There is a brewing media scandal in
Israel that has received scant attention. Let’s try to change that.
Earlier this week, a fictitious settler group published an ad in Haaretz
supporting price tag attacks. One point they made in their support was
the claim that price tag attacks are civil disobedience in the same sense that
Ilana Hammerman’s group, We Do Not Obey,
is. She is the activist who began a protest movement by driving
Palestinian mothers and children from the West Bank into Israel in order to
take them to the beach, amusement parks, zoos, etc. For her efforts,
she’s been rewarded by three police summonses for questioning including a
warning of criminal prosecution. It is illegal both for Palestinians to
enter Israel without proper permits and it is illegal for Israeli citizens to
bring such individuals into Israel.
We Do Not Obey acts in ways that are
totally non-violent and designed to promote tolerance and peaceful co-existence
between Israelis and Palestinians while price tag is a violent, abusive and
illegal form, not of civil disobedience, but of hooliganism and even terror. The
very comparison of the two is an act of outrageous chutzpah.
What is even more shocking about the
ad than the bogus logic of the argument offered in it, is the fact that the ad
purported to be signed by settler women who support the price tag acts of
vandalism and defacement of Palestinian mosques, cemeteries, etc. It also
listed the purported settlements in which each endorser lived. In
reality, every woman’s name included in the ad is a member of Ilana Hammerman’s
group of peace activists. In other words, the individual who created the
ad engaged in an act of fraud and Haaretz abetted the fraud by accepting the ad
and asking no questions to verify the authenticity of those names. Nor
did it verify the authenticity of the fake group which purported to
sponsor the ad.
Further, after Haaretz discovered it
had been duped, it notified Hammerman that it would no longer accept any op-ed
pieces by her about her work with We Do Not Obey (as it had in the past).
It appears that Haaretz, instead of blaming the person who perpetrated
the fraud, is washing its hands of Hammerman and her entire movement. A
clear case if there ever was one of blaming the victim. Instead of
showing respect for fairness and freedom of speech, and apologizing for their
error in helping defame these women, Haaretz takes a typically liberal approach
and absconds from the entire controversy.
We now know who is the author of the
fraud. He is Benny Katzover, a notorious settler
activist. Here is the audio
transcript of the interview in which he took credit for the ad. Among
his recent claims to fame (or better yet, infamy) is an interview
he published in a Chabad journal, claiming the Israeli democracy had
outlived its usefulness and should give way to a state governed by Jewish law
(“We didn’t come here to establish a democratic state”). Does anyone
besides me find it ironic (or possibly sociopathic) that a radical settler who
rejects Israeli democracy defends price tag attacks as legitimate forms of
civil disobedience?
We don’t know who paid for the
$1,000-1,500 cost of the ad. Haaretz knows, but I doubt they’re going to
tell. A source I’ve consulted who is knowledgeable about the story
believes that the funding came from either a settlement or a settler agency,
which may mean that the State itself paid for the ad (either directly or
indirectly). In fact, a statement
on the group’s Facebook page declares the ad was likely paid for through
public funds. This would mean that this act of fraud was actually
endorsed and paid for by a government entity and the taxpayers of Israel.
Further, it would mean that public funds were used to endorse the acts of
hooliganism and lawlessness represented by the price tag movement. In the
event that this claim is true, it would mean that while Israel’s leaders are
publicly decrying price tag pogromism, other parts of the Israeli government or
its public agencies are actually endorsing it. Does this surprise anyone?
It also shouldn’t surprise anyone
the government would smear Hammerman since her activism is considered a prime
example of delegitimization, the right-wing concept du jour. Yuli
Edelstein’s Hasbara ministry is charged with combatting delegitimization and
Edelstein himself is a prominent settler leader. It wouldn’t be beyond
the realm of possibility that his agency could’ve played some role in the
attack, though I’m still exploring this angle of the story.
The women of We Do Not Obey have
been consulting an attorney to decide how to proceed. It’s ironic that
the draconian proposed defamation law that may shortly pass the Knesset and
become law would greatly aid these women in their pursuit of justice. It
would allow them to personally win substantial financial compensation of up to
$75,000 each (for 40 women) from Katzover without having to prove any financial
damage to them. The Israeli far-right devised this cockamamie law to use
against the Israeli NGO and peace activist community. It never occurred to
them that it could be used against them as well by the Israeli left.
That’s how smart these dullards are.
Source:
http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2012/01/16/haaretz-publishes-fraudulent-ad-supporting-settler-price-tag-attacks-signs-names-of-peace-activists/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+richardsilverstein%2FZOfh+%28+Tikun+Olam-%D7%AA%D7%A7%D7%95%D7%9F+%D7%A2%D7%95%D7%9C%D7%9D%3A+Make+the+World+a+Better+Place%29