The first to take to the streets against the rising tide of anti-democratic legislation was the LGBT community on July 22, 2018. They protested the government’s surrogacy law that discriminates against gay men, raising the banner of equality and drawing support from both the private sector and liberal circles. This was undoubtedly an opening shot that ignited new protests, this time against the nation-state law, which prioritizes Israel’s Jewish sector. On August 4, the Druze, waving their five-colored flags, filled Rabin Square. They received a warm embrace from the security establishment, led by former Shin Bet Director Yuval Diskin, who delivered a scathing speech against the law. This Saturday, the Israeli Arab Monitoring Committee will try to fill the square to protest what they see as an emerging apartheid regime. However, there is a split within the opposition camps: the LGBT, Druze, and Palestinians will always march separately.

While sectoral flags are being raised, one flag is absent – the flag of democracy. Fifty-five Knesset members (MKs) voted against the nation-state law – 14 were from the largely Arab Joint List. The remaining 41 failed to organize a rally that would unite all forces opposing the national law, in order to demonstrate their power against the right wing, fractious government that is tearing Israeli society apart.

MKs and activists from the Left attend various demonstrations: they support the LGBT community on Saturday night, return a week later to show solidarity with the Druze, and some will also appear on August 11 as a sign of solidarity with the Arab sector. They hide behind the downtrodden but refuse to stand in the forefront of the struggle against a racist law that tramples the principle of equality.

Why? What prevents the heads of the opposition, the Labor Party, aka Zionist Camp, and Yesh Atid from calling for mass protests against the nation-state law that they opposed in parliament? Both parties are in lockstep with key sections of Israeli society that are fed up with the behavior of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his ministers. This group attempts to secure its electoral future by inciting against the Supreme Court, the New Israel Fund, Ashkenazi elites, the press, writers, and artists, and especially against the Arabs. Why are the opposition MKs hiding behind the LGBT and Druze instead of storming the barricades themselves? After all, the nation-state law was not intended to harm the Arab or Druze population. The real target is the Supreme Court and the liberal character of Israeli society as expressed in the Declaration of Independence.

Signed and proclaimed in 1948, the Declaration of Independence reflected a broad consensus that included Communists and Revisionists, the National Religious and Herut. It promised “full and equal citizenship” for all of Israel’s citizens, “irrespective of religion, race or gender.” This statement did not prevent the enactment of discriminatory laws against the Arab population that favored the Jewish majority: the Law of Return, the Absentees’ Law, zoning and building laws, and tax and budgetary policies that have discriminated against the Arab population for 70 years.

What led to the enactment of the nation-state law are the rulings of the Supreme Court of Israel, such as decisions that prevented the expulsion of asylum seekers from Africa, that allowed Arabs to purchase land in Jewish towns, that evacuated illegal outposts in occupied territory, and other decisions that impeded the Right’s attempt to change the face of Israeli society. In the wings is the “Basic Law on Legislation,” which will define the limits of judicial review for years to come. In other words, the Arabs are the excuse, but the goal is to change the liberal lifestyle and the fruits of democracy enjoyed by the Jewish majority. It was not necessary to pass a nation-state law. Discrimination thrives without it.

The government openly admits that the Left is the target; the Left is the internal enemy and it must be defeated. “If we look at the hysteria that has gripped the Left in the face of this law, I think it is excellent,” Minister Yariv Levin said in an interview with Haaretz on August 6. What is of great importance to Levin is the hysteria of the Left and not the panic gripping the Arabs. The factor that threatens the peace and security of the coalition is undoubtedly the Zionist leftist opposition, not the Arab-dominated Joint List.

The purpose of the nation-state law is to ensure that the right-wing government continues to rule for as long as possible. When Standard & Poor’s upgrades Israel’s credit rating, and Trump continues, with Putin’s help, to drive the US and the world crazy, the nation-state law is just a sideshow, a global footnote that helps Netanyahu mobilize his base and neutralize the opposition.

How can the Zionist Left dare oppose a law that says that the State of Israel belongs only to the Jewish people? How can Avi Gabbay, head of the Labor Party (a.k.a. the Zionist Camp) support the protesters in the square when he himself has declared that the Left “has forgotten what it means to be Jews,” adding, “We are Jews, living in a Jewish state. I think one of the Labor Party’s problems is that it has distanced itself from that”? After all, it is clear that Netanyahu has the upper hand in the ‘who is more Jewish’ competition. The nation-state law aims to pull the rug out from under Labor’s Gabbay, and it gives Netanyahu the competitive edge over Yesh Atid’s strongman, Yair Lapid, who is trying to out-bibi Bibi.

Nevertheless, the Left is content to see the LGBT and the Druze rallying at Rabin Square, since they aren’t necessarily leftists. Both groups represent a broader spread: MKs Itzik Shmuli (Labor) and Amir Ohana (Likud) are gay, while Ayoub Kara is a Druze Likud minister, and Salah Saad is of Labor. If they were leftists, Netanyahu would have no trouble dismissing them. But because they represent a wider circle in public opinion and enjoy public support, he is in danger of having to pay a political price.

Despite the above, Tzipi Livni (recently appointed as leader of the opposition) is still trying to spearhead the struggle, and promises, if elected, to override the nation-state law with the Declaration of Independence. However,the Declaration of Independence does not have the power to build a truly democratic and egalitarian society. Moreover, it even prepared the ground upon which the nation-state law is built. Discrimination against the Arab population and the division between Jews and Arabs are the fertile soil from which the Israeli Right arose. Since 1948, and despite the Declaration of Independence, Israel conquered the West Bank and Gaza and established an occupation that has lasted 50 out of its 70 years of existence.The marriage between the revisionist and messianic Right, together with the Ashkenazi and Mizrahi ultraorthodox, forms a stable coalition that can lead a counter-constitutional revolution and set up a benighted nationalist-religious regime.

In order to block the right-wing revolution, the Left must adopt a comprehensive program that will be a clear and unambiguous answer to the Right. Confronting the Jewish State, we must advocate for a truly democratic state, a state of all its citizens. Confronting the Occupation and the separate laws for settlers and Palestinians, we must present a far-reaching solution based on a single democratic state with equality and majority rule. Ironically, the Declaration of Independence states that Israel will “ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or gender. It will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education,and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions, and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations…and will take steps to bring about the economic union of the whole of Eretz-Israel.”

Economic unity already exists. It is based on the single Customs Envelope for Israel and the Palestinian Authority, one currency, and almost complete economic integration, but without equality or political rights. The Left has lost its vision; it has no political path and no socioeconomic alternative, and therefore it remains weak and doomed. The vision of a single state, a shared economy,and one constitution can defeat the Israeli Right and ensure peace and democracy. This is conditioned, of course, on Israelis and Palestinians finding a way of joining forces for the creation of a new reality.

*Translated from the Hebrew by Robert Goldman

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At the mass rally held by the gay movement LGBT at Rabin Square on July 22, 2018, protesters not only demanded to be accepted as different, but also called for full equality. They cried out against the injustice caused by a government that excludes homosexual men from having children through a surrogate mother.

LGBT’s demands target the hearts and minds of Israeli society. They demand an egalitarian and democratic society when, in fact, their country favors the Jewish nation over the Arab nation, religious over secular. However, like the massive social protest of 2011, the protest opposes a discriminatory society while omitting to oppose the discriminatory state. The omission seems contrived, especially considering that the Surrogacy Law excluding gay men passed in the Knesset on the same night as two strongly nationalistic laws, one against “Breaking the Silence” and the other, called the Nation-State Law, prioritizing Jewishness over democracy. On one fateful night, the fundamentalist Right realized its darkest desires.

Not very long ago, I need hardly point out, those who murdered Jews because they were Jewish also murdered homosexuals, Gypsies, and the mentally challenged. Today, those who hate Arabs and expel refugees because of their skin color discriminate against homosexuals, even if they are Jews. The fact that the Surrogacy Law and the Nation-State Law were passed by the same number of votes is not coincidental. It conjures up a reality that endangers the future of Israeli society.

Prime Minister Binyamin (Bibi) Netanyahu had earlier promised to support surrogacy for homosexual men. Those who believe that in changing his mind he caved in before the pressure of the ultra-Orthodox, and that he prefers the governing coalition over his previous commitment, do not understand the world we live in. The people who stand behind these laws – as well as laws changing the face of the High Court, religionizing the army and the schools, applying Israeli law to the West Bank settlements, and preferring “Zionist” culture – are not the ultra-Orthodox. They are the Jewish Home and the Likud: Israeli fundamentalist parties that are closely connected to the populist Right in Europe and the United States.

It is no coincidence that Putin and Trump’s “attention” to Netanyahu was evident in their Helsinki summit. Putin hates homosexuals, and Trump hates them even more. Both men lean toward dark nationalism mixed with xenophobia. They denigrate women and love adore brute force, and that is what they love about Bibi. He is the darling of the world’s nationalist villains. He serves as a model for them, and they are the rising power. So why should Bibi consider the rights of homosexuals, Arabs, or immigrants?

An ethno-nationalist tsunami is sweeping the world – from India to Russia, from Europe to the United States. Nations are busy rewriting their histories. They prefer a “glorious” past to an uncertain future. Trump wants to make America great again. Putin emulates Ivan the Terrible. Austria, Hungary, and Poland are reinventing the past, and Netanyahu is laboring to redefine Israel. He wants to weaken the legal system, take over the treasonous media, destroy the old elites, and erase any chance of reconciliation with the Palestinians. The new Poland, on whose land three million Jews were killed, is updating its biography. With the exception of a few rotten apples, Poland “did not cooperate with the Nazis.” Its ruling Nationalist Party passed its own version of a “Nation-State Law”, which at first criminalized anyone accusing the Polish people of collaboration with the Nazis—and later, with Netanyahu’s concurrence, softened this “offense” to a civil one.

Holocaust survivors and their descendants promised not to forget or forgive, but Netanyahu forgave Poland. Its new government deplores the independence of the Polish Supreme Court; it views the free press as a source of fake news, and it sees Netanyahu as an ally in its struggle against the common enemy – liberal Europe. In addition, Bibi and the Polish leaders are in lockstep with Putin and Trump, who have declared Germany a foe.

The Surrogacy Law, as well as the Nation-State Law, are not a result of coalition constraints or the competition between politicians about who is more right-wing. They reflect the strategic choice of the Israeli Right as a whole, which stands shoulder-to-shoulder with the international fascist camp. The European Union and German PM Angela Merkel are facing a broad and threatening coalition that includes the Putin-Trump axis, the British Brexits such as Boris Johnson, Matteo Salvini of Italy, Viktor Orban of Hungary, Sebastian Kurz of Austria, and Mateusz Morawiecki of Poland.

The world as we have known it has changed beyond recognition. Globalization based on neoliberal economics has gone bust. The economic crisis of 2008 created a political vacuum that has ushered in ethno-nationalism, patriotism, exclusion, and white supremacy.

LGBT is not big enough to withstand the fascist onslaught that is sweeping the world. In order for LGBT to prevail, social movements excluded from the threatening new world order must join the struggle. One hundred thousand protesters would not have filled Rabin Square if the fight were just about gay men demanding the right to have children through surrogates. The square was filled with a general feeling that this government is leading Israel to a place whose agenda is dictated by national religious messianism, and that populism based on hatred of Arabs, immigrants, homosexuals, and women is making Israel an unbearable place.

Just as no one can fathom what Trump wants to achieve for the US and the world, few can understand where Netanyahu is going. When Minister Yuval Steinitz was asked about the fate of Gaza, he replied honestly, “Nobody knows.” Netanyahu knows how to swim in murky political waters, he knows how to overcome coalition crises, he has proved his ability to win elections, but he hasn’t the faintest idea what Israel will look like a decade from now.

The Nation-State Law proves that the Israeli Right has no vision. It builds walls of hatred and discrimination while trying to prevent the inevitable: the creation of a bi-national, diverse society in which Israelis and Palestinians live together, a society based on a shared economy, renewable energy, common infrastructure, and a regime that safeguards equality for all citizens regardless of religion, gender, race, or sexual orientation.

The importance of the LGBT demonstration in Tel Aviv stems from its political nature. The demand of gay men for equality raises the issue of equality for all. Those opposing discrimination based on sexual orientation cannot ignore discrimination based on religion and ethnicity. The struggle for LGBT rights is part of the fierce struggle between ethno-nationalism and global partnership, between dictatorship and democracy, between liberalism and fascism, between democracy and occupation. It is, therefore, crucial to support the LGBT movement at a time when the world has lost its ethical compass.

*Translated from the Hebrew by Robert Goldman

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 It was 25 January 2011. Although, Shaimaa Abdel Rahman was spending her summer vacation in the coastal city of Alexandria, she decided to join the protests that were planned in almost every Egyptian city that day.

She didn’t know it then but she would participate in Egypt’s most important event in decades: the 25 January Revolution.

The 31-year-old teacher is one of millions of Egyptian women who played an active role during the revolution and the events that followed.

“I had never been politically active before the revolution, but I was always in the forefront of all the movements demanding the improvement of our
working conditions in my work place,” she says.

According to Mona Ezzat, an activist and leading figure of the Socialist Alliance Party, Egyptian women had participated in the protests and events that led to the revolution.

Ezzat says: “From 2006 on, Egypt witnessed a massive wave of social protests”.

Women, along with men, actively participated in different protests demanding not only improved working conditions, but also putting an end to the process of privatisation and rampant corruption in state-owned companies and factories.

This rising labour movement was one of the factors that radicalised Egyptians ahead of the 25 January Revolution.

During the 18-day sit-in in Tahir Square, Abdel Rahman met with activists from the Egyptian Federation of Independent Trade Unions.

“I met with Kamal Abu Eita whom I knew before as a political and labour activist. It was the first time to meet him face-to-face. I also got to know a number of teachers who were active as trade unionists in the Independent Teachers’ Union.”

From that day on, Abdel Rahman started her career as a trade unionist, participating in all activities aimed at improving working conditions for teachers.

 

Influential role

According to Ezzat, the rise of the independent trade union movement is one of the revolution’s most significant achievements.

“Unfortunately women’s issues are not among the movement’s priorities,” she laments.

“Men and women join forces to meet general objectives, though they never address women-related problems. Although women constitute a large proportion of the independent unions’ membership, their representation in leading positions is limited,” she explains.

The board of directors of the Independent Federation of Trade Unions is made up of 21 elected members, five of which are women (as rules state that 30 per cent of the board should be female).

Unfortunately, women did not achieve such positive results in the first parliamentary elections after the revolution, held in June. “Only 10 females succeeded in obtaining seats in the parliament out of 508 members,”Abdel Rahman says.

The parliamentary election on 16 and 17 June was one of the first indicators that the influential role played by women during the revolution is not being reflected in Egypt’s political scene.

Feminist activist Zizi Kheir suggests that both what we might call Islamic and civil parties undermined the participation of women in the elections.

“The elections law stated that each electoral list should have a woman on it, but it didn’t specify in which position,” she remarks.

“So women were always at the bottom of the lists, meaning there was very little room for them to enter the parliament, since the number of successful candidates from each list is determined by the percentage of votes each list gets, and they are chosen from [the] top down.”

 

Obstacles

Participating in the events of the revolution and the demonstrations that followed was not easy for Abdel Rahman.

“Coming from a conservative family made it difficult for me to take part in political activities. Sometimes I had to hide what I am doing, especially from my father,”

Almost one month after the former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak stepped down, the armed forces brutally broke up a peaceful sit-in in Tahrir square.

A number of female protestors were detained and subjected to virginity tests. For Abdel Rahman this was an attempt by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), to reinforce the traditionally-held idea (that a woman is little more than a body) to the revolutionaries.

“SCAF used humiliating virginity tests to intimidate revolutionaries. Sexual harassment during protests was also used for the same purpose,” she adds.

Fortunately, SCAF’s actions bore little fruit.

The protests continued – as did female participation in them.

Kheir considers this to be a clear indicator that the presence of women in the public sphere is strong enough to endure all attempts to end it, especially with the rise of conservative Islamist political parties.

“On 20 December 2011, Egypt witnessed what was described as ‘the biggest women’s demonstration’ since the 1919 revolution [against British occupation]. Thousands of women, joined by men, took to the streets condemning the assault and undressing of a female protester by military police. Women from different ages and social backgrounds participated in the demonstration under the slogan: ‘the military stole our revolution and women will restore it,’” Kheir says.

 

Waiting for change

“On 25 January, Egyptians took to the streets chanting ‘Bread, freedom, dignity’. And now, after the passage of a year and a half, they are still waiting for the fulfillment of their demands,” Ezzat says.

“Over the past few weeks in Egypt, several demonstrations were organised against the social and economic policies, along with a wave of workers strikes and sit-ins.  There is the potential to integrate womens issues in these social and political movements, provided a women’s movement is developed.”

For Abdel Rahman having a female strong presence in various organisations and trade unions is the first step towards integrating women’s issues into wider social and political movements.

“Our presence in different organisations is the best way to make us a real force on the ground, and enable us to stand in front of the government and fight for our demands.”

Ezzat proposes that NGOs working in the field of women’s rights should take the initiative for developing such movement, cooperating with political parties and movements.

“NGOs and [political] parties usually coordinate on specific issues, but they need to develop a comprehensive program addressing women’s issues in order to start building a women’s movement,”she says.

Abdel Rahman believes that women took a huge step forward during the revolution.

“It’s now very evident that we are equal partners in the revolutionary process. Egyptians could have not overthrown the old regime without the contribution of millions of women, and Egyptians won’t achieve the rest of their demands without them. It’s now time for us to acknowledge our power and to start pursuing our special demands,” she says.

 

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