One of the inherent ironies of a proper democracy is that a parliamentary majority can vote to temper or even topple the tenets upon which a country’s democratic qualities are founded. In that sense, no one can disagree that Israel is a true democracy.
On July 11, the Knesset passed a Boycott Law, which penalizes any Israeli citizen who dares call for or endorse an economic, cultural or academic boycott of the country as a whole or “areas under its control.” Approved by a 47-to-38 vote, the law allows companies and institutions targeted by such a call or endorsement to seek damages. It furthermore stipulates that an individual or company calling for a boycott will no longer be eligible to bid in government tenders. It remains to be seen if the law will stand when applied in court, as it has been protested as a violation of Israel’s constitutional right of free speech. It seems the law will face such a legal test sooner rather than later, as Aryeh Eldad of the National Union party has already filed a complaint against Dror Morag and other members of the left-leaning Meretz party, after they called for the labeling of products made in Israeli settlements.
The law has come under intense scrutiny in Israel and abroad, including in the United States. The New York Times slammed the law as “not befitting a democracy.” Even the Anti-Defamation League, one of the pillars of the Israeli Lobby, which has always proudly opposed any calls for a boycott of Israel, defined the law as “an unnecessary impingement of Israelis’ basic democratic right to freedom of speech.”
Ironically, the US itself in 1977 passed legislation in response to the Arab Boycott of Israel, which prohibits American taxpayers from taking action in support of an unsanctioned foreign boycott against a friendly state. When in recent years a potential boycott of Israel was discussed at American university campuses, pro-Israel elements keenly reminded people of the existence of the little known “Office of Anti-boycott Compliance” within the Department of Commerce.
Meanwhile, Israel’s ruling coalition of right-wing nationalist and religious parties happily ignored the wave of criticism and perceived the passing of the law as a green light to revive an older and equally controversial initiative: The launch of a parliamentary inquiry into the foreign funding of Israeli human rights organizations. Pushed by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Likud Member of Parliament (MP) Danny Danon, it aims to tackle Israeli organizations that, according to them, work against the interests of the country.
Initiatives such as these illustrate not only Israel’s increasing schism with its own democratic principles, but also a shift away from the prospect of a negotiated peace with the Palestinians and Arab states. On the right there is the growing number of Jewish fundamentalists who, with a metaphorical Torah in one hand and an Uzi in the other, claim that the West Bank is an integral part of Israel, as God once upon a very long time ago gave Judea and Samaria to the Jews. On the left there are the secular, liberal segments of Israeli society, willing to comply with international law and cede the occupied territories in exchange for a peace deal, but they have largely been cowed into obscurity over the last decade or so as the right and far right have seized the initiative, dominated Israeli politics and set the social agenda, and this momentum shows no signs of slowing.
In an interview with Robert Fisk, the late Yeshayahu Leibowitz (1903-1994), one of Israel’s greatest 20th century thinkers, sketched a doom scenario for the country if the occupation of the West Bank were allowed to continue. “Two consequences are unavoidable,” he said. “Internally, the state of Israel will become a full-fledged fascist state with concentration camps not only for Arabs but even for Jews like me. Externally, we will have a war till the finish against the Arabs, with the sympathy of the entire world on the Arab side. This catastrophe can be avoided only by partition.” At that time, his words were hardly taken seriously. Yet today, seeing the actions of the religious right and extremist hotheads such as Lieberman, one must wonder if we are not peering over the precipice of a very slippery slope.
PETER SPEETJENS is a Beirut-based journalist
