The Jewish Republic of Israel
Swearing an oath to a Jewish state will decide its fate. It is liable to
turn the country into a theocracy like Saudi Arabia.
By Gideon Levy
Ha'aretz: 10.10.10
Remember this day. It's the day Israel changes its character. As a result,
it can also change its name to the Jewish Republic of Israel, like the
Islamic Republic of Iran. Granted, the loyalty oath bill that Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu is seeking to have passed purportedly only deals with new
citizens who are not Jewish, but it affects the fate of all of us.
From now on, we will be living in a new, officially approved, ethnocratic,
theocratic, nationalistic and racist country. Anyone who thinks it doesn't
affect him is mistaken. There is a silent majority that is accepting this
with worrying apathy, as if to say: "I don't care what country I live in."
Also anyone who thinks the world will continue to relate to Israel as a
democracy after this law doesn't understand what it is about. It's another
step that seriously harms Israel's image.
Prime Minister Netanyahu will prove today that he is actually Yisrael
Beinteinu leader Avigdor Lieberman, and Justice Minister Yaakov Neeman will
prove he is really a loyal member of Yisrael Beiteinu. The Labor party will
prove it is nothing more than a doormat. And Israel today will prove that it
doesn't care about anything. Today the loyalty oath bill, soon the loyalty
oath law. The dam will overflow today, threatening to drown the remnants of
democracy until we are left perhaps with a Jewish state of a character that
no one really understands, but it certainly won't be a democracy. Those
demanding this loyalty oath are the ones misappropriating loyalty to the
state.
At its next session, the Knesset is to debate close to 20 other
anti-democratic bills. Over the weekend, the Association for Civil Rights in
Israel issued a blacklist of legislation: a loyalty law for Knesset members;
a loyalty law for film production; a loyalty law for non-profits; putting
the Palestinian catastrophe, the Nakba, beyond the scope of the law; a ban
on calls for a boycott; and a bill for the revocation of citizenship. It's a
dangerous McCarthyist dance on the part of ignorant legislators who haven't
begun to understand what democracy is all about. It's dangerous even if only
a portion of the bills become law, because our fate and our essence will
change.
It's not hard to understand the Netanyahu-Lieberman duo. As sworn
nationalists, they are not expected to understand that democracy doesn't
only mean the rule of the majority, but rather first and foremost that
minorities have rights. It's much harder to comprehend the complacency of
the masses. Town squares should have been filled today with citizens who do
not wish to live in a country where the minority is oppressed by draconian
laws such as the one that forces them to swear a false oath to a Jewish
state, but amazingly almost no one seems to feel affected.
For decades, we have futilely dealt with the question of who is a Jew. Now
the question of what is Jewish will not go away. What is the "state of the
Jewish nation"? Does it belong more to Jews in the Diaspora than to its Arab
citizens? Will they decide its fate and will this be called a democracy?
Will the ultra-Orthodox Neturei Karta sect, which opposes the state's
existence, along with hundreds of thousands of Jews who have avoided coming
do whatever they want with it? What is Jewish? Jewish holidays? Kosher
dietary laws? The increased grip of the religious establishment, as if there
is not enough of it now to distort democracy? Swearing an oath to a Jewish
state will decide its fate. It is liable to turn the country into a
theocracy like Saudi Arabia.
True, for the time being, it's a matter of an empty, ridiculous slogan.
There aren't three Jews who could agree what a Jewish state looks like, but
history has taught us that empty slogans, too, can pave the path to hell. In
the meantime, the new proposed legislation will only increase Israeli Arabs'
alienation and ultimately result in the alienation of much wider segments of
the public.
That's what happens when the fire is still smoldering under the rug, the
fire of the basic lack of faith in the justice of our path. Only such a lack
of confidence can produce such distorted proposed legislation as that which
will be approved today, and clearly approval will be forthcoming. Canada
doesn't need its citizens to swear an oath to the Canadian state, nor do
other countries require similar acts. Only Israel. And it is being done
either to provoke the Arab minority more and push them into a greater lack
of loyalty so one day the time will come to finally get rid of them, or it
is designed to scuttle the prospect of a peace agreement with the
Palestinians. One way or another, in Basel at the First Zionist Congress in
1897, the Jewish state was founded, as Theodor Herzl said, and today the
unenlightened Jewish Republic of Israel will be founded.
***
From: otherisr@actcom.co.il
Subject: "We will not be citizens of a fascist state purporting to be
Israel"
Press Release October 10, 2010
"We will not be citizens of a fascist state purporting to be Israel" say
hundreds of Israeli academics and public figures.
A protest rally against the government's "Loyalty Oath Bill" was held
outside the Tel Aviv house. There Ben-Gurion read the 1948 the Declaration
of Independence. There, today, the "Declaration of Independence from
Fascism" was signed.
"We are citizens of the Israel which was depicted in the Declaration of
Independence, a peace-seeking country based on the principles of equality
and civil liberties. We do not intend to be the citizens of a state
purporting to be Israel which stops being democratic and enbarks on becoming
a fascist state," proclaimed intellectuals, public figures, and Israel Prize
laureates who gathered this afternoon for a protest rally against the
"Loyalty Oath Bill" approved by the government. A protest rally was held on
Tel Aviv's Rothschild Boulevard, in front of the museum building where David
Ben Gurion had read the Declaration of Independence in 1948.
Beneath the statue of Meir Dizengoff, first mayor of Tel Aviv, actress Hanna
Meron read out from that Declaration of Independence: "The State of Israel
will be based on based on Liberty, Justice and Peace, as envisaged by the
prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political
rights to all its inhabitants, irrespective of religion, race or gender; it
will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and
culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be
faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations". She noted
that, sixty-two years later, the reality of Israel is very different than
what the country's Declaration of Independence envisaged. At the end of the
rally, a "Declaration of Independence from Fascism" was signed (see full
text below).
Among participants in the initiative were *Shulamit Aloni, Uri Avnery, Alex
Ansky, Shery Ansky, Menachem Brinker, Ran Cohen, Ruth Cohen, Yaron Ezrachi,
Galia Golan, Haim Guri, Sna'it Gisis, Yoram Kaniuk, Dani Karavan, Yehoshua
Knaz, Elia Leibowitz, Alex Libak, Hanna Meron, Sammy Michael, Merav
Michaeli, Sefi Rachlevsky, Gabi Solomon, David Tartakower, Micha Ullman, and
many others.*
Following is the full text of the Declaration of Independence from Fascism:
A state which forcibly invades the hallowed realm of the individual
citizen's conscience, and which imposes punishment on those whose opinions
and beliefs do not fit the authorities' opinions and the prescribed
"character" of the state, stops being a democracy and embarks on becoming a
fascist state.
Behind these stairs where we stand, the state of Israel was proclaimed. The
state which increasingly takes Israel's place - a state which fills the
country with a variety of racist legislation, promoted by the Knesset and
the cabinet - is excluding itself from the family of democratic nations.
Therefore we, citizens of the Israel envisaged in the Declaration of
Independence, hereby declare that will not be citizens of a country
purporting to be Israel and which violates its basic commitment to the
principles of equality, civil liberty and sincere aspiration for peace -
principles upon which the State of Israel was founded.
Contact: Sefi Rachlevsky 052-7078075
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