Jewish Civilizationism in Israel

 My article "Jewish Civilizationism in Israel: A Unique Phenomenon" as published in Religions journal in February 2023.

Abstract:

Populism and civilizationism have transformed the politics of many countries. Many scholars consider them the biggest challenges to democracy since the rise of fascism and communism in the first half of the last century. The close affinity between populism, civilizationism, and rightwing politics has also been analyzed and recognized in many countries from Turkey to India to the US. However, there are three areas that distinguish the appearance of civilizationism in Israel. First, in contrast to many other countries, civilizationism in Israel is not a new phenomenon. It has been an essential part of Israeli nationalism or Zionism since the early 20th century. Second, unlike many countries, Jewish civilizationism in Israel is an article of faith for all major Israeli political parties. It is not a slogan raised only by the rightwing, conservative part of the political spectrum. Finally, one observes an affinity between civilizationism and populism. Civilizational rhetoric is the mainstay of populist leaders, such as Trump, Erdogan, etc. In Israel, populism and civilizationism have no special relationship as civilizationism is mainstream politics. All politicians, populists and non-populists, have to pay homage to Jewish civilizationism; otherwise, they will not succeed. This paper analyzes the Israeli founding fathers’ statements, the Declaration of Independence, Israeli state symbols, the revival of the Hebrew language, the Law of Return, the first debate in the Knesset, and the more recent Nation-State Law to demonstrate how Jewish civilizationism is old, mainstream, and not exclusively populist.

Article

Recent years have seen a rise in civilizational rhetoric in several democratic societies across different continents. In April 2022, Turkish President Erdogan inaugurated the Islamic Civilizations Museum in Istanbul to showcase the versatility and superiority of Islamic civilization (Daily Sabah 2022). In November 2022, Jordan Bardella won the presidential election of the rightwing National Rally party, replacing Marine Le Pen, promising to defend French civilization (Associated Press 2022). In December 2022, Modi said, “India was the most refined idea of human civilisation, the most natural voice of humanity” (The Statesman 2022). While the focus of nationalism is territorial, the civilizational rhetoric prioritizes defending or saving a civilization based on religion, not a state. The state is considered a single manifestation of civilization that spans many territories and millennia. Both rightwing and leftwing populist leaders have used this rhetoric to win voters and elections by denouncing liberalism and established mainstream parties. For instance, in Europe, numerous rightwing populist European parties and leaders have fought and won elections based on the argument that Christian civilization or Judeo-Christian civilization and traditions are under threat from Islam, Muslims, and other refugees that do not belong to the White Christian civilization (Yilmaz and Morieson 2021; Ozzano and Bolzonar 2020; Brubaker 2016; Kaya and Tecmen 2019; Marchetti et al. 2022).

Yilmaz and Morieson (2022) have identified civilizationism as another thick ideology that populism, a thin ideology, attaches to itself to give itself a solid defensible argument. They define civilizationism in the following way:

Civilizationism is an idea which posits that the world and its peoples can be divided into several ‘civilizations’, most of them defined by religion. Adhered to populism, civilizationism defines self and other not primarily in national terms, but civilizational terms...

This article focuses on Jewish civilizationism in the state of Israel. Three aspects distinguish Israel from most other countries where civilizational rhetoric and politics have been successful. First, in most of the other countries, such as in the United States, Turkey, India, and Poland, civilizationism, linked with religion, was until a few decades ago a fringe phenomenon (Saleem 2023). Scholars link it primarily to the 21st century. This might be the case for other countries but, as this chapter will show, Israeli civilizationism is mainstream and as old as the Israeli state, if not older. Israeli nationalism or Zionism is based on Jewish civilizationism. From the First Zionist Congress in 1897 to the Nation-State Law passed in 2018, Jewish civilizationism has monopolized Israeli nationalism and defeated attempts by many Israeli scholars and leaders to make Israel a state honoring the histories and lives of all its citizens equally.

Second, in numerous countries, civilizationism is closely associated with rightwing nationalism and populism. It is the rightwing parties and movements that have raised the flag of civilizationism, and they are its key torch bearers. Whether it is the Republican Party in the US, the Justice and Development Party in Turkey, or the Bharatiya Janata Party in India, the rightwing conservatives spread religio-civilizational rhetoric and are the most impressed by it. This is not the case in Israel. It was the socialist, broadly secular leftwingers that raised the flag of Jewish civilizationism and created the state of Israel. Even after the creation of Israel, the broadly leftwing parties ruled Israel for thirty years and kept Jewish civilizationism alive.

Finally, when one studies other country cases, one observes an affinity between civilizationism and populism. Civilizational rhetoric is primarily the mainstay of populist leaders. Civilizationism has played a key role in making such leaders win elections and dominate the political arena. Erdogan and Modi, two populist leaders, have used civilizationism to completely change the politics of their countries. Now, even the opposition parties in Turkey and India have to resort to civilizational rhetoric to prove their authenticity. Populist leaders instrumentalize religion and religious identity to create a sense of fear that the national culture and identity are civilizational, and that it is under attack by people from foreign civilizations living not only outside the state but also inside the state. In Israel, this exclusive affinity between populism and civilizationism breaks down. As Jewish civilizationism is not limited to the left wing or right wing, similarly, it is not limited to populist or mainstream politics. Jewish civilizationism is Israeli nationalism as propagated by the state, and rejecting it means rejecting the basis of the state. Therefore, no political party, populist or non-populist, can succeed in Israel without bowing to this altar.

The rest of the article can be read here.

Vaccine for Holocaust survivors living in other countries but not for Arab Israelis & Palestinians living under Israeli occupation?

Israel is planning to provide Coronavirus vaccine shots to Holocaust survivors living anywhere in the world. Israeli Diaspora Affairs Minister Omer Yankelevich on 12th January announced this new policy. Erin Ben-Moshe in her article Israel explores plan to provide free vaccines to Holocaust survivors worldwide reports Yankelevich's statement:

“During this global crisis, we have an opportunity to support Holocaust survivors whose resilience continues to guide and inspire humanity today,” said Yankelevich. “It is our collective obligation to safeguard this treasured yet vulnerable population in the spirit of mutual responsibility.”

“Now is the time for all of us, Jewish institutions and leaders from across the world, to come together in this operation,” she said. “Together, we can ensure that Holocaust survivors are efficiently vaccinated, wherever they live.”

However, Ben-Moshe also informs that there are no definite plans yet on how to manage vaccination of around 130,000 Holocaust survivors outside Israel (around 200,000 are Israelis):

As of now, there is no definite plan to finance and manage the vaccination project, including the involvement of Jewish philanthropic networks. Solutions for other expected hurdles, such as obtaining permits from foreign governments and the purchase of vaccines by the ministry, are also being examined. The statement also notes that vaccines for this initiative will be acquired separately and in addition to Israel’s current supply.

Nathan Jeffay in his The Times of Israel article, Israeli group sparks debate with plans to vaccinate world’s Holocaust survivors, has collated other questions raised about this scheme. The first objection is from the agency that is supposed to distribute the vaccine:

Shalom Corps was set up a few months ago by Israel’s Diaspora Affairs Ministry and the Jewish Agency. While Diaspora Affairs Minister Omer Yankelevich has waxed lyrical about the plan, the Jewish Agency only learned about it through the media, and has not echoed her enthusiasm.

“It’s quite an undertaking,” a Jewish Agency spokeswoman told The Times of Israel on Wednesday. “We weren’t aware of it and haven’t had a chance to properly look into whether it’s feasible.”

Haaretz cited an anonymous source familiar with the Jewish Agency’s reaction saying that officials in the organization were “shocked” and “outraged” when they saw a story on the idea, which they called “abhorrent.”

 

... the source who spoke to Haaretz regarding discussions in the Jewish Agency said it would be “unfeasible, illegal, immoral, diplomatically disastrous and an absolute impossibility” to interfere with the way individual countries distribute vaccines by creating special provision for Jewish Holocaust survivors.

Strict regulations, which vary from country to country, govern medical procedures, and while experts say some do permit private vaccination for select individuals, the plan could run into legal issues in other jurisdictions.

While Israel is planning to vaccinate Holocaust survivors that are citizens of other countries and most of them are most likely vaccinated by their governments in the next few months (most of the Holocaust survivors live in the rich Western countries, which have advanced health systems and already secured large amounts of vaccine doses, and are prioritizing vaccination of their older population, which also includes Holocaust survivors), it has shown far less concern about Palestinians under its occupation or even its own Arab Israeli population:

In the midst of the fanfare surrounding Israel’s vaccine campaign, Palestinian activists and rights groups have criticized Israel for not offering the vaccine to the millions of Palestinians living under occupation in the West Bank and Gaza. 

Under Article 56 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, Israel is required as an occupier to “ensure the adoption and application of the prophylactic and preventive measures necessary to combat the spread of contagious diseases and epidemics” — in this case, the COVID-19 vaccine. 

Israel has deflected such criticisms, saying the obligation to vaccinate Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza lies in the hands of the Palestinian Authority (PA). 

Meanwhile, Israeli leaders insist that they are vaccinating all Israeli citizens, regardless of race or ethnicity, equally and fairly — including the state’s 2 million Palestinian citizens. 

But that just might not be true, human rights advocates have pointed out. 

While Palestinians citizens of Israel qualify, just as Jewish Israelis do, to receive the vaccine and would not be turned back at a clinic simply because they are Palestinian, rights groups are claiming that there are other sinister mechanisms of discrimination at work when it comes to Israel and its distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine. 

Adalah — The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel has slammed Israel’s emergency medical service for failing to provide vital COVID-19 information, including facts relating to the vaccine, available in Arabic. 

The website of Magen David Adom (MDA), the emergency service responsible for informing the Israeli citizenry on everything from COVID-19 guidelines and updates, how and where to get tested, and vital information regarding the vaccine, currently only provides information and updates in Hebrew and English.

This, Adalah says, is unacceptable, and marginalizes millions of Palestinian citizens of Israel, who make up 20% of the population and primarily speak Arabic. 

“In Israel, Magen David Adom is basically the equivalent of the Red Cross,” Adalah attorney Sawsan Zaher told Mondoweiss. “All of the essential information that they provide is not available at all in Arabic.”

Zaher told Mondoweiss that she believes, as someone who has been documenting and fighting against discrimination against Palestinian citizens of Israel for years, the failure to provide vital information regarding COVID-19 and the vaccine in Arabic is “not a coincidence.”

“There is a policy of systematic racial discrimination against Arab citizens in Israel,” Zaher said, and the failure of official bodies like MDA to cater to all citizens is just one small example of that policy. 

Zaher pointed to Israel’s 2018 Nation State Law, which among other provisions declared that only Jews have the right to self-determination, as a template for discrimination against Palestinians “on all levels.”

“Having the Jewish Nation State Basic Law… which stated that Israel is the homeland of the Jewish people, excluded the Palestinian citizenry from the preamble and the definition of who the citizens are,” Zaher said.

“This exclusion is providing constitutional legitimacy to discrimination of Palestinians on all levels,” she said, including, for example, “not providing a very important website in Arabic which is vital.

“Unfortunately this [discrimination] is seen not only on high level policies, but basic policies and decisions like providing information in Arabic or making sure all campaigns on COVID-19 awareness are provided equally in Palestinians and Arab towns,” Zaher said. 

The implications of not having accurate COVID-19 information in Arabic are potentially devastating and far-reaching for Palestinian communities in Israel, where reports have indicated widespread misinformation regarding the virus and the vaccine. 

With no official Arabic-language platforms to educate people on the vaccine and combat existing misinformation, advocates fear that it could lead to significant cases of Palestinians in Israel refusing to get vaccinated, therefore putting the community at greater risk. 

The implications of such discriminatory practices when it comes to the coronavirus, Zaher says, are “a matter of life and death.” (Israel says vaccine equally available to all citizens. But is that really the case?)

Israel: An Ethnocracy or Democracy? Can a Zionist state be a democratic state?

Judaism is a religion, Zionism is a political ideology. As anti-Zionism is increasingly being equated with anti-Semitism, there is a need to analyze these terms in the historical context and how they are being used today. The implications of how these terms are defined are not only limited to Israelis, Palestinians, or people in the Middle East but also to Jewish people living all over the world and their relationship with the majorities in the countries they live in. Richard Silverstein, in his famous blog, Tikun Olam, discusses in detail Zionism, Isreali democracy, BDS, fascism, Holocaust, white supremism links with Judeo-supremism, BLM-Jewish relations, etc. Some excerpts of blog are reproduced below (Entire blog can be accessed Conflating Judaism and Zoinism: Bad New for Jews):

Often arguments over political or religious terms used in everyday discourse are dry or the province purely of zealots.  But these terms can develop a power all their own. Religious or political azealots take them to heart and make life and death decisions based on their interpretation. This is the case regarding  Judaism and Zionism.

Israel’s founding document and sacred text of Zionism, the Declaration of Independence, defined the state as “Jewish” and inextricably tied to the Diaspora, which was anticipated to ensure its future by furnishing much of its immigrant population. Later in 1985, Israel’s Basic Law added the term “democratic,” thus yoking the two words inextricably.

After 1977, and the ascendancy of the far-right Likud and other ultra-nationalist parties, the unresolvable tension between “Jewish” and “democratic” become clear.  They paid lip-service to Israel’s democracy and embraced the supremacy of Israeli Jews.  Passage in 2018 of the nation-state law as a Basic Law enshrined the notion of Judeo-supremacy. It also defined with solemn permanence the subjugation of Palestinian citizens of Israel.But the seeds of Israeli racism were there from the state’s  inception. It was not democratic because it did not offer non-Jewish citizens equal rights.  In fact, Palestinians lived under martial law from 1948-1966.

Israel offered Jewish citizens superior rights, the definition of an ethnocracy.  That is, a nation in which the majority ethnic or religious group enjoys a set of rights which the minority is denied.  This phenomenon was strengthened after 1967, when the settler movement became a de facto form of Judeo-supremacy. Its original focus was on “settling” Jews outside the Green Line in what it called the Greater Land of Israel (i.e. Palestine). But its political ambitions gradually became much more expansive till today, when it maintains a firm grip on virtually all the levers of state power.

Many Diaspora and Israeli Jews shared a liberal Zionist dream of a Jewish democratic state. But we have come to understand that democracy and “Jewishness,” in terms of the Israeli state, cannot be reconciled. They simply cannot coexist.The same is true of Judaism and Zionism. Israel, in the beginning, was a secular state in which the ruling parties endorsed socialism and offered a version of the welfare state. But when Benjamin Netanyahu became finance minister in 2003, he dismantled it with a series of harsh Thatcherite polices. They in turn rendered socialism obsolete.  Even more recently Israel has dropped secularism as well.  A plurality of Jews continue to be secular, but overwhelming political power and social control rests on a system of Judeo-supremacism...

For this reason, it’s critical to distinguish between Judaism as a religion and Zionism as a political ideology.  Israel is a nation, not a religion.  Zionism is a political movement, not a theology. Judaism as a religion is a spiritual expression which eschews, at least in the Diaspora, political power.  Remember Zechariah’s famous dictum: “Not by might, now by power, but by My Spirit says the Lord of Hosts.”

 

Mixing politics and religion poses tremendous danger.  When a conflict lies in the realm of politics it is often possible to arrive at compromise.  It might not be easy, and it may take years.  But political differences can be negotiated and resolved.  Politics are not always rational, but at their best they are.  Conflicting political views can be resolved through rational discussion and analysis.

But once a conflict takes on a religious dimension, compromise becomes almost impossible.  You have moved from the material world to the divine.  A nation which believes that God has sanctified it has assumed a mantle of omnipotence and infallibility.  With God on your side, you are invincible.  Such beliefs have been the cause of immense human suffering over the ages.

Israel’s prevailing religious ultra-nationalism has succeeded in wielding religion as a powerful tool in a political conflict. Just as von Clausewitz said that war was “politics by other means,” so Israel’s political-religious extremists offer warrior Judaism as politics by other means. This is the malady afflicting Israel today. 

 

What is Post Zionism?

Before we define post-Zionism, let's talk a little bit about Zionism. Zionism is Israel’s national ideology. Zionists believe that Jews have a special relationship with Zion, a synonym of Jerusalem in the Bible. Zionists define Zion broadly as the area of the (Mandate) Palestine. They claim that Judaism is not only a religion but also a nationality, so Jews deserve their own state and because of their special two millennia-old connection, Zion should be that state. Zionists discount and disregard the presence and majority of Palestinians in erstwhile Palestine before the creation of Israel. The slogan, "A land without a people for a people without a land" explains the Zionist idea.

If Zionism is about particular -- a particular land for a particular people at a particular time -- post- Zionism concerns universal -- humans coming together after acknowledging their differences and idiosyncrasies. If Zionism is based on denying Palestinians existence, suffering, and exclusion, post- Zionism is known for acknowledging Palestinians' trauma and called for their inclusion. If Zionism is about hegemony, post-Zionism cherishes harmony. If Zionism gave birth to Israel, post-Zionism was, many intellectuals thought, to give it maturity. If Zionism prefers the tribe, post-Zionism promotes trade-offs. If Zionism is about Jews who can fight for their own rights, post-Zionism prioritizes Jews that can fight not only for themselves but also for others. 

Zionism rose to prominence is the 1890s; post-Zionism became a thing, hundred years later, in the 1990s. There is no agreed definition of post-Zionism. Most of its detractors and some of its proponents claim that it is not much different from more than a century old anti-Zionism. However, while anti-Zionists are by-definition against Zionism, many of the post-Zionists are not. A large number of post-Zionists appreciate the necessity of Zionism for bringing Jews together and for creating the state of Israel. What unites most post-Zionists is the belief that Zionism has well past its expiry date. 

While the heydays of the post-Zionist movement were the 1990s and 2000s, its origin can be traced to the late 1960s. For instance, publicist Uri Avnery published a book in 1968 titled Israel without Zionists. Others have associated post-Zionism with the 1940s and 1950s cultural movement of the Mandate Palestine Jews who dreamed of a "Hebrew" nation, a nation that would be composed of Middle Eastern people (both Arabs and Jews), who have rejected their religious (Islamic and Judaic) pasts. Post-Zionism started as an academic movement. Its first proponents were Israeli academics who are usually referred to as “New Historians.” These historians, in the 1980s, used Israeli government declassified documents, interviews, and objective rigorous research to unpack and highlight the massacre and dislocation of the Palestinians before but primarily after the 1948 War. Tom Segev, Ilan Pappé, Benny Morris, and Avi Shlaim were prominent New Historians. Gradually, in the 1990s, these revisionist historians became the pioneers of a much larger movement. However, this movement never became popular. Ordinary Israelis continued to believe in the official nationalist ideology of Zionism.

Source: Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (2006)

Journalist Neri Livneh, who was part of the movement, defined post-Zionism in her Haaretz's article Post-Zionism Only Rings Once (September 20, 2001):

In the wider sense, if the term post-Zionism is meant to describe every attempt to examine the injustices perpetrated by Zionism and to reassess Israel's history from a standpoint that is different from the standard version, all those who are identified in this article as "post-Zionists" will undoubtedly agree to be included in the list. 

But in the narrower, and more precise, sense, post-Zionism is a political attitude that recognizes the legitimacy of Zionism as a national movement of Jews, but specifies a certain date, a kind of watershed, from which point on Zionism concluded its historical role or lost its legitimacy because of injustices it did to others (not only to Arabs but also, for example to Holocaust survivors from Europe, Yiddish speakers, Jews from Arab and Islamic countries, ultra-Orthodox Jews and women). 

This viewpoint also gives rise to a political conclusion, according to which Israel must disengage itself from its Zionist elements, which are the foundation of its Jewish character, because they are preventing it from being a democratic state. In the eyes of its opponents, this conclusion by the post-Zionists places them in a saliently anti-Zionist camp.

Livneh explicates that many scholars, who are identified as post-Zionists rubbish the label. Professors Raz-Karkutzkin and Shenhav do not want to be called post-Zionists, although they were called post-Zionists. Poet, novelist, and essayist Yitzhak Laor self-identified as an anti-Zionist also did not like the term:

"Post-Zionism," says Dr. Amnon Raz-Karkutzkin, from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Be'er Sheva, "is actually a kind of general term that was invented in order to stuff into one basket and denounce everyone who does not identify completely with the establishment, or who has anything critical to say about the way history is taught in Israel, or who see the huge damage that Zionism has done to the Palestinians or the Mizrahim" - referring to Jews whose origins lie in Middle Eastern countries. 

"Post-Zionism is an empty label," asserts Prof. Yehouda Shenhav from Tel Aviv University. "I think we have to stop using the category of `post-Zionism,' because people invoke it confusingly. Not everyone who calls for an end to the occupation is necessarily a post-Zionist. People who want to return to the 1967 lines can be Zionists through and through, because they are convinced that nationhood cannot exist without borders. On the other hand, you could say that the settlers are post-Zionists, because their very existence is harmful to nationhood within clear boundaries." 

"Post-Zionism is a term I abhor," Raz-Karkutzkin states. "I am absolutely not a post-Zionist..." 

"Post-Zionism is a kind of convenient bag into which all kinds of people can be stuffed," he[Laor] says. "On the one hand, it allows anti-Zionists to come out of the closet without calling themselves anti-Zionists, and on the other hand, it allows all the ideological establishment Zionists to throw them all into that bag so they can kick it around."

Professor Uri Ram, in his book Israeli Nationalism: Social conflicts and the politics of knowledge (2011, 118), contends that post-Zionism has a great impact on Israeli academia, art, and culture:

In fact, the post-Zionist critique on what may be called “nationalist epistemology” (or nationalist point of view) is felt today in all disciplines of knowledge and creative arts in Israel (even if not always explicitly under the post-Zionist heading). This is the situation in the field of history, where the “new historians” or “revisionist historians” had a lasting impact on history writing and on historical memory...The presence of post-Zionism in Israeli culture in general and of post-Zionist studies of Israeli society in particular is pervasive and unequivocal.

Ram also identifies many branches of post-Zionism. Feminist post-Zionists, for instance, argue that post-Zionism is about rejecting the nationalistic, militaristic, and masculine traits of Zionism which reinforce each other. Diasporic post-Zionism is more concerned about the effects Zionism on non-Israeli Jews and aims to "de-Israelize" the Jewish diaspora.

For Zionists, there is not much difference between anti-Zionists and post-Zionists. Scholars, such as Shlomo Avineri and Meyrav Wurmser, who ascribe to the official Zionist paradigm, unpack the negative and disastrous agenda of the post-Zionists in the following section:

Avineri notes that post-Zionists contend that Zionism is a colonial phenomenon rather than a national movement in conflict with another national movement over their claim to the same territory. “At the same time,” he says, “those who are careful not to accept the Zionist narrative sometimes accept the Palestinian narrative without question. To them it is clear that there is a Palestinian people, that what happened in 1948 is exactly what the Arabs say happened, and that in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict there is, on the one hand, a Zionist ‘narrative,’ and on the other, ‘facts’ that are precisely identical to the Palestinian narrative.” Avineri calls this “absolute folly...” 

[Wurmser argues] At its essence, post-Zionism holds that the State of Israel is an immoral phenomenon because it was established on the basis of the destruction of another people—the Palestinians. It presents the problem as transcending the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza in 1967; hence, its solution does not lie in a simple Israeli withdrawal from those territories. To the contrary, post-Zionists now tend to disparage left-wing Zionist groups for what they refer to as the “Peace Now Syndrome,” a cherishing of the period before 1967 as flawless while attributing all of Israel's wrongdoing to the 1967 occupation. Post-Zionists are much more radical: from their perspective, the problem has to do with the very existence of Israel. They deem Zionism a colonialist, racist, and evil phenomenon that stole another people’s land by force and continues to oppress them... 

Avineri says that “post-Zionists are simply anti-Zionists” who believe “that there is no Jewish people, that Zionism is an ally of imperialism and that the Palestinian Arabs are victims of Zionist aggression….They do not see Zionism and the State of Israel as a reality that has come to pass, but rather as something that is not legitimate from the outset and that must be eliminated down to its very foundations.” 

Wurmser observes that the intention of post-Zionists “is wholly negative; not to improve Zionism but to destroy it. Post-Zionist writers openly aspire not to create a new Israeli historiography free of all ideological biases, but rather seek to inject an anti-Israel bias into them.” (Zionism: “New Historians” and Post-Zionists)

These views are, of course, rejected by the post-Zionists. They claim to love their country and assert that they are trying to save their country from an impending disaster.  

The Kahol Lavan is not an alternative in Israel

Kahol Lavan, Blue and White party, has projected itself as an alternative to Netanyahu's Likud. It claims it has solutions to Israel's problems but its policies are not much different from Bibi's. Its leadership is less corrupt than Bibi and they may change some social policies here and there but on the key issues of rights of Israeli Arabs and the Palestinian state, they want to continue the failed policies of brutality,  force, status quo, and settlements. This was made obvious once again when the chairman of the Joint (Arab) List, Arab-Israeli parliamentarian Ayman Odeh said in an interview that, on some conditions, he would be willing to join a center-left government, led by the Kahol Lavan. The conditions were as follows:

• "Planning and Construction: Freeze demolition of buildings in privately owned territories, repeal the Kaminitz Law that exacerbated the penalty for building offenses, build an Arab city.
• Violence: Gather weapons from the public, establish anti-crime organizations and an inter-agency team to combat crime.
• Welfare: Construct a public hospital in an Arab city, raise old-age pensions, disburse extra budget for dormitories for battered women.
• Political: Resume negotiations with the "Palestinians", abolish nationality law."

This was a historic shift, something which Kahol Lavan should have considered seriously. They could have negotiated and rejected one or two conditions but its leadership immediately rejected this peaceful overture. 

Gideon Levy in Haaretz takes Kahol Lavan to task on 25th August and appeals Israelis to reject this "nothing" party in the coming elections:

Vote left, vote right, just don’t vote nothing. The nothing of Kahol Lavan isn’t merely nothing, it’s an actively destructive nothing. It suffocates any possibility of providing an alternative and eliminates any hope for change. 

The leaders of this nothing threaten that the next round of warfare in the Gaza Strip will be “the last round” and avoid the most moderate of Israeli Arab leaders as if he were the plague. If that’s the alternative to the right-wing government, then we’re better off with the original. 

It’s true that they are nice and less corrupt, that they would undoubtedly introduce a few changes that would improve the atmosphere in Israel. But they’ve already proven beyond all doubt that whenever a position must be taken not on a populist issue like the need for more hospitals, but rather on a controversial topic such as war and peace, they will always choose a right-wing stance. The daylight between them and Likud when it comes to core issues can be measured in microns. Kahol Lavan will only rush more quickly to lead Israel into another pointless, criminal war.

The disgraceful response of the heads of Kahol Lavan to the statement of Joint List Chairman Ayman Odeh offered definitive proof of their cowardice or their right-wing credentials, and it’s not clear which is worse. It’s safe to assume that the heads of Kahol Lavan seemingly agree with most of Odeh’s theoretical conditions for joining the government; only their fear of being painted in a too-left light pushed them into a response that pushed them to the right of Kahanist party Otzma Yehudit. When Yair Lapid and Gabi Ashkenazi treat Odeh as if he were contagious, their incitement affects centrist voters, not the “hilltop youth” hard-core activist settlers. 

The hollow talk of “the last round” and “the restoration of deterrence” has also proven that the nothing of Kahol Lavan is right and more right. Their next round in Gaza won’t be the last or even the antepenultimate round, because exactly like Likud, all they are offering is force and more force, with a few bones tossed in to assuage the hunger. The rounds of warfare will continue into infinity. The leaders of Kahol Lavan know what is the only solution for the Gaza Strip, but it's something which they don’t have the courage to propose. A few of them killed more than a few people, they have Palestinian blood on their hands; they know where all of that has led in the past, and where it will always lead in the future. 

They also know just how hollow the talk of deterrence is, when desperation is the main driving force. When a young Palestinian man places a bomb at a spring that was robbed from his village, he knows that he is ruining his own life and that of his family — and he is not deterred. And there is nothing that could deter him, apart from hope for a different reality. Pronouncements about deterrence are for cowards and populists, like those of Kahol Lavan. Courageous people would speak about a genuine solution, about lifting the siege on Gaza and ending the occupation of the West Bank. Save for these, there are no solutions. But that’s a few sizes too big for Kahol Lavan. 

Kahol Lavan offers a government of generals. Having spent the majority of their lives in barracks, they know only one language, the language of force, and only two kinds of Arabs, the terrorist and the collaborator. They also know very little about life in Israel. They were too busy with wars and policing. Not one of the three leading generals in Kahol Lavan has broadened his view of the world beyond that. Their clumsy way of speaking only underlines this. The addition of Yair Lapid, the civilian, only detracts from the party: He is the most populist politician in Israel today. “Deterrence you build through force, through a lot of force and through disproportionate force,” the off-brand macho boasted on Friday, sizing up the chances for achieving change in Israel at zero. If the choice is Netanyahu or Ahmad Tibi, then it's Tibi, without hesitation. Bibi or Benny Gantz of Kahol Lavan? Bibi, with hesitation.

A rightwing corporation has taken over Israel

Akiva Eldar argues that a rightwing coalition, led by Prime Minister Netanyahu, has taken over Israel. He contends that this corporation has ignored the interests of the owners of Israel (Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs) and made a small minority, the rightwing settlers and their supporters in Israel, the major beneficiary of Israeli state's largesse. The latest evidence of this takeover is the pledge by PM Netanyahu that 800 million shekels ($226 million) would be spent on upgrading security measures along West Bank roads that are only used by settlers, are not in Israel, and bypass the Arab villages. This pledge is problematic at many levels. Israeli settlements are against international law. These settlements and roads leading to them are an illegal confiscation of the future Palestinian state's lands. Helping settlements will make a two-state solution even more improbable. Furthermore, these roads discriminate against Palestinian Arabs who are not allowed to use them. Finally, the funding discriminates against both Israeli Jews and Arabs as projects to improve their quality of life are put on back burner to support settlers who do not live in Israel. An excerpt from the article is reproduced below (You can read it in full Israeli right’s anti-democratic laws penetrate everywhere)

The accepted definition of a corporation is “a legal entity that is separate and distinct from its owners.” The main goal of the entity headed by Netanyahu is to entrench the rule of the right wing over the entire land of Israel, including the occupied territories. To promote this goal, the corporation is crushing — one by one — the fundamentals of democracy, foremost among them the principle that the citizens of Israel, including its minorities and the guardians of its democracy, are the owners of the corporation.

The takeover of the corporation of the State of Israel is being executed in incremental fashion, using legislation and sanctions, making it a little less democratic, a little more Jewish. The plethora of laws and sanctions make a mockery of Israeli democracy. Viewed separately, each of these initiatives is a yawn; taken together, this accumulation of legislation should make every Israeli lose sleep.
Following are select examples:

• The “loyalty in culture” bill aims to authorize the Ministry of Culture to withhold funding from cultural institutions for other than professional reasons. Regev is conducting a crusade against institutions she deems disloyal to the state and its values by curtailing their funding.

• Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon is working to withdraw the tax exemption of Amnesty International. Israel will thus join the dubious elite club of governments that persecute human rights activists, such as Turkey, Thailand, Russia and Iran.

• Minister of Public Security Gilad Erdan is working to formulate sanctions against entities that call for a boycott of Israel or of settlements.

• Education Minister Naftali Bennett is seeking authorization to ban certain speakers from appearing before school students. Bennett has acted to withhold funding from the play “A Parallel Time” by the Arabic-language Al-Midan Theater and to ban the novel “Borderlife” by Dorit Rabinyan from the literature matriculation exam. He has also suspended funding for organizations dedicated to pluralistic Judaism. At Bennett’s request, professor Asa Kasher has compiled an ethics code for universities, which includes establishing a unit to oversee political activity in academic institutions and prohibits lecturers from expressing political views or calling for an academic boycott of Israel.

• The so-called Expulsion law initiated by the prime minister authorizes Knesset members to oust their peers, risking abuse of power by a political majority against a political minority.

• The so-called Muezzin law limits the use of public address systems in mosques during the early morning hours.

Netanyahu is turning the state prosecutor’s office, the police and the media into punching bags. Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked is conducting an aggressive campaign against the Supreme Court and the separation of powers. Bennett has mobilized the school system for a religious, right-wing brainwashing of the country’s youth. The Knesset and Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit have managed to scuttle some of the more outlandish proposals, such as the “French law” that would have precluded criminal probes of an incumbent prime minister. But the notion that a prime minister is above the law has already become a legitimate issue for discussion.

The Regulation law that enables the theft of Palestinian lands in order to turn them over to Jews — legalizing West Bank outposts constructed on private Palestinian lands — is likely to be struck down by the Supreme Court. However, its invalidation will simply provide Netanyahu with ammunition against the “leftist traitors” who petitioned against the bill. Proposed legislation banning left-wing nonprofits from receiving donations from foreign countries has been blocked, as expected, by pressure from the European Union. Never mind. This is yet another opportunity for Netanyahu to bolster his claims that the Europeans are anti-Semites.

However, the Nationality law dwarfs all other initiatives. The proposed bill is the biggest existential threat to the challenge of coexistence — between the twin founding visions of the state as equally Jewish and democratic.

Source: Latuff's Cartoons

Mr. Eldar's contentions were corroborated by the lavish celebrations to mark the fiftieth anniversary of settlements in September 2017 where Netanyahu not only said that settlements are here to stay but also announced an increase in the construction of houses for settlers:

Israel has hosted a lavish ceremony marking 50 years of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank and Golan Heights. 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed the settlements would never be removed, even though they are illegal under international law.

"There will be no more uprooting of settlements in the land of Israel," he said at the ceremony, held in a settlement in the West Bank, south of Jerusalem.
"It's not the way to make peace."

Reporting from the Palestinian village of Al Kader, Al Jazeera's Harry Fawcett said that "nearly 600,000 settlers live in the occupied West Bank including East Jerusalem." 

On Wednesday, Netanyahu had promised that a further 3,300 settlement units would be approved next month, bringing the total number of settlement units constructed to 7,000 in the year 2017 alone. (See Netanyahu on settlements: 'We're here to stay, forever')

Israel: Marginalization and minoritization continues

As discussed in this blog before, religious nationalist states usually suffer from two predicaments. First, as citizenship is based on religion, religious minorities in the country are de facto second-class citizens i.e. they have fewer rights than those belonging to the state/state-preferred/majority religion. Second, since religion is one of the main sources of laws and regulations, the sectarian differences within the state-preferred religion become political issues and powerful groups within the state-preferred religion try to impose their interpretations on others through the state, giving rise to sectarianism (See Religious Nationalism and Sectarianism). Sectarianism is generally slow at the start as groups outside (i.e. religious minorities) are being tackled but once outside groups are "tamed," the heretics or those who do not subscribe to the mainstream/state-preferred interpretation are targeted. Thus, sectarianism becomes a big issue and minorities are formed within the majority i.e. within the adherents of the state-preferred religion. Over the last seventy years, Pakistanis have seen this process of state marginalization and minoritization happening. Before the separation of Bangladesh, it was primarily the Christians and the Hindus who faced or felt state discrimination but later on, after 1971, in addition to the non-Muslims, groups that called themselves Muslims felt they were being victimized because of their religious beliefs. The Shias, for instance, held their first political demonstration in July 1980 when they marched to Islamabad and laid siege to the federal government offices to protest against the Zakat Ordinance promulgated by the government of General Zia-ul-Haq.

One can see the same processes of marginalization and minoritization currently at play in Israel. Being a religious nationalist state since its formation, Israel is not new to this process. Soon after independence, thousands of Muslim minority members were murdered and forced to flee their homes. No process was adopted to see whether those being killed or made refugees had actually fought against Israeli forces. Then, Law of Return was passed in July 1950 to make Israeli citizenship available to all the Jews in the world while Muslims that had lived in Israel for generations were denied return to their ancestral homes. However, the process of marginalization and minoritization soon progressed from non-Jewish minorities to Jewish minorities. Jews from Arab or Muslim lands, called Mizrahi Jews, faced "scorn and detestation" primarily because they were non-European but also because their religious practices were either considered primitive or not genuinely Jewish. They were considered too influenced by crude and barbaric cultures of the Orient.  Israel's founding father and Prime Minister for first fifteen years, David Ben Gurion (1948-54 and 1955-63)'s quotes below demonstrates the attitude of ruling Ashkenazi (European) Jews towards Mizrahi Jews:

We do not want Israelis to become Arabs. We are bound by duty to fight against the spirit of the Levant that corrupts individuals and society. 

and 

Even the immigrant from North Africa, who looks like a savage, who has never read a book in his life, not even a religious one, and doesn’t even know how to say his prayers, either wittingly or unwittingly has behind him a spiritual heritage of thousands of years…

and

The ancient spirit left the Jews of the East and their role in the Jewish nation receded or disappeared entirely. In the past few hundred of years the Jews of Europe have led the nation, in both quantity and quality. (See The roots of anti-Mizrahi racism in Israel, David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s Segregationist Founder and Post-Zionism and the Sephardi Question for further information about discrimination against Mizrahi Jews in Israel)

Coming back to the present, the Israeli government is furthering the process of marginalization and minoritization of two communities. First, Arab (Muslim) Bedouins are being stripped of their Israeli citizenship. Those who have been citizens for decades are being told to apply for citizenship again:

When Bedouin citizens come to Interior Ministry offices in Be’er Sheva to take care of routine matters such as changing their address, obtaining a birth certificate or registering names, the Population Authority examines their status, as well as that of their parents and grandparents, going back to the early days of the state. In many cases, the clerk tells them that their Israeli citizenship had been granted in error. On the spot, he changes their status from citizen to resident and issues them a new document. People who lose their citizenship are given no explanation and no opportunity to appeal. Instead, the clerk suggests that they submit a request and start the process of obtaining citizenship from scratch, as if they were newcomers to Israel. (See Why Stripping Non-Jews Of Their Israeli Citizenship Threatens Zionism)

Indigenous Arab Bedouins have been discriminated since the establishment of Israel. Their homes and grazing lands were allocated to Jewish settlements and they were forced to settle or to relocate to areas chosen for them by the Israeli authorities. Many of their villages were not recognized as official municipal areas and so were not provided civic amenities and were razed whenever there was need for more Jewish settlements (See European Parliament condemns Israel's policy toward Bedouin population and New Jewish settlements planned 'on top of' Bedouin villages). Cultural appropriation and disappropriation at the hands of Israelis have also been the fate of Bedouins as is the case with the general Palestinian population (See a recent example at Palestinian Bedouin Dress at New York Fashion Week Reveals Stakes of Israeli Cultural Appropriation).

Source: Land grab: Israeli govt backs bill to forcibly relocate up to 40,000 Bedouin villagers

However, the denial of citizenship is a completely new level of discrimination and member of Israeli Parliament Knesset Juma’a Azbarga argues that something sinister (i.e. changing demography) is behind this new policy:

I believe this is part of a process happening beneath the surface...They want to slowly reach a critical mass of citizenship-less people in order to make it easier when they come to transfer us. The name of the game is demography; the Bedouin make up 34 percent of the population in the Negev. In the eyes of the state, that’s a threat.

The state established a network for Bedouin settlement. We are not settlers — we are the natives here. So they put pressure to force the Bedouin to move to areas without infrastructure or sources of income — a forced urbanization and ghettoization of an agrarian society. We have enough land in the Negev for everyone. The Bedouin claim less than six percent of the land as their own, but they want to concentrate us in 1.5 percent of the territory. For the state it is ideology, for us it is a war for survival. (See Is Israel turning its Bedouin citizens into a stateless people?)

Secondly, the Israeli government made a decision in June 2017 which clearly demonstrated (again) that Reform and Conservative Judaism are not considered authentic Jews in Israel. The government suspended the 2016 agreement which would have provided the Reform and Conservative Jews a separate place (a pluralistic prayer pavilion) to pray at the Western Wall (Kotel). Despite the opposition of the ultra-Orthodox rabbis, who currently administer the whole sacred space around the Kotel, the Israeli government decided to treat all branches of Judaism somewhat equally. The agreement was reached after a great effort by both the Israeli government and the Reform and Conservative movements and the Israeli government was proud to take credit for it (for a detailed look at the controversy and the 2016 agreement see Western Wall prayer controversy in Israel). However, due to the pressure of ultra-Orthodox parties, the Israeli government suspended the agreement indefinitely. Rabbi Rick Jacobs, the head of the North American Reform Movement, on hearing the news called it "a very, very dark day" and said, "To hear the government of Israel make a statement today that the rights of non-Orthodox Jews don’t matter is deeply distressing" (See US liberal Jews decry ‘slap in the face’ from Netanyahu on Western Wall prayer).

Members of "Women of the Wall" praying with a Torah scroll near the Western Wall (July 2017)

Source: Reform Conservative movements incensed by Netanyahu attack

In September 2017, Prime Minister Netanyahu added fuel to the fire by declaring that the Reform and Conservative movements were using the Western Wall agreement as a stealthy way to get recognition from the Israeli state. This was vehemently denied by leaders of both Reform and Conservative movements and they accused the Prime Minister of lying and betraying their trust:

Netanyahu reportedly told members of the press in New York Monday night that the Reform and Conservative movements wanted to get recognition “via the backdoor, secretly, under the pretext of a technical clause of joint administration of the Western Wall,” according to Army Radio reporter Ilil Shahar...

Rabbi Gilad Kariv, director of the Reform movement in Israel, said that the prime minister’s comments demonstrated that he had decided to join “the wave of haredi incitement against millions of Reform and Conservative Jews.”

Kariv also noted that Netanyahu had been involved in every detail of the deal, had celebrated the approval of the deal and demanded credit for it as well.

“The Reform movement does not clandestinely demand recognition bur rather openly and publicly,” said Kariv. 

“The prime minister has shown a lack of leadership regarding the Western Wall, and political weakness, and in order to hide this he is choosing to attack the Reform movement,” adding that Netanyahu should find ways of rebuilding trust with Diaspora Jewry “and not to deepen the damage he and his government have done.”

Director of the Masorti [Conservative] movement in Israel Yizhar Hess said Netanyahu was “distorting reality” and pointed out that “it was this government of Israel, the prime minister and his people who proposed to us this model of agreement, including explicit emphasis on the prima facie advantages of the of the agreement regarding the issue of recognition in light of the fact that we would have official representatives on the administrative council for the site.”

“To present this now as our manipulation is a new record in fake news,” Hess added.

Netanyahu said at a briefing in New York with reporters Monday that were the issue merely one of finding an egalitarian prayer space at the Western Wall, then the issue would have been solved. (See Reform Conservative movements incensed by Netanyahu attack)

The discussion shows that, like in other religious nationalist states, the process of marginalization and minoritization is continuing in Israel.