Good morning, Threaders, Threadheads, and all in between. Coffee is good. Coffee is black.
Yes, I speak up for Israel.
Yes, I don’t give in, it’s essential.
Yes, I support a two state solution, for an Israeli one state means the end of her democracy.
Yes, I despise Netanyahu’s government.
So here’s my early read from the Haaretz, to start this long good morning post. Walk with me.
Editorial
Israel Police Must Not Become
Ben-Gvir's Private Militia
Haaretz Editorial
Feb 26, 2024 12:30 am IST
The excessive force the Israel Police used at an anti-government demonstration in Tel Aviv Saturday evening – which resulted in the arrest of 21 demonstrators (they were released overnight) and at least four injured – points to a shift in police policy toward protests.
On the stormiest night of protests since the war began on October 7, the police's water cannons did not even spare a hostage who had been released from Hamas captivity.
This was not a localized, isolated incidence of violence. The police consistently used massive force throughout the evening, including the frequent use of water cannons and mounted officers. Police moved onto the sidewalks several times to push the protesters back.
One mounted officer whipped an older man in the head with his horse's reins. A female demonstrator was injured by a horse while crossing the street. And two other demonstrators suffered eye injuries after being hit with water cannons.
The police hit a new nadir in the history of police brutality when they used a water cannon to disperse a march in which the hostages' families were participating.
Ilana Gritzewsky, who was released in the first hostage deal after being abducted from Nir Oz, was one of the marchers. The police's inability to show restraint toward the hostages' families and contain the protest without sliding into violence ought to worry every Israeli. It attests to an extreme and dangerous lack of tolerance for anything the government identifies as opposition.
The civic anger the protesters expressed in the streets Saturday night was justified. This government, the worst in Israel's history, brought disaster on the country and abandoned its citizens. Now, it isn't doing enough to bring the hostages home, and it also refuses to resign, despite bearing responsibility for the massive failure.
The police's aggressiveness on the ground will neither prevent disorderly conduct nor suppress the protests. Experience shows that when the police make excessive use of force and of water cannons, this merely encourages the protesters and expands their ranks. Moreover, there was nothing particularly untoward in the demonstrators' behavior that could have justified the police's loss of self-control.
It's not inconceivable that the police were acting in the spirit of the minister in charge of them, Itamar Ben-Gvir. Ben-Gvir seeks to inflame tempers as a modus operandi, because he's convinced that wherever he can sow chaos, he will win more votes. Thus it is not inconceivable that the man who has set the West Bank and the Temple Mount ablaze will do the same to Tel Aviv.
Though the police are subordinate to Ben-Gvir, they must not be a branch of his Otzma Yehudit party. They must protect the right to demonstrate, a cornerstone of democracy, and tolerate the justified civic anger and frustration over this government's unprecedented abandonment of its citizens.
from:
Haaretz Editorial
Feb 26, 2024 12:30 am IST
So there you have it. To all those who claim Israelis are not pushing back against Netanyahu’s delusions, I say go read Israeli newspapers and fuck off. Bibi will soon answer for his crimes, including his role in the 10/7 tragedy, starting a war he could have avoided. But not while war rages, for he is anchored to power by it, harnessed in Ben-Gvir’s National Defense Ministry. But Israel’s society will push back.
In her morning post from Jerusalem, Sarah Tuttlesinger, @tuttlesinger, wrote this:
“So lately I'm ALLLLL about Jewish unity and finding ways to strengthen our Tribe, which is why I am ALSO all about calling out dangers for our Tribe - including dangers within...
So hello, and have a beautiful evening/morning/afternoon to everyone but Ben-Gvir and Smotrich who seem intent on setting fire to our precious tent.”
Yes, Israelis know better, and they push back against those who seek to destroy Israel from within. If you ever wondered why most people see Zionism not for what it was meant to be, but for what it has become, why most of us can’t differentiate Cultural Zionism from Herzlian Zionism, it’s because of the likes of Itamar Ben-Gvir, minister of National Defense, and Bezalel Smotrich, a settler living in the Kedumim settlement, in the West Bank, minister of Finance.
And before them, the likes of Meir Kahane, founder of the infamous Jewish Defense League. All birds of a feather. All radical ideologues. All determined to establish not just an Israeli one state. A Jewish one state.
Yasser Arafat once said that, coupled with guns, the Palestinians had demographics as their instrument of final victory over Israel. The PLO weaponized demographics have long been recognized as the one most dangerous threat to the existence of a single Israeli state.
With a viable Palestinian state, living in peace with Israel, side by side, working together as good neighbors, the Cultural Zionist delusion of a larger Israel, with the effective annexation of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, AND the complete take over of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital city, becomes impossible. So then the choice became clear, for both Jewish radicals and Islamic radicals. If peace means two states, a one state can only come about through war.
Don’t expect me to go soft on Hamas, or the Palestinian Authority, but don’t think I will not call out the Israeli radicals either. Both seek each other’s destruction. War is the true enemy.
Yet, war is upon Israel, as it has been since 1948, and it won’t stop until these radicals are removed from the equation.
I will need a much longer form to lay out my thoughts on these matters, but I have said enough, for now. Expect developments in blog format, soon.
In the meantime, there’s a war raging in Israel. One welcomed by a fascist government, and a terrorist half-state, both sides of the same coin.
And believe me when I tell you that neither, Netanyahu’s government or Hamas, want peace, for peace means the possibility of two thriving states, living together, while war keeps their delusions of a one state alive.
But rockets fly towards Israel every single day, and Hamas plans additional 10/7’s.
As painful as this scenario is, with all Israelis are trying to do, to push back against the demons permeating their society, Hamas must be destroyed. And so war rages on. The hostages are still in Gaza, after 143 days. And even if difficult, and many times inhumane, the only way forward today is the destruction of Hamas capability to strike Israel again. There is no escaping this reality, and my choice is clear.
Time to make yours.
Akharai! Am Yisrael Chai!
