This is what it was like after 9/11, and that public attitude led to the founding of Drinking Liberally — a place where the small anti-war minority could speak openly. But keeping people out of bomb shelters? That’s criminal:
For Jewish Israelis, and even more so for Palestinians inside Israel, opposing war is a dangerous act. With 86 percent of Israelis opposed to a ceasefire, the overwhelming public attitude leaves anti-war activists in a precarious position. One woman shouting in a pro-war counter-demonstration inadvertently described the tolerance for dissent during times of conflict: “You can protest after the war, but not during it!”
Michael Sappir, 26, a Jewish Israeli member of Da’am, an Arab-Jewish socialist party, told VICE News: “Even though it’s normally scary to publicly voice radical leftist positions in Israeli society, now there is a sense that everyone is united against you.”
Mimi, a Jewish anti-war activist using a pseudonym, echoed Sappir’s sentiments: “People like to say that Israeli society is half right-wing and half left-wing, but this is not true. The center is extremely right-wing.”
For many Jewish Israeli anti-war activists, the night of July 12 was a turning point in being able to safely protest in public. As Israel launched airstrikes and shelled the Gaza Strip, demonstrators gathered in Habima Square in Tel Aviv. A pro-war counter-demonstration appeared and the police maintained a buffer between the two. As a siren rang out, indicating a rocket had been launched from Gaza, police fled the scene. Left unprotected, many of the anti-war demonstrators attempted to make their way into the bomb shelters, but were blocked and attacked by pro-war mobs.
‘When it’s right-wing people doing stuff, we look aside, and when it’s leftist people like you, we will hunt you down.’
“We were left out there [by the police],” said Sappir. “Some of us formed a human chain which actually worked pretty well in keeping the ultra-Zionists from attacking us. Some people fled into a cafe and were attacked there, and someone had a chair broken over their head.”
The activist who was beaten with a chair spent the night in the hospital before returning to the scene the following day to apologize to the owner. He was again attacked in plain daylight and then blamed for events by the cafe’s owner.
“Free Israel From Zionists” While we’re at it let’s “Free America” as well. When the neo-con and Zionist Charles Krauthammer agrees with Zionist super-Hawk Hillary on the failure of Obama’s foreign policy, then the Democratic Party is in serious trouble. (Here’s why Hillary got it right on Obama’s foreign policy.) At least with any Democrat to the Left of John McCain.