Civil Rights in Israel

New Movement-Meretz MK Nitzan Horowitz has presented a new bill that would amend the "Holy Places Law" and allow for tolerance and pluralism at the Kotel, the Western Wall, among all streams of Jewish practice.

In response to a court petition by the Israeli NGO, Gisha - Legal Center for Freedom of Movement, the government of Israel has for the first time admitted that it has specific written guidelines for its Gaza Strip blockade which outline which goods it will, and which it will not, allow into Gaza, and in what quantities.

Last week, Kadima MK Yulia Shamalov Berkovich introduced an urgent motion to the Knesset plenum, accusing "organizations supported by the New Israel Fund" of, "treasonous behavior", "involvement in subversive activity against ... officers in the Israel Defense Forces," and, "making common cause with our greatest enemies to realize their goal - the obliteration of Zionism". The Kadima MK compared the NIF to the Nazis ("we won't go like sheep to the slaughter").

Knesset members from the Likud, Yisrael Beiteinu, National Union, and United Torah Judaism parties joined the ominous chorus.

New Movement-Meretz MK Nitzan Horowitz rose to an impassioned defense of the New Israel Fund. Comparing the Knesset members' attacks to a "witch hunt", he said:

Like nature, the Israeli-Palestinian situation abhors a vacuum. So, in the wake of the Joe Biden/East Jerusalem construction fiasco last month, and the apparent breakdown of plans for ‘proximity talks', it's no wonder that we are witnessing both increased tension and violence, as well as a swell in support for an American-authored peace plan.

Reports this week in the Washington Post and New York Times suggest that an "Obama plan", based on the "Clinton parameters", is in the works and could be unveiled by this fall.

The Meretz party's Knesset faction will be submitting a motion of no-confidence in the Netanyahu government over its ongoing massive construction in East Jerusalem. This week, Israel authorized the construction of 1,600 new housing units in East Jerusalem's Ramat Shlomo neighborhood, creating a diplomatic crisis during the visit of US Vice President Biden. The Meretz faction termed the Netanyahu government's moves, "the policy of a pyromaniac".

Meretz chair, MK Haim Oron, attacked the government in a press release: "This is an inebriated government ["Adloyada government", in Hebrew], which, by its own hand, is making a dangerous mockery of its professed desire to renew diplomacy."

The Meretz party's electronic bulletin this week boasted, sadly, that Meretz is the only party in Israel that has been united in defense of Israeli democracy, following the attack on the New Israel Fund and its President, Naomi Chazan. Here are sections of the bulletin:

This week, we mark a full year since the Knesset elections that dealt us a sharp blow. The McCarthyist campaign of lies and hatred of the last two weeks against the New Israel Fund and ... its President, Naomi Chazan, clarified the meaning of last year's election results: A dangerous and frightening erosion of democracy in Israel.

On February 2, Meretz USA President Lawrence Lerner and Chair Theodore Bikel issued the following statement to the press:

This is an ominous hour for Israeli democracy. The recent attack on the New Israel Fund and its President, Prof. Naomi Chazan, by the Im Tirtzu organization - base and reprehensible as it is - is just the most recent in a frighteningly consistent series of events in Israel that evokes the McCarthy period in America, and worse.

On February 2, Meretz USA President Lawrence Lerner and Chair Theodore Bikel issued the following statement to the press:

This is an ominous hour for Israeli democracy. The recent attack on the New Israel Fund and its President, Prof. Naomi Chazan, by the Im Tirtzu organization - base and reprehensible as it is - is just the most recent in a frighteningly consistent series of events in Israel that evokes the McCarthy period in America, and worse.

Amira Hass reported in Haaretz this week that Palestinian lawyers have gone on a protest strike after Israel severely restricted access to their clients at the military tribunal west of Ramallah, in the West Bank. The lawyers have been told that they can no longer pass through the Beitunia checkpoint, only ¼ mile from the court. They are now being required to travel instead via the Qalandia checkpoint, in the section of northern Jerusalem annexed by Israel after 1967.

The new restriction involves not only a much lengthier route. Since Israel regards Qalandia as sovereign territory, the lawyers are also required to first file for an entry permit to the country. But permit requests can take weeks to process, and are not always approved by the Israeli authorities.

Conceived and initiated by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), more than 50 not-for-profit organizations, representing both the Jewish and Arab communities, will engage in Israel's first-ever mass march for human rights. The march will set out from Rabin Square in Tel Aviv at 11 AM on Friday, December 11, in honor of International Human Rights Day.

In his call to take part, ACRI Executive Director Hagai El-Ad bravely ties together the scourge of occupation and the threat to democracy within Green Line Israel. To read El-Ad's text in full, click here.