Middle Eastern leader blasts israel as "sick society"

[Scootaloo]

The time has come to admit that Israel is a sick society, with an illness that demands treatment, President Reuven Rivlin said at the opening session on Sunday of a conference on From Hatred of the Stranger to Acceptance of the Other.

Both Rivlin and Prof. Ruth Arnon, president of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, which organized the conference at its premises on the capital’s Jabotinsky Street, spoke of the painful and bloody summer, and the resultant resurgence of animosity between Arabs and Jews that had escalated to new heights.

Referring to the mutual expressions of hatred and incitement, Arnon said that Jews, who in the Diaspora had been exposed to anti-Semitism and persecution, should be more sensitive to the dangers of incitement. “But are we?” she asked.

Rivlin wondered aloud whether Jews and Arabs had abandoned the secret of dialogue.

With regard to Jews he said: “I’m not asking if they’ve forgotten how to be Jews, but if they’ve forgotten how to be decent human beings. Have they forgotten how to converse?” In Rivlin’s eyes, the academy has a vital task to reduce violence in Israeli society by encouraging dialogue and the study of different cultures and languages with the aim of promoting mutual understanding, so that there can be civilized meetings between the sectors of society.

http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Politics-And-Diplomacy/President-Rivlin-Time-to-admit-that-Israel-is-a-sick-society-that-needs-treatment-379223

[BillZBubb]

1. Israel's society isn't sick, but it many ways it is criminal.

Israel wants to annex the key parts of the West Bank. They use ethnic cleansing to accomplish that goal. It is a criminal enterprise.

[King_David]

2. Wow a President of Israel admired here ,

[Scootaloo]

3. In all honesty?

I thought Ehud Barack was still president

presidents of Israel seem to get upstaged by prime Ministers. It's sort of like Russia that way. Also like Russia; the prime minister is a right-wing asshole Russian guy.

[Israeli]

4. Not sure if you are joking or not ....

but .....

Ehud Barak has never been President Scoot .....he was PM once from 1999 to 2001.

and ....

the " right-wing asshole Russian guy. " ....is Minister of Foreign Affairs.....not PM

Ref : https://www.knesset.gov.il/mk/eng/mk_eng.asp?mk_individual_id_t=214

[LeftishBrit]

5. Barak was PM about 15 years ago, never Prez. Rivlin just replaced Peres

As regards 'right-wing asshole Russian guys', I think you are confusing Netanyahu with his Foreign Minister Lieberman. Netanyahu is a RW asshole, no doubt; but he is not Russian or linked to Russia.

[Scootaloo]

13. You're right, I double-dipped on derp

I meant Peres, and got "Russian' and "Pole" mixed up. Which has the sad effect of totally ruining the snark.

Never talk politics under influence of a debilitating migraine, kids. Lesson learned Seriously it's been like the seven dwarves hammering away looking for diamonds in there all damn day long.

[azurnoir]

7. Avigdor "Yvette" Lieberman

former bar bouncer from Moldavia same place as Orly Taitz and was in 2001 convicted of assaulting a child while he was Minister of National Infrastructure


Conviction for assault

On 24 September 2001, Lieberman acknowledged in the Jerusalem District Court that he attacked a twelve-year-old youth from Tekoa, who had hit his son. The incident occurred in December 1999 in the Nokdim settlement. His son told him that three boys hit him. Lieberman located one of the boys in a trailer and hit him in the face. After the boy fell and was injured, Lieberman grabbed him by the shirt-collar and arm, took him back to his home in Tekoa and threatened that he would attack him again if he returned to Nokdim. He was charged with assaulting and threatening him. Lieberman was convicted based on his own confession in the context of a plea bargain. His attorney asked the judges, in the context of the arrangement, to restrict his punishment to a fine amid the defendant's promise that he will not commit such an act in the future. The judge ultimately ruled that Lieberman must pay the child a compensation of 10,000 NIS, and an additional fine of 7,500 NIS.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avigdor_Lieberman

[Israeli]

11. Dont forget his connection to Kach ....

Ref :

Lieberman was involved in radical right Kach movement

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/lieberman-was-involved-in-radical-right-kach-movement-1.269330

NB : no paywall .

[oberliner]

15. I can tell you about Orly Taitz

PM me if interested.

[LeftishBrit]

6. Good for Rivlin

Unfortunately Netanyahu is more likely to listen to the Israeli versions of the teabaggers, who might primary him, than to Rivlin.

[Israeli]

9. Rivlin and Bibi dont get on at all anymore....

see :

Rivlin hints Sara Netanyahu had hand in his dismissal as Knesset speaker

http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/rivlin-hints-sara-netanyahu-had-hand-in-his-dismissal-as-knesset-speaker.premium-1.512219

Rivlin hinted that Sara Netanyahu and Yisrael Beiteinu chairman Avigdor Lieberman had joined forces to get him dismissed.

“It seems to me that there were just three people who didn’t want me in the position. That would be the head of Yisrael Beiteinu, for his own reasons, and the prime minister." While Rivlin did not mention Sara Netanyahu by name, he referred to her – apparently – as “the one who is always at the center of things but evidently behind the scenes. I’m not going into gossip and things like that.”
He said Netanyahu justified his decision not to support his bid for another term by citing the fear that Rivlin would use the position to advance his candidacy for the presidency next summer. “His reasons were insulting. After all, the prime minister asked me to submit my candidacy for the presidency,” Rivlin said.

Rivlin added that he had backed the prime minister up several times, adding to his disappointment in Netanyahu.

“I blocked the passage of several laws that the prime minister would have had much difficulty explaining to the world," he said. "And he thanked me afterward, saying, ‘It’s a good thing you saved me from those problems.’”

If by " teabaggers " you refer to our religious Right wing followers of the ' Greater Israel ' ideology .....then I agree with you . They are now calling Rivlin a Leftist

You should read this its a good article on how things are today :

http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/10/israel-yitzhak-rabin-commemoration-ceremony-right-left.html

And indeed, a liberal comment of yore, once obvious and taken for granted, is today considered a deviation from the consensus. Rivlin, who as mentioned is a fervent right-winger, is ''accused'' of leftism and is subjected to harsh vilification, following his attacks against manifestations of racism and hatred of Arabs. Jabotinsky, who wrote in his book on Zionist revisionists that “a strong Arab population, politically, economically and culturally will forever remain the main guarantee of a strong and healthy Land of Israel as a whole,” would today likely have been considered a fifth column in the Likud Party. The man who said that “the Hebrew language and the Arab language will have equal rights and validity” would not have been allowed to cross the threshold of the Likud headquarters building in Tel Aviv, Metzudat Ze’ev, which bears his name.

[bemildred]

8. "President Rivlin: Time to admit that Israel is a sick society that needs treatment"

I wonder how long he is going to last, saying such things,

[Israeli]

10. How do you mean ?

Like .....shot in the back like ' they ' did to Rabin ???

Seven years .... unless like Moshe Katsav there is some kind of scandal ...

Ref : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moshe_Katsav

[bemildred]

12. Well, I don't know.

But I expect he will be attacked for saying such things, and I expect there will be people trying to get rid of him one way or another, and I expect that such persons would not hesitate to use underhanded methods.

Katsav is a good example of the sort of thing which might be pursued, although I don't expect the same sort of bait would be used.

[Israeli]

16. He is already being ...

" attacked for saying such things " .......calling him a " Leftist " is an attack .

Agree with the rest of your post BTW .

[Israeli]

18. You were saying !!!!!!.......

Rabin’s daughter condemns incitement directed at Rivlin

On 19th anniversary of assassination, as doctored photo circulates of president wearing keffiyeh, Dalia Rabin calls on Netanyahu government to wake up

Ahead of Saturday night’s annual Tel Aviv memorial marking the 19th anniversary of the assassination of prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, his daughter Dalia Rabin-Pelossof condemned what she called the growing incitement against Israeli officials like President Reuven Rivlin, who is perceived to hold a moderate stance toward the country’s Arab minority.

Rabin said she was horrified to hear the expressions of hatred leveled at Rivlin following his appearance earlier this week at a memorial marking the 58th anniversary of the Kfar Kassem massacre, and his Knesset speech slamming racial discrimination and violence within the Jewish state.

Rabin expressed particular concern about a doctored photo showing Rivlin in an Arab keffiyeh which has been circulating on right-wing websites and social media. News of the photo was reported late last week by the Maariv (Hebrew) website; it did not give a source or credit for the image.

The photo is somewhat reminiscent of an infamous doctored image of the late Rabin in the same kind of headscarf, which was disseminated as part of a vicious incitement campaign against him following the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1994 and before his assassination.

Continued @
http://www.timesofisrael.com/rabins-daughter-condemns-incitement-directed-at-rivlin/

[bemildred]

19. My psychic powers pop up at the most unexpected moments.

They especially seem to like doctored digital stuff and appeals to ones basest instincts.
Of course, those are very popular everywhere among the ideologically committed and politically engaged.

[Israeli]

20. Yup ...especially during November ....

Another autumn of incitement

Op-ed: Yitzhak Rabin's personal secretary says memory of days leading up to prime minister's murder won’t let her keep silent in light of another picture of a public figure wearing a keffiyeh.

Marit Danon

It seems that almost every one of us has one special autumn, or perhaps a different season in the year, which is related to the memory of a dear person who is no longer with us, or to an event which has engraved a wrinkle of pain in one's heart.

Israeli songwriter Naomi Shemer described this internal feeling very well in her song "Every Year in the Fall, Giora," which she wrote in memory of Giora Shoham, who was killed in the Yom Kippur War.

In the past 19 years, my autumn is always related to the memory of Yitzhak Rabin's murder. Something in the Jerusalem chill of early November, the soft sunlight which has lost the glitter of the summer, and even the colors of the trees in the fall of autumn leaves, always remind me of that terrible autumn and the days that led up to it.

The curses on the telephone, which reached my ears as I sat near the entrance to the his room in the Prime Minister's Office, the envelopes which arrived in the mail with blasphemy and slime, and more than anything – the horrifying posters showing Rabin dressed in an SS uniform or wearing a keffiyeh, sometimes hugging Yasser Arafat, sometimes on his own.

And since then, the keffiyeh has become a very popular garment in our country as a symbol and tool of incitement. I ran into it on Jerusalem's billboards in the months before the disengagement from Gaza, on the heads of late Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his bureau chief Dov Weissglass.

That same year it wrapped Attorney General Menachem Mazuz's head in protest of his decision to allow Arabs to purchase lands from Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael-JNF. And later, in 2012, it was seen on the heads of High Court judges in protest of the ruling on the removal of homes from the Ulpana Neighborhood in Beit El.

And in this year's autumn, on the days before the Rabin memorial day, a picture of President Reuven Rivlin wearing a keffiyeh has appeared online. The word "traitor," which was so popular in 1995, is repeated against him again and again.

Some of us are apparently unable to tolerate the president's participation in an event marking the Kafr Qasim massacre. It is apparently difficult to accept his comments about equal rights for all of the state's citizens or the Knesset speech in which he condemned the verbal violence on the Web. This immediately calls for putting a keffiyeh on his head and verbally attacking him.

In the days that preceded the autumn of 1995, we didn't really understand the extent of the danger contained in words, and in the 19 years that have passed we have been speaking endlessly about incitement and democracy and learning lessons. But let's admit, courageously, that we have not learned anything since them, that no real conclusion has been drawn and that we probably haven't really internalized what happened.

That autumn, the day after the murder, I was asked to empty out the drawer of the slain prime minister's desk. In my heart, I call it "the drawer of his life": Half a pack of cigarettes, half a tube of toothpaste, half a box of antibiotics. Small items of a life which was cut short by one thrust of a murderer's bullets. This difficult memory never lets go of me and does not allow me to keep silent in light of another picture of a public figure in a keffiyeh.

Today I understand very well that the words don't always remain mute on the billboards or on the Internet. Sometimes they take their own course, which may end with violence that affects not only a person's life, but the foundations of the life and the image of an entire state.

Marit Danon was the personal secretary of former Prime Ministers Yitzhak Shamir, Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres, Ehud Barak and Ariel Sharon.

Source : http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4588236,00.html

[oberliner]

21. "words don't always remain mute..."

Great quote.

Palestinians (and others) who speak of violence against Israeli civilians ought to remember that as well.

Putting a pig head in a supermarket sends a strong message to Jews (not just Israelis) as well.

[Israeli]

22. Thats all folks ....

.....it all comes down to a pigs head ....

[oberliner]

14. He is Likud by the way

I would have thought you would have known that seeing as you claim to be Israeli.

[Israeli]

17. Now you are just being as ...

....rediculous as KD oberliner.....or you did not read any of my above posts .