My Word: Reading the riot act

Two wrongs don’t make a right, but they do make for double standards. At least that is my feeling after yet another period of heavy news in which Israel was targeted by Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Hezbollah – and yet as far as much of the world is concerned, Israel is at fault.

There is so much hypocrisy. The UN, international media outlets, and many world leaders might not speak fluent Hebrew, but they are certainly not foreign to the concept of “Chutzpah.”

At the beginning of the week, in unusually open criticism of the Israeli leadership, US President Joe Biden said in a CNN interview: “This is one of the most extreme cabinets I’ve seen – and I go back to Golda Meir.”

Biden’s comment came in response to a question about why Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not been invited to the White House.

Biden pointedly noted that President Isaac Herzog is scheduled to visit Washington next week, making it clear that it is Netanyahu whom he is avoiding, rather than the Jewish State as such. Biden appears to be motivated by his own electoral needs as much as by concern over Israel’s election results. The government might not be to his liking, but it is legitimate and democratically elected.

Ironically, Biden’s original remarks were published on the same day that Israel’s security cabinet voted to act to prevent the collapse of the Palestinian Authority, while continuing to fight Palestinian terrorism.

I don’t know who is whispering in Biden’s ear, but I can guess that it’s in his left ear. And it’s no longer a whisper.

The president of the United States of America certainly has the right to criticize Israel as a friend and an ally. The US provides Israel with billions of dollars in aid. But this is a gift with strings attached – Israel spends most of those dollars in the US at the expense of domestic Israeli industries. It also restricts the way Israel can act regarding foreign policy.

By midweek, the White House was no longer content with issuing reprimands regarding Israel’s foreign affairs. It was hitting much closer to home. As demonstrators gathered outside the US Embassy Branch Office in Tel Aviv, the US National Security Council published an extraordinary call: “We urge authorities in Israel to protect and respect the right of peaceful assembly. There is significant debate on the proposed judicial plan. Such debates are a healthy part of a vibrant democracy.” The Americans also called on Netanyahu to work on reaching a consensus.

Biden should respect how Israel handles protests and riots

Perhaps Biden and his advisers chiding Israel were simply taking their cue from the demonstrators outside the US mission shamefully pleading for US intervention. But Israel has been through 27 weeks of demonstrations that were nothing if not a robust expression of democracy; the US might have assumed that Israeli authorities were able to figure out for themselves where to draw the line, without barbed comments from Washington. Israel doesn’t weigh in on how American authorities handle protests and riots, even when they are deadly. It’s a matter of respect – and respecting sovereignty. 

THE DEMONSTRATIONS on Tuesday raised many questions. It was the latest in a series of “Days of Disruption.” For the protesters and their supporters, this is democracy at its finest. Many other citizens, however, have the impression that the protesters are being misled, in more than one sense. The leaders of the various protest groups no longer hide their real intention. This is not about judicial reform, this is an attempt to bring down the elected government headed by Netanyahu. 

How legitimate is it, for example, to disrupt the operation of the country’s only international airport? What does the airport have to do with the future possible passage of the Reasonableness Bill? 

Such legislation would prevent courts from ruling that government decisions are not acceptable based solely on the judges’ perception of what is reasonable. 

The many roads that were blocked throughout the country did nothing to strengthen freedom of expression, let alone freedom of movement. At least the owners of the chain of “Big” malls backed down from their threat to close them down for the Day of Disruption, regardless of whether the store owners who rented premises supported the protests or not. The public outcry made it clear that not everyone is willing to submit to the demands of the anti-judicial reform camp.

The bulk of the Israeli press mobilized for live, non-stop coverage of the demonstrations, as if nothing else was going on in the country worthy of media attention.

A series of spokespeople for the protest groups, when asked in media interviews why they were taking such extreme steps, answered as if from the same response sheet: “We are acting to prevent the destruction of the Third Temple.”

It was a perfectly timed response given that it is the period of The Three Weeks, the days leading up to Tisha Be’av, commemorating the destruction of the First and Second Temples. However, it ignores the belief that the Second Temple fell due to baseless hatred. Even more curiously, it was aimed at giving the protests a religious justification, although religious coercion has been cited as a bogeyman that would result from the judicial reform.

Last month, for example, protest leader Shikma Bressler tweeted that without the reasonableness clause, Education Minister Yoav Kisch “would force our children to put on tefillin in school every morning.”

I don’t know whether Kisch, who does not wear a kippa, puts on phylacteries daily himself but there are worse things. The tweet was completely baseless – and an example of baseless hatred. It says a lot about Bressler – and it’s a sad statement on the type of fears the protest leaders are deliberately whipping up and playing on.

The resurgence this week of threats by some IDF reservists to refuse to serve – particularly pilots and members of the 8200 intelligence unit – was another unwelcome protest move. As Defense Minister Yoav Gallant put it, they are “giving a prize to our enemies.” Far from protecting the state, they are harming it, particularly at a time when the country is facing threats on every front – including cyberspace. Nothing in the possible future cancellation of the reasonableness clause is related to their service. And, of course, nothing overrules the moral principle known to every IDF soldier from the most humble to the most high-flying that a “patently illegal order” must not be obeyed. Period.

All these acts – the Days of Disruption, the threats not to serve, the calls for outside intervention, the threat to relocate businesses, or to emigrate – are weakening the country, its economy, international standing, security, and ultimately its freedom. Freedom of expression and freedom to demonstrate are basic rights, but like all rights there are limits. 

I HAVE been haunted lately by a demonstration that took place far from Israel. In Sweden, a man tore up and burned a Koran outside Stockholm’s central mosque at the end of last month. Adding insult to injury, the appalling act of desecration took place during the Muslim Eid al-Adha festival. 

According to a Reuters report, “Some 200 onlookers witnessed one of the two organizers tearing up pages of a copy of the Koran and wiping his shoes with it before putting bacon in it and setting the book on fire, whilst the other protester spoke into a megaphone.

“While Swedish police have rejected several recent applications for anti-Koran demonstrations, courts have overruled those decisions, saying they infringed on freedom of speech,” the report noted.

Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson told a press conference on June 28: “It’s legal but not appropriate.” I didn’t catch what Biden had to say on the matter, if anything, when he hosted the Swedish prime minister at the White House exactly one week later. The Israeli president, by the way, called the Koran-burning a “disgraceful act.”

The Swedish press was concerned about the possible harm to Sweden’s chances of being accepted as a NATO member due to Turkish outrage. There was also talk of the potential dangers of legislation that would ban the public burning of sacred objects. This was perceived by some on the Right as “caving into the demands of Islamists” and generally viewed as a slippery slope endangering freedom of expression. 

Altogether, in the name of freedom and democracy, a great many liberties are being taken.

liat@jpost.com

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