Ranking System for Israeli Parties and Groups

Two weeks ago, I carried out my (now infamous) ranking experiment for Palestinian organizations in Palestine and pro-Palestinian groups in the U.S. So many of you hated it! Ah well, I'm still editor here, and MY BOSS said he liked it. So there.

Now it's time for balance. Did my system oversimplify Palestinian politics? Let's do it to the Zionist entity and her supporters! Here's how we play. We use three criteria (support for violent and coercive methods against Palestinians, support for a Palestinian state, and commitment to traditional Zionist ideology) and than rank different groups with a score of 1-5. It's not a rank of good vs. bad, just a rank of how sympathetic any given view is towards the mainstream Palestinian agenda. The middle rank, '3' is supposed to be where the broad middle of the Israeli public is right now.

If you have corrections to offer or critiques of specific judgments I've made - please do make them in the comments section. If you just want to say that this sucks, it's likely I'll delete your unhelpful comment.

Today we will describe the first critera - violence/coercion. It's like this: a low score means you are sympatthetic with the Palestinian narrative, and wish to arrive at a peaceful solution that accomodates those views. A high score means you completely reject the Palestinian narrative, and wish to use violence and coercive measures to force them to go along with an Israeli solution that serves Jewish interests.

1. Pacifistic, or believe that the Palestinian cause is essentially just, while Israel defensive measures are actually offensive, as they take place as part of an effort to preserve the (unjust) status quo.
2. Oppose all human rights violations - house demolitions, targeted assassinations, bombings and missiles that kill civilians, administrative detention. At the same time, terror must still be fought, as some extremists need to be vanquished, not compromised with. Believe that reducing human rights violations and vigorous peace making is probably the best way to defeat the extremists who use terror.
3. Support a vigorous military response to Palestinian armed resistance, which they believe is fundamentally unjust. Accept many - but not all - instances of human rights violations as both necessary, and the fault of the Palestinians.
4. Think that the current military response isn't harsh enough. Support more collective punishment of the Palestinian people to "show them" that terror won't yield dividends.
5. Support massive use of collective punishment up to and including exiling large numbers of Palestinians, destroying villages if it can be shown that terrorists used them as a base of operations. Includes those who favor expelling Palestinians in general, as well as those willing to tolerate a completely subservient Palestinian population as 2nd class residents.

here are some examples of Israeli groups and what rank they might have:

1. Alternative Information Center, Hadash, Israeli Coalition Against House Demolitions, Zochrot
2. Peace Now, Meretz, Haaretz editorial board
3. Kadima, most of Labor, Likud (although Likud often pretends to be more right wing than it really is), and senior military brass
4. The religious nationalist camp (NRP, Shas, etc.), most settlers, the Russian parties
5. Kahanist groups, hilltop youth and other extreme settlers (like the ones assualting soldiers in Hebron), supporters of Rabin assassin Yigal Amir

There we have it. If you want to compare this system - here is the link to the summary of the Palestinian ranking project. Enjoy.