Anthony McIntyre's Blog, page 1224

The National Riddle

The Uri Avnery Column examines the efforts of Binyamin Netanyahu to suffocate dissent.

What Is the difference between a "corporation" and an "authority?


It's a national riddle. The whole country is absorbed by it. The Prime Minister announces that he will "go to the very end" to achieve his end. Which end? I don't know. I am not sure that he knows. Nobody I know knows.

The Prime Minister threatens the worst. If he does not get his way – whatever it is – he will do something absolutely awful: announce new elections. Let the people decide whether they want the authority or the corporation. Whatever they are.

What Is it all about? One thing is certain: it concerns the public media.

Binyamin Netanyahu wants to have them under his control. Completely. Totally. Radio. Television. The social media. The lot.

Seems it is not so easy to get a firm grip on them.

Long before there was Israel and long before there was television, the British Government of Palestine founded the Voice of Jerusalem, a radio station that provided us with the news throughout World War II. When the State of Israel came into being, this radio station changed into the Voice of Israel. The Broadcasting Authority remained. Formally it belongs to the government, but it enjoys considerable autonomy.

Then TV came along, and now there are several networks, one of them a public one. It belongs to the same authority.

Netanyahu is very sensitive. He does not like criticism. Neither does his wife, Sarah'le. The Royal couple wondered how to silence the impertinent voices and hit upon a remedy: abolish the authority and create a corporation. By this simple stratagem, they could get rid of all the old hands (and mouths) they detest.

So it was decided, laws were enacted, a budget was adopted, new personnel were hired.

But Then Netanyahu – or his wife – woke up one night and asked: Hey, what are we doing?

Who will tell all these good corporation people what to broadcast and what not?

The new corporation was modeled on the much admired BBC – the British Broadcasting Corporation. The BBC enjoys a lot of independence. Do we really want a corporation that ignores the wishes of the Prime Minister? Worse, the wishes of his wife?

Of course not. Stop everything!

So here we are today. The old authority has not yet been disbanded, its bloated personnel not yet dismissed. Its various TV and radio stations broadcast every day around the clock. And there is the new broadcasting corporation, full of new employees, slated to go on the air on April 30, just a month and five days away.

Who will be broadcasting on May 1? The authority? The corporation? Both? Neither? Only the Almighty knows. Perhaps not even He.

Who is Netanyahu's adversary in this fight? A quite unlikely enemy: Moshe Kahlon, the Minister of Finance. A mild, unassuming type, with a permanent smile, a former Likud member. The Almighty – the same – has turned this pussycat into a lion. Miracles do happen.

I happened this week to visit a radio studio. Broadcasting people all around me. I asked them, one by one, what the fight was about. They tried their best to explain it to me. In the end, I still had no idea, and I had the strong impression that they didn’t either.

This Week Netanyahu paid a state visit to China, to get away as far as possible. Between these two world powers – China and Israel, the elephant and the mouse – there are good relations.

The Prime Minister was shown around. He was taken to the Great Wall. Photos showed him surrounded by dark-suited men and one red-clad woman, his wife. He was just making a phone call, ignoring the unique landscape.

To whom? Those damn journalists soon found out: the Prime Minister was talking to his underlings in far-away Israel about dissolving the fledgling corporation and strengthening the old authority. His Minister of Finance announced that if that happens, he will bring the government crashing down, making new elections unavoidable if Netanyahu wants to stay in power,

Why? Without Kahlon and his Kulanu party, Netanyahu and his ultra-right coalition have no majority. The opposition, together with Kahlon, will constitute a new majority. In theory it could set up a new government. No need for elections. Simple arithmetic.

Eh… true. But arithmetic is not politics. Such a new coalition would have to include the Arab party, and that is too much both for Lapid and Herzog.

Throughout this whole ridiculous affair, the voice of the opposition was not heard at all. As if the Almighty – still the same - had struck them dumb. As if Yair Lapid, generally a prolific talker, who may lead the largest party in the Knesset after the next elections, was suddenly searching for words. Poor man.

Not quite as poor as Yitzhak Herzog, the leader of the Zionist Camp, a.k.a. the Labor Party. Not a word. Nothing to say – incredible as this may sound for a politician.

Why this sudden silence? Simple: on both sides of the conflict there are journalists. And what politician wants to quarrel with journalists? Who would dare, apart from Binyamin Netanyahu?
What Does he want? What is the purpose of this entire ruckus?

That is one riddle which is easy to answer: Netanyahu wants sole, direct control of all Israeli media. He wants to be able to tell every single broadcaster what to say and what not to say.

After the last election, he retained in his own hands not only the offices of Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, but also the Communication Ministry, quite a junior office – except that it controls all government subsidies for the media. For some technical reason, the Supreme Court compelled him to give up this position and turn it over to one of his yes-men.

Control of all the media is the dream of every democratic ruler. (Dictators don't dream about it, they have it.) Netanyahu already has absolute control over Israel's largest daily newspaper – a paper distributed for free. This is a gift from one of his most ardent admirers – the US Casino Mogul Sheldon Adelson. (I have invented the Hebrew term for such a give-away – something like "gratisette".)

The owner of a real daily paper of almost equal size was overheard offering Netanyahu preferential treatment in return for cutting back the circulation of this private paper.

Why The hell does Netanyahu need all these machinations?

His power is based on solid foundations. He has already realized a politician's dream: He has no successor. All possible heirs have been eliminated long ago. Ask any of his detesters whom they see as a possible replacement, and they will fall silent.

Many Israelis – myself included – believe that Netanyahu is leading the state towards an existential disaster. The man has no world view, except the nationalistic fanaticism of his late father, a historian of the Spanish inquisition. As an intellectual, he is a zero.

But he is a talented political practitioner, an expert in day-to-day political machinations, including relations with foreign powers. There seems to be no other practitioner around who could fill his place.

So, for the time being, we are stuck with him, his authority and/or his corporation.

Scotland: “We Encourage Everyone To Speak, Even If Their Voice Shakes”

From People And Nature, Cathy Milligan is standing as an Independent candidate in the Glasgow City Council elections on Thursday 4 May, in the Linn ward. Here she writes about how Castlemilk Against Austerity, the community group she represents, is organising on one of the city’s largest housing schemes.

In 2009 I lost my job due to ill health. I had to claim employment and support allowance, that really woke me up to how badly people on benefits are being treated. It’s horrible, and I am of the mind that no-one would willingly put themselves through this, which is contrary to the many TV programmes portraying the opposite to be true. Life on benefits is full of misery and despair. At one point I was left to live on £47 per week, for ten months.

Castlemilk Against Austerity campaigners

I was too ill to fight it, and it really pushed me to the edge. I felt scared, alone, worthless. Thankfully, family and friends pulled me through it, but it’s horrible. The truth of that is being exposed everyday … and people are dying. That’s why I, Daniel Blake is such an important film, highlighting the inhumanity of the Tories’ social security policies that create a harsh, unfair world, leaving people in despair.

The film only shows the tip of the iceberg. There are worse scenarios being played out every day. Then we get the moral tone being set, about “skivers” and “shirkers”, turning worker against worker.
When the bedroom tax was introduced, I got involved in the fight against it. Though it wasn’t directly an attack on me, I saw it as a further attempt to undermine our social security provision … but at last people were waking up to the unfairness.

Then came the referendum campaign on Scottish independence, in September 2014. At first I was for voting No. I saw it as a red herring, to distract us whilst the real politics were being enacted like the selling off of the NHS, social care provision, the tearing apart of social security, and so on. But the radical independence campaign, Hope Over Fear (leaders aside) – that was supported by all the young people I knew, including my son and, especially, my nephew – convinced me that it was indeed political. It was about undermining the unfair system, about taking back our politics, about working for a fairer, more equal place, and for people power to have a say in how things could be run.

I helped organise an event for young people to talk about the referendum with music, poetry and debate. It was brilliant. They called it a referenjam, designed a cool poster and even wrote a song. I felt so inspired by their attitudes and reinforced my belief in people to work things out for a better more equal world.

Unfortunately we didn’t get a Yes vote, but we couldn’t let that energy, self belief, creativity and imagination go back inside. It had to be built on and made better. I wasn’t alone. Immediately after the referendum, we created Castlemilk Against Austerity, a non-party-political community group, where everyone is welcome and encouraged to bring their ideas and speak – even if their voice shakes – because we believe in people. It’s going to take everyone to make change.

I have never even considered standing in any election before. It has only been over the past couple of years that it has even been discussed, as we got more and more involved campaigning against the economic policies of austerity. I always said no, I wouldn’t do it. I’m not a politician and have never aspired to be one.

Last year, as a collective, we discussed the possibility of standing in the elections. After weighing up the pros and cons, we decided it was something we should do. James, a member of our group, put himself forward to stand, and we started planning our campaign. Unfortunately, due to family and work commitments, it wasn’t the right time for him to make that stand, though, like the rest of us, he believed that one of us should stand. That’s the thing: there are all sorts of obstacles in our way, just to get political representation … a voice that can tell the truth about how things are. That’s why I have decided to stand. I’ve nothing to lose, but lots to gain. We are being stripped of everything in our communities. They won’t stop, we have to stop them. It’s ridiculous, in this day and age, that people are going hungry. There are enough resources, there’s enough food. It’s so blatantly unfair, and it has to change.

I will fight tooth and nail against any cuts. I will expose every detail that I can find of the council’s financial transactions. I will fight for green energy and fight for social housing. I will fight for fairness, social justice, education and the NHS, for an end to zero-hour contracts, and an end to benefit sanctions. The list is ongoing. But I will challenge every aspect of social injustice, and demand fairness and respect for all.

I also think we have to talk about the source of all these problems: a system that exists only to make profit at the expense of human beings. We are seeing it played out every day in our communities: cuts to services like social care has had a huge impact on workers and the people they care for. People who are the most vulnerable are left isolated and uncared for. Vulnerable children are being pushed into mainstream schools with inadequate provision. Weans are going hungry. The list is endless. We have all the knowledge and resources to stop this from happening. The only reason it is happening is because those resources are unevenly shared. If we don’t address that problem, then we are just covering up all the cracks.

I am not sure if we can win a council seat at the election, but the support and encouragement we have been getting has been amazing, and we want to keep that going. We have raised just over £1000 in two weeks for the campaign so thats brilliant. We had a very successful campaign launch, on 24 March, in Castlemilk Bowling Club am hoping for a good turn out from the people in the community and we will take it from there.

Over the past three years we have achieved a lot in our community. We have supported each other through hardship; made lots of connections; created a newsletter, encouraging people to have a voice; and created music nights, encouraging community spirit and providing a platform for local musicians and poets. We have created food solidarity markets, with the motto “bring what you can, take what you need”, countering the stigma and shame of food banks. We have met loads of amazing talented people, all on our side, and there are more and more people coming on board. The young people in the community are helping us organise our next food solidarity market, and they are very clear that it’s about the community sticking up for each other … all the while reminding people that it is us who make and create things, not money.

So don’t sit back and let someone else do it. Every community should make a stand against austerity. Find your voice. We need you. Don’t leave it to party politics.

A favourite quote that sums up my feelings is from Angela Davis: “I’m no longer accepting the things I cannot change … I’m changing the things I cannot accept.” I can no longer sit back and watch people suffer and being dismissed as lesser and undeserving and I call on everyone to Stand Up, Be The Change. 3 April 2017.

■ Follow the campaign on the Vote Cathy facebook page. To donate to the campaign, go here.
■ Also by Cathy Milligan. Fight against austerity, against established politics (October 2014)
■ and This movement is learning fast, growing arms and legs (September 2014)
■ People and Nature site contents