That's an interesting take on Democracy. But then, we're talking about the
Australians, the ultimate settler society. When I visited there, I felt like I
was in a weird version of Texas.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Roger Loran Bailey
(Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
Sent: Wednesday, January 02, 2019 3:01 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx; Carl Jarvis <carjar82@xxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Elections Don't Make Israel a Democracy
What do you have to say about the Australian system? If you don't vote you get
fined.
___
Carl Sagan
“ Who is more humble? The scientist who looks at the universe with an open mind
and accepts whatever the universe has to teach us, or somebody who says
everything in this book must be considered the literal truth and never mind the
fallibility of all the human beings involved? ”
― Carl Sagan
On 1/2/2019 2:00 PM, Carl Jarvis wrote:
We should not fool ourselves. The USA is no different than any other
government that claims to be ruled by popular vote...or something
close to that.
The trick to staying in power is to control the vote before it occurs.
We've seen all sorts of examples of this in our own USA.
When our state of Washington decided to push to register every adult
citizen, we, as state employees, were ordered to offer to register any
person who came into our official attention. I argued against the
idea, saying that merely registering everyone would not make us more
democratic. Many of our clients had not voted in years. But when
registered, they quickly reverted to voting for the same Party they
had supported in the past. Even if the people they were voting for
supported cutting their Medicare or Social Security. The problem is
that once again we focus on the wrong issue. We need an Informed
People, not a fully registered nation. Given information that
demonstrates how we are impacted by the candidates or issues before
us, will cause more people to want to vote, to have a say in the
outcome.
We live in an Oligarchy that goes back to our Founding White Land
Owning Fathers, 21 years or older. While they broadened who could
participate through voting, women, slaves, those 18 year old, and
People of colors other than White, they continued to manipulate voters
registers, districts, and controlled where polls were set up.
Remember when Black folks had to prove they could read? Now they must
prove that they're not registered in more than one voting location.
Anyway, if we could be sitting on the Moon, looking at all this crazy
mess, we'd turn around and head back to where we came from.
Carl Jarvis
On 1/2/19, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Elections Don't Make Israel a Democracy
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. (OECD Organisation for
Economic Co-operation and Development / Flickr)
New elections were nearly called in November 2017 after Defense
Minister Avigdor Lieberman resigned in protest of Israel not going to
war with Gaza and right-wing leader Naftali Bennett threatened to
pull his party from the coalition if he was not given the defense
portfolio. However, Netanyahu outfoxed Bennett by claiming that it
was too dangerous a time to go to elections and retained the defense
portfolio for himself (Netanyahu is now Israel's prime minister,
defense minister, and foreign minister), utilizing a slim 51 percent ruling
majority.
Until last week it looked like the coalition would hold together with
its small majority. But following the Knesset's inability to reach
agreement on a bill dealing with military conscription of the
ultra-orthodox, and, much more importantly, leaked information that
the ministry of justice was recommending Netanyahu's indictment on
charges of bribery, on Monday Netanyahu announced, "It's too
difficult [to pass laws], we need elections."
With that, the Israeli national election is scheduled to take place
on April 9.
Much of the already up and running election coverage is focused on
the coming indictment of Netanyahu. Will he be able to stave off the
attorney general until April? If he is reelected, will he try to get
his coalition partners to pass a measure forbidding the prosecution
of a sitting prime minister?
Other election issues under discussion are the certain increase we
will see in pandering to settlers. Netanyahu has already begun that.
Absent entirely from the election conversation is the Palestinian
population living under Israeli control without voting rights.
Twenty percent of Israeli citizens are Palestinian. They can vote in
all Israeli elections and have representation in Knesset. However,
these Israeli Palestinians represent only about one-third of the
Palestinians living under Israeli rule and military occupation.
Though the Palestinian Authority and Hamas are the official
governments of the West Bank and Gaza, respectively, Israel is really
in charge. Israel controls the borders, the currency, and the central
bank. It collects taxes on behalf of the Palestinian Authority (PA),
maintains the right to carry out military operations on Palestinian
land, and controls the amount of freedom, or lack thereof, that Palestinians
are granted.
Last year, Israel approved only 54 percent of the permits that
residents of Gaza applied for to travel outside of Gaza for vital medical
treatment.
Reasons for denying people in Gaza necessary medical treatment are
often absurd, such as denying travel because a relative at one time
moved from Gaza to the West Bank without Israeli permission. Besides
the right of travel, Israel regulates the fuel and building materials
available to Gazans, and has at times even controlled the amount of
food imports according to the number of calories Gazans should consume.
Israel controls not only the exterior borders of the West Bank but
what goes on inside as well. While the Palestinian Authority manages
such things as utilities and infrastructure, for much of the West
Bank, Israel is the ultimate authority. Israeli settler regional
councils control 40 percent of West Bank land. Even in areas like
Ramallah, supposedly under complete Palestinian Authority control,
Israel reserves the right to enter the city at any time, to close
streets and shops, burst into homes, and make warrantless arrests.
While the PA does maintain a judicial and penal system, one that
itself is incredibly repressive, Palestinians are also subject to
Israel's military court system and such laws as Military Order 101,
which bans peaceful protest. Though they are prosecuted in Israeli
military courts and serve time in Israeli military prisons,
Palestinians have no say over who is appointed to run the Israeli military,
let alone the military courts.
Jerusalem was captured by Israel in 1967 and formally, and illegally,
annexed in 1980. Common sense might follow that Israel would have
then absorbed the East Jerusalem Palestinians, now numbering around
370,000, and made them Israeli citizens.
Rather than holding citizenship, however, Jerusalem Palestinians hold
the status of permanent residents, allowing them to vote in
municipal, but not national, elections. While this may at first seem
a move in the right direction, a closer look reveals careful
manipulation of demographics to ensure an at least a 70 percent
Jewish majority at all times. Through such policies as exorbitant
taxation, requiring constant proof of residency, and denial of family
unification, since 1967 Israel has managed to revoke the residency of
14,595 Palestinian Jerusalemites. Still nervous about the
demographics Israeli lawmakers in the Knesset-a body East Jerusalem
Palestinians have no representation in-are currently working on
annexation of three large settlement blocks surrounding Jerusalem to
bring 140,000 Jewish Israelis setters into the municipality, while
displacing the current Palestinian population.
Israel has no intention of ending its military occupation. 2019 will
mark
52
years of occupation, including 12 years of siege of Gaza, and 26
years since the signing of the Oslo Accords that were supposed to
create a Palestinian state. 600,000 Israeli citizens now live in the
approximately 200 illegal Israeli settlements that cover the West
Bank and East Jerusalem.
Even since the announcement of new elections, 2,200 more settlement
units have been advanced. While the two-state solution continues to
be debated, the one apartheid state without voting rights for all, is
barreling ahead.
A look at who is and isn't allowed to vote in Israel/Palestine
reveals Israel's motivations:
Number of Jewish Israelis living in Israel proper, and East
Jerusalem, and West Bank settlements:
6.589 million (Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics)
Number of Palestinian citizens of Israel (Palestinians who can vote
in national elections):
1.5 million (Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics and Jerusalem
Municipality)
Number of Palestinians in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza who
cannot vote in Israeli national elections:
4.88 million (Palestinian Authority Central Bureau of Statistics)
As we continue to watch the indictment and campaigning dramas of
Israel's
2019 elections and we continue to hear the absurd label of Israel as
a democratic state, let's not forget that the right to vote is only
granted to
60 percent of the total population and only one third of Palestinians
who live under Israeli rule.
This article was produced by Local Peace Economy, a project of the
Independent Media Institute.
Ariel Gold / Independent Media Institute