Tony Greenstein | 31 December 2015 | Post Views:

And for those who
doubt any of this, don’t forget to repeat the mantra ‘Israel is the only democracy
in the Middle East’
It comes to a pretty pass when Israel’s own ambassador compares the latest piece of racist legislation to that of the Nazis!
Tony Greenstein

Israel forces left-wing NGO’s that receive foreign funding to wear special stickers in the Knesset

Philip Weiss on December 29, 2015
Ambassador Caspi posts image of Hermann Goering to warn Israel about what it is becoming

In
Peace Now’s daily news digest, this quote
tops the list today:

Quote
of the day:
From Peace Now Blog

“Voice or no voice, the people can always
be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is
tell them they are under attack and denounce the pacifists for lack of
patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every
country.”

–A
quote by Nazi war criminal Hermann Goering, posted by Israeli Ambassador to
Switzerland, Yigal Caspi, on Facebook, following the passing of the NGO bill.**
Yigal Caspi, image on twitter
Caspi
has removed the quotation. He clearly intended the comment as a warning to
Israeli leaders. He is now under investigation for the statement. The NGO bill
is a new law that forces left leaning human-rights groups that receive
substantial funds from overseas to wear labels when they come to the Israeli
Knesset. Peace Now continues, “Another hot topic today was the comparisons to
Nazis.”
Hebrew
University lecturer Dr. Ofer Cassif wrote on Facebook that Justice Minister
Shaked is ‘Neo-Nazi scum’ and told
Army Radio afterward, “I
think it’s fair to compare Israel to Germany in the 1930s, and not to the years
of genocide.
Cassif pointed to
the Im Tirtzu video and Shaked’s NGO law. The article in Ynet
noted that the Facebook posts come in the wake of the passing of the
NGO bill, but it doesn’t mention that the bill requires the
(mostly left-wing) NGO representatives to wear a special badge
when they visit the Knesset committees to
indicate that they receive more than 50% of their contributions from
foreign states. 
Cassif shared on Facebook the post by his colleague Professor Amiram Goldblum, who sharply
criticized Shaked for not revealing that she received ‘blood money’
contributions from a Jewish Belgian donor who is now
in jail for selling arms to rebels in Sierra Leone. Private donations are not
required to be revealed by the bill. Cassif was not alone in his
comparison of Israel’s right-wing government to the Nazis. 
Israeli Ambassador to Switzerland, Yigal Caspi,
posted a quote by a Nazi war

criminal that described how fascist governments get their people to follow
them, by “denouncing the peacemakers for
lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.”
Caspi added: “We’re on the right path…” 
Now, the
ambassador faces punishment by the Foreign Ministry. Oddly, the article by
Yedioth’s Itamar Eichner did not mention the context of the posting of the
quote: the government’s approval of the NGO bill that labels left-wing
Israeli human rights organizations.
Let’s
be clear: anyone on the American left who used Nazi analogies for Israel was
shunned for doing so, but Israeli leaders throw the Nazi stuff around readily.
(For good reason; we all know that victims model their abuser when they gain
any power.)
The
Nazi charges of course go to the treatment of Palestinians. The NGOs all care
about Palestinians. In its news list, Peace Now also mentions the latest failure in the investigation of the Duma murderers, Jewish
zealots who torched a sleeping Palestinian family in occupied territory last
summer. (Peace Now is virtually alone among liberal Zionist groups in
recognizing the significance of the Duma murders as evidence of lawlessness,
racism, and the fear among Palestinians.)
Many
friends are saying that Israel is cracking up. “The end,” “Imploding,” “It’s over,” are two comments I’ve heard in
the last day or two. Even J Street seems rattled (“deeply
concerned and disappointed
”). New Yorker editor David Remnick just got back
from Jerusalem and said on the radio this morning that the situation is “tragic” and that Israel bears the
greater share of responsibility for the failure of peace talks.

This
crisis has long been evident to Palestinians. The knife attacks are of course a
symptom of their loss of any faith in the many promises of freedom they have
been given. Now the questions are: How long can Israel play out this crisis, as
yet another burp in the managed-conflict model of persecution. And having long
said that the status quo is unsustainable, will American leaders at last take a
stand against apartheid and colonization? Who will speak up here, and show real
leadership? Bernie? (And, to be parochial: how many secular American Jews will
openly take on their parents and say what they believe in their hearts, that
Jewish nationalism, the idea of a “Jewish democracy” established on lands
belonging largely to others, is a snare and a delusion?)

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