'Racist For Democracy'

How lucky, we are to have the extreme Right standing guard over ourdemocracy.

Last week, the Knesset voted by a large majority (47 to 34) for a law thatthreatens imprisonment for anyone who dares to deny that Israel is a Jewish andDemocratic State.

The private member’s bill, proposed by MK Zevulun Orlev of the "JewishHome" party, which sailed through its preliminary hearing, promises one yearin prison to anyone who publishes "a call that negates the existence of theState of Israel as a Jewish and Democratic State", if the contents of the callmight cause "actions of hate, contempt or disloyalty against the state or theinstitutions of government or the courts".

One can foresee the next steps. A million and a half Arab citizens cannot beexpected to recognize Israel as a Jewish and Democratic State. They want it tobe "a state of all its citizens" -- Jews, Arabs and others. They also claimwith reason that Israel discriminates against them, and therefore is not reallydemocratic. And, in addition, there are also Jews who do not want Israel to bedefined as a Jewish State in which non-Jews have the status, at best, oftolerated outsiders.

The consequences are inevitable. The prisons will not be able to hold all thoseconvicted of this crime. There will be a need for concentration camps all overthe country to house all the deniers of Israeli democracy.

The police will be unable to deal with so many criminals. It will be necessaryto set up a new unit. This may be called "Special Security", or, in short,SS.

Hopefully, these measures will suffice to preserve our democracy. If not, morestringent steps will have to be taken, such as revoking the citizenship of thedemocracy-deniers and deporting them from the country, together with the Jewishleftists and all the other enemies of the Jewish democracy. 

After the preliminary reading of the bill, it now goes to the Legal Committee ofthe Knesset, which will prepare it for the first, and soon thereafter for thesecond and third readings. Within a few weeks or months, it will be the law ofthe land.

By the way, the bill does not single out Arabs explicitly -- even if this is itsclear intention, and all those who voted for it understood this. It alsoprohibits Jews from advocating a change in the state’s definition, or thecreation of a bi-national state in all of historic Palestine or spreading anyother such unconventional ideas. One can only imagine what would happen in theUS if a senator proposed a law to imprison anyone who suggests an amendment tothe Constitution of the United States of America.

THE BILL does not stand out at all in our new political landscape.

This government has already adopted a bill to imprison for three years anyonewho mourns the Palestinian Naqba -- the 1948 uprooting of more than half thePalestinian people from their homes and lands. 

The sponsors expect Arab citizens to be happy about that event. True, thePalestinians were caused a certain unpleasantness, but that was only aby-product of the foundation of our state. The Independence Day of the Jewishand Democratic State must fill us all with joy. Anyone who does not express thisjoy should be locked up, and three years may not be enough.

This bill has been confirmed by the Ministerial Commission for Legal Matters,prior to being submitted to the Knesset. Since the rightist government commandsa majority in the Knesset, it will be adopted almost automatically. (In themeantime, a slight delay has been caused by one minister, who appealed thedecision, so the Ministerial Commission will have to confirm it again.)

The sponsors of the law hope, perhaps, that on Naqba Day the Arabs will dance inthe streets, plant Israeli flags on the ruins of some 600 Arab villages thatwere wiped off the map and offer up their thanks to Allah in the mosques for themiraculous good fortune that was bestowed on them.

THIS TAKES me back to the 60s, when the weekly magazine I edited, Haolam Hazeh,published an Arabic edition. One of its employees was a young man called RashedHussein from the village of Musmus. Already as a youth he was a gifted poet witha promising future.

He told me that some years earlier the military governor of his area hadsummoned him to his office. At the time, all the Arabs in Israel were subject toa military government which controlled their lives in all matters big and small.Without a permit, an Arab citizen could not leave his village or town even for afew hours, nor get a job as a teacher, nor acquire a tractor or dig a well.

The governor received Rashed cordially, offered him coffee and paid lavishcompliments to his poetry. Then he came to the point: in a month’s time,Independence Day was due, and the governor was going to hold a big reception forthe Arab "notables"; he asked Rashed to write a special poem for theoccasion. 

Rashed was a proud youngster, nationalist to the core, and not lacking incourage. He explained to the governor that Independence Day was no joyful dayfor him, since his relatives had been driven from their homes and most of theMusmus village’s land had also been expropriated.

When Rashed arrived back at his village some hours later, he could not helpnoticing that his neighbours were looking at him in a peculiar way. When heentered his home, he was shocked. All the members of his family were sitting onthe floor, the women lamenting at the top of their voices, the children huddlingfearfully in a corner. His first thought was that somebody had died. 

"What have you done to us!" one of the women cried, "What did we do toyou?"

"You have destroyed the family," another shouted, "You have finishedus!"

It appeared that the governor had called the family and told them that Rashedhad refused to fulfil his duty to the state. The threat was clear: from now on,the extended family, one of the largest in the village, would be on the blacklist of the military government. The consequences were clear to everyone.

Rashed could not stand up against the lamentation of his family. He gave in andwrote the poem, as requested. But something inside him was broken. Some yearslater he emigrated to the US, got a job there at the PLO office and diedtragically: he was burned alive in his bed after going to sleep, it appears,while smoking a cigarette.

THESE DAYS are gone forever. We took part in many stormy demonstrations againstthe military government until it was finally abolished in 1966. As a newlyelected Member of Parliament, I had the privilege of voting for its abolition.

The fearful and subservient Arab minority, then amounting to some 200 thousandsouls, has recovered its self-esteem. A second and third generation has grownup, its downtrodden national pride has raised its head again, and today they area large and self-confident community of 1.5 million. But the attitude of theJewish Right has not changed for the better. On the contrary.

In the Knesset bakery (the Hebrew word for bakery is Mafia) some new pastriesare being baked. One of them is a bill that stipulates that anyone applying forIsraeli citizenship must declare their loyalty to "the Jewish, Zionist andDemocratic State", and also undertake to serve in the army or its civilianalternative. Its sponsor is MK David Rotem of the "Israel is Our Home"party, who also happens to be the chairman of the Knesset Law Committee.

A declaration of loyalty to the state and its laws -- a framework designed tosafeguard the well-being and the rights of its citizens -- is reasonable. Butloyalty to the "Zionist" state? Zionism is an ideology, and in a democraticstate the ideology can change from time to time. It would be like declaringloyalty to a "capitalist" USA, a "rightist Italy", a "leftist"Spain, a "Catholic Poland" or a "nationalist" Russia. 

This would not be a problem for the tens of thousands of Orthodox Jews in Israelwho reject Zionism, since Jews will not be touched by this law. They obtaincitizenship automatically the moment they arrive in Israel.

Another bill waiting for its turn before the Ministerial Committee proposeschanging the declaration that every new Knesset Member has to make beforeassuming office. Instead of loyalty "to the State of Israel and its laws",as now, he or she will be required to declare their loyalty "to the Jewish,Zionist and Democratic State of Israel, its symbols and its values". Thatwould exclude almost automatically all the elected Arabs, since declaringloyalty to the "Zionist" state would mean that no Arab would ever vote forthem again.

It would also be a problem for the Orthodox members of the Knesset, who cannotdeclare loyalty to Zionism. According to Orthodox doctrine, the Zionists aredepraved sinners and the Zionist flag is unclean. God exiled the Jews from thiscountry because of their wickedness, and only God can permit them to return.Zionism, by pre-empting the job of the Messiah, has committed an unpardonablesin, and many Orthodox Rabbis chose to remain in Europe and be murdered by theNazis rather than committing the Zionist sin of going to Palestine.

THE FACTORY of racist laws with a distinct fascist odour is now working at fullsteam. That is built into the new coalition.

At its centre is the Likud party, a good part of which is pure racist (sorry forthe oxymoron). To its right there is the ultra-racist Shas party, to the rightof which is Lieberman’s ultra-ultra racist "Israel is our Home" party, theultra-ultra-ultra racist "Jewish Home" party, and to its right the even moreracist "National Union" party, which includes outright Kahanists and standswith one foot in the coalition and the other on the moon.

All these factions are trying to outdo each other. When one proposes a crazybill, the next is compelled to propose an even crazier one, and so on.

All this is possible because Israel has no constitution. The ability of theSupreme Court to annul laws that contradict the "basic laws" is not anchoredanywhere, and the Rightist parties are trying to abolish it. Not for nothing didAvigdor Lieberman demand -- and get -- the Justice and Police ministries.

Just now, when the governments of the US and Israel are clearly on a collisioncourse over the settlements, this racist fever may infect all parts of thecoalition.

If one goes to sleep with a dog, one should not be surprised to wake up withfleas (may the dogs among my readers pardon me). Those who elected such agovernment, and even more so those who joined it, should not be surprised by itslaws, which ostensibly safeguard Jewish democracy. 

The most appropriate name for these holy warriors would be "Racists forDemocracy".