Friday, December 9, 2011

Anti-social protests

Yet another "social protest" is planned in Israel:
"The march is being organized for the third year in a row by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) in collaboration with dozens of other local human rights organizations. Organizers say the recent social justice movement that swept the country over the summer, bringing hundreds of thousands of Israelis into the streets, will give the march added relevance."

I do agree that human rights is an important cause. However, these protests are made completely irrelevant to actually improving human rights by their organizers and participants absolving themselves from any responsibility and demanding that the solutions come from the government:
“Despite the fact that the public voted with its feet for social justice last summer, the government continues to focus on legislation assaulting democratic values. This year at the Human Rights March, we will remind the government that it has forgotten to listen to us, the people. We will march for social justice, freedom of expression and protest, for human rights for all of us, Israelis and Palestinians,” ACRI director Hagai El-Ad said in a press release issued this week."

There are several reasons why blaming the government and demanding that it must solve all the protesters's problems is ridiculous:
1. This is a democratically elected government. On the one hand, this may mean that the government reflects the will of the majority of the Israelis, in which case the protesters are trying to impose the will of the minority on the rest of the country - a very kind of human rights violation that they protests against. On the other hand, if the protesters believe that they represent the majority, there is only one way to check it and to implement the majority demands -  by differently voting in the next election or possibly forming a "social protests" party that will run for the parliament.

2. Government is the main source of human rights abuses. Hoping that the government will correct itself, without voters themselves doing anything more than marching once in a faceless crowd is silly. Lest my opposition to too much governmental power seems to you too libertarian, let me quote the protesters themselves, blaming this very government for the very abuses that they ask the government to correct:
"Lenkinski said she believed the march was coming at a time when “Israel’s democratic principles are increasingly being called into question,” citing what she referred to as “anti-democratic trends in legislation in the Knesset [as well as] a public atmosphere that is hostile toward civil society organizations and human rights organizations in general.”

She said anti-democratic legislation was broken down into four categories: legislation like the Nakba Law and the loyalty oath, which target the country’s Arab minority; laws like the boycott and foreign funding laws that target civil society and NGOs; legislation to limit the power of the High Court of Justice; and legislation to limit freedom of speech.
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3. As a democratic country Israel possesses the appropriate system of checks and balances to control the over-reaching by any branch of the government. The fact that mentioned above "un-democratic" legislation have been repeatedly turned down by the Israeli Supreme Court is a proof of that. The protesters however have a tendency over-emphasize any unsuccessful attempt at minor human rights violation in Israel, while remaining completely mute at the atrocities that happen elsewhere - for example, across the border in Syria.

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