Israel’s government approved on Sunday a proposal by Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi that mandates any government-funded body refrain from communicating with Haaretz or placing advertisements in the paper. The proposal was approved by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The decision, according to the government’s explanation, is a reaction to “many articles that have hurt the legitimacy of the state of Israel and its right to self defense, and particularly the remarks made in London by Haaretz publisher, Amos Schocken, that support terrorism and call for imposing sanctions on the government.”
The proposal did not appear on the government’s agenda published ahead of the weekly cabinet meeting. The Attorney General’s office, unaware of the intention to bring the proposal to a vote, did not review it at all and did not present its opinion, as customary. The resolution was presented to ministers during the discussion without any legal opinion.
In a speech at the Haaretz conference in London last month, Schocken said “the Netanyahu government doesn’t care about imposing a cruel apartheid regime on the Palestinian population. It dismisses the costs of both sides for defending the settlements while fighting the Palestinian freedom fighters, that Israel calls terrorists.”
And Hamas is bringing no justice to Palestinians. Did Hamas invade and take Israelis captive to “bring justice to Palestinians”? Absolutely not, they perfectly well understood what Israel would do in return. That’s what they wanted. This is the conflict Israel was propping up Hamas for. Hamas’ job was to start the war, and they did.
While the 7 of October what a case of the end don’t justify the mean, it is still an act of resistance. An operation can be both an act of resistance and terrorism at the same time. The massacre allowed to ruin the abraham accord which was meant to isolate Palestine from other Arab speaking countries, allow to inflict direct harm to the IDF and revived th debate about Palestinian land being occupied pushing many people to boycott Israelis products and other companies that support Israel and illegal settlements.
We all knew what Israel would do in response. History show us how colonial powers response to any retaliation with huge massacres. It doesn’t make them justifiable.
As long as Palestinians exists and Israelis still occupy Palestinians land we will never find peace in the region.
I broadly agree, but the language of the original article is what I objected to:
That language clearly implies that the label “terrorist” is invalid.
EDIT: Just to clarify. We’ve seen this many times before.
The Muhajadeen who fought so hard to free Aghanistan from the Soviet Union had a just cause, and they were certainly resistance fighters. But they had no interest whatsoever in “freedom” for Afghanistan. They wanted to rule it.
That is the same accusation I am levying against Hamas. They are terrorists, and they are resistance fighters. But they are not freedom fighters. Their goal is to eject Israel and install an Islamist, anti-democratic state.