Living in a fear society

Once again, we are hearing a deafening silence from the media and Israel's political left regarding the anti-democratic assaults on civil rights which have arisen since President Bush arrived in Israel yesterday.

This silence is apparently because the right of peaceful assembly/demonstration has only been suspended for those on the political right.

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PM Olmert has made public statements that Israelis are ready to make serious concessions in order to arrive at a final status agreement with the Palestinians. Yet every poll conducted to date has indicated that the overwhelming majority of Israelis are against dividing Jerusalem, and that a more modest majority hold an unfavorable view of any discussion of territorial concessions before a full cessation of terror activities (e/g/ rocket, mortar, shooting, Molotov cocktail and stone attacks on Israelis) is enforced.

It is clear to me that the only way Olmert can claim to have a mandate borne of national consensus is to illegally quash all public debate that opposes his views.

I have long defended the rights of groups like 'Women in Black' to protest 'the occupation' and have been pleased to see that their weekly demonstrations are not disrupted by police. So why is it that when anti-democratic, heavy-handed tactics are employed to stifle dissent from the Israeli right, the media and the Israeli left suddenly go deaf, blind and mute?

Are we really going to see the media and the left give their tacit approval to near-dictatorial abuse just as they did during disengagement? Didn't we learn anything from that dark period??? Doesn't anyone care the Israel doesn't come close to passing Natan Sharansky's famous 'Town Square Test'?