If you have been following to news from Palestine & Israel in recent weeks, you will have seen the appalling rise in violence which has left many dead and even more severely injured on both sides. The violence reached a peak last week with what can only be described as a pogrom carried out by Israeli Settlers on the Palestinian village of Harawa after two young Israelis had been killed by a Palestinian gunman.
This rise in violence is worrying and is no doubt connected with the threats to democracy by the new Israeli Government under Binyamin Netanyahu which includes, for the first time in Israeli history, two far right extremist Parties, the Religious Zionists led by Bezalel Smotrich, and Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) led by Itamar Ben Gvir and also by total lack of democracy in the Occupied Palestinian Territories where elections for the Palestinian Legislative Council & President haven’t been held since 2006.
In Israel, as part of the Coalition agreement for the new Israeli Government, Netanyahu is introducing what he calls “Judicial Reforms” that will have the effect of:
- severely curtailing Judicial Independence in Israel,
- limiting the Israeli Supreme Court’s ability to overturn laws passed by the Knesset that that violate fundamental rights protected by Israel’s “Basic Laws”,
- dilute the role of the Attorney General in giving legal advice and
- give Ministers more powers to act without fear of Judicial Review.
This means that the Israel Judiciary will no longer have a role in containing the excesses of the Government, a Government that seems hell bent on creating an apartheid regime in Occupied Palestine and silencing its critics in Israel.
For the last two months, since the Judicial Reform legislation was published, every Saturday night ten of thousands of Israelis have been taking to the streets in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa and many other towns across Israel to protest against these proposals. Even President Herzog has called for the Government to pause the legislation and reach a compromise with its opponents. Even here in the UK, Israelis living here have protested outside the Israeli Embassy. This week, reservist pilots in the Israeli Air Force have refused to attend training days in protest against these “Reforms” and other reservists (and most adults under 45 in Israel are in the reserves) are also refusing to show up for duty. Many are realising that the Occupation of Palestine is what is destroying democracy in their country.
In Palestine, the lack of any democratic outlet for change is driving many, especially younger Palestinians to support new armed militant groups such as Lion’s Den. The old guard around Mahmoud Abbas is clinging to power but there is a vacuum behind them. This has allowed the militants groups like Hamas, Islamic Jihad and now Lion’s Den to try to fill the gap because they see no other obvious possibility for achieving self-determination and statehood. The Israeli Government hasn’t helped, with its very heavy-handed raids on these militant groups’ safe houses in the Occupied Territories, killing not only members of these groups but also civilians.
On both sides, those who believe violence is an acceptable part of pursuing their political goals are gaining ground. Many in Israel and around the world are worried that the situation will deteriorate in coming months unless the extremists are restrained somehow.
Clearly the international community, including the UK, must take action to both stop Netanyahu destroying democracy in Israel and also to ensure that democratic structures in Palestine are restored and strengthened.
To this end, I have submitted an Emergency Motion to Conference. If the FCC allow it on to the ballot, can I ask those in York to please vote for it to be debated. Both Israel and Palestine face a dangerous future. Indeed, their futures are linked. If democracy in one fails, the danger to the other is immense and it will lead to more violence and deaths for the people of both nations.
We in the Lib Dems can help show the way to help both Palestine and Israel and give support to those in both who are working for a peaceful settlement.
* Leon Duveen is Chair of Liberal Democrats for Peace in the Middle East, a new group of Lib Dems working to support those trying to a solution to the Palestine/Israel conflict and to providing information about these peacemakers.
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13 Comments
In August of 2002 the This American Life podcast ran an episode named ‘Give it to them’. Act two of the episode was described as follows:
“Ira Glass travels through Israel with Adam Davidson, who speaks Hebrew and has countless Israeli cousins and other family members. They find that the entire country has moved to the right in reaction to Palestinian violence—so far right that at a cafe of leftists, they’re no longer arguing about peace, but about whether the Palestinians are simply born animals or if they’re taught to be animals.”
It’s accurate to say that both sides are let down by those who see violence as a way forward. It’s disappointing that it’s taken 21 years for major protests about direction of Israeli government to come from within Israel.
@George Thomas
“…both sides are let down by those who see violence as a way forward.”
The problem is, if there is no peaceful way open to the Palestinians to free themselves from Israeli occupation and oppression, many will come to the conclusion that they have no other option open to resort to violence. If the international community were willing to take a stand on behalf of the Palestinian cause – by applying trade and other sanctions on Israel similar to the pressure applied to South Africa when under Apartheid – then the Palestinians may feel that there was hope of change, but instead they see that the USA and its allies actually back Israel. Depressing does not begin to describe the situation.
This article highlights the disquiet many Israelis feel about religious Zionist parties holding excessive power in Netanyahu’s coalition, despite polling relatively few votes.
However, it goes on to suggest the democratic deficit in the occupied West Bank is one of the causes of violent attacks on Israelis by Palestinians. Palestinian violence is the result of 55 years of illegal occupation by Israel, and the poor performance of democratic institutions in Palestine is another result of the occupation by Israel.
Some of us working for the only realistic solution – in which Israel recognises Palestine’s right to exist – see the advocates of violence on both sides equally trapped in a destructive mindset, but we must never forget that the origin of the dispute, and the sole reason for its continuation, is Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine in 1967.
I support my friend and colleague, Leon, in this excellent article.
Can I urge our fellow contributors here to join Liberal Democrats For Peace In The Middle East.
https://ldfpme.org.uk/
Founded by Leon, with those of us early founder members keen to be a bridge between both”sides,” in the struggle for peace, and defeat, not of either “side,” but of violence as an answer.
The current Israeli government is terrible. The only solution is activism for peace and dialogue.
Please back the resolution.
I sincerely hope this is debated at conference.
The ultra right wing expansionist racist supremacists holding the power in the Knesset are causing increasing despair amongst Palestinians and liberal, left leaning Israelis – not to mention those of us here looking on in horror.
I’m sure we all recognise that violence begets violence, even though the peaceful resistance by the vast majority of Palestinians is admirable. What would you do if you were living under occupation, surrounded by more and more illegal settlements, in conditions that are quite legitimately described as apartheid and with little hope of a democratic election?
And can you imagine what it would be like to serve in the IDF – being forced to “rampage” through Palestinian towns and villages such as Huwara, killing and injuring local people and destroying their property? I’ve met ex-IDF soldiers struggling with what can only be described as severe PTSD. Some join Breaking the Silence.
And imagine life as a settler – in a walled off enclave (for “security), knowing that Palestinian land and possibly homes were stolen to give you that modern apartment with nicely paved streets and green parks using water that Palestinians cannot get at for their crops. But I guess they don’t think about that. Although I’ve met Israelis who do get this and get involved in the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions.
Meanwhile our own government chooses to push the boundaries of international law, which will inevitably weaken any challenge they could make to the illegal actions by Israel.
I concur with Leon’s article. Full disclosure – I saw it in draft as I am a Vice-Chair of Liberal Democrats for Peace in the Middle East. I also support the motion.
I don’t want to get into a debate here about whether violence by Palestinians is legal or illegal, sensible or foolish. However my views on the conflict are set out at length in the Israel / Palestine section of my website.
I believe that the UK should be helping steer the parties towards a permanent peace, but don’t see our Conservative Government doing that.
I too support Leon’s efforts, but avoiding comment or judgement when there is violence is unhelpful. Understandably, some see equivalence when there has been a series of tit for tat attacks. There is no equivalence. Israel’s occupation of Palestine is illegal and morally indefensible. Its clear intent is to annex a neighbouring country, expressly forbidden by Geneva IV, and of course exactly what Putin is trying to do with Ukraine.
It’s painful to watch Israel pursue a policy which damages its own people as well as the Palestinians, and which will never be accepted by the community of world nations. Recognising Palestine’s right to exist and withdrawing its occupying army will remove the need for Israeli violence and the motivation for Palestinian retaliation. When that day comes the only question remaining will be ‘why did it take so long?’
We should all be concerned by the actions of the present government, but they did not happen by accident. Israel has been drifting to the religious right since the late 1970s, but it was Labour that started the rot, by setting aside international law in disregard of warnings by its own law officers in 1967. It devised a quasi-legal system for a political purpose, to do what it wanted.
Why would not this abuse of the law eventually leach back into Israel’s own body politic, in which its version of Jewishness trumps democracy? The discriminatory Nationality Law of 2018 warned of its dark trajectory. How is it possible to run a credible or durable democracy for one half the population while withholding it from the subject other? Something was bound to give. Exactly forty years ago, Israel’s great seer, Rabbi Yeshayahu Leibowitz, told those who would listen that physical survival remained contingent on moral survival: ‘the real black day was the seventh day of the Six Day War’, he said. ‘That day we had to decide retroactively whether we had fought a defensive war or a war of conquest, and we ruled that it had been a war of conquest. Israel’s decline and fall dates from that day.’ It will take a massive exercise of will on the part of Western democracies to persuade Israel to return to international lawfulness, but what other route is there in order to rescue everyone?
I really wonder what the point of doing a motion on Israel Palestine is.
LD conference has nothing to add to the peace process and priorities for an emergency motion are substantially more domestic than this.
Britain has a duty to the Palestinian people to honour the solemn pledge made to the League of Nations in 1922, so anyone who thinks the Liberal Democrat Party should get behind the ‘charity begins at home’ slogan is doubly wrong: many Lib Dems actually do care about the fate of oppressed people in foreign countries, and honouring promises also serves those with more selfish ends – they would have a reason to hold their heads high. It would be absolutely right to debate this issue in York.
@Callum Robertson wonders “what the point of doing a motion on Israel Palestine is”.
As a party of democracy loving internationalists, standing up for human rights and international law; we have – or should have – a lot to say about how we influence the government to call out the extremist behaviour of the ultra right elements of the Knesset and to seek a solution to the lack of leadership within in the PA.
There’s a protest by Israel and friends of Israel against the “legislative blitz” this Sunday in London. Clearly people in this country care deeply about this destruction of democracy in Israel and worsening apartheid conditions in illegally occupied Palestine.
@David McDowall says “It will take a massive exercise of will on the part of Western democracies to persuade Israel to return to international lawfulness”. Shouldn’t the Lib Dems be pushing hard for the UK to be at that table?
I would first like to congratulate Leon on a job well done for this very well written and timely article.
I find it disappointing that our group still gets the ” we support your work BUT” attitude from many of those voices who would claim to be on the side of Palestinian rights. As Leon makes clear, the current political trends in Israeli politics are a threat both to Israeli and Palestinian democratic rights.
I find it in particularly bad spirit those to reject this as irrelevant as an emergency motion. Liberal values are under threat so this should be a concern to us. “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere” Martin Luther King Jr. As another commentator said before, we should consider ourselves Liberal Internationalists.
We should also recognise this a growing trend among hard right party internationally. From Hungary, to the UK to Israel right wing idealogues are looking to give power to governments to overturn judicial decisions in the name of watering down and eventually destroying Human Rights. This should be roundly condemned.
It is ironic though perhaps inevitable that the momentum for change is coming from within Israel and is a response to the faltering of democracy rather than it’s government’s behaviour. Violence can never be condoned by democratic governments. Free elections and the rule of law are two of its most important principles. Surely America cannot stand by while its judiciary is undermined.