Surprise? The Jewish Nation-State Law under attack by Haaretz's Amos Schocken - by Victor Rosenthal

...Schocken and the rest of the Israeli Left passionately hate the recently passed Nation-State Law. To them, the statement that “Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people” is anathema. It is a statement of Zionism, which is Jewish nationalism. And they don’t care very much for either nationalism (except perhaps Palestinian nationalism) or anything connected with Jewishness. In fact, I suspect that they don’t care much for Jews either; but that’s another blog.

Victor Rosenthal..
Abu Yehuda..
31 March '19..
Link: http://abuyehuda.com/2019/03/the-nation-state-law-under-attack/

Amos Schocken is the publisher of Ha’aretz, the employer of Gideon Levy and Amira Hass, of Rogel Alpher and B. Michael, and other writers who pour out their hatred of the Jewish state both in Hebrew and English translation. To someone like me who believes that the battle to defend Israel in the information sphere is as important as the kinetic conflict on the battlefields, Amos Schocken is the devil.

Schocken and the rest of the Israeli Left passionately hate the recently passed Nation-State Law. To them, the statement that “Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people” is anathema. It is a statement of Zionism, which is Jewish nationalism. And they don’t care very much for either nationalism (except perhaps Palestinian nationalism) or anything connected with Jewishness. In fact, I suspect that they don’t care much for Jews either; but that’s another blog.

For those who don’t know, Israel does not have a constitution as such. When the state was declared in May 1948, there was no time to create one in the midst of a war. The Declaration of Independence optimistically set a date five months in the future at which a constitution would be adopted. But the differences of opinion about the nature of the state, between religious and secular, socialist and capitalist, were so great that it was – and still is – impossible to develop a comprehensive document that everyone can agree on. Instead, it was decided on an incremental approach: to pass a series of Basic Laws that, taken together, would fully define the state. This task is still incomplete.

The State of Israel is at a fateful crossroads - by Maj. Gen. (res.) Gershon Hacohen

The State of Israel is at a fateful crossroads. The unending necessity to safeguard the state’s secure existence ensures that its leaders will face complex and painful decisions. But there are other, no less critical considerations that must be factored into the decision-making equation...

Maj. Gen. (res.) Gershon Hacohen..
BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 1,121..
25 March '19..
Link: https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/israel-security-not-enough/

David Ben-Gurion was the only Israeli PM to make a point of stressing that the state of Israel has a higher purpose than providing a safe haven to persecuted Jews. During the first decade of statehood, he repeatedly emphasized:

“Security is but a condition for our existence and our independence. The state of Israel has a special mission. Every state must ensure the wellbeing, welfare, and progress of its residents. Our state, too, is obligated to do so, but it is not the cardinal concern. The supreme task of the state of Israel is the redemption of the People of Israel through the ingathering of the exiles.”

On the national level, the problem of security reflects the inextricable link between the spiritual and the physical aspects of the country’s existence. Yet the political-security conversation guiding Israel for years has been reduced to an excessive, if not exclusive, focus on physical security – a point well understood by Israel’s Palestinian “peace partners.” Prominent PLO leader Abbas Zaki explained the organization’s feigned endorsement of the two-state solution this way: “If we divest the Jews of Hebron and Jerusalem, from which they draw their inspiration for their national existence, what will remain for them? What bond do they have to Jaffa and to Haifa? They will then collapse of themselves.”

Ben-Gurion, recognizing the spiritual calling of the People of Israel in its ancestral homeland, asserted during the early critical phase of the War of Independence that the struggle over Jerusalem was the key endeavor:

David Ben-Gurion, Zionism, and democracy - by Victor Rosenthal

...There is only one Jewish state. There are numerous versions of the democratic “state of all its citizens” in the world, but as time goes by and it becomes harder and harder for Jews to live in them, we are finding that Herzl, Ben-Gurion, and other Zionists were correct: a Jewish state is essential for the survival of the Jewish people. It was essential to create it then, and it is essential to preserve it now.

Victor Rosenthal..
Abu Yehuda..
13 January '19..
Link: http://abuyehuda.com/2019/01/ben-gurion-zionism-and-democracy/

During the acrimonious debate over the Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People, opponents claimed it was defective because it didn’t mention “democracy” or “equality,” concepts that are found implicitly or explicitly in Israel’s Declaration of Independence, proclaimed by David Ben-Gurion on May 14, 1948. Here is the relevant passage from that Declaration:

THE STATE OF ISRAEL will be open for Jewish immigration and for the Ingathering of the Exiles; it will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.

“What the hell,” stormed Tzipi Livni, “has Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu got against the Declaration of Independence?” Members of what was then her party waved copies of the Declaration for emphasis.

Supporters of the law argued that it was not necessary to add such a reference to the new Basic Law, because the concepts were enshrined in other Basic Laws, and this law was intended to explicate the idea of a Jewish state – something that also appears explicitly in the Declaration.

The tension between the Jewishness of the state and the commitment to democratic governance and equal rights for all its citizens, some 21% of whom today are not Jewish, is a tightrope that Israel has been walking since 1948. It isn’t made easier by those who oppose the very idea of a Jewish state, like the Arab intellectuals who want to convert it into a binational state, the secular Left that would like it to become a democratic “state of all its citizens” like the US, or former Supreme Court President Aharon Barak, who thinks that the meaning of “Jewish state” is just “democratic state.” The Nation-State Law can be seen as an attempt to maintain the balance that these forces would destroy.

In my opinion, there has to be a priority assigned to the concept of “Jewish state” to prevent it from disappearing under the waves of equality and democracy. And to my surprise, apparently the man who proclaimed the independence of the State of Israel in 1948 agreed with me (h/t: Lise Rosenthal).

Israel's Nation-State Law and Why the Haters Hate It - by Vic Rosenthal

...while the immediate consequences on the ground are few, the importance of the new law in the long run is great. And that is why the anti-Zionist opposition to it is so strident.

Vic Rosenthal..
Abu Yehuda..
22 July '18..
Link: http://abuyehuda.com/2018/07/why-they-hate-the-nation-state-law/

The Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People was finally passed a few days ago.

The practical, concrete consequences are minimal. There will be neither more nor fewer Arabic road signs. Nobody will lose their right to vote or serve in the Knesset or as a judge as a result of this law. Nobody will be expelled or imprisoned. No religion will be banned, no newspapers closed. As Eugene Kontorovich said, there is nothing in it that is more aggressively ethnically nationalist than any number of national constitutions, including the constitution of the proposed state of “Palestine,” which states that Palestine is an Arab nation, the national religion is Islam, the source of legislation is shari’a, and the national language is Arabic.

The most controversial part of it declares that “The state views the development of Jewish settlement as a national value and will act to encourage and promote its establishment and consolidation,” something that Kontorovich notes is simply a restatement of the commitment to “close [Jewish] settlement on the land” made in the British Mandate. Much of the law is a reprise of ideas that appeared in the Declaration of Independence.

If you don’t believe me, read it. Then tell me exactly how it is “the death of democracy” in Israel.

If you listen to Arab members of the Knesset, representatives of the EU and numerous governments in the Middle East, the Israeli Left, the ADL, and the Union for Reform Judaism in the US, you will hear that the new law is Hitler’s Nuremberg Laws and the Confederate Declaration of Independence rolled into one. But there is nothing racist in it.

The hysteria is remarkable, but it is not because the law says anything new. Some of the opposition is simply politics, because it was passed by a Likud government whose head is Benjamin Netanyahu. Tzipi Livni declared that the sole purpose of the law was to help Netanyahu in the next election (indeed, it should). The final version that was passed by the Knesset was much weaker in many respects than older versions; but this did not in general defuse the anger it created.

To understand what is going on, you don’t need to look harder at the law; you need to look at its opponents. Their problem is not with the law’s (minimal) practical consequences or because of the possible interpretation of one clause or another. Their problem is with the whole idea.

The law is like a powerful X-ray beam that exposes the presence or absence of Zionist bones in those it shines upon.

Of course the Arab members of the Knesset disliked it enough to tear it up. Their belief, as Avi Dichter, one of the original writers of the law, said, is that this land is their homeland alone. This isn’t surprising. It’s probably true that the Arab MKs are more extreme than most of their constituents, but it’s also true that there is a strong current of nationalism in Israel’s Arab citizens, and this naturally conflicts with Zionism. This conflict isn’t going to go away by pretending that it isn’t there. Either we will give up the idea of a Jewish state, or the Arabs will get used to it, or we’ll fight another war with them over it. There aren’t any other alternatives.