{"id":158554,"date":"2015-06-11T04:22:20","date_gmt":"2015-06-11T04:22:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/israel-seeks-to-criminalize-criticism\/"},"modified":"2015-06-11T04:22:20","modified_gmt":"2015-06-11T04:22:20","slug":"israel-seeks-to-criminalize-criticism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/israel-seeks-to-criminalize-criticism\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel Seeks to Criminalize Criticism"},"content":{"rendered":"<div readability=\"226.26321364853\">\n<p>Facing growing condemnation for anti-Palestinian racism, Israel has gone from accusing\u00a0its critics of anti-Semitism to\u00a0exploring ways to criminalize a boycott movement intended to create a real democracy for Jews and Arabs, writes Lawrence Davidson.<\/p>\n<p>By Lawrence Davidson<\/p>\n<p>From the 1920s on into the 1990s, the Zionists controlled the storyline in the West on the Israel-Palestine conflict. This meant that their version of history was the only version as far as most of the people in the West were concerned.<\/p>\n<p>Consequentially, they had an uncontested media field to label the Palestinians and their supporters as \u201cterrorists\u201d \u2014 the charge of anti-Semitism was not yet widely used. Also, as a consequence of their monopoly, the Zionists did not bother to engage in public debate.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_12949\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" readability=\"37\"><a href=\"http:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/obama-netanyahu-10-1-14.jpg?55ac53\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12949\" src=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/lazy-load\/images\/1x1.trans.gif?55ac53\" data-lazy-src=\"http:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/obama-netanyahu-10-1-14-300x199.jpg?55ac53\" alt=\"President Barack Obama holds a bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel in the Oval Office, Oct 1, 2014. The meeting was described as chilly, reflecting the strained relationship between the two leaders. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\"\/><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12949\" src=\"http:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/obama-netanyahu-10-1-14-300x199.jpg?55ac53\" alt=\"President Barack Obama holds a bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel in the Oval Office, Oct 1, 2014. The meeting was described as chilly, reflecting the strained relationship between the two leaders. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\"\/><\/noscript><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">President Barack Obama holds a bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel in the Oval Office, Oct 1, 2014. The meeting was described as chilly, reflecting the strained relationship between the two leaders. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Then, over the last 20 years the Zionists slowly lost their monopoly. In part this was due to the fact that in 1993 the PLO recognized Israel\u2019s right to exist and renounced terrorism, and in the following years many of the Arab states made or offered peace. However, the Israelis did not respond in kind. In particular they failed to respond in a fair and just way to U.S.-sponsored peace efforts. Why so?<\/p>\n<p>The answer to why the Israelis did not, in good faith, take up multiple historic opportunities to make peace with the Palestinians lies in the very nature of the Zionist movement. From its beginning, and certainly from the establishment of the State of Israel, Zionism has been driven by dreams of colonial expansion and religious exclusiveness.<\/p>\n<p>Each of these goals is seen as part of Zionism\u2019s God-given mission, and they still prevail.<\/p>\n<p>Professor David Schulman of Hebrew University, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nybooks.com\/articles\/archives\/2015\/apr\/23\/bibi-hidden-consequences-his-victory\/\"><u>writing in the <\/u><\/a><em>New York Review of Books<\/em> (April 23, 2015), describes the consequences of this situation, \u201cthe Israeli electorate is still dominated by hyper-nationalist, in some cases proto-fascist, figures. It is no way inclined to make peace. It&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/2015\/06\/10\/israel-seeks-to-criminalize-criticism\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Facing growing condemnation for anti-Palestinian racism, Israel has gone from accusing\u00a0its critics of anti-Semitism to\u00a0exploring ways to criminalize a boycott movement intended to create a real democracy for Jews and Arabs, writes Lawrence Davidson. By Lawrence Davidson From the 1920s on into the 1990s, the Zionists controlled the storyline in the West on the Israel-Palestine [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-158554","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158554"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158554\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}