So-called Democracy!
It is a farce when many countries worldwide would view Israel as a democracy, if not as the only democracy in this part of the world! Democracy is ,however, inseparable from people’s free choice throughout history. Was Israel democratically established and built as any other country worldwide? Israel was established at the rubbles, blood and bones of innocent civilians in Palestine. Its founders made no elections as to get voted in from Diaspora to Palestine! Any way, what follows the Israeli usurpation of Palestine was a history of killings, assassinations, expulsions and the like. The so called prefabricated garrison state was there; yet it rejects to state definite borders, constitutions… It even acts and deals differently with its Jews, Ashkenazi or Sephardim. If so, how would Israel respect non-Jews mere existence and presence? Actually labeling Israel as a democracy is but the very humiliation for what real democracy is!
Ha'aretz, the Israeli daily itself, noted on January 2, 2003 that the ongoing assault on the political activity of Palestinians in Israel over the past few days is unprecedented”. The Israeli regime has firmly established its position as one that first and foremost serves the Jews in Israel and the Diaspora; and in order to do so, it is willing to take harsh measures against the Palestinian public in Israel. Land expropriation, citizenship laws, immigration laws, orientation of capital, and the development and division of the geographic space are all basic components of the structure of the Jewish-Israel regime. All these means constitute tools to strengthen the Jewish majority and exclude the Palestinian minority. In many cases, they even serve as tools to harm the minority. The daily spoke of the then Israeli bids to disqualify Ahmed Tibi's candidacy by the Central Elections Committee and the expected hearing on the petition submitted by the attorney general to disqualify the Balad list, not to mention the recent vote barring Azmi Bishara from taking part in elections! Even some seats were later to be won by Arab Candidates, the fear is still looming nearby as to deny them some of their basic rights!
On December 21st, 2002, Israeli interior minister ordered an Israeli weekly newspaper closed for two years for making harsh criticisms of the Israeli occupation and apartheid rule in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The Israeli state-run radio said Interior Minister Eli Yeshai decided to close down Sawt al Haq Walhurriya (Voice of Truth and Freedom), a weekly newspaper, published by the Islamic movement in Israel in the Arab Israeli town of Um El-Fahm. The radio quoted unidentified government sources as accusing the paper of supporting the Palestinian struggle against the Israeli colonialist rule. The paper's editor Tawfiq Eerer criticized the closure order, saying Israeli democracy was still too fragile and undeveloped to tolerate dissenting voices.
Israel routinely closes down publications and electronic media in the Occupied Territories and arrests Palestinian journalists for communicating to the outside world Israeli repressive measures against Palestinians, thus making its claim of being the "only democracy in the region" indeed ridiculous. In a recently published first worldwide index of press freedom, Reporters Without Borders ranked Israel 92nd out of 139 countries surveyed. In their report, the group stated: "in the West Bank and Gaza, Reporters Without Borders has recorded a large number of violations of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which guarantees press freedom and which Israel has signed. Since the start of the Israeli army's incursions into Palestinian towns and cities, very many journalists have been roughed up, threatened, arrested, banned from moving around, targeted by gunfire, wounded or injured, had their press cards withdrawn or been deported." If this is what democracy is, one would wonder what not democracy is!
By
Mohammad Ado Al-Ibrahim