by Ezequiel Doiny
“Inside every progressive is a Totalitarian screaming to get out”. -David Horowitz
On May 23, 2013 Daniel Greenfield wrote in Frontpage Magazine “There is a characteristic feature to tyranny. It isn’t the scowling faces of armed guards or the rusting metal of barbed wire fences. It isn’t the black cars of the secret police or the prison camps surrounded by wastelands of snow.
The defining characteristic of tyranny is the diversion of power from the people to the unelected elite. The elite can claim to be inspired by Allah or Marx; it can act in the name of racial purity or universal workers compensation or both. The details don’t matter, because in all instances, tyranny derives its justification from the superiority of the rulers and the inferiority of the people.
The left launched two revolutions. One was the hard revolution of bombs and assassinations by those who did not have the time or patience to wait for the long march through the institutions of the state. This revolution was born quickly and died quickly. It killed millions and choking on their blood it died by stages, losing its ideas and then its power, until there were only a few old men and women in shawls clinging to red velvet portraits of Stalin.
But there was also the soft revolution that was slow and subtle. It was a revolution of laws, rather than bombs…
Lenin demanded a revolution that would directly attack the capitalist system, but Wells believed that, “through a vast sustained educational campaign the existing Capitalist system could be civilized into a Collectivist world system.”
That educational campaign is the soft tyranny we see all around us. The educational campaign is a nanny state in which we are forever being educated by our betters for our own good.
Instead of a single explosive burst of revolution, instead of terrorists rushing in with guns in hand, instead of bombs exploding and assassins gunning down public officials, there is the slow creep of laws that remake attitudes and accomplish the same purpose not in a day or a year… but over the decades.
…Theodore Roosevelt stood in New York City’s Carnegie Hall and delivered one of his most famous speeches, which began with the words, “The great fundamental issue now before the Republican party and before our people can be stated briefly. It is: Are the American people fit to govern themselves, to rule themselves, to control themselves?”
The answer of the liberal technocrats, the Bloombergs and Obamas, is a chorus of jeers. They make it clear with their policies that they believe that the American people are unfit to govern themselves in matters great or small.
If the American is unfit to be trusted with a soda cup or a gun or a lawn dart or any of a thousand other things taken away from him for his own good, then how can he be trusted with the ballot box?
That mistrust, more than any single abuse, reveals the scowling tyrant behind the smiling face, the Lenin in every H.G. Wells, the totalitarian face behind every liberal mask. The soft totalitarianism of the public interest technocracy is a tyranny that seeks to destroy the rule of the people and replace it with the rule of the left…”
In an interview in Newsweek in 2008 JStreet’s Jeremy Ben Ami exemplified what Daniel Greenfield denounces above as the left’s belief in their “superiority” over the popular vote. Jeremy ben Ami said: “The United States clearly has a lot of influence on Israel because of the nature of the relationship and if you’re really serious about stopping the settlements and about what American policy is – American policy says no more settlements, no more expansion and take down those outposts – if we’re serious about it, then we need to start to act serious. And it’s time to act like the big brother or the parent and to say “enough is enough and we’re going to take the car keys if you don’t stop driving drunk.” We’re not talking about simply business as usual. There’s got to be some sort of intervention here where the U.S. says to Israel the time has come to finally do something.”
http://www.thetower.org/
The claim of moral superiority displayed by the left can also be exemplified in the attitude of the group Ifnotnow which claims to know better than Israeli elected officials. On May 17, 2018 Mary Ann Butler reported about a letter written by Ifnotnow, a group of Reform Jews, condemning Israel’s “occupation” and demanding that Reform leader Rabbi Jacobs oppose it, calling the “occupation” a “moral disaster”. “…the Occupation, an ongoing moral disaster for those who uphold and support it and a daily nightmare for the Palestinians who live under it. As current members and alumni of Reform synagogues, URJ camps and NFTY, we were taught by our community to value peace and pursue social justice, and to view every person as someone made b’tselem Elohim, in the image of the Divine. We demand now that you commit to opposing Israeli repression and ending the Occupation..”
The Judicial Activism in Israel is another example of the left’s “superiority complex” over the rule of the people represented by the popular vote. On September 18, 2017 Evelyn Gordon reported in Commentary Magazine “When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, he’ll undoubtedly devote part of his speech to the need to fight terrorist organizations. What he probably won’t mention is that in Israel, the fight is often hamstrung by the Supreme Court’s out-of-control judicial activism, as evidenced by last week’s mind-boggling ruling denying the government the right to revoke the Israeli residency of people serving in the Palestinian legislature or cabinet on behalf of Hamas.
In 2006, three Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem were elected to the Palestinian parliament on behalf of the Hamas-affiliated Change and Reform party, while a fourth was appointed to the Palestinian cabinet on behalf of that party. Israel responded by revoking their Israeli residency rights.
To most people, this would sound like a no-brainer. Many democracies view serving in a foreign government as grounds for revocation of citizenship because holding a policy-level position in one country’s government is considered to require a level of commitment to that country, which conflicts with one’s loyalty to the other country. Indeed, both America and Israel have such rules for their own citizens in policy-level positions; that’s why, for instance, when Michael Oren became ambassador to the U.S., he had to forfeit his American citizenship, despite the fact that America and Israel are close allies.
But these four Palestinians weren’t just serving in a foreign government; they were doing so on behalf of Hamas – a terrorist organization sworn to Israel’s destruction. This, as the Israeli government correctly argued in court, constituted a massive “breach of trust” toward Israel.
Yet the court, in a 6-3 ruling, decided otherwise…
Ostensibly, the case at least has limited application. After all, how many East Jerusalem Palestinians are going to become Hamas legislators of cabinet members? But in reality, the implications are broad, because if even swearing allegiance to a foreign government on behalf of a terrorist organization committed to Israel’s destruction isn’t enough to make a Palestinian lose his Israeli residency and its attendant benefits, what on earth would be? Nothing I can think of. Thus, Hamas supporters in Jerusalem will now be emboldened to step up all kinds of activity on the organization’s behalf, secure in the knowledge that they need not fear expulsion from the country as a consequence.
The court’s judicial activism impedes the government’s ability to set policy in almost every walk of life…”
Here is another example of how the court’s judicial activism impedes the government’s ability to set policy, again the left is trying to impose its “superiority” by replacing the rule of the people with the rule of the left. On December 5, 2016 Evelyn Gordon wrote in Mosaic “In 2015, following lengthy negotiations, President Barack Obama concluded an executive agreement marking the accomplishment of a cherished policy goal: the nuclear deal with Iran known as the JCPOA. Also in 2015, after similarly lengthy negotiations, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu concluded an agreement realizing a long-cherished policy goal of his own: a deal enabling development of Israel’s largest natural-gas field by a private American company and its Israeli partner. Both agreements included a commitment by the respective governments to refrain from adverse legislative action over the next ten to fifteen years: in Obama’s case, action to reinstate nuclear sanctions against Iran; in Netanyahu’s case, action to alter the regulatory regime for natural gas to the disadvantage of the private energy companies.
As it happens, neither country’s executive branch has the authority to bind the legislature without the latter’s consent. But this didn’t trouble either the Iranians or the energy companies; they took it for granted that both executives would use all of the considerable power at their disposal to prevent such legislation, and that sufficed.
But what about the role of the third branch of democratic government, namely, the judiciary? That is where the two stories diverge. The Iran deal was never challenged in an American court. But in Israel, two left-wing opposition parties (Zionist Union and Meretz) and two nongovernmental organizations, alarmed by the encroaching specter of capitalist development, immediately petitioned the country’s supreme court (also known for some purposes as the High Court of Justice) over the gas deal—and won. The court struck down the agreement, saying the government either had to procure legislation enacting the prime minister’s commitment to regulatory stability or renegotiate the deal to exclude the commitment altogether.
A week later, speaking at a conference of the Israeli bar association, Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked accused the court of wielding its power “irresponsibly” by intervening in “political and macroeconomic questions” that were better left to the elected branches. She also reiterated a longstanding pledge, in her role as head of the judicial-appointments committee, to seek the appointment of justices to the court who would respect the government’s “authority to act on political matters that don’t violate human rights.” For this effrontery, opposition members of the Knesset promptly accused her of undermining democracy and demanded her dismissal. MK Shelly Yachimovich of the Zionist Union, for instance, charged Shaked with “trying to destroy the legal system’s independence, intimidate judges, and threaten them,” adding that if this sort of behavior continued, “Netanyahu would no longer be able to boast that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East.”
This was hardly the first time in recent years that domestic critics of Israel’s government have accused it of “anti-democratic” behavior that wasn’t actually anti-democratic at all. But such accusations have served to obscure the real anti-democratic revolution that has occurred in Israel over the last few decades: the judiciary’s steady usurpation of policy-making powers that were once reserved—as they still are in other democracies—for Israel’s executive and legislative branches…”
https://mosaicmagazine.com/
A recent example of how the judicial activism of the supreme court has interfered in Israel’s democracy was recently displayed in Israel’s Supreme Court ban on Michael Ben Ari from running in the elections despite being approved by the Knesset’s Central Elections Committee. On March 18, 2019 JNS reported “Israel’s Supreme Court banned Otzma Yehudit candidate Michael Ben-Ari from running in the upcoming national elections—the first time Israel’s highest court has ever prevented a single individual from running in an Israeli election—in opposition to a decision by the Central Elections Committee.
In an 8-1 vote, the Supreme Court voted in favor of a petition to disqualify Ben-Ari due to anti-Arab beliefs and incitement. The court’s decision had been urged by Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit and represents the first time that the Supreme Court barred an individual, rather than a faction or party, from running.
Otzma blasted the decision, with Ben-Ari calling the Supreme Court a “judicial junta that seeks to take over our lives.”
What Daniel Greenfield wrote above for America also applies to Israel “…The defining characteristic of tyranny is the diversion of power from the people to the unelected elite. The elite can claim to be inspired by Allah or Marx; it can act in the name of racial purity or universal workers compensation or both. The details don’t matter, because in all instances, tyranny derives its justification from the superiority of the rulers and the inferiority of the people….
The soft totalitarianism of the public interest technocracy is a tyranny that seeks to destroy the rule of the people and replace it with the rule of the left…”
Ifnotnow, JStreet’s Jeremy Ben Ami and the Israeli Supreme Court are prime examples of how the left regard themselves “superior” to the Israeli elected officials as Jeremy ben Ami said “…And it’s time to act like the big brother or the parent and to say “enough is enough and we’re going to take the car keys if you don’t stop driving drunk.”
Ezequiel Doiny is author of “Obama’s assault on Jerusalem’s Western Wall”
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