Israel Palestine Infos
Uri Avnery
August 13, 2011
Dichter's Law
“THE PEOPLE Demand Social
Justice!” 250 thousand protesters chanted in unison in Tel Aviv last Saturday.
But what they need – to quote an American artist - is “more unemployed
politicians”.
Fortunately, the Knesset
has gone on a prolonged vacation, three months. For as Mark Twain quipped: “No
man’s life or property is safe while the legislature is in session.”
As if to prove this
point, MK Avi Dichter submitted, on the very last day of the outgoing session, a
bill so outrageous that it easily trumps all the many other racist laws lately
adopted by this Knesset.
“DICHTER” IS A German
name and means “poet”. But no poet he. He is the former chief of the secret
police, the “General Security Service” (Shin-Bet or Shabak).
(“Dichter also means
“more dense”, but let’s not dwell on that.)
He proudly announced that
he had spent a year and a half smoothening and sharpening this particular
project, turning it into a legislative masterpiece.
And a masterpiece it is.
No colleague in yesterday’s
The very name - “Basic
Law:
“Nation” and “People” are
two different concepts. It is generally accepted that a people is an ethnic
entity, and a nation is a political community. They exist on two different
levels. But never mind.
It is the content of the
bill that counts.
WHAT DICHTER proposes is
to put an end to the official definition of
He proposes instead to
set clear priorities:
This makes him, by the
way, the first right-wing Zionist (apart from Meir Kahane) who openly admits
that there is a basic contradiction between a “Jewish” state and a “democratic”
state. Since 1948, this has been strenuously denied by all Zionist factions,
their phalanx of intellectuals and the Supreme Court.
What the new definition
means is that the State of Israel belongs to all the Jews in the world –
including Senators in Washington, drug-dealers in Mexico, oligarchs in Moscow
and casino-owners in Macao, but not to the Arab citizens of Israel, who have
been here for at least 1300 years since the Muslims entered Jerusalem. Christian
Arabs trace their ancestry back to the crucifixion 1980 years ago, Samaritans
were here 2500 years ago and many villagers are probably the descendents of the
Canaanites, who were already here some 5000 years ago.
All these will become,
once this bill is law, second-class citizens, not only in practice, as now, but
also in official doctrine. Whenever their rights clash with what the majority of
the Jews considers necessary for the preservation of the interests of the
“nation-state of the Jewish people” – which may include everything from land
ownership to criminal legislation –their rights will be ignored.
THE BILL itself does not
leave much room for speculation. It spells things out.
The Arabic language will
lose its status as an “official language” – a status it enjoyed in the Ottoman
Empire, under the British Mandate and in
No less typical is the
paragraph that says that whenever there is a hole in Israeli law (called
“lacuna”’ or lagoon), Jewish law will apply.
“Jewish law” is the
Talmud and the Halakha, the Jewish equivalent of the Muslim Sharia. It means in
practice that legal norms adopted 1500 years ago and more will trump the legal
norms evolved over recent centuries in
The Halakha and the
Sharia have much in common. They ban pork, practice circumcision, keep women in
servitude, condemn homosexuals and fornicators to death and deny equality for
infidels. (In practice, both religions have modified many of the harsher
penalties. In the Jewish religion, for example, “an eye for an eye” now means
compensation. Otherwise, as Gandhi so aptly said, we would all be blind by now.)
After enacting this law,
MOST OF the Knesset
members who signed this bill fervently believe in “the Whole of Eretz-Israel” –
meaning the official annexation of the West Bank and the
They don’t mean the
“One-State solution” that so many well-intentioned idealists dream about. In
practice, the only One State that is feasible is one governed by Dichter’s law -
the “Nation-State of the Jewish People” - with the Arabs relegated to the status
of the Biblical “hewers of wood and drawers of water”.
Sure, the Arabs will be a
majority in this state – but who cares? Since the Jewishness of the state will
override democracy, their numbers will be irrelevant. Much as the number of
blacks was in Apartheid
LET’S HAVE a look at the
party to which this poet of racism belongs: Kadima.
When I was in the army, I
was always amused by the order: “the squad will retreat to the rear – forward
march!”
This may sound absurd,
but is really quite logical. The first part of the order relates to its
direction, the second to its execution.
“Kadima” means “forward”,
but Its direction is backward.
Dichter is a prominent
leader of Kadima. Since his only claim to distinction is his former role as
chief of the secret police, this must be why he was elected. But he has been
joined in this racist project by more than 80% of the Kadima Knesset faction –
the largest in the present parliament.
What does this say about
Kadima?
Kadima has been a dismal
failure in practically every respect. As an opposition faction in parliament it
is a sad joke – indeed, I dare say that when I was a one-man faction in the
Knesset, I generated more opposition activity than this 28-headed colossus. It
has not formulated any meaningful stand on peace and the occupation, not to
mention social justice.
Its leader, Tzipi Livni,
has proved herself a total failure. Her only achievement has been her ability to
keep her party together – no mean feat, though, considering that it consists of
refugees (some would say traitors) from other parties, who hitched their cart to
Ariel Sharon’s surging horses when he left the Likud. Most Kadima leaders left
the Likud with him, and – like Livni herself – are deeply steeped in Likud
ideology. Some others came from the Labor Party, arm in arm with that unsavory
political prostitute, Shimon Peres.
This haphazard collection
of frustrated politicians has tried several times to outflank Binyamin Netanyahu
on the right. Its members have co-signed almost all the racist bills introduced
in recent months, including the infamous “Boycott Law” (though when public
opinion rebelled, they withdrew their signature, and some of them even voted
against.)
How did this party get to
be the largest in the Knesset, with one more seat than Likud? For left-wing
voters, who were disgusted by Ehud Barak’s Labor Party and who dismissed the
tiny Meretz, it seemed the only chance to stop Netanyahu and Lieberman. But that
may change very soon.
LAST SATURDAY’s huge
protest demonstration was the largest in
It is impossible to
describe the sheer energy emanating from this crowd, consisting mostly of
20-30-year-olds. History, like a gigantic eagle, could be felt beating its wings
above. It was a jubilant mass, conscious of its immense power.
The protesters were eager
to shun “politics” – reminding me of the words of Pericles, some 2500 years ago,
that “just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn’t mean that
politics won’t take an interest in you!”
The demonstration was, of
course, highly political – directed against Netanyahu, the government and the
entire social order. Marching in the dense crowd, I looked around for
kippa-wearing protesters and could not spot a single one. The whole religious
sector, the right-wing support group of the settlers and Dichter’s Law, was
conspicuously absent, while the Oriental Jewish sector, the traditional base of
Likud, was amply represented.
This mass protest is
changing the agenda of
That will surely be the
end of Kadima, and few will mourn it. It would also mean bye-bye to Dichter, the
Secret Police poet.