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A state exclusively for Jews
In due course, Arabs in Israel may have no right to be citizens of the "Jewish state", or even continue residing there.
- By As'ad Abdul Rahman, Special to Gulf News
- Published: 00:38 December 15, 2007
- Image Credit: Illustration by Dwynn Trazo/Gulf News
Since 1966, when the Israeli government was obliged to terminate the military rule it had imposed on the Arabs (Palestinians in 1948 areas) inside Israel, the ruling establishment spared no means to trouble them.
A look at the successive "Herzliya conventions", from 2000 onwards, highlights Israeli leaders' public emphasis - especially that of Ariel Sharon, the former prime minister - on the "Jewishness" of their state.
To foster this attitude, they later relied on President George W. Bush's letter of assurance to Sharon, sent on June 4, 2004, in which the US administration backed Israel's position of not recognising the Palestinian refugees' right of return, supported Israel's stance of not pulling back to the pre-June 1967 borders, and adopted Israel's plans to annex Jewish colonies in the West Bank into Israel proper.
Most importantly, Bush's pledges implied that Israel should be an exclusively Jewish state. The Zionist state had panicked by the Arab citizens' demands for an Israeli constitution that makes no reference to the Jewish character of the state, as it's impossible for a country to be a democracy and an exclusively Jewish state at the same time.
The Israeli leaders, however, were also alarmed by "the dangerous implications of these demands" on their state. Now, Ehud Olmert is the first Israeli prime minister who not only asks Arab states to recognise Israel and its "right to exist" but also asks them to accept it as a Jewish state.
This is in sharp contrast to UN Security Council Resolution 242 of 1967, which is still the international basis for the settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Protests
However the Israeli public is itself divided on the question of the "Jewishness of the state". Some ideological and partisan groups in Israel do not regard it as a Jewish state, but as a state for all its "citizens".
This is not only meant to include Arabs in Israel but also other ethnic, religious and leftist groups, especially those who used Israel's "Law of Return" as means to migrate to the country, though their affiliation to Judaism as a religion is debatable.
Indeed, they have long protested against such an attitude, and even rejected it for it actually strips Israel of the democracy it usually brags about. Besides, it typifies a form of discrimination, since it puts one religion above all other religions.
A Jewish Israeli state simultaneously means the annulment of the "right of return" for Palestinian refugees. Moreover, it may mean an expulsion of Arabs will accordingly be "justified", for Israel is a "Jewish state" and subsequently non-Jews have no right to live there.
In due course, the Arabs in Israel would have no right to be citizens of the "Jewish state", or even continue residing there. And in real terms, such a policy signals a green light for a new "transfer" (expulsion) that could be the basic grounds for the larger US-Israel project of partitioning the region into mini religious, sectarian and ethnic Arab states.
This project has been adopted by many Israeli and American leaders. Though Olmert's position has not yet become a rule, it however exposes a crystal clear fact that, by demanding recognition of Israel's Jewishness, he actually seeks to undermine negotiations with the Palestinians.
More dangerous is the fact that with this demand Olmert concretely reflects a general Israeli position that had been articulated by former foreign minister Sylvan Shalom, and present ministers in Olmert's cabinet: Tzipi Livni, the foreign minister; Ehud Barak, the defence minister; Avigdor Lieberman; and Mair Shatret, who all demand Palestinian recognition of the "Jewishness" of the state of Israel as a non-negotiable condition.
On a different level, Eliel Shaher and Eitimar Anbari, while quoting a demographer, wrote in an article in Haaretz under the title: "The State Has the Right to Maintain its Jewish Character": "Out of naiveness, I thought that the theory of ethnic superiority had disappeared in the world. But it seems it is deeply rooted in Israel.
"Even in South Africa under apartheid there was no law like the Israeli law of citizenship! Nowhere in the world does there exist this kind of racist law, nor are there any rules similar to the Israeli rules of governing the [occupied] Palestinian territories...".
Major challenges
The Israeli writer Gershon Baskin says in one of his recent articles: "We should work hard to revive Israel's Jewishness, but that should take us beyond the synagogue and praying as interpreted by orthodox Jews. This is one of the major challenges facing modern Israel and a pivotal point in neo-Zionism.
"Neo-Zionism has to pay greater attention now, and certainly in the post-peace period, to finding a new definition of Israelism, exerting extra efforts towards the inclusion of the Palestinian citizens of Israel."
Finally, we should not forget the demand of former Israeli speaker of the Knesset, and former chairman of the Jewish Agency, Avraham Burg, to abrogate Israel's Law of Return.
He wrote: "Defining Israel as a Jewish state and the beginning of salvation is an explosive issue ... The Jewish state is no longer acceptable. Israel's definition as a Jewish state is the key to its end."
As'ad Abdul Rahman is the chairman of the Palestinian encyclopedia.
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