‘NYT’s ‘ideal’ of Israel leaves out history of militant Jewish supremacy

Thomas Friedman’s latest essay in The New York Times, “What in the World is Happening in Israel?” and a recent Times editorial, “The Ideal of Democracy in a Jewish State Is in Jeopardy,” have a lot of accurate details, but miss the critical historical framework that explains that Israel’s steady lurch to the right is a predictable outcome for a country founded on Jewish supremacy and discrimination against Palestinians. 

Friedman mourns that the two-state solution is “in hospice,” a fact that became clear years ago after the glow of the Oslo Accords faded and the reality of endless occupation and the intransigence of US and Israeli negotiators became evident. Strangely, Friedman sees some kind of “rough equilibrium” and “a whole lot of pragmatic compromises and self-restraint exercised by all sides every day,” rather than an increasingly brutal military occupation and siege, and a slow burn of restricted possibilities, hopelessness, and rage in the occupied territories that predictably explodes when the oppression reaches intolerable levels. He describes this as “conflict porn” rather than what it is, Israeli attacks against Palestinian resistance and Palestinian opposition (mostly of the determined sumud, or steadfastness, variety as well as bursts of militancy). His framing belittles the reality of settler colonialism and defiance to it. He calls for Israel to practice “self-discipline” rather than to engage in a deep self-examination and civil rights struggle that might lead to enduring restorative justice.

Friedman is shocked that the incoming coalition government features the most racist, ultra-nationalist, anti-LGBTQI criminals in the history of Israel.  This election could also be viewed as the outcome of longstanding antidemocratic forces, an inheritance from fascistic leaders like Vladimir “Ze’ev” Jabotinsky, rabbis like Meir Kahane, the unwillingness of sequential Israeli governments (left to right) to control a violent and rabid settler movement, and even the consequences of the Zionist movement itself which preached not only Jewish nationalism, but Jewish supremacy.  

Even Abe Foxman, former director of the Anti Defamation League (ADL), is worried. “If Israel becomes a fundamentalist religious state, a theocratic nationalism state, it will cut Israel off from 70 percent of world Jewry,” he has said. With the incoming coalition government, ultra-Orthodox rabbis in significant political power, and exploding numbers of ultra-Orthodox children who receive no secular education and are destined to live in economically unproductive poverty, Israel is well on its way. 

Friedman notes the that the Palestinian Authority has long functioned as a collaborator with the Israeli army, that Abbas, 87, will die before long without an obvious successor, that there is significant corruption and Palestinian resistance. These factors are both a product of the manipulations and demands of the Israeli authorities and the challenges for Palestinian society to develop and flourish under crushing restrictions and military control.

The New York Times opinion piece, “The Ideal of Democracy in a Jewish State Is in Jeopardy” is fraught with even more self-delusion, starting with the title and the line, “Israel’s proud tradition as a boisterous and pluralistic democracy.” One of the basic tenets of democracy is that it is a government of all its citizens and thus a government where only some of the people have full rights (see the Nation State Bill of 2018 granting Jews the “exclusive” right of self-determination in the land) cannot by definition be a democracy.  The Times views the new government as “a qualitative and alarming break with all the other governments in Israel’s 75-year history,” rather than the culmination of all the forces that preceded it. 

The editorial trots out its strong support of Israel and the (long dead) two-state solution and then immediately mentions the rise of antisemitism, suggesting that criticism of Israel may be stemming from Jew-hatred, rather than the egregious policies of the state and Benjamin Netanyahu’s willingness to do anything to stay in power and out of prison. 

The Times correctly identifies the dangers ahead: expanding and legalizing settlements, thus rendering a Palestinian state impossible, changing the status of the Temple Mount/al-Aqsa Mosque compound, thus inflaming Muslims worldwide, and undermining the Israeli Supreme Court’s role in providing judicial restraints over the Knesset. They conclude with the concern that discrediting Israeli democratic ideals will further damage the two-state solution. 

These are very old, tired arguments and much of the world has come to understand that the struggle in Israel/Palestine is a human and civil rights struggle, that equality for all people between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea is the only way to have an enduring peace, whether it is one state, a federation, or some other form of government yet to be determined. Ironically, the belief in Jewish supremacy, which requires constant military dominance over and intolerance of others, will not make Israeli Jews any safer.