Oaklandsocialist interviewed Ofer Neiman again. (See first interview here.) Ofer is an Israeli socialist and Palestinian rights, anti apartheid activist. In this interview we discuss:

• The present situation in Israel
• The role of the occupation and the settlers in the rise of the far right in Israel and how that is starting to be recognized by some protesters
• The weakening of the Israeli army as a central institution of Israeli society
• The class and caste divisions in Israel
• Some similarities and differences between Israel and the United States
• The role of “Labor Zionism”
• Some of the different political parties in Israel

See transcript below video of interview

Ofer Neiman 
So, the protests are going strong; it’s August, some people are on vacation. And perhaps, for now, when there’s no major specific clash around a piece of legislation, perhaps we’re not going to see the main roads in Tel Aviv getting blocked, but the protests are going strong. And beyond that, things are coming to a head with refusal by reserve pilots, Israeli Air Force reservists and various reservists of so called elite IDF units. And this is something which will make headlines because it creates a problem for the Netanyahu governments with the military’s so called preparedness problem. The IDF Chief of Staff will no longer be able to say that the IDF is fully prepared for any eventuality or coming war, etc. And this is a big deal. People are going to talk about it. And we’re already seeing that some people on the right are saying the IDF Chief of Staff is caving in to the reservists. And this in itself means that the protests are not going away. And another thing is that there’s probably a great deal of momentum to keep them going at least after the Supreme Court hears petitions against the first so called reform bill, that has already been passed, the one about the reasonableness clause, not allowing the Supreme Court to strike down government decisions on their basis of their being unreasonable. There’s a petition to the High Court of Justice against the constitutionality of this law. And the court will have to hear and decide on that. And this creates another incentive for the protesters to go on. Another thing is that the general conduct of the Netanyahu government, it’s full of extremists, religious fanatics. So, you know, just ongoing government actions, statements by ministers are more than enough to keep the rift going. As an anecdote, we can add that there is a certain attempt right now, especially ahead of the Jewish holidays, New Year and you know, Yom Kippur, they have a theme of forgiveness and some right wing figures, are calling for unity and trying to organize various events, you know, a music festival, things like that, for reconciliation and unity. I don’t think it’s gonna go down well, with the protesters, they will not be pacified.

John Reimann  
So, it seems to me that what’s happened over the longer term is that the extreme right developed out of the whole process of building the settlements and strengthening the settlers in the West Bank. And so I have two questions coming flowing from that: Do you agree with that? And second, is there any tendency to start to look at the whole project of the settlements and maybe annexing the West Bank, that that’s really the origin, the basis of it, is there any tendency to look that?

Ofer Neiman 

An Israeli settlement and fascist Israeli settlers in the West Bank. Something similar would likely be the outcome if Putin’s invasion succeeds. They are a driving force behind the rise of the far right in Israel.

So the origins of this reform, the coup are indeed in the settler movement. The leaders are either settlers or hard right wing Likud figures. The main think tank behind this reform is pro settlers. So yeah, the main objective here is to cement the occupation, the settlements, to make it easier for Israel to control the lives of the Palestinians. However, these people have developed an appetite for more than that. They’re also waging a war against the so called older Israeli elites, the more secular Tel Aviv type liberal Zionist elites. They think they’re powerful enough to replace the old elites or, or just gain momentum within that struggle, perhaps even a touch of vindictive politics here around events in the past such as the so called disengagement, Israel pulling out of Gaza in 2005. And the way it was promoted by the center and the liberal left, liberal Zionist. 

But the main thing, the main objective, what they have in mind is the occupation. So of course, you would ask, are the protesters – the Israeli protesters against the coup – are they noticing that? And the answer would be increasingly so. More and more people are talking about the occupation, the settlers, settler violence, you know, the pogroms and the attacks on Palestinian villages in the West Bank.

There seems to be a certain disconnect between quite a few ordinary people who are going to these protests and the main organizers. The main organizers are unwilling to add the occupation to the whole discussion. We’ve had some really childish, ridiculous statements, one of them from a protest leader – a physics professor Shikma Bressler – who said that this has nothing to do with the occupation or even beyond that saying that maybe there isn’t even an occupation. She was saying there’s no connection, and her reason was, look at Hungary, Poland and other countries where the the right wing is waging a political war with reforms, far reaching reforms, and there is no occupation there, which is a silly claim, because, of course, in every country, the right wing has its own agenda, but the underlying themes are, you know, xenophobia, racism, conservatism, restricting women, gender rights, minorities. And another protest leader, a guy named Moshe Redman, a high tech professional, he couldn’t utter the word occupation to give an interview. And he was only able to say something like, controlling other people or something like that and calling it a problem, but sort of resisting any attempt to really talk about the occupation, use the word per se, add it to the narrative. But I think there’s much more open mindedness among ordinary people who are going to these demonstrations, and this will create more and more pressure from the grassroots, from below, to address the occupation.

John Reimann 
So these people that you mentioned, what are their political connections?

Ofer Neiman 
These are, you could say liberal Zionist, mostly Ashkenazi. There are quite a few Mizrahis as well, but mostly Ashkenazi, more secular leaning Israelis, mostly living in central Israel in the greater Tel Aviv area. There’s a strong cultural divide here. There’s a real rift here along religious. cultural and geographical lines here. And these people typically do not vote for Likud or for the pro settler parties or for the ultra orthodox parties, of course. They vote for the center parties such as the Yair Lapid’s  party or Benny Ganz’s party. Some of them vote for the Labour Party, which is now much weaker than it used to be. 

John Reimann 

The Israeli Defense Force (IDF). This hallowed institution is weakening enormously

So you sent me a really interesting article. My interpretation of it is that Israeli political culture is built around the holy trinity of the Holocaust, the fallen fallen heroes, you could say, and the IDF, the Israeli military. And that the IDF is really in crisis right now. And, you know, if it’s correct to call that like a Holy Trinity, that’s a triangle. And a triangle is strong in geometry and in I guess, you could say in architecture, but once one leg of that triangle goes away, the whole thing collapses. So, is that a correct analysis, or explanation of that article? And would you comment on it?

Ofer Neiman  
Yeah, that’s correct. The military here is sacred. Perhaps even more so to liberal Zionist Israelis. It’s perceived as a unifying element, as something that should be beyond any political conflict. It’s very ironic, because throughout the years, when we, meaning the small population of dissidents here, small constituency of dissidents, anti Zionist, anti apartheid, who were promoting refusal to serve in the military, because of violations of Palestinian rights – that’s the main reason, the best reason for refusal. And the liberal Zionists didn’t like that. They said, this is terrible, you shouldn’t refuse, it’s illegal, you should go to prison, and it’s morally wrong. Yet here they are. Refusing in large numbers, and this is breaking bonds within Israeli society. 

It’s going to be much harder to say that the military has nothing to do with politics. It’s going to be harder to say that everyone should serve, that it’s super important to serve in the military, claiming we need all this military might in order to defend ourselves. How can you say that when you’re calling for refusal, you know, when pilots are not showing up for their weekly or monthly training sessions? And I think that this is even more difficult in a way for the anti reform constituency, because they don’t have a religious agenda. The settlers and their supporters, they have a religious political agenda. So of course, they want to see a strong Israeli military, but they have other things that from their own perspective can be the glue that holds Israeli society together – the Torah, the biblical thinking, the idea of Greater Israel. The liberal, more secular crowd doesn’t have that. And if they lose this thing with the IDF as something sacred that is keeping us all together, it’s going to be more…they will need to look for a new political path.

John Reimann  
But it seems like well… let’s put it this way: They’re looking for a middle of the road political path from what I’m gathering. But it seems like the middle of the road is closed off, that the extremes… Well, in this sense, that trying to maintain capitalist democracy in Israel, while at the same time accepting the occupation in the West Bank. That’s not real, that’s becoming increasingly impossible.

Ofer Neiman  
Yeah, it’s not going to work, they will have to come to terms with the fact that there’s a brutal occupation here, that they cannot really roll back the political power of the right wing in Israel, until they address at least the ‘67 occupation. As you know, people like me also have a great deal of criticism against Zionism and things that happened in ‘48. And even before ‘48. But reality will force mainstream Israelis, anti coup Israelis to start talking about the occupation. I mean, there’s no going back, there’s no going back to the so-called good old days, you know, even before ‘67, when the Labour Party ruled Israel. When everything was seemingly more tolerant, which it wasn’t, but you know, that’s their fantasy. It was more secular, not more tolerant. There’s no going back. And when this sinks in, interesting things will happen.

I mean, I do wonder if the protest movement will maintain the same momentum as an anti occupation movement. But even if it doesn’t, I think that we are already seeing larger numbers of anti occupation protesters, within the major rallies, more and more people are willing to join the small blocs within the larger protests, the blocs where people hold Palestinian flags, rather than Israeli flags, or, you know, hold up banners with anti occupation slogans. So at least we have that. I think we’re gonna have more anti occupation activists joining the struggle in the near future, and the ball is gonna keep rolling. We’ll see how it develops.

John Reimann  
You know, I remember a few years ago, there was big protests around the housing prices in Israel, I think was around the time of the Arab Spring, if I’m not mistaken.

Ofer Neiman  
Yep, the summer of 2011. 

John Reimann 
And obviously, the question of wages, jobs and so on, is also connected to the housing crisis. So I’m wondering, is there any tendency to raise those issues and to connect them with the other issues that are that we’re talking about?

Ofer Neiman 
That movement began and fizzled out in the summer of 2011. And at that time, it was about the high cost of living in Israel. Housing for sure. But also other elements of the economy here. So cost of living in general. And at that time, some of us here, the so-called radicals, of course, we were trying to add occupation and apartheid to the discussion, the anti occupation and anti apartheid discourse to what the movement was saying. And success was quite limited. This time, it’s not really about the cost of living. Is the Israeli economy doing better right now? I don’t know. It’s doing fairly well, surely for affluent Israelis. That was the case in 2011, as well. There’s quite a lot of poverty here. But right now, it’s not about the cost of living. 

Well, I mean, you could say, I mean, that if there is a judicial coup, it does make sense to focus on that. Most protesters are not the ones suffering from poverty, it’s sort of natural for them not to add the cost of living to this issue. And that movement in 2011 was also started by very young people. So that was much more on their mind – cost of living. This movement here is not just a young movement. But back then, as well as now. we’re having problems convincing people to add the occupation to the discourse. And yeah, so there are lots of ridiculous counter arguments, you know, people telling us that the occupation is a political issue. as if the cost of living is not a political issue, as if the judicial reform is not is not a political issue. Everything is political. But we often have to face some pretty childish arguments by people who don’t want to talk about the occupation.

John Reimann  
Well, from what I understand (and it’s also my impression from elsewhere) that the main bulk of the protesters have more like middle class Israelis

Ofer Neiman 
and upper class, upper middle class – middle class and above

John Reimann 
the ones who would not be feeling the pinch economically. 

But obviously, it’s connected, because from what I understand Israel is spending a huge amount of money on the settlements. And it’s also spending a huge amount of money on on the IDF, on the military. 

Yeah. So wouldn’t it strengthen the movement, if you brought in a more working class, and especially less wealthy, more impoverished layers? And for them, wouldn’t they be feeling the economic issues?

Ofer Neiman 
So first of all, it’s interesting that the protest movement in the summer of 2011, was actually started by young people who were rather Ashkenazi secular liberal. But these were people struggling in Tel Aviv, because the city is very expensive. So even if they are from historically more affluent sectors of Israeli society, they were still feeling the heat and saying that Tel Aviv is getting too expensive. That was actually used as one of the arguments against the movement saying, these are just, you know, basically just posh people, they don’t have to live in Tel Aviv, they can go live elsewhere. But at that time, the movement was joined by protesters across the country, from various parts of Israeli society. Because this is something that affects lots of Israelis.

I think that right now, it’s going to be very difficult to bring different Israelis together just around the social-economic theme, because there is a tribal divide within Jewish Israeli society, and the so-called working class, I mean, which is a very problematic definition here for Israel as an apartheid state, is not united. But if you look at, Mizrahi Jews, from the so-called periphery, and ultra orthodox people right now, the parties that they typically vote for are the pro reform parties. So it’s going to be very difficult for these people, it will not come naturally for them to join the anti reform protests, even if – and that’s not even happening – even if the anti reform protests add these various cost of living social justice issues, to its platform. Even if that happens, there’s going to be this cultural tribal divide within Israeli society, which can keep more, you know, Likud voters and Orthodox, more religious conservative people away. It’s going to be very difficult. But I don’t see that happening: if anything, the movement will speak about the occupation, I think, before addressing various cost of living issues, if only for simply understanding the roots of this reform. As stated previously, we’re already seeing more and more people within the protest saying that – talking about the occupation. Not so much about the cost of living but about the occupation,

There’s this divide where historically, the Ashkenazi elite was more Labour Party leaning and Mizrahi Jews in Israel tend to vote for Likud in large numbers, one of the main reasons is harsh discrimination and racism against Mizrahi Jews during the first decades of the State of Israel. So there’s a very strong divide here,  also along ethnic lines, you know, Jews from the Middle East and North Africa versus Jews from Europe.

John Reimann
Right. And from what I understand the Jews from the Middle East and North Africa, the Mizrahi Jews, are actually more anti Palestinian than the Ashkenazi or European Jews, is that correct?

Ofer Neiman 
It’s complicated, because the most terrible crimes committed against Palestinians were committed by the Labour Party – people like David, Ben Gurion, Moshe Dayan, in ‘48 and in ‘67. And beyond that, I would say that Mizrahi Jews in Israel have sort of been pushed into doing the dirtiest occupation and apartheid maintenance work, for example, serving in the Israeli border police, which does the dirty work brutally maintaining occupation and apartheid on the ground. But you know, if we want to assign blame here, perhaps, the people sitting in fancy offices and giving the orders and devising various strategies – racist, apartheid strategies – are the main criminals here. So you would tend to see more Mizrahi Jews doing the dirty daily occupation work there. And another thing is that perhaps, because Israeli settlements are heavily subsidized, you mentioned that, who would move to Israeli settlements? People from the lower and lower-middle class because they cannot afford a nice house in Tel Aviv. So again, you would have large settlements with lots of Mizrahi residents there. And this creates an incentive for these people to support the settlements and support Likud, and perhaps even endorse harsher rhetoric against Arabs and Palestinians.

But if you dig deep, I wouldn’t say that these people are inherently more racist towards Palestinians, it’s just that their position in Israeli society, which has a lot to do with discrimination. with past discrimination, is sort of pushing them into a more anti Palestinian position – at least regarding the’ 67 issue, okay – but I would not say that they are inherently more racist. And of course, another thing which is related is that these people have been pushed to repel or do away with their Arab identity, which was looked down upon by the Ashkenazi elite. So one way to do that is to be an ultra Zionist, a very nationalist Israeli who is sort of explicitly anti Arab. But again, in each of these cases, concerning each of these aspects, I would go back to the roots and say that this has a lot to do with what a very racist – both anti Palestinian and anti Mizrahi – Ashkenazi Zionist elite did to both Palestinians and Mizrahis.

John Reimann
Well, I didn’t mean to imply that they were inherently more racist. Yeah, I know. Just that they tended more like to vote for Likud and so on.

Ofer Neiman  
Exactly, exactly.

The U.S. also has a history of settler colonialism.

John Reimann  
But, you know, there are huge differences between the United States and Israel. But there’s also some similarities. For instance, you know, you could say that the United States is a colonial settler state also. And that when you look at how the United States – this huge landmass – was settled, but we shouldn’t underestimate this difference, that that happened a couple 100 years ago. And it’s not still ongoing. And it’s not a minority, the way Israel is surrounded by Arab states. And so that colonial settler mentality is not as central in the grip of the consciousness as it may be in Israel. But anyway, there is that similarity. But more to the point. I think that just inherently because of his world position, and its history and so on. Also, the United States tends to be more stable politically, or I should say, less unstable nowadays. But in the instability that we have now that we’re now seeing developing to unprecedented levels, you can see a similarity. You know, in that, I think that the overwhelming bulk of the US capitalist class is against the extreme right in the United States. And I have the impression that it’s something similar in Israel, that they don’t need this law. And they don’t want this law that basically cuts out any power of the Israeli Supreme Court.

Ofer Neiman 
Yeah, so yeah, they don’t want it. And…

John Reimann 
So anyway, just just your thoughts on the so similarities and differences.

Ofer Neiman 
Yeah, there’s an even stronger component here. Israeli citizens who serve in the military would like to maintain this nice fig leaf that we have here, in the form of the Israeli Supreme Court as a protective barrier against indictments by international courts. This is a major thing. And they’re actually very explicit about it, saying that we need the Israeli Supreme Court. Because otherwise, we may be arrested abroad. And beyond that, liberal Israelis would like to – just like you have liberals and progressive in the US fighting for women’s rights, abortion rights and so on – the liberal sector here in Israel understands that with this judicial reform, it’s not just about the Palestinians, that with this reform, we’re seeing various attempts and inclinations and statements about rolling back freedoms granted to women, to LGBTQ people, and so on to make Israel a less tolerant place, even for various groups within Jewish Israeli society.

Of course, it’s not tolerant when it comes to occupation and apartheid. And this. actually, is quite similar to the struggle in the US, you know, against all these attempts by conservatives and even fascists, to revoke reproductive health rights and marginalize women.

One interesting example is the attempt to allocate separate seats, parts of buses and trains to women. That’s actually a policy which some ultra orthodox politicians support, saying that women should sit in the back, they should not be seen by the men, actually it’s segregation. And Americans probably know a similar form of segregation in public transport which may come to mind for Americans were watching this: Black people having to sit separately from white people. Here, it’s mostly about women. And we do have a few segregated bus lines, even if it’s illegal. They are de facto segregated, some lines serving ultra orthodox communities here. And this is going to be one of the next things. With this appetite for reform, the right wing would like to make these policies more constitutional, and prevent the courts from striking down such decisions and such policies. So you see some similarities with current struggles in the US, but also going way back, again, because Israel is a settler colonial state in a much more brutal phase than the United States. In some ways we are like the United States centuries ago. So the legislation and the politics that we see here is going to be more brutal.

John Reimann  
So you were talking about the Labour Party and so on. And of course, being a parliamentary system is very different from the United States. But do you see any new party developing, which would start to and take up the issue of the occupation linked with the questions of democracy within Israel, and so on?

Ofer Neiman 
There is a budding party called Kol Ezracheiha – the “Party of all its citizens”. This is related to the slogan that Israel should be a state of all its citizens. Now, you would say, why not? That’s natural, that’s the only thing. But that actually stands in contrast, with Israel as a “Jewish and democratic state”. Many Israelis, including some liberal Israelis. or self proclaimed liberal Israeli, reject this notion of a state of all citizens. They say, “No, Israel should be a Jewish democratic state,” actually acknowledging that Jewish and democratic does not mean full constitutional equality. So this new party calls itself the party of all its citizens. They have this egalitarian agenda for Israel, within the ‘67 borders, and of course, they are anti ‘67 occupation. It’s a positive step. And they will probably be competing with the Israeli Labour Party, which by now is a very small party, four seats out of 120. It’s not the main opposition party, not the main liberal opposition party. And they will also be competing with Meretz, another liberal Zionist party somewhat to the left of the Labour Party, which is currently not represented in Parliament, since they failed in the recent elections. So we’ll see what happens.

Balad-Tajammu protesting its being banned from the ballot. The Israeli Supreme Court overturned this ban.

Personally, I’m not a huge fan of this new party, because I think that we already have parties mostly representing Palestinian citizens of Israel, and these are the parties we should support. These parties go beyond this “all its citizens” agenda, and are also speaking of colonialism, you know, criticizing Zionism as a colonial movement, as a settler colonial movement, advocating for decolonization and de apartheidization. That’s what I would like to see. There’s a specific party called Balad-Tajammu which is led by Palestinian citizens of Israel, but has some Jewish Israeli supporters. That’s the party I support. But the new party is a step forward, at least we can hold a debate with this new party and challenge them and ask them why they still haven’t formulated a comprehensive anti colonial agenda. If they do run I hope they take votes from the Labour Party and from the other party I mentioned, Meretz. But I’m not sure that they represent masses of grassroots protesters within the current movement. That’s going to be interesting – the question of how well can they reach out to the masses protesting in Tel Aviv with an Israeli flag rather than a Palestinian flag. It’s an open question, because it’s still a new party, with small numbers, and we’ll see what happens.

John Reimann  
But from what you’re saying, a new party isn’t really needed. I mean, there’s already an existing party that you yourself support.

Ofer Neiman 
Yeah, there’s more than one. And in general, I would just ask these mostly Jewish Israelis to join one of the parties that we already have. It’s interesting that one of their arguments against us is saying, “look, we’re 50%, Arab 50% Jewish, you know, like, number one is Jewish on the ballot. Number two is Arab-Palestinian, and so on”. It’s a so called zipper list, you know, Arab-Jew, Arab-Jew. I’m not sure I support that. I think that actually, when we have colonialism occupation and apartheid, also targeting Palestinian citizens of Israel, it actually makes sense to support parties that are mostly led by Palestinian citizens of Israel, so Jews can join them. There’s a problem here. The new party thinks it’s a positive thing. this 50-50 representation. I think that perhaps it’s a part of a problem. The Palestinians should lead the movement, or at least the parties that we’re supporting, and we should join these parties as supporters who have a say, but not necessarily 50-50 leadership roles.

[At this point a discussion on some of the history of the founding of the State of Israel developed. The discussion included the role of labor Zionism.]

….
Ofer Neiman  
Labour – it’s interesting that they were advocating for something called “Hebrew labor” (Avoda Ivrit), which is, of course, a very racist term. I mean, think of a union in the US right now calling for “white labor” or something like that, which would be terrible. But that was the pre-1948 Israeli Labor Party. And beyond that, they were actually assaulting Arab laborers and driving them, expelling them from the scaffolds from construction sites. So you know, typical fascism and nowadays it’s interesting that the ones who are supporting this notion of Hebrew labor, that’s the Kahanist movement, the extreme religious right wing. They’re calling for this, and some of them, you have especially in Jerusalem where I live – plumbers, electricians – are promoting themselves as Hebrew labor. And there’s some opposition to this idea here in Israel, it’s considered too racist or too explicitly racist in some circles. But if you look back, you know, 80, 90, 100 years, that was the Israeli Labour Party doing the same things, perhaps even more brutally, because they were actually assaulting Palestinian laborers.

John Reimann
Yes. But the other part, what I was going mention was, at times they did actually organize Arab workers. But they did that in order to head off Arab workers organizing themselves. They made sure that it’s so it was kind of like, quote, what we used to call here separate but equal, you know, a separate organization of Arab workers but all was under the control of, of the of the Zionist labor movement. So I’m wondering if there’s not something similar to that with this new party that you’re talking about?

Ofer Neiman 
I’m not sure. So first of all, I didn’t know about the Labour Party, or  the Histadrut (that’s  the name of the trade labor union movement that we still have now, which is  a pillar of the state, and not really an independent labor union), I didn’t know about them organizing Palestinians before 1948. Perhaps this is a divide and rule policy against independent Palestinian unions. Perhaps you could say that this new party is a very soft attempt to co-opt Palestinian politics here in Israel. But the true equivalent here would be actually Likud inviting some Palestinian citizens of Israel to join the party – when they are in power they decide on budgets, so there’s sn incentive to join Likud.  As for this new party, I’m not sure that that the Jewish leaders of this party and its Palestinian leaders –  it’s supposed to be kind of a joint initiative – I’m not sure that these Jewish leaders within this party consciously see that as a co-optation attempt, but I would say that such parties can easily be seen as as an attempt to pacify Palestinian resistance. And, you know, sometimes they tell Palestinians, the so called Arab parties are too extreme. You shouldn’t support them. So there are various shades of co-optation here, and this new party could be a very soft form of co-option.

John Reimann 
Okay, so, um, that kind of answers a lot of the questions that I had. Do you have any final comments?

Ofer Neiman
A message to Americans: let’s try to work together. We have some things in common. And growing support  in the US for the anti apartheid struggle in Israel means the world to us. It’s very, very important. Israeli decision makers and major supporters of Israel in the US are fearful of growing support for Palestinians in the US, and this is something we can all work on together.

We thank Ofer for his time. For those interested in some historical background, we recommend oaklandsocialist’s pamphlet The New Apartheid: the rise of Zionism and the founding of the Israeli state