Israel's budding autocracy
The arrest of members of a pacifist NGO is symptomatic of a country that is becoming militarised at an alarming pace
The first raids took place at about 7am on Sunday. Across the country, activists in a publicly registered, pacifist non-profit organisation were detained. Their computers were confiscated, and they were banned from contacting each other or trying to restore the data on their seized PCs. After a triumphalist press statement by the police, more activists were called in and interrogations are expected to widen further still.
In case you haven't guessed, the country where these events took place is Israel. The NGO in question is New Profile, a feminist organisation working against the IDF draft.
The targeting of New Profile, cynically timed to the eve of Israel's Memorial Day (on which most Israelis will have been remembering a loved one lost to conflict) is profoundly symbolic of the speed at which Israeli society is militarising yet further. New Profile claims that Israel is soaked in militarism; top-ranking retired generals run many private and governmental companies or serve in government, the education system and the army are joining forces to have one uniformed officer stationed in every high school in the country, and adverts and TV programmes feature much more uniformed characters than those of most ostensibly democratic nations.
And the pressure keeps piling up. For the first time, secular teenage girls objecting to the draft are being jailed. Religious teenagers, who until now had the easiest time avoiding draft through reasons of modesty and piety, are now being followed around by military police and private investigators, who photograph them kissing or wearing "immodest" clothing, and feed the racy pictures to the daily press.
more
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/apr/30/israel-military
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