From arresting activists for erasing graffiti, to proposing a law preventing asylum seekers from sending money they earn abroad: What several judicial and juristic decisions in the past week tell us about contemporary Israel. First incident: Last weekend, our kindly goons detained a group of Ta'ayush activists who visited the Palestinian unrecognized village of Susya. They visited the place after "price tag" pogromchiks sprayed the slogans "price tag" and "death to Arabs" near the viilage. The Civil Administration – staffed, appropriately, by IDF officers and gunmen – denied the villagers permission to delete those slogans. The officer filing that decision…

The latest hiring decision at the Prime Minister's Office illustrates the hypocrisy of the right when it comes to objectionable and violent statements. The Prime Minister’s Office recently reported (Hebrew) that it receives editing and translating services from Uri Elitzur, who is set to serve as a speechwriter for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Elitzur is a settler pundit, who in 1998, during Netanyahu’s first term, served as his bureau chief. Elitzur is now the editor of the weekly supplement Makor Rishon, a newspaper that leans to the right. There’s something noble and very rare in Israeli political life for a…

A previously unknown blog caused an uproar in Israeli media, after publishing pictures of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Nazi uniform alongside a text supportive of the J14 social justice protests. Left-wing bloggers believe this is a right-wing attempt to smear the protesters. Speculations continue to grow around the identities authors of a suspected sock-puppet blog that distributed pictures of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in SS uniform, ostensibly on behalf of the J14 social justice movement. Left wing site Activismos traced the blog, which was taken down within hours of making headlines in Israeli media, to domains registered to  Likud activist…