Uri
Avnery
November 19, 2011
Weimar Revisited
“YOU
AND your Weimar!” a friend of mine once
exclaimed in exasperation, ”just because you experienced the collapse of the Weimar Republic
as a child, you see Weimar
behind every corner.”
The
accusation was not unjustified. In 1960, during the Eichmann trial, I wrote a
book about the fall of the German
Republic. Its last
chapter was called: “It can happen here” Since then I have come back to this
warning time and again.
But
now I am not alone anymore. During the last few weeks, the word Weimar has popped up in
the articles of many commentators.
It
should be sprayed in huge letters on the walls.
ISRAELI[]
DEMOCRACY is under siege. No one can ignore this anymore. It is the main topic
in the Knesset, which is leading the attack, and the media, who are among the
victims.
This
does not happen in the occupied territories. There, democracy never existed.
Occupation is the very opposite of democracy: a denial of all human rights, the
right to life, liberty, movement, fair trial and free expression, not to
mention national rights.
No,
I mean Israel proper, the Israel inside the Green Line, The Only Democracy
In The Middle East.
The
attackers are members of Binyamin Netanyahu’s government coalition, which includes
semi-fascist and openly fascist elements. Netanyahu himself tries to remain
discreetly in the background, but there can be no doubt that every single
detail has been orchestrated by him.
In
the first two years of this coalition, attacks were sporadic. But now they are
determined, systematic and coordinated.
At
this moment, the anti-democratic forces are attacking on a wide front, The
three main pillars of democracy – the courts, the media and the human rights
organizations – are under simultaneous, deadly assault. (Remember Weimar?)
THE
SUPREME COURT is the bastion of democracy. Israel has no constitution, the
Knesset majority is totally unbridled, only the court can (if reluctantly)
check the adoption of anti-democratic laws.
I
am not a blind admirer of the court. In the occupied territories, it is an arm
of the occupation, devoted to “national security”, approving of some of the
worst incidents. Only in rare cases has it come out against the worst
practices. But in Israel
proper, it is a stout defender of civil rights.
The
extreme rightists in the Knesset are resolved to put an end to this. Their
front man is the Minister of Justice, who was appointed by Avigdor Lieberman.
He is pushing a series of scandalous ad hominem bills. One of them is
designed to change the composition of the public committee that appoints the
judges, with the undisguised intention of bringing about the appointment of a
particular right-wing judge to the Supreme Court.
Another
bill has the undisguised purpose of changing the existing court rules in order
to put a certain “conservative” judge in the chair of Chief Justice. The
declared purpose is to abolish the rule of an independent court which dares,
though only in rare cases, to block “anti-constitutional” laws enacted by the
Knesset majority. They want the court to
“represent the will of the people”. (Remember Weimar?)
Until
now, since the first day of the state, the justices have been, in practice,
chosen by cooptation. This has functioned perfectly for 63 years. Israel’s
Supreme Court is the envy of many countries. Now this system is in mortal
danger.
Another
bill, which would have compelled candidates for the Supreme Court to undergo
grilling by a Knesset Committee chaired by another Lieberman appointee, and obtain
their approval, was withheld at the last moment by Netanyahu himself, He had
already given his approval, but shrank back after the almost universal
condemnation – and is now posing as the defender of democracy from his own
underlings.
The
chairman of the Judicial Committee of the Knesset, another Lieberman appointee,
is rushing these laws through his committee, contrary to established
procedures. In a stormy session this week, a female member called him “a coarse
thug”. He replied: “You are not even a beast”.
A minimal purpose of these bills is to
terrorize any judges considering vetoing the other anti-democratic bills that
are being enacted. Some say that the effects are already being felt.
In
several famous cases, the government openly flouts the Supreme Court’s orders,
especially concerning the evacuation of “settlements outposts” built on lands
belonging to Palestinian farmers.
Who
will defend the court? The former Chief Justice, Aharon Barak, who was hated by
the rightists because of his pioneering “judicial activism”, once told me: “The
Court has no army divisions. Its power rests solely on the support of the
public.”
THE
ASSAULT on the media started some time ago when the American casino baron,
Sheldon Adelson, a close friend of Netanyahu, started a daily tabloid paper
with the express purpose of helping Netanyahu. It is being distributed for free
and now has the biggest circulation in the country, threatening the existence
of all the others (but also bribing them by giving them huge printing orders.)
Money is no object. Huge sums are being spent.
That
was only the beginning.
In
1965 the Labor party government enacted a new libel law (called literally “the
Law of the Evil Tongue”) which was then clearly designed to muzzle “Haolam
Hazeh”, the mass-circulation news magazine I was editing, which had introduced
investigative reporting to Israel. I appealed to the public to send me to the
Knesset in protest, and 1.5% of the voters were incensed enough to do so.
Now
the right-wing gang in the Knesset wants to sharpen this anti-media law even
more. The new amendment grants up to $135,000 damages to anyone claiming to be
hurt by the media, without their having to prove any damage at all. For
newspapers and TV channels, which are already in a precarious financial
position, this means that they better give up all investigative reporting and
any criticism of influential politicians and tycoons.
The
new winds are already being felt. Journalists and TV editors are cowed. This
week, a program on Channel 10, considered the most liberal, gave five minutes
to a song glorifying the late “Rabbi” Meir Kahane, who was branded by the
Supreme Court as a fascist, and whose organization was outlawed for advocating what the court called
“Nuremberg laws”. An avowed member of this organization, which is alive and
kicking under another name, is now a vocal member of the Knesset. (Remember Weimar?)
A
major purge of TV journalists is already underway. One by one, directors of all
TV channels are being replaced by confirmed rightists. It was openly admitted
that the government would force the closure of Channel 10 by calling in
outstanding debts if a certain journalist were not fired. Though generally an
establishment type, this reporter had irked Netanyahu by exposing his and his
wife’s luxurious traveling style at government expense.
AT
THE same time, human rights and peace NGOs are under heavy attack. The Knesset
gang is producing bill after bill to silence them.
One
bill already under way forbids human rights associations to receive donations
from foreign governments and “state-like organizations”, such as the UN and the
EU. Right-wing organization receive, of course, huge sums of money from Jewish
American billionaires, who fund the settlements (which are also indirectly
financed by the US
treasury, which gives tax-exempt status to the so-called “charitable
organizations” that fund the settlements.)
The
law which levies huge indemnities on organizations and individuals who advocate
a boycott on the products of the settlements is already in force. The hearing
of an application submitted by Gush Shalom to the Supreme Court against this
suppression of political protest has been postponed by the court again and
again and again.
This
parliamentary terrorism is accompanied by the accelerating violence of fascist
gangs from the settlements. These SA-like gangs call their actions “Price Tag”.
Usually, they react to the isolated cases of the army demolishing a few
“illegal” buildings in a settlement by attacking a neighboring Palestinian
village, setting fire to a mosque or carrying out what can only be described as
a pogrom. (Remember Weimar?)
MARTIN
NIEMÖLLER, a German U-boat captain and later pacifist pastor, who was thrown
into a concentration camp by the Nazis , coined the famous lament: “When the
Nazis came to take the Communists, I was silent. After all, I was no Communist.
When they took the Jews, I was silent. I am no Jew. When they arrested the
Social Democrats, I was silent. I was no Social Democrat. When they came to
take me, there was no one left to protest.”
What
we are witnessing now are not isolated attacks on one or another human right –
what we are seeing is a general attack on democracy as such. Perhaps only
people who have experienced life under a fascist dictatorship can fully realize
what that means.
Of
course, the similarity between the collapse of the German republic and the
processes in today’s Israel
does not mean that the same events must follow. Nazism was unique in many ways.
The end of real democracy may be followed by different systems. There are many models to choose from:
Ceausescu, Franco, Putin.
Certainly,
there is no similarity between the small German town called Weimar and Tel Aviv. Except perhaps the fact
that many houses in Tel Aviv were designed according to the Bauhaus
architectural school - which originated in Weimar.
Weimar
was once a cultural center, where geniuses like Goethe and Schiller produced
their masterpieces. The German republic which was founded in 1919, after World
War I, was called by this name after the national assembly which framed its
very progressive constitution there.
On
these lines, the endangered democratic State of Israel,
whose Declaration of Independence was signed in 1948 in Tel Aviv, could
rightly be called the Tel
Aviv Republic.
We are not yet in 1932. The Storm
Troopers are not yet roaming our streets. We still have time to mobilize the
public against the looming danger. The demonstration taking place today in Tel
Aviv against the de-democratization of Israel may mark a turning point.
