A WARNING FOR ISRAEL & THE US: When the ‘separation of state & church’ fails & religious extremists seize political power, Democracy also fails…

America, for several years now has allowed the Religious Radical Right to gain more power and blur the US Constitution – First Amendment provision: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” Which Thomas Jefferson paraphrased and therefore accepted by most lawmakers as “Separation of Church and State…”

Today’s Israel, under the leadership of Benjamin ‘Bibi’ Netanyahu and his cabinet of extremists Heredi and fanatic Religious Radical Right, mainly from the settler population, is going through a similar process that slowly but surely will destroy the nation’s Democracy, by limiting the powers of the Supreme Court, and concentrating them on the Prime Ministry, as well as on the members of his radical right wing Cabinet of zealots; which can eventually head towards a Theocracy not much different from other Middle Eastern countries, among them Iran, Israel’s worst enemy…

Governments ruled by religion and by their maximum religious leaders, where the separation between church and state has been completely abolished, are in essence theocracies totally opposed to democracies, and closer in essence to tyrannies and autocratic regimes, that imitate the murderous repressive monarchies of ancient eras…

These Theocracies in the name of God commit all kind of Human Rights violations… They don’t rule by logical and sensible secular laws of equality, but come from blinded fanaticism and misinterpretation of religious and spiritual principles, customized to their political and social interests, tainted by discriminatory and racist actions against all those that don’t profess their believes, or don’t abide by the diehard whims of their rulers who end up committing all kinds of crimes against humanity in the name of God, so that they can also establish and assure their political power for life, convincing themselves that their delusional mislead righteous acts are guided by a Divine Order …

Even if those governments were elected in our modern times by popular vote, they end up corroding the democratic institutions that allowed them achieve their political goals and mandates, by concentrating all the powers under the executive branch represented by a President or Prime Minister that ends up becoming a Dictator, who rules without preconceived constitutional laws in a nation where any real or legal checks and balances cease to exist…

Israelis of all walks of life are feeling that they’re currently in this crossroad – described above — and they’re fighting for the very soul of their nation, for their democracy against those extremists that slowly but surely are creating a terrorist state that not only is more repressive and violent as an occupying force against the Palestinians, but also against the Israelis themselves that won’t accept their autocratic ways; which are destroying their 75 year governing system based on democratic and constitutional principles…

An important number of Israelis now-a-days feel that Bibi Netanyahu’s goal is finding a way to rule Israel as its King, supported by a group of racists and divisive members of his fascist Cabinet, who’re creating more havoc and violence not only between Israelis and Palestinians, but also amidst the very Israeli society itself…

Israel is on the verge of a third Intifada amidst the unrest and constant protests coming from a great part of the Israeli population against Netanyahu and his religious zealots who intend to dismantle – with the excuse of a reform — the Supreme Court, curtailing and diminishing it powers…

Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir himself is behind the constant provocation against Palestinians towns and villages, inciting the same violence against them which ironically got him the position and political power that now he enjoys in Bibi’s government, thanks to the fame and reputation his terrorist acts earned him and by defying the same institution he now he’s in charge of… Ben Gvir, 46, has been one of the main leaders of the bloody vigilante settler un-Godly upraising that has perpetuated the conflict between Jews and Arabs, Israeli and Palestinians…

The situation in Israel today is so dire that even the the military reservists who’re in the very core of its society, in an act of patriotism have decided not to join the army but the protesters who’re against the judiciary overhaul that’s undermining their democracy…

Meanwhile in America we can also see how the American Evangelical Churches – Evilgelical Movement — in its majority they rule and greatly influence the GOP… They’re the promoters of Trumpism, White Supremacy, Christian Nationalism, and from their pulpits as well as from the rallies of those running for the Party’s Presidential nomination they preach divisiveness, hatred, racism, and bigotry and all of it done in the name of Jesus, Jesus, Hallelujah…

They thrive in political chaos and social disruption so they can eventually take over and create a state not ruled by the US Constitution but by some kind of Christian Sharia Law… Likewise the Religious radical Israeli Right is trying to institutionalize Jewish Supremacy and Nationalism… It’s Nazism all over again but now perpetrated by the extreme faction of the Israeli Society…

Israel currently is also about to become a Theocracy in the hands of these extreme religious right wingers who in the name of God want to diminish and even erase the power of their most important democratic institutions, so they can rule freely according to some shady made up Halakhic Law, with the ultimate goal of becoming what Israelis fear the most, an extreme religious and fascist tyranny…

It’s difficult to bamboozle Israelis or Jews in general, many of them highly educated and aware of their democratic rights and principles, who have fought for ages against persecution, violation of their Human Rights, who were victims and scapegoats of all kinds of extremist and dictatorial regimes, theocracies, and autocratic rulers that their first attempt has always been to silence the voices of the Jews among them for being the first ones to fight tyranny and crimes against humanity…

Now the Israeli Jews are experiencing all these same injustices in their own land, build after the Holocaust as a refuge against all these antisemitic social and political attacks, coming now against them from amidst their own Religious Radicals – who ironically call themselves the Chosen Ones by God — who dare to state that they’re the ones preserving God’s Word and His Scriptures, when in actuality they’re also the ones going against the very core of this “Almighty’s Jewish Legacy…”

The Israeli Extreme Orthodox groups, among which many settlers are part of, feel empowered to go against Palestinians, going to their towns and villages and committing all kind of atrocities against its population, taking matters into their own hands instead of waiting for the Israeli Authorities to act on their behalf, like its happening now in Hawara’s West Bank, after one militant of the terrorist group Lion’s Den Militia killed two Israelis that were driving by…

Go after the terrorists but don’t punish a whole town for the misdeeds of a few; which doesn’t solve the issue nor bring the dead to life, but creates more hatred and violence against the Israeli population that currently is also divided by the new coalition of extremists that not only are trying to change and destroy a political system build over more than 70 years ago – as an inspiration and a beacon of light and democracy for the region — but it’s promoting more hatred and violence against the Palestinians whom have upgraded – for that same reason — their terrorist acts against Israel, in an everlasting attempt to keep the ongoing conflict alive…

To be fair, the conflict started to evolve and fester from the moment that then POTUS Trump influenced by the Evilgelicals named Jerusalem the capital of Israel, without taking in consideration the rights of the Palestinians, nor listening to what they had to say…

What’s even more unacceptable and not only to Israelis, but also to the moderate American Jews, as well as many others around the world, is when the current elected Israeli Minister of Finances, Bezalel Smotrich a settler himself, supports the burning and stoning of Palestinians and their villages, calling to “wipe out” Palestinian towns in the same barbaric way as Palestinian terrorists have been attacking Israelis since the creation of the State of Israel…

These Israelis that incite acts of terrorism vs Palestinian towns and villages, mostly come from the extreme Orthodox settlers populations who in the name of God are descending to the level of their enemies, committing the same exact barbaric crimes and acts of revenge that the Palestinian terrorist militants tend to do…

Both sides are lead by religious zealots that in the name of God do the opposite of God’s Will: engage in vengeful murders and bloodshed against their enemies, perpetuating the endless cycle of violence that has tainted their nations’ streets with the blood of many innocent civilians, among them many children that haven’t even have enough time to ever understand the very conflict that ended their young lives…

“This is the most important War in Israel’s History…” Says Avi Himi, the ex-president of the Israeli Bar Association, who’s one of the main leaders of the mass protest against Netanyahu and the government’s judicial reform…

“Our lives are on the line: If the new government’s revolution is successful, it means that our children will not be able to live in this country, and therefore I feel obligated to pay a price in order to stop this madness. You have left us no choice. We don’t have a lot of time. The weeks ahead are critical, just as the War of Independence was critical…”

“People lost their lives and their loved ones for the sake of the state in Israel’s wars and military operations,” Himi told Haaretz in an interview conducted by Netta Ahituv on January 28, 2023 “We have lost what is most precious to us. From my point of view, democracy is also a worthy cause to die for. We will not live in a dictatorship, period. Safeguarding democracy is as important as safeguarding the country’s borders. It’s even more important than physical borders, because it’s our spirit, our soul. I see this struggle as parallel to our war against outside enemies…”

“These are domestic enemies,” he continues, “and they are no less serious a threat than any other enemy. The prices that I am paying because of my decision to struggle pales in the face of my obligation to do battle against this overthrow of our system.” Himi says that he has been on the receiving end of many telephone death threats, and also that he has lost clients because of his activism.

“I expect all of them to understand that this war is the most important we’ve had in the country’s 75 years of existence, and therefore I call on all of them to join.”

Himi, 63, was one of the first public personalities to foresee what is currently taking place. Since 2019, when he became the president of the bar association, the professional guild representing the country’s attorneys, he has been shouting from every platform at his disposal his opposition to what he sees as the crazed idea of weakening the courts, when that notion was still only a threatening theory.

We Americans need to wake up and smell the coffee… We need to see in Israel’s reality a mirror of what our society might look like if in 2024 we don’t defeat the extremism, divisiveness, hatred, racism and bigotry that the extreme Radical Right – that has hijacked the GOP — is bringing to the table; which’s nothing less than the destruction of our democratic values and democratic institutions…