A rightwing corporation has taken over Israel

Akiva Eldar argues that a rightwing coalition, led by Prime Minister Netanyahu, has taken over Israel. He contends that this corporation has ignored the interests of the owners of Israel (Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs) and made a small minority, the rightwing settlers and their supporters in Israel, the major beneficiary of Israeli state's largesse. The latest evidence of this takeover is the pledge by PM Netanyahu that 800 million shekels ($226 million) would be spent on upgrading security measures along West Bank roads that are only used by settlers, are not in Israel, and bypass the Arab villages. This pledge is problematic at many levels. Israeli settlements are against international law. These settlements and roads leading to them are an illegal confiscation of the future Palestinian state's lands. Helping settlements will make a two-state solution even more improbable. Furthermore, these roads discriminate against Palestinian Arabs who are not allowed to use them. Finally, the funding discriminates against both Israeli Jews and Arabs as projects to improve their quality of life are put on back burner to support settlers who do not live in Israel. An excerpt from the article is reproduced below (You can read it in full Israeli right’s anti-democratic laws penetrate everywhere)

The accepted definition of a corporation is “a legal entity that is separate and distinct from its owners.” The main goal of the entity headed by Netanyahu is to entrench the rule of the right wing over the entire land of Israel, including the occupied territories. To promote this goal, the corporation is crushing — one by one — the fundamentals of democracy, foremost among them the principle that the citizens of Israel, including its minorities and the guardians of its democracy, are the owners of the corporation.

The takeover of the corporation of the State of Israel is being executed in incremental fashion, using legislation and sanctions, making it a little less democratic, a little more Jewish. The plethora of laws and sanctions make a mockery of Israeli democracy. Viewed separately, each of these initiatives is a yawn; taken together, this accumulation of legislation should make every Israeli lose sleep.
Following are select examples:

• The “loyalty in culture” bill aims to authorize the Ministry of Culture to withhold funding from cultural institutions for other than professional reasons. Regev is conducting a crusade against institutions she deems disloyal to the state and its values by curtailing their funding.

• Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon is working to withdraw the tax exemption of Amnesty International. Israel will thus join the dubious elite club of governments that persecute human rights activists, such as Turkey, Thailand, Russia and Iran.

• Minister of Public Security Gilad Erdan is working to formulate sanctions against entities that call for a boycott of Israel or of settlements.

• Education Minister Naftali Bennett is seeking authorization to ban certain speakers from appearing before school students. Bennett has acted to withhold funding from the play “A Parallel Time” by the Arabic-language Al-Midan Theater and to ban the novel “Borderlife” by Dorit Rabinyan from the literature matriculation exam. He has also suspended funding for organizations dedicated to pluralistic Judaism. At Bennett’s request, professor Asa Kasher has compiled an ethics code for universities, which includes establishing a unit to oversee political activity in academic institutions and prohibits lecturers from expressing political views or calling for an academic boycott of Israel.

• The so-called Expulsion law initiated by the prime minister authorizes Knesset members to oust their peers, risking abuse of power by a political majority against a political minority.

• The so-called Muezzin law limits the use of public address systems in mosques during the early morning hours.

Netanyahu is turning the state prosecutor’s office, the police and the media into punching bags. Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked is conducting an aggressive campaign against the Supreme Court and the separation of powers. Bennett has mobilized the school system for a religious, right-wing brainwashing of the country’s youth. The Knesset and Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit have managed to scuttle some of the more outlandish proposals, such as the “French law” that would have precluded criminal probes of an incumbent prime minister. But the notion that a prime minister is above the law has already become a legitimate issue for discussion.

The Regulation law that enables the theft of Palestinian lands in order to turn them over to Jews — legalizing West Bank outposts constructed on private Palestinian lands — is likely to be struck down by the Supreme Court. However, its invalidation will simply provide Netanyahu with ammunition against the “leftist traitors” who petitioned against the bill. Proposed legislation banning left-wing nonprofits from receiving donations from foreign countries has been blocked, as expected, by pressure from the European Union. Never mind. This is yet another opportunity for Netanyahu to bolster his claims that the Europeans are anti-Semites.

However, the Nationality law dwarfs all other initiatives. The proposed bill is the biggest existential threat to the challenge of coexistence — between the twin founding visions of the state as equally Jewish and democratic.

Source: Latuff's Cartoons

Mr. Eldar's contentions were corroborated by the lavish celebrations to mark the fiftieth anniversary of settlements in September 2017 where Netanyahu not only said that settlements are here to stay but also announced an increase in the construction of houses for settlers:

Israel has hosted a lavish ceremony marking 50 years of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank and Golan Heights. 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed the settlements would never be removed, even though they are illegal under international law.

"There will be no more uprooting of settlements in the land of Israel," he said at the ceremony, held in a settlement in the West Bank, south of Jerusalem.
"It's not the way to make peace."

Reporting from the Palestinian village of Al Kader, Al Jazeera's Harry Fawcett said that "nearly 600,000 settlers live in the occupied West Bank including East Jerusalem." 

On Wednesday, Netanyahu had promised that a further 3,300 settlement units would be approved next month, bringing the total number of settlement units constructed to 7,000 in the year 2017 alone. (See Netanyahu on settlements: 'We're here to stay, forever')