Israel's McCarthy Committee

Last week, the Knesset took the first step toward creating an investigative committee that would look into the sources of human rights groups' funds. Faina Kirschenbaum of Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beitenu Party and Danny Dannon of Likud, the two people behind the initiative to create such a committee and who are both vying for its chairmanship, claim they're only looking into groups that are targeting the IDF and promoting the prosecution of Israeli soldiers abroad.

Lieberman said today that this isn't persecution of the left, since they aren't looking into organisations like Peace Now. Peace Now is legitimate, he said, while the others are not. Odd, since even Peace Now technically fits the bill of organisations that publish unfavorable information about the IDF, such as how settlements continue to grow under the watchful eye of the army, which is legally the sovereign in the West Bank.

Anyway, I hope this committee will not be created. There are still two more votes left where this horrible idea can fail - in the Knesset Committee and in the final vote before the whole Knesset. In the original vote, only 41 Knesset members voted in favor of a committee, but because very few opponents were present that was enough. Now that both Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin of Likud and Opposition Leader Tzippi Livni have denounced the decision, I am much more hopeful that maybe there will be more "no" votes than "yes" votes when the final roll call comes up.

Livni Warns Against Fascism

I really don't understand how this didn't make headlines: Head of the opposition and Kadima Chairwoman Tzipi Livni warned in an interview aired last night on "Uvda" ("Fact") with Ilana Dayan that the policies of the current government may lead to either anarchy or the desire for a strong, fascist leader. She accused the leaders of the three main coalition parties, Netanyahu, Lieberman and Barak, of joining forces with her party's number 2, Shaul Mofaz, in an attempt to break up Kadima, thus eliminating any serious opposition within the Knesset.

Fascists and Theocrats

All polls now show that the right wing will have a majority in the next Knesset. How large the majority will be varies wildly from poll to poll, with estimates ranging from 62 seats to 70-plus, out of a total of 120 Knesset seats. It seems certain Benjamin Netanyahu will be the next prime minister.

Unless Netanyahu decides to form a unity government with Kadima and Labor, his natural coalition partners would be Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beitenu (Israel Our Home) and the four religious parties. There is a problem here, though. Lieberman and the ultra-Orthodox parties don't like each other. Both sides share a disdain for democracy, but each takes it in a different direction. Yisrael Beitenu wants all citizens to declare their loyalty to the State of Israel or lose their citizenship. This, of course, is aimed at Arab citizens, but soon enough it will reach whoever has the wrong political views, in Lieberman's eyes. Shas and United Torah Judaism, the two ultra-Orthodox parties, don't necessarily object to this. They do object to the only part of Lieberman's platform that I agree with: making the country more secular, including non-religious marriages.

Shas and UTJ, on the other hand, would like to make Israel a Medinat Halacha, Halacha being the Jewish equivalent of Sharia law. A theocracy is their favored form of government, though they try not to say it directly. Lieberman, of course, totally opposes this idea.

I have a slim hope that the Likud-led right wing bloc will receive such a small majority that the coalition will have to include all the bloc's parties to pass the 61-member threshold. Then, maybe the disagreements between the fascists and theocrats will lead to Netanyahu's failure to form a government.