Years back I used to work with an Israeli. Born there. Tel Aviv liberal. What he used to complain about in Israel was the religious lot.
When he was doing national service in Army he had to guard these religious settlers. Used to wind him up. They used to try to ban things. He was Israeli born non religious Tel Aviv jew who liked to party and they pissed him off. Big time. As they were out to spoil his non religious lifestyle. He never complained about Palestinians.
I take it their are big divides in Israeli society?
Be interested in what you think.
There are Israeli human rights groups like Btselem who are very critical of recent governments. Are they very marginal ? Or have a following?
Sorry I missed this last night, had a bit of a drunken one (needed and welcome!)
Yes, Israeli liberals in my experience feel at least as negatively if not more so, about the racist settlers and weird religious cultists who don't pay tax, don't serve in the army, and yet relentlessly push Israel towards war, than about the Palestinians who are mainly harmless victims of all this. All the best Israelis seem to end up leaving, which only exacerbates the problems as the people who remain tend of course to be the more nationalistic ones.
Honestly, I haven't been back since 2001 and I've felt no wish to, watching walls go up and the right wing entrenching their shit throughout society. Like here really, except imagine a tory-UKIP-EDL coalition with a huge majority during the worst of the Irish troubles...
It doesn't bear thinking about, truly.
Yes, massive fractures in Israeli society IME, and have been deepening for years, since 1997 and Oslo at least. Peace now (Shalom Achshav) which I knew a few people from still exists but is widely derided, activists have received death threats, and I can't imagine they have much support inside Israel at the moment.
B'Tselem too still exists (and I love their name, "In the Image" - ie. of God) but since they officially nowadays call Israel an apartheid state, I don't suppose they either are exactly flavour of the month just now.
I expect that as the current clusterfuck grows and metastises, both organizations may undergo a resurgence. We can only hope, because as far as I can tell peace and human rights are not remotely on the agenda for the foreseeable future.
about the message btw, just about the circumstances in which it was given.
