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Witch hunt against Israel's war critics

AFP, Jerusalem
In Israel, dissent against the war in Gaza is bitterly quashed. The few who speak out complain of being harassed, intimidated or even sacked. The once mighty left has disappeared.
It has been Israel's deadliest conflict in years. More than 1,960 Palestinians were killed and 64 Israeli soldiers died fighting what some see as an unwinnable war.
Liberal newspaper Haaretz decried yesterday what it called a "witch hunt” against leftists and civil rights organisations after the director of the national service administration, Sar-Shalom Jerbi, told rights group B'Tselem it was being blacklisted as an employer.
He accused B'Tselem of disseminating lies and slander, endangering the state and publishing information that encourages Israel's enemies and leads to violent anti-Semitic acts against Jews around the world.
The rights group denounced the move as an attack on Israeli democracy, and asked supporters to sign an online petition to support freedom of expression and democracy.
Yizhar Beer of the Keshev Centre for the Protection of Democracy in Israel says it has never been more difficult to voice dis-
sent in a country which prides itself on being the only democracy in the Middle East.
Israeli public opinion has overwhelmingly supported the war. A poll carried out by The Israel Democracy Institute last month said 95 percent of Israeli Jews believed the offensive was just.
In a country with compulsory national conscription, almost everybody has a friend or relative in the army.
The few who have spoken out of line have been threatened or denounced as traitors.
After Haaretz commentator Gideon Levy accused air force pilots of perpetrating "the cruelest (and) most despicable deeds" against Gaza's weakest and most helpless," his employer hired him bodyguards.
Readers cancelled their subscriptions, people stopped in the street to insult him and government whip Yariv Levin denounced him as a liar, a “mouthpiece of the enemy" who should be put on trial for treason.
Some Israelis who criticised the offensive, even on private Facebook pages, complained of being ostracised.
An Arab Israeli nurse was briefly suspended then reinstated. Other Arab Israelis also complained of being sacked.