In the past two weeks, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has come full circle. On May 15, Palestinians marked the 63rd anniversary of al-Nakba, or "the catastrophe" of the creation of the state of Israel. For the first time, hundreds of Palestinians came from Syria and managed to take down the border fence separating their country from Israel and enter the Golan Heights. The sight of hundreds of Palestinians carrying flags, yelling slogans, and marching into Israel sparked a sense of unity and hope for Palestinians who feel that they are about to fulfil the " right of return."
A week and a half later, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke in front of the U.S. Congress and outlined the Israeli stand for the peace process. Netanyahu presented harsh, uncompromising conditions for achieving a peace agreement with Palestinians. Two days after that, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz published a survey reporting that an astounding 51 per cent of Israelis support the prime minister, while 36 per cent do not. The same survey conducted five weeks earlier showed the opposite results: 38 per cent were in support of Netanyahu, and 53 per cent were not. In addition, 46 per cent of Israelis said that they felt "proud" when they watched the prime minister speaking in front of Congress.
The significance of this sequence of events is quite clear: For Israeli civilians and politicians, Nakba Day demonstrations and marches strengthen the belief that Palestinians’ intent is to return to the 1948 narrative of the conflict, which does not recognize the state of Israel. Acknowledging this, Netanyahu prepared a moving speech that touched the hearts of Israelis who feel their country's security is being threatened, and positioned himself as a strong leader, thus increasing his domestic political standing.
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Democracy Gone Astray
Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.
This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.
All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.
[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]
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