The new Israeli cabinet proposal to define Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people is doing one good thing: mainstreaming harsh criticism of Israel in the United States. Shimon Peres’s prediction that the bill would “destroy Israel’s democratic status at home and abroad” seems to be coming true. Americans for Peace Now openly characterizes the proposed law, which passed the rightwing cabinet, as a form of “fascism.” The New York Times called the proposed law “heartbreaking” last week, and the editors are still upset this week, Omar Barghouti reported further up Broadway, at Columbia University on Tuesday night:
I had a meeting with editors and journalists at the New York Times this morning. They’re really stuck with this one!
In his speech that night, Barghouti said that the law is important because it makes the contradiction between an ethnocracy and a democracy completely obvious to people. “The last mask of Israel’s so called democracy has been dropped,” he said. “The oxymoron of the Jewish and democratic identity of the state of Israel is unraveling.” He said the law is also a blow to the “Israelification” of Palestinians inside Israel — where there are 50 laws that discriminate against them and in favor of Jews.
Surprisingly, Foreign Policy echoes Barghouti’s points in a piece titled “A Country That Never Wanted Me,” by the expatriate writer Sayed Kashua. Kashua used to be an advertisement for the Israelification of Palestinians inside Israel. Now Foreign Policy is printing statements of Palestinian conditions that used to be at the margins of the American discourse, albeit tagged as “argument” by the editors:
Palestinians in Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip, occupied since 1967, have no citizen’s rights at all, but even we, Palestinian Arab citizens of the State of Israel, are discriminated against in every sphere of life: There are enormous budgeting gaps in education, infrastructure, health, welfare, and employment, all of which are funded with taxes collected from all of us.
For instance, not a single Arab town has been established since the State of Israel was founded — in contrast with some 700 Jewish settlements. Arabs are generally consigned to live in the same villages where they were born: crowded, poor, neglected villages that cannot be compared with any Jewish settlement in Israel.Many Palestinian citizens of Israel are actually welcoming the new law. This is not because they think it will benefit them or improve their condition in any way. They are simply happy that discrimination may be legislated explicitly, rather than remain hidden behind the smokescreen called “democracy.” Many Arabs think that this nationality act, which is de facto in force anyway, will expose the reality of the Israeli ethnocracy: that Israeli democracy is for the benefit of Jews only….
Bernard Avishai writes in the New Yorker that the law represents a triumph of Zionism over democracy in an age-old tension in the Israeli polity. And it will turn Israel into a “little Jewish Pakistan.”
One should think of Israel as having two competing legal structures: a gradually evolving democratic state and the remnants of the old Zionist settler colony…. this bill is about writing into the law old Zionist provisions that have morphed into racist and theocratic practices. It will make judicial correctives nearly impossible….
If it comes to an election, it will be best for democratic forces to unify, not only around what Israel does, but what Israel is. Israelis not in the thrall of settler fanaticism need to decide whether they want to be part of the democratic Western world or not.
The Pakistan analogy is also the heart of a Washington Post piece by Ishan Tharoor comparing Israel as a sectarian Jewish state to Pakistan, as “historical twins.” I was stunned to see his analogy in the neoconservative organ.
“Pakistan is like Israel, an ideological state,” said then Pakistani President Zia ul-Haq in 1981. “Take out the Judaism from Israel and it will fall like a house of cards. Take Islam out of Pakistan and make it a secular state; it would collapse.”…
Netanyahu himself is attempting to push through a controversial lawthat would cement Israel’s status as a “Jewish nation-state,” privileging the collective rights of Israeli Jews over the interests of Israeli minorities. It’s a proposal that plays well among Israel’s right-wing, including communities of settlers living in the West Bank.
By the way, Barghouti pointed out that Pakistan is just a bit more unpopular in the world than Israel, which is battling it out with North Korea to see which will be 3rd and 4th least popular.
Avital Burg makes the inevitable analogy in the Forward: “If America Had Laws Like Israel:”
A new proposed bill, supported by senators on both sides of the aisle, will finally define and determine the United States of America as the land of the Protestant People, the largest religious constituency in the U.S. and the group out of which America’s founding fathers and ruling leadership emerged.
Finally, for a dissenting view, you should hear Nadia Abu El-Haj, Barnard anthropologist and chair of Barghouti’s Columbia appearance at the Center for Palestine Studies Tuesday night. She said that she was less sanguine about the effects of the law on American consciousness than Barghouti is.
It’s not that the argument that Israel can’t be both a Jewish and democratic state is new. That’s an argument that people have been making for a long time. Yes, this law brings it into a kind of sharp relief. What’s interesting and something we have to think about, and I don’t have an easy answer, I’m just putting it out is: why it is that it’s not seen as equivalent as saying, This is a Christian state which is also democratic, or this is a white state which is also democratic. It is not seen as an equivalent statement. I think that conviction that there’s something different here — about claiming Israel is a Jewish state and yet democratic, its nonequivalence with either a racial state that is white or a religious state that is Christian– is very deep. I don’t see this law suddenly jolting people out of their cognitive dissonance. A lot of the coverage has been quite clear on this.. Reporters are struggling with this: Well, in some ways it’s not new, but it enshrines it in a certain way.
That’s when Barghouti reported on his meeting at the New York Times. To be continued!
“this is a must read, imho:
“Sayed Kashua presents: The Palestinian version of Thanksgiving
In the new narrative, there would be a ‘Shukran Feast’ and the natives would hand over the land of Palestine with love, and teach the new immigrants what hummus is.
I don’t know whether it’s because of the proposed Jewish nation-state law or because of the Thanksgiving holiday, but for a few days I haven’t been able to get the word “anchor” out of my head.
The holiday season has kicked off here, and when it comes to Thanksgiving – besides the fact that there even is such a holiday, and that you consume turkey on it – I didn’t know the first thing about it until I watched a play in my younger son’s preschool.
Together with the other pilgrims, my son sailed in a paper boat amid stormy seas until they cast anchor in the new land.
…….The teacher read out a text about the tremendous difficulties the pilgrims encountered – about the exhaustion, hunger and disease – and the little pilgrims started to spin around, one after the other, falling gently onto the soil of the promised land. Then little children with feathers on their heads – Native Americans, they were called – arrived and helped the pilgrims get up, recover and stand on their feet. The natives showed the pilgrims how to work the new earth, what to do with corn and what pumpkin is, how to hunt and which animals they could eat.
I was naively waiting for a Nakba in the next act, and I was very proud that my son was one of the pioneers. But instead of perpetrating genocide, the pilgrims held a large meal from the harvest of the land, and invited the natives to eat with them in a great celebration as a token of gratitude.
It was a particularly moving play. For some reason, I thought that maybe one day the Jews’ preschools would also organize a festival like this – but with a secular rather than a religious character. A national holiday in which we would invent a new and more compelling story than the myth that exists in the Israeli education system.
In the new narrative, the natives would hand over the land of Palestine with love, teach the olim (new immigrants) what hummus is and how to boil coffee in a finjan, and then, when they see that the new immigrants are able to survive on their own, they evacuate their towns and villages and turn over their fields and groves to the people of the First Wave of Immigration. We’ll call it the Shukran Feast, we’ll eat pita and lamb, and we’ll anchor its celebration in the National Parks Law.
How I love that phrase, “to anchor” something in law: After all, that’s happening in practice, so let’s anchor it in the law. Jews don’t want Arabs living in their moshav communities and cities – that’s what’s happening in practice, so why not anchor it in the law? In any case, we are not allowing them to have an independent culture, economic clout, a language, an ability to leave the ghettos – so why should we feel bad about it? And why should they feel bad about it?
We’ll legalize it. We’ll “anchor” the Arab citizens. We know and they know that they don’t belong, that this country isn’t theirs and never will be, that it’s just absurd that no law exists to regularize things. And then people are surprised that confusion arises when there’s no explicit legislation dealing with this extremely important matter of inequality.
The Arabs are a bit thick, so let’s explain to them v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y why they are in no position to demand equality, and why they are not really citizens. Let’s tell them clearly and forcefully: “It’s because you’re not Jews.”
Okay, Arabs are born a bit obtuse, but when Jews get confused it’s just awful. What luck that the Nakba Law exists, otherwise it would be possible to let the Tel Aviv Cinematheque screen anti-Semitic sci-fi films shamelessly.
But it’s out of the question to keep working on each law separately; it’s wearisome, it’s tedious. There’s always some breach in democracy that has to be dealt with. On one occasion it’s an Arab who thinks he can live wherever he wants – one law. After that, Arabs get it into their heads that they can marry whomever they want – another law.
How can you go on like this? Even the self-evident Law of Return had to be enacted. Lucky thing there are young, energetic MKs who grew up with high-tech, apps and shortcuts, who came up with a genius idea that, with a click of the mouse, one can calculate the boundaries of racial doctrine.
This nation-state bill is a brilliant piece of legislation that’s also intended to shut up those who claim that without two states there will be a Palestinian majority between the sea and the river. A Palestinian majority?!? This is the Jewish nation-state, only a Jewish one.
Who knows when the new nation-state doctrine will also make it possible to prevent people from voting and deprive people of citizenship in the name of preserving the state’s proper character, and when freedom of expression will threaten the state’s Jewish character (see under: Limor Livnat, Sheldon Adelson, Channel 1 and the ratings charts)? For sure, it’s only a matter of time before things will be regularized and anchored in law.
Arabic will not be an official language, but what about Hebrew? Will an Arab who writes in Hebrew be considered to be violating the Jewish nation-state law? What will the Arabs do? How will they be able to file complaints when they have no language under the law? Will they go to court and complain in sign language?
After all, we already know that the word “democracy” doesn’t appear in the Hebrew Bible, so all that remains is for them to pray that the Jewish sages addressed civil, human and national minority rights somewhere in their writings. Isn’t this what our sages meant when they talked about prohibiting la’ag larash, mockery of the downtrodden?
When clashes break out, we’ll call them riots, film them and broadcast footage only from the police’s point of view. We’ll thrust it onto their education, their culture, the horrible Arabic language they speak. Afterward, we’ll talk about nationalist motives, but very quickly we’ll say it all comes from religious motives.
We will thank the Lord that Jewishness can be both a religion and a nationality, under the law. We will quote the nation-state legislation and understand how essential it is in view of the painful sights we are witnessing. We will justify it with all our heart, and those who oppose it will appear on the rostrum of Knesset Yisrael and on kosher screens to admit that they were wrong, and they’ll apologize and bow down to the King of Israel.”
link to haaretz.com
I only edited this by a sentence ~ it’s behind the other wall.”
– See more at: https://mondoweiss.mystagingwebsite.com/2014/11/thanksgiving-holiday-politics#comment-726412
I find it immature journalism to put Peres’ and Palestinians objections at level. It is this kind of normalisation that BDS is invented for.
Once again: Zionists cry about this law for PR reasons. All their life they have supported Israels violent racism. Didn’t you notice the Peres, now nor ever, cared about a Palestinian victim? All the Beinarts are crying that this racism is bad for Israel. Like: let’s keep our racism as it is.
By the way, Barghouti pointed out that Pakistan is just a bit more unpopular in the world than Israel, which is battling it out with North Korea to see which will be 3rd and 4th least popular.
He is referring to the annual BBC/Globescan poll which, for the past few years, has had this ranking: (1) Iran, (2) Pakistan, (3) North Korea, (4) Israel, and (5) Russia.
Hey, I remember Bernard Avishai. He is a liberal Zionist like most of the people on Haaretz payroll. He endlessly agonizes over Israel but he refuses to abandon the ethnocentric and settler-colonial project. By the way, people should listen to his irritation when he was on the same show as you, Phil, a few months back, with Beinart. He was like most Zionists: he only wants Zionist Jews to criticize Israel. As soon as a non-Zionist(Jewish or not) starts talking, his true colors show up. I don’t see why you should seek to quote him. He’s a fraud, like every “liberal” Zionist.
That’s because it is only really white nationalism that is demonized in America. Non-white nationalism isn’t really demonized, and some forms are actively encouraged(like black nationalism).
In addition, Chinese nationalism may not be popular but it isn’t seen as fascism. Ditto Hindu nationalism and so on. Nadia is correct that this isn’t a “final blow” in a way many may think, although it certainly strips away the patina of liberal democracy(that never was). American liberal elites have not yet brought their thinking on nationalism into a non-schizophrenic space. Either you are for or against it. Instead what we have is a patchwork where some are approved and some are not. And Jewish nationalism sits on the fence here. Jews are a minority, but are still seen as part of the white establishment of America.
Older Jews still may try to pretend that they are vulnerable in America, but most people under the age of 40 knows that is total BS. This mismatch is also part of the reason for this ambivalence. Fundamentally, however, it is a small part, the much bigger part is the overall view on nationalism which is incoherent and hypocritical.
it doesn’t matter. none of it matters anymore. no matter how bad it gets, regardless of what they do and what laws they pass. america will do nothing against them but ring their collective hands and mouth meaningless condemnations if they choose to bomb a school or a hospital perhaps. but they could line up a thousand palestinian children against the wall shoot them dead and the US government would do nothing , would take no action except to offer them more money and more weapons and protect them from meaningless resolutions. and the UK, france, spain, sweden, what meaningful action would they take and when will they take it? cowards, it’s all so cowardly. i am so ashamed.