If Israel is Jewish, it cannot be democratic, because of the
lack of equality; if it’s democratic, it cannot be Jewish, because a
democracy does not bestow privilege based on ethnicity. But now the
nation-state law makes it plain. Israel is for Jews only, on the books.
By Gideon Levy: The Knesset is about to legislate one of its most important laws ever, and the one most in keeping with reality. The nation-state law will
put an end to Israel’s vague nationalism and present Zionism as it is.
The law will also put an end to the farce about Israel being “Jewish and democratic,”
a combination that never existed and could never exist because of the
inherent contradiction between the two values that cannot be reconciled,
except by deception.
If the state is Jewish, it cannot be democratic,
because of the lack of equality; if it’s democratic, it cannot be
Jewish, because a democracy does not bestow privilege based on
ethnicity. So now the Knesset has decided: Israel is Jewish. Israel is
declaring that it is the nation-state of the Jewish people, not a state
of its citizens, not a state of the two peoples that live within it, and
has therefore ceased to be an egalitarian democracy, not just in
practice but also in theory. That’s why this law is so important. It is a
truthful law.
'All those years of hypocrisy were pleasant. It
was nice to say that apartheid was only in South Africa'
The uproar over the bill was
intended mainly as an effort to continue the policy of national
ambiguity. The president and the attorney general, the ostensible
guardians of decency, protested and received compliments from the
liberal camp. The president shouted that the law would be “a weapon in
the hands of Israel’s enemies,” and the attorney general warned about
the “international ramifications.”
The prospect of Israel’s veil being removed
before the world prompted them to act. Reuven Rivlin, it must be said,
cried out with great vigor and courage against the clause allowing
community-acceptance committees to screen residents and its implications
for the regime, but most liberals were simply horrified to read the
reality when it was worded as a law.
Mordechai Kremnitzer, in Tuesday’s Haaretz,
also cried out in vain when he said the bill would “foment a
revolution, no less. It will spell the end of Israel as a Jewish and
democratic state …” He added that the bill would make Israel “a leader
among nationalist countries like Poland and Hungary,” as if it isn’t
already and hasn’t been for a long time. In Poland and Hungary there is
no tyranny over another people lacking rights, which has become a
permanent reality and an inseparable part of how this state and its
regime operate, with no end in sight.
All those years of hypocrisy were pleasant. It
was nice to say that apartheid was only in South Africa, because there
everything was rooted in racial laws, and we had no such laws. To say
that Hebron is not apartheid, the Jordan Valley is not apartheid, and
that the occupation really isn’t part of the regime. To say that we were
the only democracy in the region, even with the occupation.
It was nice to claim that since Israeli Arabs can
vote, we are an egalitarian democracy. To point out that there’s an
Arab party, even if it’s excluded from any influence. To point out that
Arabs can be admitted to the Jews’ hospitals; that they can study in the
Jews’ universities and live anywhere they choose. (You bet.)
How enlightened we are; our Supreme Court ruled
in the Kaadan case that an Arab family could buy a home in Katzir, after
years of litigation and endless evasion. How tolerant we are that the
Arabs are permitted to speak Arabic, an official language. The latter
was certainly a fiction; Arabic never was remotely treated as an
official language, the way Swedish is in Finland, where the minority is
far smaller than the Arab minority here.
It was comfortable to ignore that the lands owned
by the Jewish National Fund, which include most of the state’s lands,
were for Jews only – with the progressive Supreme Court backing that
stance – and claim we’re a democracy. It was much more pleasant to think
of ourselves as egalitarian.
Now there will be a law that tells the truth.
Israel is for Jews only, on the books. The nation-state of the Jewish
people, not of its residents. Its Arabs are second-class citizens and
its Palestinian subjects are hollow, nonexistent. Their fate is
determined in Jerusalem, but they aren’t part of the state. It’s easier
this way for everyone.
There remains a small problem with the rest of
the world, and with Israel’s image, which this law will tarnish
somewhat. It’s no big deal. Israel’s new friends will be proud of this
law. For them it will be a light unto the nations. And people of
conscience all over the world already know the truth and have long been
struggling against it. A weapon for the BDS movement? Certainly. Israel
has earned it, and will now legislate it.
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