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).

Weekly Commentary: PA PM Abbas and Pres. Peres don't respect Israeli democracy

Dr. Aaron Lerner
IMRA
27 August 09

What do PA PM Mahmoud Abbas and Israel President Shimon Peres have in common?

This week Mahmoud Abbas declared that "If Israel fulfills its commitments in line with the Road Map plan, we will be prepared to resume the talks from the point where they ended under the previous government of Ehud Olmert."

Akiva Eldar also revealed this week that President Peres presented to U.S. envoy George Mitchell as well as senior Palestinian officials and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak his own plan to create a sovereign Palestinian state before an agreement is reached over crucial final status issues.

So what do they have in common?

Neither apparently recognizes or appreciates that Israel is a democracy. As a democracy we have periodic elections in which the electorate is given the opportunity to express its will at the ballot box.

And when, as was the case in the last recent elections, an opposition party ends up leading the ruling coalition, this is indicative that the nation has expressed its desire for a change in policies.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert offered Abbas almost everything but the kitchen sink. But it wasn't enough for Abbas so the talks failed. When the head of the PA asserts that Prime Minister Netanyahu must agree to the concessions Olmert offered, he is really saying that the Israeli voters should be denied their right to impact policy at the ballot box.

And when President Shimon Peres goes over the heads of the democratically elected Government of Israel to propose his own plan to world leaders he is also essentially saying that he has absolutely no respect for the democratic process. Unfortunately, it appears that none of the other international actors has indicated that this behaviour is in any way unacceptable.

Now here is the irony: Their silence doesn't promote the "peace process" - it hurts it because it discourages Palestinian flexibility at the negotiating table.

The message to PA PM Mahmoud Abbas and the rest of the Palestinian negotiating team should be "given the Israeli democratic process, there is no guaranty that the deal you can cut in the future will be as generous as the one you can cut today."

That's a message that promotes progress in negotiations.
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The Golden Rule and Democratic Process

By Moshe Feiglin
15 Av 5769



The main excuse that the soldiers who expelled their brothers from their homes in Gush Katif used to justify their actions was that if they would not carry out their orders, Israel's democracy would collapse, it would be impossible for the government to govern and the state would essentially crumble away. So it made no difference whether the soldier agreed with his expulsion orders or not. He was brainwashed to believe that not carrying them out would guarantee destruction on an even greater scale.

Obviously, the factor that completely destroyed public faith in Israel's democratic process was the political unscrupulousness that paved the way for the destruction of the Land. Entire books can be written about the callous scorn for the law and democratic process emblematic of the way that the Oslo Accords became law in Israel. Yossi Beilin, Shimon Peres, Prof. Hirschfeld, Dr. Pundak and the entire Oslo pack deserve to be behind bars for many years to come.

There used to be a basic law in Israel that prohibited a prime minister from appointing more than 18 ministers to his government. But a short while after Oslo (in the elections of 1999), Ehud Barak was elected and revised the law to fit his political needs. "That is the price of peace," his spin doctors explained. "If we want to see progress in the peace process, we have to pay the price of more ministers for all the parties in the coalition." The media – democracy's "watchdog" – went along with the farce. After all, proper democratic process and public faith in Israel's democratic political system may be important – but for destruction of the Land ("peace") those values can surely be sacrificed.

Sharon followed in Barak's footsteps. His government also boasted more than 18 ministers. He destroyed Gush Katif with all sorts of blatant manipulations. The Eviction Compensation Law that passed the Knesset would not have made it past the average student council. It entirely contradicts all the civil rights that former Chief Justice Aharon Barak worked so hard to legislate. But there is one golden rule that overrides all others: It is permissible to change the law as necessary as long as it promotes the Left's agenda. That rule triumphed in Gush Katif.

It is obvious that no self-respecting court would have authorized Netanyahu to change the rules of the game in the middle of the Likud primaries. But the Golden Rule prevailed. Netanyahu needed to rid himself of the Feiglin trouble and to pave the way to destroy the Land of Israel by means of the votes of the Right. When Netanyahu had me demoted to the 36th slot and Michael Ratzon appealed to the Supreme Court against the move (that also demoted him to an unrealistic slot on the roster), the Supreme Court could not manage to comprehend what the District court and the citizens of Israel clearly understood. The Supreme Court rejected Ratzon's appeal. The general rule is that the Supreme Court will only change the decision of the District Court in extreme cases. It seems that the fact that Moshe Feiglin was legally elected to a high place on the Likud roster was just such an extreme case.

Netanyahu has gotten used to manipulating the law and the democratic process for his political purposes. His latest breach of democratic process is the Mofaz Law, which makes it easier to split Knesset factions and is a prelude to the defection of Kadimah MKs to the Likud and the eventual destruction of settlements, G-d forbid. The leftist opposition MKs put on a good show of being shocked by the rude violation of democratic process that this law exemplifies. But in truth, it was no more than a show. The Golden Rule concept was born to feed the insatiable Oslo monster. Changing the law to foster the destruction of settlements and settlers is an old leftist trick.

No matter. Everybody knows that the hilltop youth and the settlers are the real danger to democracy.
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