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Loyal Citizens...
Oct. 9th, 2010 11:01 amI wrote this yesterday, in fact. But the first rain deluge caught the country off guard, add a faulty high voltage wire to the mix and what you have is a five hour power outage. The power outage lasted until I was picked up for a family evening and got back just in time for bed.
So, here's what I was going to write, a day later.
( Brief whine about wanting to write about Inception )
So instead of writing about sneaky, ambiguously queer, white men, I'm going to write, briefly, about the fact that fascism sneaks up on you, in a perfectly respectable democratic system.
The Loyalty Oath law has been a sword of Damocles hanging over the state ever since the election campaign that used the slogan "No Loyalty, No Citizenship". The right wing party "Yisrael Beitenu" (Our Home, Israel) has been pushing a bill for years now that will require those becoming Israeli citizens to swear allegiance to Israel as a Jewish and Democratic state - two ideas that are fast becoming mutually exclusive.
"Attempts to enforce recognition of Israel as uniquely Jewish have been deeply controversial, particularly among Israel's Arab citizens, who make up a fifth of the country's population."
The thing is, loyalty oaths to the state when it comes to naturalising citizens are nothing new. However, the draconian nature of the new draft to the citizenship law is particularly galling.
Emphasis mine and Yes, really. Draconian and racist loyalty oaths ("new liberal" draft notwithstanding), Labour wants political leverage regarding the Settlement construction freeze, which officially thawed last week and never really ceased unofficially:
It's all rather disgusting. But, honestly, my surprise at this sort of garbage coming out of my government is not something that surprises me. After all, we asked for it. That's what's lovely about democracy and the majority vote and all that, the most "successful" fascist regimes were voted for by the Vox Populi.
The "populi" as a collective, are idiots.
It is somewhat telling that all this is coming to a head on the tenth anniversary of the October Events one of the incidents that triggered the Second Intifada ten years ago.
I think whole idea of loyalty oaths are ridiculous, but that's not the issue. The issue is the targeting of non-Jewish would be citizens to declare the Jewish ideal as supreme, because that's what is happening here. The conflation of the Jewish nation and the Israeli state is very problematic, not only for those who aren't Jewish at all, but also for those who are not Halachically Jewish (i.e. according to the Rabbanut, the Jewish religious court in Israel).
One of the platforms of "Yisrael Beitenu" went with during the elections is purporting to be the voice of that segment of the population who are Jewish enough to be citizens under the Law of Return, but not Jewish enough to be considered worthy of marriage rights, yes this is a big enough to deal to be an election platform.
To conclude, this is yet another step in a direction I'm quite sure no one in their right mind would want to take. This may, however, be indicative of the fact that the heat drives us all crazy and perhaps the October showers will help cool us off.
Just a thought.
So, here's what I was going to write, a day later.
( Brief whine about wanting to write about Inception )
So instead of writing about sneaky, ambiguously queer, white men, I'm going to write, briefly, about the fact that fascism sneaks up on you, in a perfectly respectable democratic system.
The Loyalty Oath law has been a sword of Damocles hanging over the state ever since the election campaign that used the slogan "No Loyalty, No Citizenship". The right wing party "Yisrael Beitenu" (Our Home, Israel) has been pushing a bill for years now that will require those becoming Israeli citizens to swear allegiance to Israel as a Jewish and Democratic state - two ideas that are fast becoming mutually exclusive.
"Attempts to enforce recognition of Israel as uniquely Jewish have been deeply controversial, particularly among Israel's Arab citizens, who make up a fifth of the country's population."
The thing is, loyalty oaths to the state when it comes to naturalising citizens are nothing new. However, the draconian nature of the new draft to the citizenship law is particularly galling.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Thursday submitted his own draft amendment to the Citizenship Law, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a snap decision to back a controversial proposal that would require any non-Jew taking Israeli citizenship to swear allegiance to Israel as a "Jewish and democratic state."
Angered by Netanyahu's move to bring the amendment to cabinet for a vote, Labor party ministers said late Wednesday that they expected a new freeze in settlement building as a payoff.
Emphasis mine and Yes, really. Draconian and racist loyalty oaths ("new liberal" draft notwithstanding), Labour wants political leverage regarding the Settlement construction freeze, which officially thawed last week and never really ceased unofficially:
[...]the prime minister must perform a balancing act. Allies at both ends of the political spectrum and the Labor party hope that his latest concession is a sop to right-wingers ahead of a decision to renew a ban on settlement building in the West Bank – a key demand of the left.
"I hope that Netanyahu's support is a payoff to Lieberman, so that the prime minister will be able to extend the freeze without breaking apart his coalition," said one Labor minister, who declined to be named.
It's all rather disgusting. But, honestly, my surprise at this sort of garbage coming out of my government is not something that surprises me. After all, we asked for it. That's what's lovely about democracy and the majority vote and all that, the most "successful" fascist regimes were voted for by the Vox Populi.
The "populi" as a collective, are idiots.
It is somewhat telling that all this is coming to a head on the tenth anniversary of the October Events one of the incidents that triggered the Second Intifada ten years ago.
I think whole idea of loyalty oaths are ridiculous, but that's not the issue. The issue is the targeting of non-Jewish would be citizens to declare the Jewish ideal as supreme, because that's what is happening here. The conflation of the Jewish nation and the Israeli state is very problematic, not only for those who aren't Jewish at all, but also for those who are not Halachically Jewish (i.e. according to the Rabbanut, the Jewish religious court in Israel).
One of the platforms of "Yisrael Beitenu" went with during the elections is purporting to be the voice of that segment of the population who are Jewish enough to be citizens under the Law of Return, but not Jewish enough to be considered worthy of marriage rights, yes this is a big enough to deal to be an election platform.
To conclude, this is yet another step in a direction I'm quite sure no one in their right mind would want to take. This may, however, be indicative of the fact that the heat drives us all crazy and perhaps the October showers will help cool us off.
Just a thought.
