Not content to merely write a love-letter to terrorists or advocate for the destruction of the world’s only Jewish State in his “news” articles, AsAJew Ben Ehrenreich recently wrote a “Cliff’s Notes” to the Arab-Israel conflict that, unsurprisingly is wrong on almost every level. Rather than let him get away with yet more lies that place all the blame on Israel, I decided to examine his “10 Points” and took them apart one by one.
For previous installments, see here.
2 Colonial Roots, Colonial Realities
Next on the list of lies is the attempt to link Israeli law with British colonial law. Of course Ehrenreich ignores the fact that Palestine was not a British colony but rather a Mandate. It was not settled by the British and the British did not settle it with Jews. The only thing the Mandate did was recognize the ancient indigenous connections of the Jews to the land and give them the option of returning home and buying land legally.
Once he lies about the Mandate being a “colonial regime,” he then implies that Israel is colonial itself since it incorporated many existing British laws into Israeli law. He makes it sound sinister that the first legislative act of Israel was to codify existing British law, but it was not unusual for a newly independent state to maintain many of the laws that pre-dated the state. Rather than being evil, it is just a matter of good governance. States need laws and when the Knesset adopted these British laws, Israel was fighting for its life. That’s not the ideal time to create an entire legal code from scratch.
And what exactly does Ehrenreich tell us these evil laws allowed Israel to do? They allowed the criminalization of “unlawful associations.” The horror! They allowed the state to set up “closed military zones.” How dare they?! They allowed other more restrictive measures as well, but most of these were and are the law in other democratic states where they are used just as rarely as they are in Israel.
Is it appropriate to complain about government censorship? Absolutely. But if you look at a region where censorship if rife, where not only are newspapers and TV reports cleansed of anything potentially subversive and only complain when Israel issues gag orders to protect police investigations or ongoing military operations, it’s clear what you’re upset about isn’t censorship at all.
