People used to repression obey all the way to death. diaspora Jews and long-suffering Russians obediently lined up for Nazi massacres. Students of the Holocaust are shocked by images of people lined up single file so several could be shot with one bullet. What made them do that? We’re not used to repression and cannot comprehend why the people of Babi Yar waited three days while the Nazis took them by tens to shoot them - and did not rebel and at least die decently without being raped and mutilated by the Germans and their Ukrainian coadjutors. Because we’re not used to repression. Or are we?

Israel is a totalitarian state by every measure. Specifically, it is a smart totalitarian state. Not like the stupid Soviets who prohibited all but one party but closer to the German Democratic Republic which retained the façade of pluralism. Major Israeli parties, whether masquerading left or right, seek to create an atheist, ethnic-blind, ghetto-sized state. In fact, the so-called rightist governments ceded most of Israel: Sinai and then Gaza. The Left and the Right accept huge numbers of Arabs into the Israeli core, certain to become the majority. All major parties accept a second Palestinian state (beside Jordan) in the Jewish lands of Judea and Samaria. Alternative views are thoroughly suppressed: the legislature bans discussion of non-violent (at any rate, not murderous) transfer of Arabs; the government ostracizes entrepreneurs who sponsor honest grassroots movements; the government-controlled media and the police all cooperate.

Israel is the only civilized country that censors political opinions of her citizens, including any discussion of the ethnic roots of terrorism, the demographic problem of Arabs in Israel, and removing Arabs to a Palestinian state. In the USSR, newspapers were fairly free: they could express opinions about books or theater; so can the Israeli press. The test is media freedom to express political views, which in Israel is practically prohibited. No major media outlet can run an article on whether a Jewish state can include an Arab majority.

Israel has developed an immensely powerful police apparatus. Its original goal was to fight terror, and it did very well. No one cared about the hordes of informants, detention without charge, or torture in jails to fight terror. The Israeli police have long operated outside that mandate to infiltrate and disrupt Jewish political organizations. Terrorists work by violence; political parties may advocate violent goals but they work through democratic process. Kahane and Feiglin created political parties not to kill Arabs but to win elections. They posed no immediate danger which is a usual prerequisite for abrogating political freedoms. Yet the police devastated those and many other purely political movements.