In 72 AD the Jewish rebels of Israel, besieged by the Roman legions in their fortress refuge at Masada, determined to commit suicide rather than submit to defeat and Roman rule. This siege mentality seems to be reappearing in the Israel of today.
Last year, when a flotilla of ships carrying international activists attempted to enter Gaza to deliver relief supplies to the blockaded territory, Israel attacked the flotilla. The attack resulted in the deaths of nine activists including one American and was a public relations nightmare for Israel. The response of the Israeli government was to launch a massive propaganda campaign and to attack any action that they saw as an attempt to delegitimize Israel.
This response has reached a new level in recent weeks. Israel’s reaction to an attempt to organize a new Gaza flotilla was to mount a diplomatic blitzkrieg which persuaded an economically weakened Greek government, which was in no position to resist the pressure, to prevent the flotilla from sailing. The activists also allege that Israeli forces sabotaged some of the ships.
This week a so-called flytilla, in which over 200, primarily European, activists, attempted to fly to Tel Aviv and travel to the West Bank in support of Palestinian rights, was met with a massive security presence at Ben-Gurion airport. Some people were immediately deported and others were detained under what they claim were poor conditions including being crammed into roach invested prison vans for up to five hours.
Also this week the Israeli Knesset passed a law making any call for boycotting Israel economically, culturally or academically a crime. Any NGO calling for a boycott can lose its operating license. This questionable law follows the passage of the so-called Nakba law, which forbids any commemoration of the expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians during the founding of Israel.
Israel’s foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman, who grew up in the former Soviet Union, has long claimed that he did not believe that democracy was the most appropriate form of government for a country in the Middle East. This point of view in many ways merely reflects the current political reality in Israel. Recent polls show that a significant majority of Israeli young people prefer a strong leader to the rule of law and in cases where state security and democratic values conflict, security should come first.
As Arab countries move toward democracy, Israel increasingly is hunkering down behind diplomatic, legal and physical walls. The Israeli claim to be the only democracy in the Middle East may soon be called into question.
