Opinion
Dark days in Israel
Hagai Segal
Published: 17.04.09, 13:50
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24 Talkbacks for this article
1. Finally a YNET journalist who gets it?
m   (04.17.09)
When the left and the arabs demonstrated in the heart of Israel--Tel Aviv, during a war, with the enemy flags in an attempt to demoralize and make us lose this war, there was not tought police against them. How do you explain this Hagai? Can it be that Israeli government started already to dismantle the Jewish state from anything real Jewish?
2. Rare and therefore precious
Ariel Ben Yochanan ,   Kfar Tapuah, Efraim   (04.17.09)
B"H Rare and therefore precious article
3. Israeli terrorism
Patrick ,   Montreal Canada   (04.17.09)
what's the problem. Israeli governments and police claim to be in a constant battle against terrorists. Remember the nutcases that wanted to go back into Gaza?
4. Police
Meir ,   Arad   (04.17.09)
The police in Israel have two choices. Either they "Serve and Protect" like in Canada or they become a repression tool in the hands of Israeli ruling elites, just like in Mexico or other South American countries. Israel is a banana republic.
5. Hagai is a leftist idiot. reading article=waste of time
(04.17.09)
More leftist garbage.
6. Limits to nationalists' civil rights should concern EVERYONE
Tracy W ,   Canada   (04.17.09)
The issue of civil rights for the nationalists is something that should concern every citizen, no matter what his political leaning. It shows that there's something seriously wrong with the system. The Israeli government does not represent Israeli citizens, it only represent particular or personal interests. The Supreme Court is self-selected and self-perpetuating according to their extreme left philosophy. Your MKs are not accountable to you or your communities, but to the party boss. The police are accountable to the Minister, so they can be used as a political tool. Right wing political parties self-censor their views so as not to get shut down by the Supreme Court. Or in the case of individual politicians, out of fear of being relentlessly 'investigated' by the police. It's an unhealthy situation and fatal for democracy. Since a thorough reform of the system is not possible right now, the only solution is for citizens themselves to set up a powerful and independent watchdog organization. This idea has been extremely successful in the west in areas such as environment and civil rights, for example. They are the most effective opposition to governments that - due to huge donations by special interests - tend to favor those interests instead of doing what's best and what's right for the country. So Israel would benefit from an organization composed of individuals with impeccable reputation who would act as the conscience of the nation. Right-thinking people are all dispersed, with their own blogs, their jobs in academia, their own small organizations. They raise their voices for a while, write columns, and then they disappear. They need to consolidate their moral and intellectual power in order to be effective. Organization is the key to success. The left has several organizations that have acquired a lot of power within Israel, such as Peace Now and Machsom Watch. We many not agree with them, but we have to grant that they have managed to become a force in Israel through organization, fund raising abroad, and clever tactics. On the other side, the one that would represent the interests of the average Israeli in matters such as security, civil rights, property rights, and many others, there's a huge vacuum. That's why you are helpless. Set up a conference and get organized - fast. There's no time to waste. The whole world seems to be circling ominously around Israel, and your politicians do not have what it takes to face up to them. Oppression of protestors is only a small example of how the Israeli leftist elite is working with powerful interests - many of them foreign - that have the intention to weaken and ultimately destroy Israel.
7. Dudu Cohen
Ricardo Macher ,   KarneiShomron-Israel   (04.17.09)
He is responsible for all this problems! He criticize the killing of the tractor terrorist in Jerusalem, saying we are not killers! He always does his best to be by Franco's side (Jlm, Police) cowering of arab demonstrations and saying Jews cannot pray in Temple Mount because arabs don't want. Send him to control speed limits till he retires and the message will be loud and clear!
8. Facism is endemic to all people.
JMK ,   NYC   (04.17.09)
Facism shows itself in all its glory , Israel was created by people who rejected the tradiional Jewish belief system and it was they who controlled the country then and now, the New Jew, is a facist construct and always will be.
9. There is no police force in Israel
jason white ,   afula,israel   (04.17.09)
They are just a private security company that works for the government. Time to find out who gives them their orders.Who sics them on right wing demos, but not left wing or arab rioting?
10. The Judge should have arrested the police
Gee ,   Zikron Yaakov   (04.17.09)
It was kidnapping under the cover of authority plain and stupid. The police committed a crime and the victims were merely released. Justice would be them facing real jail time.
11. #9 Jason - a question
Debbie   (04.17.09)
I agree that something is just not right with the police. Do you know whether the terrorist who killed the child in Bat Ayin was ever captured? It appears that he fled to his village. That was the last I heard about the issue.
12. Idiot #5
(04.17.09)
He's a leftist idiot because he advocated protecting the right to protest of rightist activists while at the same time condemning the double standard that allows leftists to say whatever they want wherever they want? He may be leftist. I'm not that familiar with his ideology, but your comment makes it clear that you did not even read the article. Don't condemn the article before reading it. It makes you look like a jackass.
13. The police should have used tear gas canisters
(04.17.09)
14. welcome to America?
Jo ,   Indianapolis US   (04.18.09)
Wow, it sounds like Obama has already had a training session with your police. Conservatives in the U.S. are begin branded as "terrorists" and "security threats" this week, because we dare to speak out against our "resident's" left wing agenda. It's getting darker here, too.
15. fascism?
wl.edwards@gmail.com ,   dallas tx usa   (04.18.09)
I accidentally recommended this talkback and I apologize for that. Fascism is a "right wing" use of elitist mentality to enforce an ideology where those who take advantage of the poor beleive they are endowed by G-d to do so. They believe they have the right to decide what ever they want to for the future of those they lord over. Fascism is an evil born out of a misconceived belief where certain people are endowed with the ability to decide for G-d. Fascism is the closest thing to group sociapathy that there is. Left wingers are generally communistic and idealistic to the other extreme. Both views are abusive and go against Torah. Israel was created by Ha-Shem for the Jewish people. It is up to the people to find the truth through the study of Torah and prayer. It is up to the Jew, the citizen of Israel to live life according to Torah and thus teach the world by example. Am I wrong? Have I missed something?
16. They arrest proIsrael activists but let ISM run amok
Ziggy ,   Safed   (04.18.09)
Our vunted security arrest Jews in their homesfo plannin a peceful marc but won' stp ISM interatinal huma shieds from attacking IDF soldiers ad border police nonstop with EU and Arab fnding behind them. What a bunch of shmucks.
17. Totalitarian would be more precise
Ilan ,   Ariel   (04.18.09)
What made fascism bad wasn't it's political orientation, but it's methods which were pretty much the same whether the regime was Mao's China, Stalin's Russia or Hitler's Germany. What is sad about this is that so few people care about preemptively arresting someone for a non-violent political event .
18. Answer to #11 about Bat ayin murder
adam eliyahu   (04.18.09)
Witnesses were taken by police to identify a suspect. He was identified but has not been arrested.
19. to 15
........ ,   .......   (04.19.09)
your post is not wrong but you apologize ....oh for what you apear as if you are ashame to tell what you believe it is the truth .... oh i think it is the problem for the idiology ... i have idiology but never apologize and never ashame to post it .. simply becouse i say what i believe and i believe on what i say and it is idiology also ..
20. Israeli police insuring our status as banana republic. Bibi
Robert ,   Zikhron Yaakov   (04.19.09)
is responsible for making this kind of fascist crap stop right now.
21. #18 Adam - Re Bat Ayin Murder
Debbie   (04.19.09)
Thank you so much for the information. I hope the many questions surrounding this case will eventually be answered by the investigation. Such as why were these particular boys targeted. It's as if the killer knew who they were and where they would be found. The fact that the arrest is taking so long also raises additional questions. Thanks again Adam.
22. Fascist? Thrown around again.
Brad ,   USA   (04.20.09)
People like to use the word fascist, a lot, but they seem to think it is "right wing", or it means racism. Wrong on both counts. You don't have to be a racist to be a fascist, although you can be. And, although fascism is to the right of Marxism, and Nazism, it remains a left wing ideology. It is government control of the means of production, with little or no government ownership of it. That's all. And, that's right. Nazism is left wing, not right wing. Right wing is anarchy, which is no government at all.
23. reply to #22's version of fascism
will ,   dallas tx usa   (04.21.09)
According to Paxton, fascism is a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion Fascists see the struggle of nation and race as fundamental in society, in opposition to communism's perception of class struggle and in opposition to capitalism's focus on the value of productivity and individualism.[citation needed] The nation is seen in fascism as a single organic entity which binds people together by their ancestry and is seen as a natural unifying force of people.[65][citation needed] Fascists promote the unification and expansion of influence, power, and/or territory of and for their nation.[citation needed] Fascism seeks to solve existing economic, political, and social problems by achieving a millenarian national rebirth, exalting the nation or race above all else, and promoting cults of unity, strength and purity. Benito Mussolini stated in 1922, "For us the nation is not just territory but something spiritual... A nation is great when it translates into reality the force of its spirit Joseph Goebbels described the Nazis as being affiliated with authoritarian nationalism: It enables us to see at once why democracy and Bolshevism, which in the eyes of the world are irrevocably opposed to one another, meet again and again on common ground in their joint hatred of and attacks on authoritarian nationalist concepts of State and State systems. For the authoritarian nationalist conception of the State represents something essentially new. In it the French Revolution is superseded
24. To Brad #22
will ,   dallas tx usa   (04.21.09)
Try a little Political Science class and learn a little history before you start explaining political ideologies.
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