Israel does not have freedom of speech - comment

Thousands of far-right folk gathered at the beginning of this week in Jerusalem to call for the resettlement of Gush Katif, a region in the south overlapping both Israel and the Gaza Strip.

For the sake of clarity, let’s make one thing clear: The participants in this “Victory Conference,” as they called it, are calling to forcibly enter and resettle Gaza.

Israelis – indeed, Jews historically – know the pang of being uprooted and forcibly removed from our homes. That is why this particular call is so difficult to hear.

It does not make it any easier that some of the headline participants were members of our government or the current coalition. They signed a document titled “Treaty of Victory and Renewal of Settlement in the Gaza Strip and Northern Samaria,” thereby agreeing in writing to support such an aggressive campaign.

As National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir was making a speech, participants in the conference began yelling repeatedly, “Transfer, transfer, transfer.” The national security minister replied, “They are right to voluntarily encourage [Palestinians] to leave.”

This wicked battle cry calls to forcibly transfer the millions of Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip. The term wasn’t said in Hebrew (ha’avara); it was said as a loanword from English, meaning, according to the Hebrew dictionary, “the transfer of a large population, usually by force, from one country to another.” It does not mean, like Ben-Gvir suggested, to “encourage” the moving party to “leave” of their own accord.

The context within which this word is usually used, the one from which it was derived, is the Holocaust, and it is referring to the proposed forced transfer of Jews out of Germany.

So why would these parties be interested in invoking such a hateful and violent historical context in a war that, at least on the battleground of rhetoric on the international scale, we are losing?

Ben-Gvir called such a hostile takeover of the Gaza Strip a “return home.” Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich defined it as the only alternative to “running away from terrorism... and letting the murderous hothouse grow again behind the fence,” instead “settling our country throughout its length and breadth, controlling it.”

It wasn’t even only the far right in participation. Members of the supposedly moderate Likud Party were in attendance and speaking as well. Tourism Minister Haim Katz told the conference that “we have the opportunity to stand up and build, renew, and expand the Land of Israel.” He conveniently left out the population that would be forced out of their homes in the process.

We can argue day and night this claim of “but it was mine first,” like children with their toys, but it is far from in our best interest to enter that game; after all, that is the exact argument that the anti-Israel camp makes against Israel’s right to exist here.

INDEED, ISRAEL as a whole faced heavy criticism for the conference having taken place. The US, France, and Germany came out separately in condemnation of possible Israeli settlements in Gaza.

In response to the heavy criticism of the conference, the Likud Party said, “In Israel, there is freedom of expression, even for the right-wing. Even if there is someone who doesn’t like it, the Likud is a democratic movement and in the State of Israel everyone has freedom of speech – including the right-wing.”

Israel does not have full freedom of speech

But that isn’t necessarily true, is it? Yes, the right wing has full freedom of speech, but it is not the country as a whole.

Just over a week prior to the “Victory Conference,” left-wing activists and politicians collectively organized a peaceful protest in Haifa, calling for an end to the war. While the event did carry on as planned, it was no easy road getting there.

Haifa Police rejected the requests of the activists to hold the protest three times before finally rescinding their rejection due to pressure from the High Court of Justice and Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara.

The Civil Rights Association petitioned the High Court on behalf of Hadash and the Peace Coalition against the refusal of the Chief of the Coastal Police District, Superintendent Danny Levy, to permit the demonstration. Levy, in his last rejection, wrote that the demonstration’s very existence “could bring with a level of near certainty a severe and serious harm to public order and public peace and security.”

Baharav-Miara, in response to the petition, announced that she does not accept the position of the police, saying that “the right to protest is a cornerstone in a democratic country, especially during a time of emergency, in which the importance of ensuring the freedom of political expression of those who wish to express their position regarding the actions of the government increases.” She further called the police’s response “disproportionate.”

At the end of the hearing, the police announced that they were retracting their refusal to hold the demonstration in Haifa, instead limiting it to 700 participants.

MEANWHILE, THE organizers of the Victory Conference, the Nachala Settlement Movement, said that they had no trouble at all setting up the necessary permissions and permits to hold the conference, and the relevant authorities were very cooperative.

So leftists need to fight harder to get the same rights as right-wing activists – that’s the conclusion from this whole ordeal.

At the right-wing conference, when posters were held up calling for the forced transfer of Palestinians out of Gaza – mere days after the International Court of Justice in the Hague warned Israel against potential incitement that may strengthen claims of a genocide – employees of the event hall came to take the posters down, and were consequently attacked.

In contrast, at the left-wing protest, clashes broke out between the demonstrators and the police, who went through the crowd and confiscated signs. Yoram Bar Haim, a pro-Palestinian and anti-Zionist activist, was arrested for holding a sign that reportedly read, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free of Zionism.”

While this message has no place in public discourse in Israel, as does the call for “transfer,” an eyewitness at the scene said that police also pushed his daughter aggressively and arrested him after he intervened.

Nevertheless, one side was calling for the end to war; not for the forced removal of Israelis from the land of Israel. The other side was calling for exactly that: a forced removal, but of Gazans.

So in a democratic Jewish state, where two ends exist, one extreme is permitted to act and speak freely, while the other side is forcibly silenced. The hypocrisy is showing, and it must end.

The writer is managing editor of The Jerusalem Post’s website, JPost.com.