1967 and Beyond: The "Messianic" Impact on Israeli Politics and Society by Dr. Shlomo Ben-Ami скачать в хорошем качестве

1967 and Beyond: The "Messianic" Impact on Israeli Politics and Society by Dr. Shlomo Ben-Ami

The United Nations Forum to mark 50 years of occupation was convened at the United Nations Headquarters in New York on 29-30 June 2017, under the auspices of the UN Palestinian Rights Committee. A day-long event entitled “Ending the Occupation: The Path to Independence, Justice, and Peace for Palestine” was held on 29 June. In his presentation, Mr. Shlomo Ben-Ami, Former Minister for Foreign Affairs of Israel, provided an Israeli perspective and shared his insights regarding current domestic trends in Israel. He recalled that the 1967 war had two contradictory implications for Israel – (i) military “grandeur” and (ii) moral and political crisis and conflict. The encounter of Israelis with the biblical lands of Judea and Samaria had a historic “messianic” meaning for Israelis and resulted in drastic shifts in mainstream Israeli politics. For example, Israel’s National Religious Party (NRP), which was the vanguard of Israeli settlements on Palestinian lands, was one of the most moderate political parties prior to the 1967 war. At the same time that this “messianic feeling” overtook Israeli society following its encounter with the biblical lands of Judea and Samaria, there was also a sense that the long-governing “Labour-dominated establishment” had lost its pioneering impetus which was credited with leading to the creation of the State of Israel. The ensuing void was eventually filled by the National Religious Party, as a new socio-political elite emerging from the 1967 war. Israeli settlements were referenced as a further case in point. While the settlements were started by the ‘Block of the Faithful’, they were sanctioned politically by the Labor government. However, the latter’s distinction between “political settlements” – those in the heart of the West Bank in “biblically sensitive” places – and “security settlements” – those that the government deemed necessary for the security of Israel – became blurred after 1977 when the then Labor Party ceded its leadership to the right-wing Likud party. The rise of the Israeli-right, notwithstanding the fact that it assumed power ten years after the 1967 war, was a gradual and delayed effect of the aforementioned “messianic feeling” that swept across Israel following its military victory in 1967. The post-1967 period has witnessed the gradual decline of the “Tel Aviv Israel” – a secular, modernizing state – and a gradual rise in the “Jerusalem Israel” – a state rooted in an ethno-nationalist ideology. The latter is most forcefully reflected in the present-day government of Benjamin Netanyahu. Putting an emphasis on the Jewish characteristic of Israel and emphasizing that the government prioritizes the interests of Jewish Israelis, instead of all Israelis, has been an important factor in Netanyahu’s re-election. The ensuing ethno-centric policies were not in line with those of a liberal democracy. These are, at least partially, the result of the persistence of the occupation and the spill over of the practices, attitudes, and mentality from the occupied territories into Israel. More infromation about the Forum: https://www.un.org/unispal/united-nat...