Israel on its Slippery Slope

Notes from a Crumbling Democracy
Before The Point of No Return in Haaretz.
From the website:
On 16 May 2010 the Ministry of Interior denied acclaimed linguist Noam Chomsky entry into the State of Israel. Some of use were astonished. Others were not. Israel likes to claim that it is the only democracy int he Middle East. We are here to follow its collapse.
We will try to become an archive of news stories which document the swift collapse of Israel, from human rights in the Occupied Territories to police violence inside Israel-proper, we will be documenting them all.
The obvious question is about the kind of stories that will be posted here. It’s a hard question to answer. It is possible that some of the events we report are justified. It could be that in and of themselves they do not constitute another step on the road to the collapse of the Israeli democracy. But the events themselves are not the slope, they are merely landmarks set in it. Every event can be justified. Every event is complex, multi-faceted, and full of contradictions. It is the complex of all these events, the exhausting pace at which they occur and are buried under the weight of new events, this is harder to explain away.
And this, indeed, is how this blog should be read. Click on one of the categories and you’ll see for yourself. In the short lifespan of this blog it has been updated at least once nearly every single day. Click on “Military and Security Forces” or on “Political” and you may have a glimpse into a bit of what the people feel who fear for the fate of the Israeli democracy.
Itamar Shaaltiel