Clump-clump, clump-clump, clump-clump. Hark, I hear the sound of the goose-stepping Bolshevik Israeli thought police in the distance.



Ultra-leftist Meretz MK Zahava Gal-On is at it again. This time, she's going after Arutz-7 - the Israel National News Hebrew website. It's not good enough that the Israeli left-wing Thought Police, hiding behind the smoke and mirrors of legalism, have managed to silence the most significant independent voice on the airwaves, Arutz-7 Radio. The erstwhile MK, "guardian of the public," wants to protect the innocent from hearing views different than those she hears in her Leftist Ghetto. She claimed that an opinion article published on the Arutz-7 website, entitled, "Expulsion, not Transfer", constituted a violation of laws against incitement, and called on Attorney General Elyakim Rubinstein to investigate it. And he is.



Clump-clump, clump-clump, clump-clump.



MK Zahava Gal-On, just a couple of months ago, asked the Attorney General to look into a Jerusalem Post editorial she said had "words of incitement to murder" in it. The Jerusalem Post editorial said, "The world will not help us; we must help ourselves. We must kill as many of the Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders as possible, as quickly as possible, while minimizing collateral damage, but not letting that damage stop us. And we must kill Yasser Arafat, because the world leaves us no alternative."



Where is Freedom of the Speech? Where is Freedom of the Press? When was it ever "incitement to murder", to call for the death of the enemy in wartime? Only in Israel, only on the Bolshevik Left, only to shut people up and divert attention from discussing the real issue - Arafat's war against Israel. By the way, in the end the Attorney General found nothing prosecutable in the Post editorial.



Freedom of Speech 1, Thought Police 1.



Back in May 2003, MK Gal-On called on the Attorney General to "warn" members of the Yesha Rabbinical Council against releasing a Halachic - Jewish law - ruling against the Road Map "peace" plan. Well, what are they supposed to issue - an economic impact report? They're rabbis. What, they're not allowed to think differently from Zahava?



And what does Gal-On think? Well, for one, she thought that after 12 Jews were killed in Hebron last November, the deaths could be exploited to expel the entire Jewish community of Hebron from the city. That's what she told an Israel Radio interviewer, just days after the slaughter. And she thinks it's just fine to meet with the leader of the enemy during wartime. That's right. She's met Arafat several times in the last three years. Now that should be illegal.



Though Arutz-7 does not endorse the opinions it publishes in its op-ed section, Arutz-7 noted that the sentence MK Gal-On questioned was taken out of context, and does not incite to murder. "Incitement", you should know, is the new catchall phrase the Left has invented since the Rabin murder, to frighten all those who would think differently than them. In fact, the author, Gil Ronen, writes in the article, "no one will have to take the law into his own hands." So, where's the incitement?



According to Arutz-7, the article's basic assumption was that, since there is no chance for reaching peace with the Arabs of Yesha - Judea and Samaria, the West Bank and Gaza - there is therefore no alternative but to "remove this 'nation' from our midst." Isn't that National Union MK Benny Elon's plan?



Ronen wrote that he does not support transfer, as "the Palestinians are not European Jews, and we are not Germans." Instead, he suggests a "gradual deterioration", in which the war against terrorists expands, including more targeted killings, more house demolitions, and more air raids. Sounds good to me. In fact, I've written several such articles, for example, calling on the Israeli government to use attack helicopters against Hamas political-rally funerals - "The Call of the Israeli Apache" - and suggested that, "There is Only a Military Solution".



I dare Gal-On to "investigate" me. It seems our dear "guardian of the public," a child olah - immigrant - from the former Bolshevik Soviet Union - hasn't learned a thing about democracy, freedom of speech or the press in her life. And, as a policy analyst, that is my professional opinion.



"No one will have to take the law into his own hands," Ronen writes. "It's enough that officers and soldiers interpret their instructions as broadly as possible and employ maximum force," noting, as an example, that if a Jewish neighborhood is fired on, the military response should not be limited to one specific window or house, but to the entire row of houses from which the attack emanated. The sentence that troubled MK Gal-On so much reads, "The only ones who will die will be Palestinians, and whoever doesn't want to die, will be forced to run away." I disagree with Ronen, it should become government policy, not just the purview of individual soldiers; by the way, in wartime the goal is to kill the enemy and not be killed. And, an overwhelming majority of Israelis consider this wartime.



Gal-On implied that Ronen's call to abandon dangerous house-to-house searches for terrorists, in favor of air-bombings, is a form of incitement "to genocide of hundreds of thousands of innocent Palestinians." Notice her exaggeration to justify suppression. House-to-house searches have claimed many Israeli soldiers' lives in the past three years. Why chase after political commentators and media outlets? Why doesn't she take her beef to where it really belongs, with Ariel Sharon and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF)? They've used air-bombings several times already, against Hamas targets, rather than go into the houses to get the wanted men.



By the way, several public figures including MKs have also expressed the opinion that air-bombings should be stepped up. For instance, in December 2001, National Union MK Eliezer Cohen said, "This is war, not just terrorism, and we must fight back accordingly. They are fighting us with all of their resources and weaponry, and we must do the same. Our army knows exactly what to do, and it is time to do it." And in December 2002, National Union leader MK Avigdor Lieberman called for a "decisive military victory." So why save Arab terrorists and their supporters, when you can save the life of Jewish soldiers?



Zahava, they didn't teach you that in Bolshevik training school did they?



Clump-clump, clump-clump, clump-clump. Here come those thought police!



(c) 2003/5764 Pasko