Cheer up O Arabs. They have become like us

I start with this scene: the faces of women have been removed from the posters and advertisements in the streets. Advertisements for female winter garments were exposed with no women heads. Women’s faces in advertisements were painted in black. Gangs of radicals are roaming the streets in order to sabotage advertisements showing pictures of women. The secular head of municipality is at war with the religious radicals. This scene is not taking place in an Arab city, governorate, or town, but rather in Jerusalem. The head of the municipality, Israeli secular Neir Barakat, is waging a war against the radical Haredim Jews. Cheer up O Arabs. They have become like us. [As the adage goes], when you live with a group of people for forty days, you either become like them or you leave. And they are not planning on leaving…willingly. After sixty years rather than forty days, they have become like the radicals in our countries. In 2007, Israel held the 36th spot in the indicator of gender equity. This year, it plunged to the 55th spot. The religious radicals are trying to separate men from women in places of worship, and public spaces such as post offices, pizza parlors, stores, and playgrounds. In Jerusalem’s Menachem suburb, which is inhabited by Jewish radicals, women were even prevented from walking in the street although the higher court had allowed that. They have become like us when it comes to regression and the persecution of women. The Haredim Jews, who reproduce at an even higher rate than Arabs, have become a majority in Israel and they are pulling it towards radicalism and religious closeness. A woman’s face is an intimate part that must not be exposed, according to their sect. They prevent women from singing to the extent that nine religious army recruits left a military party because female recruits sang there. Some of them refused to apologize and went to jail. Seculars responded by organizing a party in Haifa where women sang along with men. The worst thing about the above is the plethora of controversial laws passed by the Knesset. This is not my own line but one that was ran by the Israel Hayom newspaper. I also read about a black day for democracy in Israel, which was carried by Yedioth Ahronoth. I also read similar stories and headlines in the Los Angeles Times and the Huffington Post. The newspapers of Israel and the world were commenting on the Knesset’s issuing of a new law to limit external donations from governments and organizations to Israeli peace organizations. This law originally targets B’Tselem and Justice. The prosecutor general himself said: “This law opposes the freedom of speech and the freedom to rally.” Yedioth Ahronoth considered that the law has been passed by a “bunch of cowards” and “it represents a new summit of hypocrisy.” On a similar issue, the New York Times carried a news item about “an attack against the freedom of expression in Israel” about female army recruit, Anat Kam, who was sentenced to four and half years in prison after being convicted of leaking out 100 out of 2085 secret military documents that she obtained after she suspected that her military commanders were committing war crimes. The American newspaper, which is owned by Jews, considered that the conviction of the recruit constitutes an attack against the freedom of expression in Israel. The newspaper will undoubtedly find another reason to criticize the current situation especially as the Knesset issued a new law to limit the freedom of the press. The same newspaper had published two months ago a column by Israeli Professor Carlo Stringer under the headline of “Netanyahu’s partners, the enemies of democracy.” The column read: “The law that prevents the Palestinians from commemorating the anniversary of the Nakba will cause Israel to lose its democratic characteristic.” The American branch of the Peace Now group has started to attack the Israeli radicalism in the United States. This caused Likud MP Ophir Okonis to say that Peace Now is a movement working “against Zionism and against Israel.” The Israeli society, to which the Jewish Ashkenazis had brought the European liberalism, is now caught between an extremist government and the religious radicals to the extent that the Israeli society now resembles the United States during the days of the civil rights campaign in the sixties. Half a century after the apartheid against the blacks in America, Palestinian youths tried to tear down the wall of the Israeli racism by organizing the so-called “Freedom Riders” movement. They rode a bus serving Israeli settlers in the Basajun settlement. As a result, seven of them were arrested on the Hazma checkpoint. Cheer up O Arabs. Relief is near. The Israeli Jews have become like us.