Head of the Federation of Local Authorities, himself a member of the ruling Likud, Haim Bibas said the rift in Israeli society had nearly crossed the point of no return.
„We call on the prime minister to immediately halt his legislative push to overhaul the judiciary and reinstate ousted defense minister Gallant,“ he said. Netanyahu must recalibrate his path and enter immediate dialogue to bring about a broad agreement and preserve the unity of the country,“ he said.
Archiv: welcome to the club / queue up! / hinten anstelllen!
Ben Gurion departures halted as Histadrut declares ‘historic’ strike over overhaul
“We are all worried about Israel’s fate,” Histadrut chief Arnon Bar-David said during a press conference alongside business leaders and public officials. “Together we say, enough!”
“We have lost our way — this is not about left or right,” he continued. “We can no longer polarize the nation.”
The announcement came ahead of an expected statement by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he is freezing the legislation.
Dozens of active-duty Israeli soldiers join protest against judicial reform
(25.03.2023)
Dozens of active-duty Israeli soldiers announced on Saturday they were joining the protest against the judicial reform by not reporting to training.
Until now, only reserve officers resorted to such measures.
Israel’s National Security Is in Peril. And the Biggest Threat Is Its Government
Almost a year ago, I completed my tour of duty as Israel’s Ambassador to Germany after four decades of service in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In recent months, I participated in the establishment of the Foreign Policy Forum, consisting of several former senior ambassadors, who have devoted decades to promoting the foreign relations of the State of Israel in the political, strategic, economic, security and cultural fields.
Just as we all fought on Israel’s diplomatic front in many countries, we are now fighting on the streets of Israel, shoulder to shoulder with hundreds of thousands of fellow citizens.
Police detained @Haaretz journalist @UriMisgav outside his home as he left for the protest in Tel Aviv this evening. Officers told him they had received complaints about a tweet he wrote on planned protest against Netanyahu in future visit to Berlin
Former Shin Bet Chief: ‚This is a government of terror‘
(today)
Speaking at the rally in Tel Aviv, former Shin Bet Chief Yuval Diskin said: „This is a government of terror that crippled our national resilience. Without resilience there’s no unity. We might arrive at a civil war because of this awful government.“
Israel’s new legal proposals pose ’serious risks‘, UN rights chief warns
“If passed, these changes risk weakening human rights protections for all, but especially the most vulnerable communities and groups less able to vindicate their rights through representation in the executive and legislative branches of Government,” he said.
The proposals in their current form would limit the Supreme Court’s ability to subject legislation to judicial review and would require either a super majority of judges, or even unanimity, for the top court to strike down legislation, he cautioned.
News reports said tens of thousands of people have, in the past weeks, attended demonstrations against the proposed changes, including in Tel Aviv and in Jerusalem.
PEGA-Untersuchungsausschuss: EU-Staaten verweigern Aussage vor EU-Parlament
Der Staatstrojaner-Untersuchungsausschuss im Europaparlament wollte am 24. Januar eine Anhörung zum Thema Geheimdienste und Staatstrojaner veranstalten. Allerdings sagten alle für die Sitzung geladenen EU-Staaten ab. Der Ausschuss-Vorsitzende sagte, er hat „langsam die Nase voll von diesem Vorgehen der Mitgliedstaaten“.
In Battle Over Israeli Democracy, Netanyahu Is Fighting His Own Former Spy Chiefs
Why a former head of Mossad and former chief of the Shin Bet, both of whom were appointed by Netanyahu, now find themselves fighting to stop the prime minister from destroying Israel’s legal system
As Israel’s McCarthy Atmosphere Spreads, the Government Prepares Its Coup
And here, not a day goes by without more business owners moving their money and their activity, or at least some of it, abroad. As a self-defense mechanism to keep its value from being destroyed. Most them aren’t declaring this. It is their own personal money that they are moving. But in the atmosphere of McCarthyism that is spreading here like the plague, they are immediately denounced as traitors. As defaming the state. Foxes in its vineyards. Journalists who report on what is happening or bring evidence from other countries that have been through similar processes are chastised and lambasted.
Top Bank of Israel official quits, says he can’t remain ‘while democracy in danger’
(23 January 2023)
Hazan, a senior lecturer and an expert on macroeconomics and growth at Tel Aviv University, was a member of the bank’s six-person monetary committee which is tasked with setting the interest rate every six weeks. A replacement for him will be sought.
In Hazan’s letter of resignation, he cited his intent to “become involved in the sociopolitical sphere.”
University chiefs warn judicial reform will spark global academic boycott
(23 January 2023)
“This is liable to manifest itself as a brain drain, and in the fact that faculty members will hesitate to join our ranks; that students, research students, post-doctoral students, and international colleagues will not come to Israel; that our access to international research funds will be limited; that foreign industries will withdraw themselves from cooperating with Israeli academia; and we will be excluded from the international research and educational community,” the Committee of University Heads wrote.
Will Israel stay a parliamentary democracy or become a dictatorship? – opinion
If an incumbent majority in an elected legislature that forms the government has absolute power to make any changes to the law it wants, it becomes a parliamentary dictatorship.
UK falls below Israel in global free speech ranking thanks to Online Safety Bill
The study published on Wednesday by the London-based nonprofit Index on Censorship (IOC) describes the UK as only “partially open” in every key area measured.
In this year’s ranking, the UK fell below other advanced economies including Australia, Israel, and Japan. European neighbours such as Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, and Denmark also all rank higher than the UK.
Why is it that Swedish media is so quiet? It was very different when we argued against the FRA Act. But now? #ChatControl 2.0 is even worse
‘Night is descending upon Israel’: Masses rally against Netanyahu’s government
Moshe Ya’alon, former defense minister and protest leader, addresses the estimated 100,000 Israelis gathered on Tel Aviv’s Kaplan Street to call Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government a “dictatorship of criminals.”
“A state in which the PM will appoint all of the judges, there’s a name for it: dictatorship,” he says.
Netanyahu’s rule will end, but the road may be long
As we speak, sparks of collective will, determination, and unity are being ignited. If we get pushed over the edge, fire will break out. And if attempts to dismantle the Israeli Declaration of Independence persist, its flames will grow and spread.
The day a million citizens take to the streets, this government will crumble.
I don’t know how long it will take, or how much harm will be done on the way. What I do know is that at the end of the day – we will prevail.
With only days left in his four-year term as leader of the Israel Defense Forces, Aviv Kochavi speaks out against plans for defense and security by Israel’s most extreme government ever
(13.01.2023)
With only days left in his four-year term as leader of the Israel Defense Forces, Aviv Kochavi speaks out against plans for defense and security by Israel’s most extreme government ever
„A Mortal Wound to Democracy“: Israel’s Chief Justice Slams Netanyahu’s Legal Overhaul
Hayut said the clause “will deprive the court of the option to override laws that disproportionately violate human rights, including the right to life, property, freedom of movement, as well as the basic right of human dignity and its derivatives – the right to equality, freedom of speech and more.”
The planned override clause authorizes the Knesset, with the support of the government, to make laws without obstruction that would hurt these rights. That’s why anyone who thinks that this override clause overrides the court is mistaken. It’s actually an override of human rights in every aspect of Israeli society.”
Israel braces for massive protests as far-right government targets courts
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu returned to power in November elections after a year and a half on the sidelines, propelled by a bloc of once-fringe, far-right partners. In the two weeks since its inauguration, his government has embarked on a blitz of legislative initiatives, characterizing them as a “revision” to right the “imbalance among the three branches of government.”
But critics say the measures amount to a “coup d’etat” that will destroy the nation’s system of checks and balances to save Netanyahu from prosecution in three separate corruption cases and embolden his extremist religious partners to advance legislation supporting the expansion of Jewish settlement in the West Bank and the application of conservative Jewish law to public institutions.
Netanyahu’s Judicial Reform Push Bolsters Opposition and Protests
The far-eight government’s planned judicial reform will “crush” the Israeli judicial system, Supreme Court President Esther Hayut warned at the annual convention of The Israeli Association of Public Law on Thursday evening. “Israel will soon mark 75 years of independence, the 75th year will be remembered as the year in which Israel’s democracy suffered a fatal blow,” said Hayut. “This is an unbridled attack on the judicial system, as if it were an enemy that must be attacked and subdued.”
‚Police Promised They Won’t Be Violent Against Protesters‘ in Tel Aviv This Weekend
Police Commissioner Kobi Shabtai met on Wednesday with former IDF Chief of Staff Moshe Ya’alon, former Mossad chief Tamir Pardo, and attorney Eliad Shraga, chairman of The Movement for Quality Government, in light of the protest against planned judicial reforms in Israel and ahead of the Saturday demonstration in Tel Aviv.
Liz Truss’s legacy is going to be an answer nobody can quite remember in pub quizzes of the future. Wee floatin robot landlord in the Future Pub goes “who was PM for about 20 minutes when Queen Elizabeth died?” and we’re all going to scratch our microchips like “ahhh waaait…”
Supreme Court as Rubber Stamp
The role of the High Court is to oversee and restrain the Shin Bet, not to become its abject servant. This week the court showed it fails in this duty, and also made a laughingstock of itself.
Bayerns Ministerpräsident Markus Söder befürchtet wegen der #Energiekrise in Deutschland einen Abstieg ganzer Bevölkerungsschichten und eine Pleitewelle.
Gegneranalyse“ – Das Bundesfamilienministerium finanziert ein Überwachungs- und Diffamierungsportal gegen kritische Medien
Der Vorgang ist ein medienpolitischer Skandal, der seinesgleichen sucht und an die Wurzel unseres bisherigen Verständnisses von Demokratie und Pressefreiheit geht. Das Bundesfamilienministerium (BMFSFJ) und die Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung (bpb) finanzieren mit sechsstelligen Beträgen ein Projekt der Grünen-nahen Stiftung „Zentrum liberale Moderne“ (LibMod) mit dem bezeichnenden Titel „Gegner-Analyse“. Ziel des Projektes ist es laut Darstellung der Stiftung, „systemoppositionelle“ Medien zu überwachen und zu analysieren. Einen Schwerpunkt ihrer Arbeit legen die Macher dabei auf die NachDenkSeiten.
Journalistin will nach Protestaktion in Russland bleiben
„Wir wollen auf keinen Fall weg, nirgendwo hin auswandern.“ Allerdings habe ihr offener Protest gegen den Ukraine-Krieg ihr Leben grundlegend verändert. „Ich bin jetzt der Feind Nummer eins hier“, sagte die 43-Jährige, die sich nach eigenen Angaben derzeit bei Freunden „versteckt“ hält. „Ich spüre großen Stress, der wird anhalten“, schilderte sie ihre Verfassung.
Our acceptance of a mass lock-in is more dangerous than any party
Let’s put aside for the moment the immediate furore over Boris Johnson’s future and the further flood of Downing Street festivity stories which may not be finished yet. We need to ask the question that must, given what has prevailed in our lives for the past two years, be most serious. How on earth did we get to a point where events and decisions which would once have been regarded as commonplace, even virtuous – an employer expressing good wishes to staff at a party, a child embracing elderly grandparents, a relative making regular visits to a dying hospital patient – became illegal?
Fast 20 Prozent der bayerischen Polizisten sind nicht geimpft
https://www.br.de/nachrichten/bayern/fast-20-prozent-der-bayerischen-polizisten-nicht-geimpft,SqNM1r3
‚I was physically and mentally under siege‘: Daniel Craig admits he ‚locked himself in and closed curtains‘ while struggling to cope with James Bond fame
However, Bond producer Barbara Broccoli said she was determined to hire him: ‚I always thought whenever he was on the screen you could not watch anyone else.
„Pegasus-Projekt“: Macron im Visier
In der Liste von Telefondaten, die Journalisten im Rahmen des „Pegasus-Projekts“ einsehen konnten, finden sich Nummern mehrerer hochrangiger Politiker in Europa. Sie waren den Recherchen zufolge mögliche Ausspäh-Ziele, die von Kunden der israelischen Spionagefirma NSO ins Visier genommen wurden. Mit der NSO-Software „Pegasus“ können Mobiltelefone unbemerkt ausgespäht und etwa als Wanze missbraucht werden.
Israelis Don’t Care if the State Is Spying on Them
The Irgun’s intelligence unit, known as Delek, collected information based on gossip with equal enthusiasm. A 1945 file, for example, contains details about a 50-year-old Herzliya man whose wife was said to be cheating on him with Jews and Englishmen alike. The source of the item elaborates: “He doesn’t like his youngest son because it’s whispered in Herzliya that he looks like a certain Englishman who used to court his wife.” That’s the sort of intelligence, among others, that our excellent boys came up with.
Police in England ‚using Covid lockdown rules to halt any protests‘
Analysis by Netpol, the Network for Police Monitoring, reveals there have been at least nine high-profile instances of police using Covid regulations against demonstrators, including two asylum seekers protesting outside Napier barracks in Folkestone, Kent and a woman fined £500 for organising a protest after the death of a man released from police custody in Cardiff.
The human rights group Liberty said the police were too often indiscriminately using Covid rules to disperse responsible, low-risk protests, arrest people and issue extortionate fixed penalty notices to organisers regardless of the risk to public health.
Lockdown in Deutschland und Israel: Am Ende sind wir alle Schafe
Ich war enttäuscht darüber, dass die deutsche Regierung, die bis dato vernünftiger als die israelische mit ihrem Hang zum Lockdown erschienen war, schließlich einknickte und sich am Ende doch für einen harten Lockdown wie in Israel entschied. Wenigstens war der Flughafen noch offen und es gab keine Maskenpflicht im Freien. Trotzdem war ich ernüchtert, festzustellen, dass ich fälschlicherweise angenommen hatte, dass die Deutschen, nach allem, was sie durchgemacht hatten, den enormen Wert individueller Rechte gelernt und verinnerlicht hätten.
Stattdessen wartete die deutsche Regierung nur auf die gesetzliche Erlaubnis, Grundrechte zu entziehen.
Ireland. Just had a 16 Billion Euro COVID bill, that it gets 1.5 back from. Waits patiently for the EMA to approve its vaccines. No sign of the EMA approving Oxford any time soon. 2009 – gets another Lisbon ref, whilst being threatened with perdition. „Independence“
Police Spying on Israelis Online via Secret Backdoor
“This system allows authorities to follow everything someone does online, and even permits them to manipulate the website these users visit,” said ethical hacker Noam Rotem, from the CyberCyber podcast. “This system allows tracking of each and every citizen or resident of Israel. But it’s not just that; the system is built in such a way that it can also follow intentions or motivations, and not just specific people. For example, it can track everyone who visited the website of the protest movement against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and can even block the real website and change what people are seeing,” Rotem said.
So the Pfizer vaccine is expected to be up to seven times more expensive than the Oxford one, reports the Times.
Welcome to profit first, morals later America.
Tables Turned: Biden Now Distrusts Intelligence Chief .
Ned Price, a former CIA analyst who served as a senior director on the Obama administration’s National Security Council staff and is not involved in the Biden campaign, offered another explanation. In an interview with RCP, Price said the most recent assessment claiming that China wants Biden to win isn’t convincing because it relies on open-source public comments from Chinese officials, not more penetrating intelligence.
Inside NSO, Israel’s billion-dollar spyware giant
(19.08.2020)
In an age of ubiquitous technology and strong encryption, such “lawful hacking” has emerged as a powerful tool for public safety when law enforcement needs access to data. NSO insists that the vast majority of its customers are European democracies, although since it doesn’t release client lists and the countries themselves remain silent, that has never been verified.
With Israel’s Encouragement, NSO Sold Spyware to UAE and Other Gulf States
The Israeli company has signed contracts with Bahrain, Oman and Saudi Arabia.
CIA ‘Obsessed’ With Former UK Envoy Who Will Testify in Spying-on-Assange Case
The former British ambassador to Uzbekistan and a close associate of imprisoned WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange says he was the “top target” of the 24/7 surveillance of Assange at Ecuador’s embassy in London by the Spanish security company UC Global, which, according to press reports and court documents, shared the surveillance with the CIA.
Craig Murray said he has been contacted by an attorney in the spying case on Assange and that he will be going to Madrid to testify. The founder of UC Global, David Morales, was arrested over the surveillance (including privileged Assange-lawyer conversations) and is on trial.
Murray told former CIA analyst Ray McGovern in an email, shared with Consortium News with Murray’s permission, that the CIA was “obsessed” with him.
Misstrauensvotum gegen Regierung – Demos in Bulgarien: „Staat wie Schweinestall“
Unbeachtet bleiben positive Entwicklungen wie etwa die Aufnahme Bulgariens in den EU-Wechselmechanismus II am 10. Juli, der als das „Wartezimmer“ für den Euro gilt. Kein Lob gibt es auch für die Finanzdisziplin des ärmsten EU-Staates.
Refugees From the Zionist Left: How the Jewish Vote for Arab Party Spiked in Israel’s Election
Meital, 31, also from Tel Aviv, had been a lifelong Likud voter. But this week, she voted for the Joint List. “I voted Likud thinking that [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu is a leader with experience who can be relied on. I didn’t see anyone who could replace him,” she says. “But recently I started thinking about it differently – not to vote according to the question of who would be prime minister, but who would best reflect my values and my desire for a more tolerant society.”
Experts warn democracies facing autocracy: Protect your institutions
Rachel Maddow looks at what has turned out to be prescient advice from Masha Gessen and Timothy Snyder about the necessity of institutions in preserving democracy, and the necessity of engaged citizens in protecting those institutions from a threatening autocracy like the Donald Trump presidency.
I’ve been resisting the idea that the Iowa debacle was driven by malice, result-manipulation and corruption rather than ineptitude and stupidity — I just hadn’t seen convincing evidence of deliberate fraud — but I’m starting to change my mind:
https://twitter.com/bagniewski/status/1224884476213387265
Total Surveillance Is Not What America Signed Up For
The largest such file known to have been examined by journalists, it reveals more than 50 billion location pings from the phones of more than 12 million Americans across several major cities.
By analyzing these pings, our journalists were able to track the movements of President Trump’s Secret Service guards and of senior Pentagon officials. They could follow protesters to their homes and stalk high-school students across Los Angeles. In most cases, it was child’s play for them to connect a supposedly anonymous data trail to a name and an address — to a real live human being.