Formalization of apartheid discourse: Banning voices of dissent in Israel

This is a few days late, but still highly relevant, namely that the Israeli cabinet has voted in favour of a draft law to ban al-Nakbah commemorations. Read the Maki statement (source) below:

Israeli cabinet wants to ban Naqba commemoration

The Israeli cabinet has voted yesterday (Sunday, May 24, 2009) in favour of a racist proposal to ban Naqba commemorations. Many Arab-Palestinians commemorate the proclamation of the state of Israel as Naqba, the Arabic word for disaster.

In the proposal, anyone participating in the commemoration of 15 May 1948 could face a three-year prison sentence. The proposal has been made by the racist coalition party Yisrael Beitenu. It still has to go through the Knesset.

The Communist Party of Israel and Hadash (The Democratic Front for Peace and Equality) have sharply criticised the proposal and call it an act of an apartheid regime. Hadash chairman, MK Mohammed Barakeh said the fact the cabinet "ratified the delusions and lack of historical and factual knowledge of a single MK shows the stinking sewers to which government discourse has sunk, as is very much to be expected." Barakeh said Arabs would continue to commemorate the Nakba, adding that the commemoration was not meant "to threaten the existence of Israel, but to correct a historic wrong to the Palestinian people." The proposed bill "is no less severe than the laws enacted by the Third Reich," added MK Afo Agbaria (Hadash). "The State of Israel has declared jihad on the Arab population. Israel is gradually becoming an apartheid state. I won't be surprised if in the future the Netanyahu-Lieberman government imposes additional restrictions on Arab citizens, including forbidding the use of the Arabic language."

The Civil Rights Association also attacked the draft law.
"For the past year we have witnessed a worrying deterioration in Israel of the right to expression and other democratic rights," association chairman and well know author Sammy Michael said in a statement. "Commemoration of the Naqba does not threaten Israel at all. It is a legitimate expression of the feelings of individuals and an entire people," he said.

Tel-Aviv, May 25, 2009

Yad Vashem employee fired for mentioning Deir Yassin massacre

The Israeli Yad Vashem (Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority) has fired one of its employees, after a teacher of a group of yeshiva students had complained to Yad Vashem that the employee had mentioned the 1948 Deir Yassin massacre during a tour of the institution.

Read this article in Haaretz. Notably, the title of the article is a bit misleading. The ex-employee in question did not compare the Holocaust and Nakba, he compared the link between Zionist project and the Holocaust on one hand, and the link between Nakba and the Palestinian national project on the other.

An excerpt from Haaretz;

[The fired employee] Shapira said Yad Vashem chooses to examine only some of the events that took place in the War of Indpendence. "It is being hypocritical. I only tried to expose the visitors to the facts, not to political conclusions. If Yad Vashem chooses to ignore the facts, for example the massacre at Dir Yassin, or the Nakba ["The Catastrophe," the Palestinians' term for what happened to them after 1948], it means that it's afraid of something and that its historic approach is flawed," Shapira said.