Yisrael Beiteinu MK: Tent organizers are like Palestinians

Mairav Zonszein By Mairav Zonszein August 15, 2011 | Edit

MK Faina Kirshenbaum from Lieberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu Party – the same MK responsible for proposing the bill to establish parliamentary committees to investigate the funding of NGOs in Israel – was quoted today in Israel’s Ynet as saying that the tent protest organizers remind her of Palestinians.

I’m paraphrasing and translating:

The tent leaders’ demands are incoherent, and if we [the government] aren’t prepared with a clear plan, they will continue to approach us with new demands. This reminds me of negotiations with the Palestinians – because when the issues are not well-formulated, they constantly come back to us with new demands.

1. Ironically, Kirshenbaum actually makes the government appear quite inept and unprepared in the face of legitimate demands by the masses.

2. By likening the tent protest organizers to Palestinians, Kirshenbaum makes a clear divide between the powerful and the powerless, whereby she not only clearly identifies the government as the powerful entity whose job it is to quell any and all demands made by the powerless, but she also equates the powerless with those calling for equal rights and dignity, be they Palestinians or Israelis, Jews or Muslims, citizens or non-citizens – in other words, irrespective of their race, religion or nationality.

3. The bright side is that we can assume from her statement that Fania Kirshenbaum considers the protest movement to not only be a real resistance movement, subversive enough to be compared to Palestinians, but also that it is not going away anytime soon, as one of the qualities Palestinians are best know for is their persistence. Woo hoo!

Mairav Zonszein

Mairav Zonszein is a journalist and editor who writes about Israel-Palestine and its role in U.S. politics. Her publications include The Guardian, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New York Review of Books, The Intercept, VICE News, Foreign Policy and many more.

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