This is the fourth article in a 5-part series on Middle East peace running this week. For the first three articles, on Obama's new style in the Middle East, the Arab role in making peace, and getting Israel's message across, click here, here, and here.
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In the modern era, Jewish sovereignty over the land of our ancestors is a relatively short phenomenon. From the time of the successful Maccabean revolt to the Roman annexation in 63 BC constitutes about 100 years of Jewish rule. Combined with Israel's independence in 1948, this is about 160 years of effective sovereignty. The rest of Jewish history for the past two-thousands years has been one of statelessness and Diaspora. Jewish sovereignty and governance over our ancestral home are, I believe, important goals that every Jew ought to support. But as one prominent Jewish intellectual recently said to me when making this point, "We have to get it right."
While there are many beautiful and commendable facets to present-day Israel, one thing I believe the state is getting wrong is in the style and substance of its domestic political system. Put simply, Israel can't deal with either its pressing internal problems or its existential external issues without an effective democracy. Sadly, the current fractured governing system just doesn't reflect the views of the majority of Israelis.
The principles governing Western democracies, of which Israel rightly considers itself a part, are based on the assurance that everyone has a vote, but also that the minority needs to yield to the wishes of the majority. The protection of minority rights, both Jewish and non-Jewish, should be absolute, but not at the expense of the overall, common good.
Henry Robert's authoritative Rules of Order for any democratic organization explains this principle well: "The great lesson for democracies to learn is for the majority to give the minority a full, free opportunity to present their side of the case, and then for the minority, having failed to win a majority to their views, gracefully to submit and to recognize the action as that of the entire organization, and cheerfully assist in carrying it out, until they can secure its repeal."
These principles are what differentiate - or should differentiate - Israel from its authoritarian Middle Eastern neighbors, where there are neither minority rights nor even majority democratic representation.
There are no easy solutions for Israel's own governance problems. However, certain key reforms should be considered. First among these are what my friend, Itamar Rabinovich, the former Israeli Ambassador to the US, calls "the separation of church and politics." Israel should always be a Jewish state and the Jewish national home, but in politics, liberal democratic beliefs have to take precedence, not religious faith.
In recent months we have seen the opposite taking place in Israel. Just this past June, thousands of Haredi Jews violently protested against an Israeli Supreme Court ruling in favor of the integration of religious schools. Girls clearly ought to have the right to an education, the same as boys. This incident was only the most recent, however, as in the months prior there were a number of cases where the Haredi community took to the streets in fierce protest against legitimate government decisions. It has to be said that these protests are directed at a state and a governing system which lavishes the Haredi community with massive subsidies; in return they give back not one iota in the form of either national service or economic productivity.
Moreover, the chokehold of the Orthodox chief rabbinate on Judaism in Israel has not only succeeded in alienating the vast majority of secular and liberal Israeli Jews, but it has now begun targeting the Jewish Diaspora as well. The recently proposed conversion bill in the Knesset which would have given the chief rabbinate and the Orthodox community authority over all Jewish conversions, was, quite frankly, insulting to the overwhelming majority of Jews worldwide who are Conservative, Reform or even secular. Allowing Orthodox rabbis in Israel to decide the age-old question of "Who is a Jew" has the potential to permanently divide the Jewish people. The bill was thankfully delayed - it should be killed - but the Israeli government would do well to take into account the wishes of the vast majority on this important issue.
The religious Zionist settler movement, too, plays an outsized role in Israel's domestic politics relative to its numbers. With its messianic obsession with the land and the goal of a Greater Israel, this small constituency makes a negotiated solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict impossible. Relations with the United States, Israel's most important strategic ally, inevitably suffer as a result.
Reforms that would go a long way in resolving the above contradictions have to include the adoption of a constitution and changes to the electoral system. A constitution needs to enshrine the very definitions of the state - Jewish, democratic, and liberal. Although drafting such a document would be difficult, I believe the benefits would be great - at the very least, a proper constitution would effectively place limits on the extremists in the Knesset who raise legislation like the conversion bill mentioned above.
Additionally, the electoral system needs to generate greater stability, which means minimizing the splintering of votes to the smaller, parochial parties. The way to do this would be to allow the head of the largest vote-getting party to become prime minister without a vote of confidence. This would incentivize voters to choose the bigger parties representing the broader national interest, and not the fringe parties with their particularist agendas.
It will ultimately be up to Israelis themselves to decide on the best way forward for their own country. However, for all those who care deeply about the security and well-being of the Jewish state, as I do, it is clear that the present political system is not working. Simply put, Israel's own politics are hindering it from the crucial steps it needs to take for its own survival. Jewish sovereignty in the land of our ancestors has been tried in the past, with varying degrees of success. Just as much as foreign invasion, these past tries were brought down by a corrosive and ineffective internal politics. We have to get it right this time.
Mira Sucharov: Dilemmas of a Diaspora Peace Marcher
Chaviva Galatz: Jewish Identity (Un)defined at the 2011 Israeli Presidential Conference
Carlo Strenger: Orthodox Anti-Semitism Directed at Israel's Liberals
that is until he started to disagree with them..... pulled his funding..... started some silly publication called something like "art and truth".
"heeb" drove the reactionary publication into the ground and went on for 8 years.
israel can be as proud of THAT tendency in them??
pride goeth before the fall.....
and the behavior of israel is not even close to democratic..........
the billionaires spreading delusion and multiplying the 3 billion official us dollars into countless more
all to disenfranchise those who were there in the firstplace
SHANDA DOESNT COVER IT.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a243f926-9ff6-11df-8cc5-00144feabdc0.html
If your criterion is two extra Jews to offset one extra non-Jew, I guess your right.
But there is a little bit more to it than that.
Will the author continue to believe this when Jews are a minority in "Greater Israel"? I doubt it.
Also, with only 160 years of soverignty why should people of the Jewish faith receive extraordinary land rights over people who have lived there for thousands of years and are not of the Jewish faith?
Is this fair and just?
and its the reason they are starving and poisoning the "gazans" (read original landholders).
if they didnt, they would be voted out of existence...... the nastier they become the more they guarantee it......
revolutionaries will out live and outlast occupiers every day
So what other claim may be valid? The UN authorized the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, not because of any biblical promise, but as a sanctuary from European anti-Semitism following the unprecedented tragedy of the Nazi Holocaust after WW2. But in so doing, the rights of the indigenous people of Palestine were ignored and they, the indigenous Arabs who had inhabited Palestine continuously for over one thousand years, were either slaughtered by terrorist gangs or were induced to flee their homes and businesses.
Those injustices and the consequent killing of hundreds of civilians over the past 60 years, are what makes Israeli government policies invalid - plus, of course, the endemic corruption.
The UN authorized an Arab state and that was rejected by the Arabs. They chose to reject an Arab state. No one rejected it for them.
You focus on slaughter of Arabs, but conveniently ignore the slaughter of Jews. Perhaps you have heard of the 1920 Palestine riots, the 1921 Jaffa riots, the 1929 Hebron massacre, the 1929 Safed massacre, the 1938 Tiberias massacre?
As for nk5, you didnt read my post, did you? I didnt question who is a Jew. You did. I questioned the claim of Israel to the land of Palestine.
A power sharing constitution would theoretically solve a lot of problems, or at least put them in a Parliamentary context. That is probably the best way forward.
We are all tired of Netanyahu, Peres, etc.... On the Palestinaina side, Abbas, come on get real. I dont want to be accused of age discrimination, but these elder statesmen have failed beyond misreably. On the Arab side the only reason they are in power is the lack of democracy. On the Isreali side, well they know how to play the "we are in mortal danger, elect me to protect you. Our enemies are everywhere..."
As long as these tired hands are in office you can forget about peace. The only question is who will self distruct first
Come again ?
You became a majority by self-proclamation - thru confiscation of lands and rights of the indigenous non-Jewish populations.
Shamefully, the practice continues to this day despite UN Resolutions to the contrary and despite opposition from every US President since 1967.
Israel gave up the Sinai and Gaza, but the land retained as a part of Israel is important to our security. There is no compelling reason for us to give up land that was not a part of an independent Arba nation.
http://www.kibush.co.il/show_file.asp?num=553
Prime Minister Menachem Begin, Minister without portfolio in Eshkol's cabinet, while addressing Israel's National Defence College on 8 August 1982: "In June, 1967, we again had a choice. The Egyptian army concentrations in the Sinai did not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him." (New York Times, 21 August 1982)
- George Orwell
This is a major problem for Isreal as it is for the United States as well. How can one correct a problem when those with the authority to do so don't perceive a problem? This dynamic is clear in the comments of the Israel apologists who often comment here. Isreal is the good democracy and the Palistinians are terrorists. End of discussion. Any criticism of Israel is branded anti-semitic. It's always easier to scapegoat than to look in the mirror.
Will the zionist apartheid Israeli regime have the same luck ?
not only is it a theocracy, it is a theocratic fiat.... one that routinely DISENFRANCHISES anybody they know wont vote in favor of a zionistic agenda.
I guess that is because when you see how the non-Jewish minority is being treated, it becomes a lot harder to make the statement "Western democracies, of which Israel rightly considers itself a part" when you have detailed longstanding institutionalised discrimination on the basis or religious-ethnic origin, and how things are getting worse.
That doesn't happen to Jews, even if they just got off the plane from another country.
Which is what I'm pointing out, and offering a possible explanation for.
If the writer wants to clarify why he left such a major part of the picture out of the article, he can.
In today's world, the minority does not "gracefully submit," and the majority does not give a hoot about the minority or the other and certainly not one with darker skin.
In the USA the Constitution expressly seeks to guard against "the Tyranny of the Majority,"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x60683
Admittedly, "Israel does not have a written constitution, even though according to the Proclamation of Independence a constituent assembly should have prepared a constitution by October 1, 1948." Jewish Virtual Library.
Israel is constantly stirring up it's neighours. The six deaths on the Lebanon/Israeli border is a perfect example. Israel constantly does low level fighter flights over Syria, Lebanon and Jordan. Israel constantly believes it is threatened or perceieved to be threatened. Antongizing your neighbours doesnt help Israeli cause for living peacefully.
The Orthodox Jews have four oor more kids to secluar Jewsih population with two kids. That's about the same stat in most industrialized Western nations. They research the Talmud, dont serve in the army and make babies while living off the welfare of the state. Part of the 7 million dollars a day Israel recieves from the US so this sect of Jewish society gains more political control. The way things are going, Israel may look more like a theocratic state like Iran as time continues.
If Israel treated Palestinians equally then second class citizens then that would certainily cause more peace in the region. But Israel is for Jews Only.
Sure, as any living organism/system Israel society has its high and low points. But this is like a marriage, when you love a person accepting her entirely. As in marriage someone get divorce like a few Jews here and around towards Israel who then find different company.