Is there growing realization within Israeli society that the social, political, moral, and military basis of the occupation is unsustainable? If so, perhaps 'The Gatekeepers' need not change people’s minds, so much as express them. A college professor once taught me that a decaying empire clenches onto power with a chokehold. Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian people may not be an empire, but after nearly forty-six years, it has become a sort of reigning paradigm of Israeli life. The Israeli Left has challenged, but never truly shifted, that paradigm. In 2009 a particularly right-wing government was established after a particularly…

A recent decision to prevent the recording of security interrogation means a return to the norms of the witch trials. The Israeli government recently made permanent a temporary order - in force for 11 years - that permits the police to avoid documenting security interrogations, Haaretz has reported (Hebrew). Regular criminal interrogations are taped; that will not be the case in matters of suspected security violations. We can safely assume that once the police are allowed not to tape an interrogation, they will not tape it. It saves resources, for starters. The government's decision creates a practical distinction between the rights of…

The Khader Adnan hunger strike affair showed the true face of all of the Israelis involved in the occupation, from its enablers in the courts to the Israeli mob. Khader Adnan became a Palestinian national hero two days ago, and rightly so. He brought the Netanyahu government, as well as the Israeli apparatus of darkness (as Uri Avneri called it in the 1950s) to its knees. In a hastily-convened hearing in the High Court of Justice (HCJ), the prosecution offered Adnan’s lawyers a classic saving-face deal: Adnan will be discharged on April 17 at the latest, the same day his administrative detention…

What Israel needs, in the battle against Jewish terrorism, is a Lester Freemon; What the ISA can supply is a weak-kneed Jack Bauer Israel was shocked last week, as violent settlers attacked the IDF directly, ransacking an army base, stoning a colonel and his deputy, and throwing Molotov cocktails at soldiers. The shock was reinforced by the IDF’s response: It did nothing. The soldiers cowered and did not even arrest their assailants. Later on, the Minister of Defense, Ehud Barak, said that the army did not have any intelligence on the attackers: It does not gather information on Jews, he…

Matan Cohen was informed he is classified as 'a suspect of hostile terrorist activity'; he was released after three hours Israeli activist Matan Cohen was detained by Israel's internal security agency (ISA, or 'Shabak' in Hebrew) at Israel's international airport yesterday. According to Cohen, his belongings were searched, and he was informed by a policeman that he is considered "a suspect of hostile terrorist activity." (מוחשד פח"ע) Cohen, 22, lost his sight in one eye five years ago after being shot by soldiers in an unarmed demonstration against the Separation Wall. He is active in the BDS movement and was…