeed, it is impossible to imagine the State of Israel today without their many contributions.
It is essential that we do everything in our power to ensure that needy survivors’ live their last years on earth without want and in dignity. But we must not allow the image of the survivor as a charity case to dominate public discourse.
As the number of the survivors dwindles, there is another story to tell, a heroic one of overcoming the horrors of their past and the adversity of their current situation, providing an inspiration to us all.
The speed and zeal with which many jumped to indict Lt.-Col. Shalom Eisner, deputy commander of the Jordan Valley Brigade, was maddening.
Admittedly, the footage of Eisner bashing the face of a Danish national in his early 20s with the side of his M-16 rifle appeared to show him using gratuitous violence.
But “evidence”– no matter how incriminating – provided by the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) should have been treated with extreme suspicion. Dedicated commanders such as Eisner, who have served our country with distinction, should have been given the benefit of the doubt – at least until a thorough investigation is conducted.
Eisner, in particular, has in the past exhibited heroism during wartime and sensitivity toward the Palestinian population. During the Saluki battle in the Second Lebanon War, he led soldiers in battle and helped extract a tank crew under fire. About a year ago, he helped a Palestinian woman give birth after which the baby underwent life-saving procedures under his command.
The ISM, by contrast, has a history of high-intensity confrontations with IDF soldiers that have on occasion led to the death of its activists. One well-known example is the March 2003 case of Rachel Corrie who, according to an IDF investigation, was accidentally run over in Rafah, Gaza, by an IDF bulldozer uncovering an arms-smuggling tunnel.
ISM’s goal is to provoke IDF soldiers and capture on film the temporary lapse of a soldier such as Eisner – trained to fight wars on conventional and non-conventional battlefields – not to deal with crowd control and wage battles fought on YouTube and Twitter with trouble-making provocateurs from abroad and their ever-ready camera crews.
The ISM and other so-called “peace groups” choose to stage these provocations – often attended by European youths looking for action – in Israel, because they know that the risk of getting seriously hurt or killed is low.
Unlike most countries in the world, Israel’s security forces do everything humanly possible to use non-violent means to control unlawful demonstrations. In other places, ISM activists have been murdered. The case of Vittorio Arrigoni – abducted and executed by hanging in April 2011 by Salafists in the Gaza Strip – is one such example.
While the blow dealt by Eisner to the Danish activist as shown on the video clip broadcast on TV stations here and around the world was deplorable, its severity – which has more to do with international opinion and less to do with the well-being of the mildly injured activist – should not be blown out of proportion. The possibility cannot be ruled out that the video footage was tampered to make it appear that Eisner struck the Dane for no reason at all.
Unfortunately, our leaders were quick to jump to conclusions even before the IDF and police managed to get their hands on the original, unedited, video footage.
They seemed to think that we could gain points in the eyes of our enemies and critics – and the international media – by overreacting and pre-judging the case.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu declared: “Such behavior does not characterize IDF soldiers and officers, and has no place in the Israel Defense Forces and in the State of Israel.”
President Shimon Peres said he had been “shocked and disgusted” when he saw the videotape of Eisner striking the activist. And IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz called the incident “severe.”
The ease with which these leaders and others denounced Eisner conveys a mixed message to our soldiers.
Instead of providing them with the trust and backing they so desperately need when confronting radical activists bent on disrupting public order, our leaders issued hasty statements based on partial evidence. This sort of response will inevitably undermine IDF soldiers’ confidence in their next confrontation with anti-Israel activists.
The prime minister, the president and others who leveled criticism at Eisner should have refrained from commenting until the findings of a proper probe are released. It is the least that a man with Eisner’s merits deserves.
It is no easy matter for the IDF to bring together soldiers from diverse backgrounds to cooperate for the common goal of defending the State of Israel.
Societal fault lines between religious and secular, right-wing and left-wing, Jewish and non-Jewish are very sensitive. With little provocation, disagreements can quickly devolve into serious confrontations and disrupt the sort of unity of purpose needed during military duty. Therefore, a willingness to compromise to find common ground is essential.
Adherence to Jewish law – Halacha – is an important aspect of the IDF’s day-to-day functioning, as it should be in a state that defines itself as Jewish. By providing them with prayer time and kosher food and by commemorating the Shabbat and holidays, the army enables religious soldiers to feel comfortable serving in alongside their secular fellows. Occasionally, however, creating this common ground can cause some inconveniences for secular soldiers.
That was the case on Passover eve – which fell last Shabbat – when a group of IDF soldiers, both religious and secular, were forced to eat cold food because of an IDF rabbi’s interpretation of Halacha.
Infantry soldiers from the Haruv Battalion – one of several battalions belonging to the Kfir Brigade, responsible for maintaining security in Judea and Samaria – returned to their army base from military activity late on Passover eve. After washing up and sitting down to read the Haggada and conduct the Seder, the soldiers were told that they would be served matza, salads and cold cuts, but no hot food. Apparently one of the cooks had desecrated Shabbat and Passover by connecting a hot plate after sundown to heat up food. Another cook noticed this and told the rabbi, who ruled that the food could not be eaten that day. Since IDF health regulations prohibit the refrigeration of food once it has been cooked and prepared for serving, all of the heated food had to be thrown out.
It could be that the rabbi was overzealous in his ruling.
According to many halachic authorities, desecration of the Shabbat by an irreligious Jew can be seen as unintentional. Under the circumstances, only an intentional desecration of the Shabbat would make it forbidden to eat the food.
Nevertheless, after the rabbi made his ruling, the brigade commander enforced it. All soldiers, both religious and secular, were obligated by IDF regulations to refrain from eating the food. Some of the soldiers complained to their parents. One mother told Army Radio that she could not understand how the brigade commander could allow his soldiers to “go starve” on Passover eve: “Rabbis are running things in the IDF.
The army has become haredi [ultra-Orthodox] and there is no rational decision-making.”
WHILE WE sympathize with the mother, the incident should not be blown out of proportion. The soldiers ate cold food; they did not starve. And while it appears that more media attention has been devoted in recent years to religious-related tensions in the IDF due to the sharp rise in the number of religious men serving, it is a gross exaggeration to suggest that rabbis are running the IDF. If anything, media attention to the Passover food incident has more to do with parents’ increasing willingness to interfere with the inner workings of the IDF.
Bringing together religious and secular Israelis in a military framework entails compromise on both sides.
Secular soldiers need to understand that enforcing kosher rules enables their religious fellows to serve with them.
But religious soldiers and their rabbis also have an obligation. They should do their best to find leniencies in Halacha where possible so that secular soldiers are not forced to endure unnecessary burdens.
Whether the issue is gender segregation, threats to refuse military orders to evacuate a settlement, or adherence to Shabbat, religious soldiers and their rabbis should embrace moderation, not religious extremism.
Military service is a cooperative endeavor of cardinal importance. Succeeding at this endeavor entails mutual compromise and sensitivity to the needs and desires of those who hold different views.
Judging from the reactions of opposition lawmakers one would think that a new legislative initiative called Basic Law: Legislation is downright undemocratic.
Meretz leader Zehava Gal-On quipped that Justice Minister Yaakov Neeman, the driving force behind the bill, misread the Passover Haggada, and “does not understand the meaning of the Festival of Freedom,” because the bill claims to protect freedoms, but actually violates them and called for “all parties who fear for democracy” to form a united front against the bill.
Meanwhile, Labor chairwoman Shelly Yacimovich declared that Neeman’s memorandum “empties the Supreme Court of its content.”
“The justice minister has chosen to present a bill that paves the way for wildly irresponsible legislation that will increase dissent, bickering and clashes,” she said.
Several Kadima MKs also expressed their opposition to the bill. For instance, Yoel Hasson called it “an anti-democratic whim of a government hostile to the rule of law.” But it seems that these lawmakers’ opposition to Basic Law: Legislation has less to do with substantive criticism and more to do with political expediency.
If passed, Neeman’s proposal would actually strengthen the Supreme Court and more carefully delineate its powers vis-à-vis the Knesset, ending decades of bickering and tension between lawmakers complaining of the hyper activism of the Supreme Court and champions of a strong judiciary warning of the tyranny of the majority.
If passed in its current form, Basic Law: Legislation would for the first time give quasi-constitutional status to all the basic laws such as Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty, which protects human rights – particularly of the minority, and Basic Law: Freedom of Occupation, which protects the right of every citizen to freely engage in the occupation of his or her choice.
Previous attempts to develop anything resembling a constitution have failed miserably due to the deep rifts in our society between religious and secular; Jew and non- Jew; libertarians and interventionists.
Neeman’s Basic Law: Legislation – now in pre-bill memorandum form – would also anchor in law former chief justice Aharon Barak’s “constitutional revolution.”
The majority of a panel of nine Supreme Court justices would be empowered by law to annul Knesset laws which are interpreted by the court to contradict one of the basic laws. Currently, there is no law that upholds the court’s power to exercise judicial review of legislation. This is a major lacuna which has resulted in incessant bickering and tension between the judicial and legislative branches of government.
The aspect of Basic Law: Legislation which is being most widely attacked by opposition MKs is a clause that would empower a super majority of Knesset members to overrule a Supreme Court decision to annul a Knesset law. The Knesset would be allowed to bypass the Supreme Court if at least 65 MKs vote in favor in three separate Knesset readings. And renewal of the annulled law will remain in effect for just five years, after which time it can be renewed for a similar period of time.
In a populist attempt to present itself as a champion of a free and independent judiciary fighting against a tyranny of the right-wing majority in the Knesset the opposition has attacked this clause as “anti-democratic.”
But opposition MKs have conveniently forgotten to mention that back in 2004 former chief justice Barak, perhaps the best known and most articulate proponent of judicial activism, actually supported almost identical legislation. The only substantial difference was that 70 MKs – not 65 – would be needed to overrule a Supreme Court decision to knock down a Knesset law on the grounds it contradicted a basic law.
With most MKs not even present at the majority of votes in the plenum, it will be no easy matter to garner 65 MKs in three separate votes. Although he has not voiced his opinion on Neeman’s memorandum, it seems unlikely that Barak would oppose it just because of five MKs. Minister-without-portfolio Bennie Begin (Likud) has said that raising the number to 70 MKs is necessary in order to protect the autonomy of the Supreme Court.
The question of 65 or 70 MKs is a relatively minor matter that can easily be negotiated. It is no reason to scrap a bill that could take a major step toward improving the balance of power between the Supreme Court and the Knesset.
Germany’s relationship with the Jewish people is complicated. Jews cannot and will not bring themselves to forgive Germany for the Holocaust – reparations notwithstanding. At the same time, Germany has gone a long way toward facing its dark past. And Chancellor Angela Merkel is perhaps one of Germany’s most pro-Israeli leaders ever.
As a result, an uncomfortable dynamic is created: While it is legitimate for Germans, as friends of Israel, to offer constructive criticism of Israeli policies, it is understandably not easy for Israelis to accept such criticism, coming as it does from a people who proved more than any other on the face of the earth the Jews’ need to stop relying on the goodwill of host countries and to embrace instead political self-determination and sovereignty in their historical homeland.
But when he penned the poem, “What Must Be Said,” Günter Grass, Germany’s most famous living writer who is considered a moral compass in his homeland, callously displayed a disappointing moral bankruptcy.
Grass’s poem and the attempts by himself and other of his countrymen to defend it raise the question whether Germans – at least those supporting Grass – have learned anything from history.
In “What Must Be Said,” Grass claims that it is Israel, not the fanatic Shi’ite mullahs of Iran, that “endangers an already fragile world peace.” Grass must know that Israel – even if it were to launch a military strike against Iran to stop it from developing a nuclear bomb – would use conventional weapons.
Nevertheless, he concocts a far-fetched and completely unsubstantiated scenario, according to which Israel will resort to nuclear capabilities reportedly at its disposal for “war games, at the end of which those of us who survive will at best be footnotes.”
This is the same Israel, which, if foreign news reports are to be believed, responsibly refrained from using its nuclear capabilities, even during periods of existential threat such as the 1973 Yom Kippur War, when defense minister Moshe Dayan warned of the “destruction of the third Temple” and Israel’s political leadership, including prime minister Golda Meir, were genuinely concerned that the combined armies of the Arab states would succeed in destroying Israel.
Why would Grass make up a story that Israel is planning to use nuclear weapons against the Iranian people? Grass claims in his poem that he remained silent until now because he knew he would be labeled an anti-Semite.
But what else can be said about a man who ignores Iran’s deadly combination of Holocaust denial and sponsorship of terrorism against Israel and instead singles out for censure Israel, a country seeking since its establishment to live in peace with its neighbors, though stubbornly refusing to be “wiped off the map”? Why is Grass so intent on forcing Israel to relinquish its reported nuclear capability? Does he really think that he, an 84-year-old German who was a member of the Waffen SS as a teenager, should be the one recommending that Israel compromise its deterrence capability and, in the process, expose itself to existential threats?
Jews have ample unpleasant experiences of what it is to be powerless in the face of our enemies and to be let down by others who have the ability to defend us but choose not to.
The establishment of a robust Israel with the necessary means to defend itself against its enemies is the Jewish people’s answer to that humiliating state of affairs.
As noted by Benjamin Weinthal, The Jerusalem Post’s correspondent in Germany, the controversy surrounding Grass’s poem has brought to the fore a modern manifestation of anti-Semitism, which is actually a form of mental pathology. Germans such as Grass are filled with Holocaust-era guilt. To alleviate their dissonance, some Germans project their feelings of guilt onto Israel.
But regardless of the psychological mechanics behind his despicable poem, Grass, at the end of his life, has now been “exposed.” We hope he regains his moral bearings and issues a complete retraction. Anything less will cast a shadow on Grass’s reputation as a moral voice for Germans who came of age in the generation after the Shoah.
Passover is a time to be with family and friends, to celebrate the advent of springtime with outdoor trips and to focus on one’s personal renewal as nature renews itself after the long winter.
But Passover is also a time when Jews tend to adopt a slew of stringencies, or humrot, in their Jewish practices.
Jews are particularly fastidious about what can and cannot be eaten. During Passover, even a speck of hametz – unleavened wheat, spelt, barley, oat and rye products – can make a huge pot of food unkosher. As a result, an inordinately feverish atmosphere of zealotry surrounds the culinary habits of Jews during this holiday. Some Jews refuse to drink water from the Kinneret on Passover for fear that a piece of bread fell into the huge freshwater lake and a minuscule particle of it found its way to the tap. This year, as in past years, a representative from the Jewish National Fund sold all of the hametz in our national forests to a non- Jew so the Jewish state would not transgress the prohibition of possessing the stuff.
Ashkenazi Jews, and some Jewish communities from North Africa, also have a tradition of not eating various types of legumes, or kitniyot – corn, rice, peas, lentils and beans – because these products were stored together with grains or because they can be used to produce foods that look like bread or cake. The precise list of items that constitute kitniyot is a subject of debate. The Belz Hassidic sect will not eat garlic because generations ago in Eastern Europe, garlic was preserved inside sacks of wheat. Other hassidic sects will not eat vegetables that cannot be peeled, for fear they have been coated with a substance that contains hametz. Many Jews will go to great lengths to make sure that matza does not come into contact with water or other liquids; some go as far as eating matza separately, changing the tablecloth before commencing with a meal.
MANY SEE adherence to all these humrot as a form of neurotic preoccupation with the trivial. After all, aren’t the grand ideas of Passover – the meaning of freedom, the birth of the Jewish people, God’s relationship with the Jews – the point of the holiday, and not the petty preoccupation with customs that lack relevance in the modern age of industrialized food production? And adherence to humrot in one area of practice can lead to leniencies in other areas. Refusing to eat at the home of a less observant Jew might be a humra with regard to the food, but it is a leniency with regard to hurting that Jew’s feelings. And when supermarket chains decide, as they did this year, not to accept bottles for deposit returns during Passover, it might be a precaution against having the remnants of beer, whiskey or other hametz beverages in their possession, but it is liable to prevent the recycling of thousands of bottles.
YET THERE is also a positive aspect to all these seemingly over-zealous humrot. Adhering to stringencies can emanate from a sincere desire to give expression to one’s willingness to do God’s will. It can also be an outward expression of one’s strong feeling of commitment to tradition.
A large percentage of Israelis actually identify with this positive aspect of Passover humrot. A recent survey by the Panels Institute for Gesher, an organization involved in healing the rift between religious and secular, revealed that many Israelis, including those who define themselves as secular, have a strong commitment to maintaining Israel’s Jewish character. Asked whether it was necessary to continue to enforce the Hametz Law, which prohibits the public display of hametz during Passover, 56 percent of respondents answered that it was.
In essence, the Hametz Law is a humra. There is no prohibition in Jewish law against displaying hametz.
Nevertheless, the majority of Israelis want to see this humra remain in place. They rightly believe it is unfitting for a state that defines itself as Jewish to allow the public display of a food that Jews throughout the ages have scrupulously refrained from eating. Jews might be crazy about their traditions, but sometimes a little bit of craziness can be a good thing. It shows you care.
In recent weeks, our soccer league has been plagued by a spate of bad news. Most recently, there was the brutal beating of Hapoel Haifa midfielder Ali Khatib, who, after trying to hit a rival player, was head-butted by Maccabi Petah Tikva’s goalkeeping coach Ami Genish and, after falling to the ground, kicked in the face by Yigal Maman, a Petah Tikva fan with enough clout to receive a special access pass from the club.
This disturbing incident was preceded by the rampage of a group of Betar Jerusalem fans in the food court at the Malha Mall. The hooligans shouted “Death to Arabs” and physically accosted several Arab employees of the mall. Indeed, this season has been marred by violence.
But on Monday, there was a beacon of light.
Hapoel Ironi Kiryat Shmona, a low-budget team from a town known more for the Katyusha rockets once fired at it from Lebanon and its struggling local economy than for its soccer prowess, sealed the national championship on Monday night. This means it will win the league for the first time since it was established in 2000.
It was also the first time a small club beat out the big four – Maccabi Haifa, Betar Jerusalem, Maccabi Tel Aviv and Hapoel Tel Aviv – since Bnei Yehuda won the championship in the 1989/90 season.
The message, sent by providence or fate or whatever, was that sometimes the good guys win.
True, Kiryat Shmona benefited from unusually weak performances by the better-funded clubs. But there was a certain element of justice in the fact that Hapoel Tel Aviv, Kiryat Shmona’s only serious challenger, was further set back after being docked three points because of fan violence and a post-match player brawl.
In contrast, Kiryat Shmona’s peaceful crowd and players have stayed away from all forms of hooliganism, concentrating instead on the game. Adding to the beauty of the moment was the picture of Salah Hasarma, 38, of Biana, an Arab village near Karmiel, who has played with Kiryat Shmona since 2006, receiving the trophies together with Adrian Rochet, 24, of Neot Mordechai, a Kibbutz near Kiryat Shmona, who came up through the club’s youth department to become the team’s captain. It seemed to demonstrate that coexistence between Arabs and Jews was possible, even in a place like Kiryat Shmona, which has over the years been exposed to cross-border attacks such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine’s 1974 massacre, which left 18 dead.
Hapoel Ironi Kiryat Shmona’s victory, which now puts the club just two qualifying rounds away from playing in next season’s Champions League and potentially pairing off against the likes of Barcelona, Manchester United or Bayern Munich, is also a major boost to the working-class town’s morale.
Much of the credit goes to Hapoel Ironi Kiryat Shmona’s owner, Izzy Sheratzky, a Tel Aviv millionaire who made his money from Ituran, a global positioning system that helps track stolen cars.
But for all of Sheratzky’s financial support, Hapoel Ironi Kiryat Shmona is still less well endowed than the big four. This emphasizes the critical role played by head coach Ran Ben-Shimon and the players. And only two – Serbian defender Dusan Matovic and Argentine striker David 0 – are foreigners.
Kiryat Shmona’s rise to fame has helped remind us all of something important. Soccer and other team sports have the potential to teach important lessons about human nature. Soccer can lift morale and bring pride to those who identify with a successful team.
Perhaps Kiryat Shmona’s victory will mark not just an end to the hegemony of the big four, but also the beginning of a new era in Israeli soccer – an era in which players and fans of other teams will cut the violence and hooliganism and emulate the Kiryat Shmona club’s good manners, sportsmanship and soccer skills on and off the field.
The hypocrisy was mind-boggling. The same week that the Palestinian Authority announced the introduction of a new award to honor press freedom, it launched a crackdown on Palestinian journalists to intimidate them and stifle their voices.
On March 25, Youssef Al-Shayeb, a journalist with the Jordan-based Al-Ghad, was detained on order of the PA’s attorney-general after the journalist published an expose of purported corruption in the PA’s diplomatic mission in France. Al-Shayeb’s report, which appeared at the end of January, alleged that the mission’s deputy ambassador, Safwat Ibraghit, forced Palestinian students to spy on Muslim groups in France and relay information to Palestinian and foreign intelligence services.
Al-Shayeb also reported that Palestinian National Fund director Dr. Ramzi Khouri, PA Foreign Minister Riyad al- Maliki and others helped promote Ibraghit despite complaints leveled against him.
Maliki and others in the PA are now suing Al-Shayeb for $6 million.
Three days later, on March 28, Esmat Abdel Khaleq, a woman who posted remarks about PA President Mahmoud Abbas on Facebook, was also detained and is now reportedly being held in solitary confinement. According to the PA attorney-general, Khalik wrote “Down with the traitor Abbas,” and in another comment called the president a “fascist.” She also called for the dismantling of the PA.
Back in January, another journalist, Rami Samara, working for the official Palestinian news service Wafa, was also arrested for a post on Facebook that ridiculed the PA. Other prominent Palestinian journalists who have been arrested include Mamdouh Hamamreh, from Al-Quds TV, and George Canawati, director of Bethlehem 2000 Radio.
Adding to the sheer absurdity of the situation is the fact that both the United States and the European Union, which provide tens of millions of dollars in annual support to the PA, have ignored the brutal use of force and intimidation to shut down a basic freedom. In other words, the PA is cynically using scarce funds provided by cash-strapped American and European tax payers to perpetuate yet another autocratic regime in the Middle East. The US and the EU – apparently having learned nothing from the Arab Spring, which proved the folly of the West’s attempts to prop up dictatorial regimes – choose to remain silent on this blatant infringement of human rights.
Numerous NGOs that claim to champion human rights – but focus most of their time and energy on scrutinizing and lambasting Israel – have so far been silent about the PA’s totalitarian behavior. So have left-wing journalists who jump at the chance to point out Israel’s faults.
For instance, +972 Magazine, the online news blog that never misses a chance to bash Israel for its supposed injustices, has so far completely ignored the PA crackdown. So has Human Rights Watch (although the NGO did publish a scathing report of the harassment of Palestinian journalists last year).
Special praise is in order for Jerusalem Post journalist Khaled Abu Toameh and Haaretz journalist Amira Hass, who have both fearlessly reported on the plight of Al- Shayeb and Samara. Reporters Without Borders also managed to bring itself to criticize the PA for detaining Al- Shayeb, although it failed to mention the other Palestinian journalists.
The PA’s crackdown coincides with a renewed effort on the part of the Palestinian political leadership to adopt increasingly aggressive and unilateral measures against Israel. The PA’s appeal to the UN Human Rights Council – which incidentally has also ignored the crackdown on Palestinian journalists – to set up a “fact-finding mission” to investigate the impact of settlements on a future Palestinian state is one example. Last week’s Global March to Jerusalem and Land Day demonstrations are two more.
If the Palestinians are truly interested in establishing a sovereign state, don’t they want to do it right by making sure that future state’s institutions – the justice system, the police – protect basic human rights like press freedom? And shouldn’t the US, EU, human rights NGOs and proponents of free speech help Palestinians achieve this goal by devoting more of their time and energy to constructive criticism of the PA and less to bashing or pressuring Israel? Until that change takes place, honors such as a Palestinian award for press freedom can be nothing but ironic reminders of the distance that separates the Palestinian people from responsible self-government.
Barring a major security flare-up – or an air strike on Iran – that will eclipse all other concerns, economic issues are shaping up to be a major focus of citizens’ concerns ahead of next year’s elections.
Just days after trouncing MK Tzipi Livni in the Kadima primary race, MK Shaul Mofaz began making his influence and socioeconomic priorities heard, calling on Kadima MKs to take part in Saturday night’s small Tel Aviv march against the rising cost of living.
Seen as a precursor to massive grassroots protests this coming summer that will attempt to recreate the energy and critical mass of last summer’s demonstrations, Saturday night’s march coincided with yet another hike in gas prices.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, acutely aware of the potential for a populist backlash resulting from such a move – which would immediately translate into higher prices for consumers as both electricity and transportation costs skyrocketed together with gas prices – intervened at the last minute to limit the size of the price hike to just 5 agorot per liter instead of the planned 20 agorot per liter. The haste with which he intervened gave the distinct impression that Netanyahu was nervously caving in to popular pressure, instead of being governed by rational considerations.
Undoubtedly, gas prices are high in Israel. Since January 2009, the price of 95-octane gas climbed from NIS 4.75 per liter to NIS 7.79 per liter. The doubling of crude oil prices accounts for most of the rise. But this still does not explain why a gallon of gas costs $8.16 here and about half that price in the US.
Israelis, like Europeans, pay a high excise tax. In Israel it is NIS 2.96 per liter, 19.1 percent more than three years ago. And we also pay a 16% value-added-tax not just on the gas we buy but also on the excise tax.
The rationale behind the tax is to discourage people from using their cars, thus reducing pollution and the accompanying societal costs caused by pollution. When we drive our cars we cause indirect damage to others in the form of lung cancer, vascular infections and in general a higher propensity for sickness. The state has to step in to provide citizens with compensation in the form of higher health care expenditures. And when sick people miss work, productivity is also negatively affected.
Therefore, policy makers in Europe and in Israel reason, the state has the right to raise fuel taxes to either pay for these added costs or to dissuade drivers from causing them in the first place.
However, unlike countries like Italy, Germany and Norway, in Israel we are also forced to pay an exorbitantly high purchase tax on new cars. According to the Jerusalem Institute of Market Studies, various taxes that we pay when we buy a new car amount to between 113% and 128%, five times higher than most European countries. The high purchase tax on cars actually has a negative effect on pollution since it tends to discourage people from buying new, more fuel efficient and greener cars.
Also, the high purchase tax has created a situation in which Israelis have relatively fewer cars than Europeans – not to mention Americans. If in the US there were 808 cars per 1,000 people in 2009, according to World Bank figures, and in most western European countries there were more than 500, in Israel there were just over 300, about the same as Hungary and Argentina.
But unlike many European countries, Israel has yet to develop an efficient public transportation system, though significant steps in the right direction have been made.
Our politicians are beginning to understand that socioeconomic issues – the price of gas, the price of a new car and efficient public transportation – can decide the next elections. The Iranian nuclear threat and the security challenges of combating Iran’s proxies on our borders – Hezbollah in the North and Hamas in the South – are not going away.
But when single mothers work 12 hour days and still can’t feed their families, when the so-called “middle-class” struggles to maintain a subsistence-level existence, even the potential existential threats presented by Palestinian terrorists, by Kassam and Grad rockets, or by an Islamic Republic with nuclear capability can pale in comparison to the immediate existential threat of failing to make ends meet.
