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Lieberman and the Contradictions of Ethnic Nationalism

It’s the last day before the Israeli elections, and there seems to be widespread agreement that Yisrael Beiteinu party chairman Avigdor Lieberman is going to win big – perhaps as much as 19-20 seats. They’ve already pulled ahead of the … Read More

By / February 10, 2009

It’s the last day before the Israeli elections, and there seems to be widespread agreement that Yisrael Beiteinu party chairman Avigdor Lieberman is going to win big – perhaps as much as 19-20 seats. They’ve already pulled ahead of the Labor party and by now it’s virtually a foregone conclusion that Lieberman will emerge from these elections with considerable political influence.

It’s also fair to say that those of us who cherish the values of liberal democracy are recoiling at the prospect of a politically ascendant Avigdor Lieberman, whose most notorious campaign promise is a requirement for all Arab citizens of Israel to sign a loyalty oath to the Jewish state:

(Lieberman’s) loyalty oath would require all Israelis to vow allegiance to Israel as a Jewish, democratic state, to accept its symbols, flag and anthem, and to commit to military service or some alternative service. Those who declined to sign such a pledge would be permitted to live here as residents but not as voting citizens.

Currently Israeli Arabs, who constitute 15 percent to 20 percent of the population, are excused from national service. Many would like to shift Israel’s identify from that of a Jewish state to one that is defined by all its citizens, arguing that only then would they feel fully equal.

Mr. Lieberman says that there is no room for such a move and that those who fail to grasp the centrality of Jewish identity to Israel have no real place in it.

These are disturbing ideas to be sure, and it’s even more troubling that they seem to finding traction with increasing numbers of the Israeli electorate.

And yet…

…and yet in the wee hours of the night, I just can’t shake the nagging feeling that the real reason Lieberman makes us squirm is that he shines a bright light on the logical contradictions of political Zionism: an ethnic nationalist movement that has always sought to create a Jewish state in a land that also happens to be populated by millions of non-Jewish inhabitants.

Take, for example, Israel’s Declaration of Independence, which refers specifically to Israel as a "Jewish state" committed to the "ingathering of the exiles" but also promises complete equality of political and social rights for all its citizens, irrespective of race, religion, or sex.  Therein lies the tension: the first principle emphasizes the creation of a state that privileges the Jewish people and the latter promises equal rights for all its citizens.

I don’t say this easily: I’m not sure this is a nut that Israel will ever fully be able to crack.  It is indeed notable that Israel has repeatedly tried and failed to create a constitution that legally guarantees equality for all citizens of this exclusively Jewish state. In the meantime, Israel’s Arab citizens suffer from what we Americans would consider significant institutional discrimination with only limited recourse to the rule of law.

So as a nice liberal American Jew fully prepared to voice my outrage at Lieberman’s likely Tuesday morning success, here are some questions I feel compelled to ponder:

– As proud citizens and beneficiaries of a secular multi-cultural nation, are we ready to face the deeper implications of Israel’s ethnic nationalism?

– Will it ever truly be possible, in a country defined as exclusively Jewish, for its Arab citizens to be considered as anything but second class citizens (or at worst, traitors)?

– If  it does indeed come down to a choice between a Jewish or a democratic state, which will we ultimately support?

I’d love to hear your responses…

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  • Disco_Stu

    It seems like two issues are being conflated here. One, the success of Yisrael Beiteinu in yesterday’s election, and two, whether Israel has the right to call itself a Western democracy. Indeed, if you’re an idealistic person, Yisrael Beiteinu’s success must come as a blow. But, based on my reading of the situation this is nothing new for Israel. Humanists, secularists, leftists, moderates of all sorts have been alarmed by the rise and rise of the Israeli right since Begin and all throughout the 80s until the Rabin led Labor victory of 1992. 

    For me the days of heavy heartedness did not begin with Avigdor Lieberman’s high poll numbers, but sometime in late 2000, when I saw eight years of Oslo get flushed down the toilet in a fit of pique (as I see it) by the Palestinians and their supporters. I remember how right wing Israel felt to me when I was there 1989-92, and how I never thought I’d see an electorate ready to even discuss major territorial compromise and Palestinian sovereignty. 

    So, during the ups and downs of the peace process in the 90s, long as a critical mass of Israelis was still willing to make major compromises, I remained cautiously optimistic. But when I saw the speed with which the Palestinians and their supporters were able to so readily revert to the jargon and mindset of ‘Death to the Jewish Nazi illegal state of Israel’, that’s when I grew despondent. I knew how hard it was to muster a critical mass of Israeli support for two-state dialogue with the PLO in the first place, and I knew that once the Palestinian Intifada II ran out of steam, it would be that much harder to build trust amongst the Israeli electorate again.

    And here we are.

    It’s easy for us to forget that Israel is at war and always has been. When there was a thaw in Israeli/Arab and Israeli/world relations in the Oslo years, we saw an increase on the Israeli side of what we Western liberal types consider positive characteristics: an interest in betterment of rights for Israeli Arabs and an interest in curbing religious authority in everyday Israeli life. 

    But when democracies are at war, civil liberties take a back seat to other priorities. And sadly, despite the goodwill exhibited by Israel in the 90s, Israel is now more than ever in an existential war. The reward Israel reaped for taking a chance and discussing a two state solution is that now the debate in progressive circles has shifted from whether or not Israel should be compelled to concede its rule in the territories to whether or not Israel as a Jewish majority state in pre-67 boundaries deserves to exist. 

    Given all that, and given that Israel had to pay a considerably higher cost in blood this time around (post Oslo) to reoccupy territories it had voluntarily left a few years before, it’s likely that Israelis will be as intransigent as ever, and even less willing to listen to well intentioned, kind hearted outsiders. And while it’s easy enough to criticize the far right in Israel on this particular day, what about the left? If you look at the last ten years, you will see that Israelis are increasingly sick of their left wing. Recently a Gush Shalom leader wrote a letter of gloating over the fact that certain IDF officers are being investigated for war crimes by a Spanish judge stemming from a 2002 incident in which Israel used a one ton bomb to take out a Hamas leader and ended up killing about 13 other family members with him. In 2002, Israel was facing its deadliest barrage of terror ever, its civilians were targeted almost daily by suicide bombers. While certainly the decision to use such a big bomb is something that can be investigated, the idea that a foreign entity is going to single out one player in this war and try him (them) for war crimes is preposterous. Yet the Gush Shalom spokesman (his name escapes me at the moment) was gloating, expressing vindication at being slighted by the right wing establishment in previous years. He was putting personal pride above national interest. Point being, the far left in Israel is hardly a paragon of virtue either. 

     

    So what does all this mean? Lieberman and his rise are indeed alarming. But Israel has elected substandard demagogues for quite a while now. The Knesset has long been a case study in dysfunctionality.  Opportunistic loudmouths are generally rewarded by the electorate. Look at Sharon. Yet, once Sharon was PM and didn’t have anyone else’s job to covet, he actually became a very effective, realistic leader, whose untimely demise is reflected in the current post-Sharon morass. Lieberman is no Sharon from what I can tell. Israeli right wing demagogues have been overly influential for at least 25 years though. Lieberman is just more of the same rather than something new and dangerous. And yes, for conscientious, ecumenicalist Jewish Americans, it is distressing. But, I would say this isn’t a signal to jump the Zionist ship or throw the baby out with the bath water. It’s important to remember that what we consider the proper thing to do–divide the land contested over by two warring peoples into two states with convoluted and even noncontiguous borders–is clearly the exception and not the rule. Show me one existing successful state that has come about from such a compromise rather than a war of conquest and unconditional surrender. So, for those of us who want to assuage our Western consciences–torn as it is by the desire to right the centuries old Western sins of antisemitism and colonialism–by giving the Jews a state AND allow the Arab world to live without Western "colonialist" occupation, we should understand that we’re in for a long haul, and there will be many, many disappointments along the way.

    As for the Jewish ethics aspect, it’s so easy to elevate the centrality of morality when you’re powerless. And that in a nutshell is the Diaspora experience. But power means making compromises with morality. That’s a constraint all the Talmudic ga’onim over the millenia of Diaspora never had to consider. They turned weakness into a virtue, bless ‘em. (And strangely enough, now that the formerly mighty nations of Western Europe are essentially defeated, occupied NATO vassals, they’ve discovered the virtues of ‘moral politics’ rather than power politics as well). 

    Unfortunately, the gap between morality and reality might continue to widen. It’s up to the individual to decide whether or not to give up on Israel due to its moral shortcomings. I take the position that making weakness into a virtue is making lemonade out of lemons. But there’s no way I’m ready to uproot Israel simply because I’m used to the taste of lemonade.  If Lieberman’s ugly nationalism had arisen against a backdrop of Middle Eastern peace and tolerance, it might be time to reappraise Israel’s essential democratic values, but since he didn’t, it’s far too premature to think of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

     (BTW Brant, I think I went to high school with your younger brother…small world) 

  • Isaac

    I think your question is an interesting one, and one that’s, of course, worth addressing. But to discuss it rationally requires you to look at more laws than just those which privilege Jewish immigration. Most states where one ethnic group dominates (which is the vast majority of them, and no less so among liberal democracies) specifically welcome immigration by that group, while still working to make sure that other groups are made to feel as much like fully integrated members of society when it comes to citizenship generally. To focus on immigration misses the point. The point is to reduce the problem of sectarian tension among citizens, regardless of their ancestry and where they originated from.

    Every country has the right to be as specific as it wants with its immigration laws, and I suspect that countries which have made it their purpose to welcome widescale immigration from everywhere are the exception rather than the norm.

    There is much that Israel can do to focus on achieving a better sense of integration and political participation among its citizens, whether Arab, Jewish or whatever, and that is where its efforts are best focused.