Western critics of Israeli democracy should look to their own houses

I am not an Israeli citizen, and don’t presume to tell the Israelis what to do. Many people may disagree, but I go so far as to say that anyone living outside Israel,  be they Jewish or not, should have no automatic right to have a say in Israeli politics. Why?- because the Yishuv/Israel has been in existence over 120 years, and by now, anyone who really wants to do so, has long had the choice of going to live there. For those of us who for personal or other reasons, have not chosen to go on Aliyah, have by default thus chosen to stay British or American etc, and have no more right to say what the Israelis should do than what the Japanese should do !

 

Nevertheless, certain points need to be made in regard to these matters-

 

– the Israeli Knesset represents the will of the Israeli electorate, and the Knesset voted overwhelmingly for the new laws, which anyway will no doubt be legally challenged if necessary.

 

– Israel is facing a massive campaign to delegitimise the State. Many of the most vehement critics of Israel’s right to exist are Jews, financed by and operating as NGO’s (non Government Organisations.) .Many of these NGO’s are financed by Europe, with what is effectively economic warfare by certain countries against Israel.  Indeed many people allege that the Goldstein Report on the Gaza War, was largely “written” by some of these NGO’s. It seems quite justifiable to my mind, that Israel take appropriate counter measures.

 

– The so called “left” has been largely marginalised in terms of Israeli internal politics.  Policies of left wing groups have focused almost exclusively on the “occupation”, but that is simply something that doesn’t  resonate with Israeli life on a day to day basis.  Hence the increasing links with foreign left organisations., where they have a welcome reception in their campaigns to boycott Israel for its “occupation.”

 

No one with any sense of proportion can accuse Israel of being undemocratic-  it has the most vibrant democracy in the Middle East.  How “democratic” is much of “Western” democracy at the moment?

In UK,  the idiocy of the Banks has led to the man in the street having to pay very dearly for the bank crisis, while the politicians remain beholden to the bankers who have apparently suffered little. At the same time, our political leaders have been shown to be hand in glove with the Media , with the result that information on which the public can make judgments is distorted or missing . We are at war with Libya, and nowhere have I read any explanation to the British public of why this is so, or why a year ago Libya was our “best friend”, with the Lockerbie bomber released to go back to Libya, but now we are at war.  We have an illusion of “democracy”, and thus my resentment at the hypocrisy of those  who would do better to make a fuss about their own countries’ lack of “democracy”, rather than spend so much time criticising others (ie Israel).

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Levy is a freelance writer who divides his time between England and Israel.  He may be contacted at lloyd.levy@sdjewishworld.com