Ramallah: Attorney Sawsan Zahr, Head of Political, Social and Cultural Rights Department at Adalah Center said the new discourse of the Israeli High Court is hijacking the discourse of human rights to justify its right-wing orders and whitewash its adoption of settler positions and policies of occupation authorities.
Zahr showed that this shift in the High Court discourse towards the new right is evident in “boycott law” which convicts those calling for boycott, on the basis of human rights discourse and non discrimination. Thus, putting the Palestinian minority in Israel and Palestinians in Israel at equal terms with the settlers, as if they were neutral and not living in occupied territories in violation of international laws.
At a symposium organized by The Palestinian Forum for Israeli Studies - Madar, moderated by Dr. Honaida Ghanem, in Ramallah yesterday, over a special issue of Israeli Affairs Quarterly Journal focused on the New-Right in Israel, Attorney Zahr said that this discourse that uses the human rights rhetoric to pass discriminatory policies is not limited only to the High Court whose members include a settler. In fact, it comes in the context where the right wing realizes the importance of being in the civil society organizations and establishing human rights groups that adopt a right-wing perspective and employing them towards rightist policies.
Zahr set the example of the attempts of right wing human rights organizations fighting the construction in the non-recognized villages of Negev on basis of protection of lawful construction and the environment. She clarified that “Right wing” ideology is not new to the High Court, as it had always signed off the occupation authorities’ policies, however, the change is seen in the discourse and the justifications.
Raef Zreiq, Editor in Chief of the Israeli Affairs Quarterly Journal, said that while Israel was established in 1948 as a secular state with socialist trends, it is appearing in 2015 more as a state and a community subjugated to a fundamentalist religious discourse, from one hand, and a ferocious capitalist and neo liberal policy, from the other.
Zreiq clarified that it is not possible to understand the new Israeli right wing without observing the relationship between Zionism and Religion, which was born into controversy, in addition to its relationship between Zionism and the market which ended up with unregulated free market, and with the political rights which retreated inwards within ethnic parameters, and its relationship with Arabs and Palestinians, where Zreiq explained that the distinctive border line between the left wing and the right wing is represented through their relationship with the Palestinians.
On the main lineaments of the new right, Zreiq said it is seen in the reasoning of the fact that Greater Israel dream is unrealistic, while also reasoning to the left wing that the idea of the division is non achievable, maintaining the conflict management as if it were unresolvable.
Zreiq stated that Zionism used religion as a political tool through secularizing the legend, yielding attempts in which religion presents Zionism as a divine historical phase to realize Judaism. He also noted that the nationalist religious camp has undergone crises, too, including the neo liberal economic policy, which lead to increased individualism, from one side, and from the other the repeated withdrawals from territories that used to be under the control of the Israeli state; Gaza, parts of the West Bank, and the withdrawal from South Lebanon and Sinai. This has resulted in the adoption of a religion that harmonizes with the spirit of the times; religious nationalist and moderate thought, resembling a sort of spiritual sport with an ethnic nationalist thought, that goes along with the modern day technological and capitalist trends.
Zreiq added: the new right has turned from the clash with the outside world to adopting an exaggerated discourse, representing Israel as a civilized façade for the enlightened West, and the defense line before “ISIS” and Iran. This discourse was clear in Netanyahu’s electoral campaign, taking it back to the colonialist orientalist discourse.
Domestically, Zreiq warned that the new right wing represents itself as a manifestation of Zionism in its mature state and not just as a stream within it. This is what explains the tendency of the right wing to rephrase the notion of the new Zionist with focus on the identity of the state, the increased presence of religion in the public space, the normalization of the settlement activity and the attempts to overtake the traditional left wing strongholds, such as academia, media and the High Court.
