Fundamentally Freund: Hyphenated Israelis

Giving those living abroad the right to vote here is a good place to start in strengthening their bond to this country.



Michael Freund
Fundamentally Freund/JPost
10 February '10

Nearly a century ago, US president Theodore Roosevelt ascended the stage of Carnegie Hall in New York and created a stir. Thundering passionately as only he could, Roosevelt launched a memorable assault on the idea of multiple national loyalties, making a forceful case against diluting the concept of American identity.

“There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism,” he famously declared in his 1915 speech. “Americanism is a matter of the spirit and of the soul. Our allegiance must be purely to the United States. We must unsparingly condemn any man who holds any other allegiance.”

I couldn’t help but think back to Roosevelt’s words this week after the proposal put forward by Israel Beiteinu to grant Israelis living abroad the right to vote.

At first glance, the plan does elicit a reflexive distaste. Our heart tells us there is something inherently wrong with the idea of people who do not live here being able to shape our government.

On the surface, it smacks of democracy by remote control. If a person is not invested in the outcome beyond an emotional attachment, and does not directly bear the consequences of his choices, giving him the vote seems like an affront to the rest of us who do live here. In that respect, it also seems to contradict the spirit of Zionism by extending Israeli political rights to those who have chosen to go elsewhere.

THAT, AS I said, is the heart speaking. But I think the head tells a very different story. To begin with, the world of 2010 is not the same as that of 1915. Indeed, increased global mobility and cross-border technologies have weakened the bonds of national identity, all but making Roosevelt’s pronouncements obsolete.

Consequently, an increasing number of countries around the world have been extending the right to vote to their citizens living abroad, recognizing the inherent value in strengthening ties with expatriates.

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Related article: Manhigut Yehudit's Ideas Going Mainstream also The Great Absentee-Ballot Debate
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Manhigut Yehudit's Ideas Going Mainstream

Manhigut Yehudit
11 February '10

Only two weeks ago we pointed out how - slowly but surely - ideas that Manhigut Yehudit has been introducing into public discourse are eventually integrated as societal norms and become legislative proposals. We had mentioned the proposed law to give honorably discharged soldiers free land, submitted by MK Gilah Gamliel and the change in the government's handling of the illegal immigrant issue and its decision to close Israel's border with Egypt.

This week, another Manhigut Yehudit idea went mainstream, with PM Netanyahu's endorsement of the Yisrael Beiteinu proposal to allow Israeli expatriates to vote.

For Netanyahu and Lieberman, the proposed law is motivated by narrow political interests: Most Israelis are loyal to their identity and Land and naturally lean toward the right. Granting voting rights to hundreds of thousands of Israeli expatriates neutralizes the power of the Arab Knesset bloc and strengthens the right. But even though he may be governed by narrow interests, the fact that the PM has endorsed this law is a step in the right direction.

Manhigut Yehudit has repeatedly called for the granting of voting rights to every Jew as a matter of principle. The practical way to begin is to grant voting rights to those people who are already Israeli citizens. We do not propose this for opportunistic reasons but because we believe that the State of Israel is the state of the entire Jewish nation.

For more on voting rights for expatriates and world Jewry, see Moshe Feiglin's article, Israeli Voting Rights for Expatriates and Diaspora Jews.

Related article: The Great Absentee-Ballot Debate
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The Great Absentee-Ballot Debate

Evelyn Gordon
Contentions/Commentary
09 February '10

A perennial Israeli debate erupted anew yesterday, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that he supported a proposal to extend the franchise to Israelis living abroad. What makes this debate so baffling is that both sides are partly right — meaning it should be easy to strike a compromise somewhere in the middle. But in 62 years, it hasn’t happened.

The proposal put forth by Netanyahu’s largest coalition partner, Yisrael Beiteinu, would allow absentee ballots for anyone who has held a valid Israeli passport for the past 10 years — about 500,000 people. And opponents are right that this is far too broad. First, in terms of sheer numbers, that constitutes 7 percent of the total population and fully 10 percent of eligible voters — a far higher proportion than is the norm in other countries that allow absentee voting.

Moreover, many of the 500,000 people in question have been living abroad full-time for many years. Indeed, you can have a valid Israeli passport for 10 years without setting foot in the country that entire time. Thus people who are not living in Israel and whose daily lives are unaffected by the country’s policies would have a disproportionate impact on the outcome of any election.

This is particularly problematic because Israel is a country at war. Overseas residents are not the ones who will suffer daily rocket fire if a territorial pullout goes wrong, nor will their sons’ lives be at risk if the government launches a military operation. Thus it is completely inappropriate to give them a major voice in electing those who will make such decisions.

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