Yariv Levin (Photo: Wikimedia)
Israeli Justice Minister Yariv Levin is calling for a 20-year prison sentence for citizens who call for sanctions against the state – be it sanctions against its leaders, military personnel, or citizens.
The call followed a speech by Haaretz publisher Amos Shocken at a conference in London where he called for sanctions against Israel. He said:
“In a sense, what is taking place now in the occupied territories and in parts of Gaza is a second Nakba … A Palestinian state must be established and the only way to achieve this, I think, is to apply sanctions against Israel, against the leaders who oppose it and against the settlers.”
In response, Levin sent an official letter to Attorney General Gili Baharav Miara, which has now also been widely circulated on social media. Here is the text of his letter (translated by Ofer Neiman):
To: Gali Baharav Miara, Attorney General
Subject: Legislation against encouraging and supporting the imposition of sanctions on the State of Israel
- According to news from last night, the publisher of the Haaretz newspaper, Amos Schocken, called while being abroad for imposing sanctions on the State of Israel and Israeli leaders. This is not the first time that Israeli citizens have acted in this way.
- As we know, the State of Israel has been at war on a number of fronts for more than a year, against murderous terrorism, including against the Hamas organization. A call to impose sanctions on Israel, its leaders, members of the security forces and Israeli citizens is a blatant violation of a citizen’s most basic duty of loyalty towards his country. It is tantamount to encouraging and promoting a move whose purpose is the actual denial of Israel’s right to self-defense. This act is all the more grave when committed during an existential war, and while our daughters and sons are being held in inhumane conditions by a murderous terrorist organization.
- In view of this, I would like you to urgently send me a bill memo, which would state that the actions of Israeli citizens in order to promote or encourage the imposition of international sanctions on Israel, on its leaders, on members of the security forces and on the citizens of Israel, will constitute a criminal offense punishable by ten years in prison. I would also request that the commission of such an offense in time of war be an aggravating circumstance that would allow for the prison sentence to be doubled.
Yariv Levin, Minister of Justice and Deputy Prime Minister
The need to sanction Israel is obvious and is in fact a legal duty. Israel has enacted various “anti-boycott” laws, from the 2011 law (which mostly sought to target “selective-boycott” attempts against illegal settlements) to its 2018 blacklisting of organizations (including Jewish ones) that in some way promote boycotts, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) seeking to take Israel to account for its violations of international law.
The U.S. is also a major player in this anti-BDS push, with now 38 states applying laws punishing responsible businesses that choose to steer free of complicity in grave human rights violations.
The Israeli Justice Minister’s demand for severe punishment of responsible Israeli citizens should be a wake-up call for all, internationally. It precisely proves the point, of why Israel must be boycotted, divested from, and sanctioned.
But this was not the only part of Shocken’s speech that raised the ire of Israeli society.
After calling for sanctions, Shocken continued: “The Netanyahu government doesn’t care about imposing a cruel apartheid regime on the Palestinian population. It dismisses the costs of both sides for defending the settlements while fighting the Palestinian freedom fighters, that Israel calls terrorists.”
The backlash was enormous, and Israel’s Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi has once again urged a government boycott of Haaretz (last year, he pushed a similar initiative – to end government advertising in the newspaper and cancel all subscriptions for state employees).
Bowing to critique, Shocken tried to walk it back:
“Given the reactions to my labeling Palestinians who commit acts of terror as freedom fighters, I have reconsidered my words. Many freedom fighters around the world and throughout history, possibly even those who fought for Israel’s establishment, committed terrible acts of terrorism, harming innocent people to achieve their goals. I should have said: freedom fighters, who also resort to terror tactics – which must be combated. The use of terror is not legitimate. I erred in not mentioning this.”
He added: “To remove any doubt, Hamas are not freedom fighters”.
Shocken could have said that freedom fighters can also end up committing war crimes, but he decided to roll it all the way back to the Hamas-terror narrative, just to be safe, it seems.
Let it also be said, that Shocken’s paper, Haaretz, has also played its part in disseminating genocide propaganda, and Shocken has also himself been instrumental in personally promoting it.
Source:mondoweiss
