Israel Matzav

By Israeli Left's standards, the US is a fascist country

I went to a Jewish day school in Boston, and as a young child, I can remember standing up, putting my hand over my heart and saying the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.

Israel's Ministry of Education has issued a directive for the coming school year calling on all Jewish (not Arab - they're exempt because they might find it offensive) kindergartens to sing our national anthem once a week. Now I can think of some sectors of Israeli society that might find HaTikva (our national anthem) offensive. But I doubt anyone expected the vehement opposition from Israel's Leftists.

Did you know most Americans would be considered fascist by a significant portion of Israel’s left? Neither did I, until a few days ago. But that’s the inescapable conclusion from the left’s reaction to a new Israeli Education Ministry directive requiring Jewish kindergartens (Arab schools would be exempt) to start the week by raising the Israeli flag and singing the national anthem, Hatikvah.

“It looks like a competition between members of the Likud [the ruling party] to see who can push us faster into the arms of fascism,” thundered Prof. Gabi Solomon of the University of Haifa.

“Part of a growing trend of inculcating nationalistic and militaristic values,” screamed an Arab nongovernmental organization.

“This directive is reminiscent of education in a totalitarian society; it gives me the shivers,” charged a lecturer at a leading teacher’s college [Hebrew only].

“It’s brainwashing,” added a kindergarten teacher.

There's a lot about Israel's Leftists that would probably come as a surprise to a lot of Americans. Evelyn Gordon sums it up as follows:

But what most Americans don’t realize is that what Israeli leftists term “anti-democratic” includes a lot of things Americans would consider perfectly legitimate. For instance, Israel’s leading civil rights organization, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, asserts that a law denying state funding to commemorations of the Nakba (literally, “catastrophe,” the Arabic term for Israel’s establishment) “crosses a red line in suppressing freedom of expression.” Yet how many Americans would feel that “freedom of expression” required their government to actually finance ceremonies mourning their country’s establishment as a catastrophe?

Hopefully none, but in the age of Obama one cannot be too sure of that.

Read the whole thing.

Labels: Hatikva, Israel's suicidal Left

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 4:55 AM