Israel/Palestine
Related: About this forumPatriotism in the service of silencing dissent
This past week, Haaretz reported that Israeli diplomats were having a hard time dealing with the film The Gatekeepers. Michael Oren, Israels ambassador to the United States, outdid all the others when he claimed that the heads of the Shin Bet who were interviewed for the film compromised the states public relations efforts, which he said were "in a kind of war.
His statements join other similar ones that have been made of late statements that express one of many symptoms of a dangerous disease that has been attacking Israeli society over the past few years. Other symptoms include increasing delegitmization of the left wing (and the Haredi population as well), with the purpose of silencing legitimate voices in public discourse; Culture Minister Limor Livnats call to artists to practice self-censorship; the Education Ministrys dismissal of civics studies supervisor Adar Cohen because his liberal views were not to the liking of former education minister Gideon Saar; the barring by Israel of Professor Rivka Feldhay from participating in a joint Israeli-German academic conference, apparently for her support for Israeli soldiers who refuse to serve in the Palestinian territories; and the attempts to shut down the Department of Politics and Government at Ben-Gurion University. All these are symptoms of the attempts to suppress free speech in Israeli society.
Oren and those who share his opinion claim that criticism of the leaderships policy is tantamount to damaging the State of Israels standing and harming its interests. For the regimes spokesmen, their methods, ideology and goals are an inseparable part of the state. Therefore, disagreeing with them is equivalent to harming the state, and critics betray the states interests. This approach is reminiscent of the spokesmen of the Chinese regime, who use the same reason to silence criticism from within and exert tight control over the media, cultural works and academia. The approach of Oren and his colleagues must therefore justify regimes that attempt to silence criticism of anti-Semitism in their countries for fear that making such criticism public might damage their countries image and interests.
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Oren and his ilk do not accept the basic principle that patriots who love their country and their people are allowed to disagree with the political leaderships vision and policy. They deny the approach that heterogeneity of thought is one of the most obvious and necessary signs of an open and pluralistic society. Not for a moment does it occur to them that perhaps their goals and policy are what is causing damage to the state.
http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/patriotism-in-the-service-of-silencing-dissent.premium-1.512081
bemildred
(90,061 posts)When I was seven years old, I was once reprimanded by my mother for an
act of collective brutality in which I had been involved at school. A
group of seven-year-olds had been teasing and tormenting a
six-year-old. "It is always so," my mother said. "You do things
together which not one of you would think of doing alone." ...
Wherever one looks in the world of human organization, collective
responsibility brings a lowering of moral standards. The military
establishment is an extreme case, an organization which seems to have
been expressly designed to make it possible for people to do things
together which nobody in his right mind would do alone.
-- Freeman Dyson, "Weapons and Hope"
"Here in America, we are descended in blood and in spirit from revolutionists and rebels- men and women who dared to dissent from accepted doctrine. As their heirs, we may never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion."
-- Dwight David Eisenhower
One of the great attractions of patriotism - it fulfils our worst wishes.
In the person of our nation we are able, vicariously, to bully and cheat.
Bully and cheat, what's more, with a feeling that we are profoundly virtuous.
Sweet and decorous to murder, lie, torture, for the sake of the fatherland.
Eyeless in Gaza -- Aldous Huxley 1936
And finally:
Then did he raise on high the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch,
saying, "Bless this, O Lord, that with it thou mayst blow thine
enemies to tiny bits, in thy mercy." And the people did rejoice
and did feast upon the lambs and toads and tree-sloths and
fruit-bats and orangutans and breakfast cereals ... Now did the
Lord say, "First thou pullest the Holy Pin. Then thou must count
to three. Three shall be the number of the counting and the number
of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither
shalt thou count two, excepting that thou then proceedeth to three.
Five is right out. Once the number three, being the number of the
counting, be reached, then lobbest thou the Holy Hand Grenade in
the direction of thine foe, who, being naughty in my sight, shall
snuff it."
-- Monty Python, "Monty Python and the Holy Grail"
I'm pretty sure "Oren and his ilk" are mainly concerned with themselves, and see their opposition as "enemies", which is indeed a problem.
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)yep we that launched here at least in an editorial manner with some frequency
bemildred
(90,061 posts)A classic example of placebo religion. (You have to believe or it doesn't work.)
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)and I like it too
GeoWilliam750
(2,519 posts)Affirmation and domination
If you disagree with me, you are a threat, especially if you are right, because that would diminish my standing within my social group.
If you disagree, I must shut you up, whether you are right or wrong.
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)part. The voters collectively did not hold ending the occupation a high priority, this was reported
as an accurate assessment.
Are the voters duped by their elected officials, they are not aware of all the people speaking out
against the belligerence of those in power?
A state run by crazy people screaming security in order to take more land that does not belong
to them.
This does not surprise me, not at all: Not for a moment does it occur to them that perhaps their goals and policy are what is causing damage to the state.
What I find incredible, is the voters do not seem to either, which is more than a little bizarre.
King_David
(14,851 posts)Why would anyone complain of collective punishment then?
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)azurnoir
(45,850 posts)King_David
(14,851 posts)In the one man one vote one time election they had there.
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)King_David
(14,851 posts)Elected by the Croatian and Turkish and New Zealand citizens .
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)King_David
(14,851 posts)Thanks
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)but Americans or at least enough of us caught on, all it took was a little bit of economic collapse