If a campaign ad inciting against Arab citizens of Israel is deemed illegitimate, then why not the party responsible for it, or any of the myriad Knesset members who have also engaged in similar forms of incitement as well, whether against Africans, Palestinians, the LGBT community or Israeli leftists? Israel's Central Election Committee disqualified an ad campaign last week by a new party called Otzma Leyisrael (Strength to Israel), citing that it singles out and incites against the Arab sector in Israel and is therefore racist. The campaign ads, posted on buses and billboards across Israel, included the word "loyalty" in Arabic,…

First MK Michael Ben-Ari tore the New Testament to pieces in his chambers. (See photo here) Then, MK Ahmad Tibi tore a photograph of Ben-Ari's mentor, the late and racist Rabbi Meir Kahane, over the Knesset podium. (Watch here) And now, another disciple of Kahane, Baruch Marzel, posted the photo below of Tibi as a pig. Ben-Ari posted it on his Facebook wall, and has about 200 "likes" at this time. Children playing with fire. (If you're on Facebook, please report. I did.) h/t Nir Hoffman

Hundreds of people attended a ceremony Monday afternoon to mark Nakba Day in front of the main entrance to Tel Aviv University. The ceremony was organized by students - both Palestinian and Jewish citizens of Israel - and billed as a joint memorial ceremony aimed at giving voice to the Palestinian narrative of suffering following the events of 1948. Organizers emphasized that the event did not seek to reject Israel's right to exist. One of the organizers of the event, Rula Khalaily, a student at the university and an activist with the Hadash Party, told +972  about the goal of the event:…

News of a demolition is not indicative of the termination of an outpost but rather illustrates that it is alive and kicking. Here is the story of one such outpost. The IDF Civil Administration demolished the illegal outpost known as "Mitzpeh Avichai" near Kiryat Arba in the southern West Bank Wednesday night for at least the third time. This may seem like a a moment in which the authorities are instilling order and justice in the Wild Wild West Bank, but in fact it only reflects how actively negligent and cooperative they have been in the spread of outposts that eventually…

Interesting e-mail from an American-born Israeli friend, regarding the inability to voice criticism of the J14 movement in certain circles: I am in solidarity with the protests - this is the first time that I have felt as though I must say that I am in solidarity with something in this place - and yet I have been repeatedly told that I am "bitter," "do not belong in Israeli society," "need to say a good word about the protests in public," "want to see Israelis fail," and once even told that I am a self-hating Jew with no place in…

How long can the social justice protests go on without defining what "social justice" means? While there was no official rejection of the Kahanists' visit by protest leaders, some activists confronted them and skirmishes broke out Yesterday far-right groups and prominent settlers, including extremist leader Baruch Marzel, showed up at the tent encampment on Rothschild Boulevard to "join" the protest,  donning "Tel Aviv is Jewish" shirts and other such racist garb. They expressed their desire for "social justice" in the form of more construction in the West Bank, and clarified that they do not want to bring down the government but…

One of the visitors on the Knesset's Committee discussion that hosted Glen Beck today was a settler named Baruch Marzel. Marzel, seen below meeting Beck, was the secretary of Rabbi Meir Kahane's Kach movement. After the assassination of Kahane, Marzel, a resident of Hebron, chaired the party. Kach and Kahane Chai (a faction of the party, formed after Kahane's death) were outlawed in Israel. Both groups are considered terrorist organizations by Canada, the European Union and the United States. See, for example, item 20 of the  State Department's current list of designated foreign terrorist 0rganizations. I am sure that Beck,…

For her senior project in visual communications at the Holon Institute of Technology (HIT), artist Sivan Hurvitz exhibited a series of illustrations called "Turn right at the end: the future of a country that gave up on democracy." In her strikingly realistic, detailed illustrations -  six in all - Sivan imagines "an apocalyptic, harshly exaggerated, imaginary, future scenario" in an Israel that is no longer a democracy. Her purpose, she writes, is "to provoke and raise questions among Israelis about the direction the country is going in and to think if this is the country we want to become in…