Tikun Olam-תקון עולם: Make the World a Better Place

The N.Y. Times has a new Israel correspondent, Ethan Bronner. He replaced Steven Erlanger, who I thought was a generally good reporter with a few serious blind spots when it came to dispassionate reporting on the conflict. Bronner has begun writing his first in depth reports based around Israel’s 60th anniversary.

Before I talk about them, I wanted to put this in some context. I read a lot of journalism about the conflict. My major source is probably the Times, since it’s the newspaper I grew up on. Because I am passionate about both Israel and good journalism, and because, for better or worse the Times is our nation’s newspaper of record–especially on foreign affairs, I’m finely attuned to how the Times reports this issue.

I was seriously disappointed by Bronner’s piece on Israeli Arabs and the Nakba, . Why? Good journalism about the conflict takes you inside the hearts and minds of those who live on both sides of the divide. I think that after reading a profile of someone on either side, the partisans from the opposite side should feel deeply discomfited. Because a great journalist forces you to walk a mile in the moccasins of “the other.” Many Arabs and Israelis distinctly do not want to do this.

Instead of writing deeply personal, intimate journalism, Bronner has written a very much outsider’s perspective on Israeli Arab society. He hasn’t gotten anything egregiously wrong. He hasn’t shown any explicit pro-Israel bias. But nor has he attempted to plumb the heart of his subjects. If you look at the journalism of James Bennet, one of Bronner’s predecessors as bureau chief, you’ll see what this means. In this profile, Bennet presents the paradox and double life of a former IDF soldier married to a Palestinian with heartbreaking detail. You emerge from reading this type of journalism with a profound sense of the tragedy of this conflict for both sides. As opposed to when you finish reading Bronner, you feel you’ve read a dutifully reported piece with little of the empathy evidenced in Bennet’s writing.

Good writing on the Israel-Palestinian conflict is all about nuance and emphasis. Reporters like Bronner will rarely get a fact wrong. But it’s all in how you put the facts together; where you place emphasis, and how heavily you emphasize one particular fact over another. And in this sense, the new correspondent’s work is disappointing.

Here are a few of the things that made me uncomfortable about Bronner’s piece:

On Thursday, which is Independence Day, thousands will gather in their former villages to protest what they have come to call the “nakba,” or catastrophe, meaning Israel’s birth.

While I am not an Arabic expert, I have never seen the word Nakba without a capital letter. Since this refers to a specific event, and a seminal and catastrophic one at that, removing the capital letter seems to diminish unintentionally the importance of the event. Again, perhaps not an egregious mistake, but a sign that the writer isn’t at one with his subject, but rather looking from the outside. Even more important, I take serious exception to Bronner’s interpretation of the reference of Nakba to “Israel’s birth.” There are some Israeli Arabs who may see Israel’s birth as a catastrophe. But the reference in almost any Israeli Arab’s mind refers to the disaster visited upon their uprooted society and villages by the War of Independence. 700,000 were sent into exile in this tragic event–one that rivals the Spanish exile of its Jewish community in 1492 or the Roman conquest of Palestine in 135 CE during which many inhabitants were exiled. It is this displacement that is their tragedy.

One may argue that the displacement and creation of the new state go hand in hand so that the two are interchangeable. Benny Morris and perhaps even David Ben Gurion may’ve believed this to be the case. But not even every Zionist of the era agreed. And I do not accept this and strongly believe Bronner should’ve been more precise in his discussion of the issue.

Polls show that most Israeli Arabs are neither revoluntaries nor anti-Zionist in their outlook. But they are a deeply aggrieved minority. The crime for them is not Israel’s creation, but the displacement and injustice done to them in the process.

That is why I believe that Bronner’s emphasis on the irreconcilable divide between Jew and Arab in Israel is misplaced. Yes, the divide is there and it is great. But by portraying Israeli Arab atttiudes as more fundamental and radical than they perhaps are, Bronner has set up the conflict to be intractable & unresolvable, which I don’t believe is the case.

Most [Israeli Jews] say that…an end to its Jewish identify means an end to Israel…

Again, there is imprecision here that should be amplified. What this attitude really connotes is that an end to Jewish domination of the state would mean an end to Israel as a Jewish state. Certainly there is no reason why having A (as opposed to “the”) Jewish identity in Israel means the end of the state. There might also be a recognition of An Arab identity in the state as well. So that two ethnic, religious identities could be enshrined in the nation’s fabric. This would certainly NOT entail “an end to Israel.”

What Bronner does in the above passage is accept a certain nationalist Israeli Jewish assumption without examining what underlies it to determine whether there is ground for compromise sometime in the future.

…A majority of Jews, polls show, favor a transfer of Arabs out of Israel as part of a two-state solution…Arabs here reject that idea partly because they prefer the certainty of an imperfect Israeli democracy to whatever system may evolve in a shaky Palestinian state.

I am glad Bronner added the word “partly” to this passage, but even here I think he has missed the key point for Arabs. Certainly in a practical sense transfer would be economically disastrous for them. But more importantly, they are citizens of the state and their presence and that of their ancestors predates that of most of the current Jewish inhabitants. So most Arabs say: “Why should I be forced to leave this place? It is just as much mine as the Jews’. They have no greater claim to it than I.” Pride and rootedness in the land are far more important motivators for them in opposing transfer than any concern about standard of living should they be forced to leave.

In a 10-minute interview accompanying this piece, Bronner also made a statement that lacks sufficient nuance:

For the vast majority of Israeli Jews it [a multi-ethnic state of "all its citizens"] is a non-starter and a very threatening thought because they’re here to be part of the Jewish state. They say: “Look, there are twenty-some Arab states and with any luck there will be a Palestinian state. And if you need to be in an Arab state to express your Arab national identity choose another one, not this one.

Here Bronner has done a good job of channeling a certain Israeli nationalist perspective on the necessity of retaining Jewish dominance within the State of Israel. But what he hasn’t done is allow for the transformation of such attitudes over time. Look at the racial attitudes of white America toward African-Americans before 1954. There was an equivalent deep divide in society. But over time and thanks to the leadership of African-Americans like Martin Luther King and politicians like Lyndon Johnson, many of the barriers have fallen. Admittedly, Israeli relations between Jews and Arabs have potentially even more complexity than those between whites and blacks. But the key consideration is that racial hostility gradually diminished. Integration gradually decreased. With good will, leadership and compromise, this can happen in Israel too.

Can anyone now imagine an Arab running for president or prime minister of Israel? Perhaps not. But it will happen as surely as Barack Obama is now running for president. Time heals wounds as long as people really attempt to grapple with the issues that divide them. In my heart of hearts, I believe that they, and Israel, will find a way to realize the deepest aspirations of Arab and Jew within Israel.

It will not happen overnight. It will not happen easily. But for Israel to realize the full meaning of its democratic nature and its Declaration of Independence, developments must gradually move toward Israel becoming a state of all its citizens. Otherwise, Israel will be an ethnocracy with truncated rights for its Arab minority. This redefined Israeli state does not mean that the country will become Arab or that Jews or Judaism will no longer be fundamental to the identity of this state. There must be a way to also acknowledge that Arabs deserve parity in this process. That means that Judaism will no longer dominate; will no longer be considered superior. But the difference between being respected and being dominant is significant. Perhaps most Israeli Jews now do not accept the possibility that this will happen. But over time, I am convinced they will.

tags After 60 Years Arabs in Israel Are Outsiders, ethan bronner, ethnocracy, israeli-democracy, james bennet

David Yerushalmi replied to the charges leveled against him here and in Larry Cohler Esses’ article in Jewish Week. He doesn’t deny that he opposes democracy in Israel and the U.S. But he clarifies his meaning:

…Your “journalists” lead the story with the statement that I oppose “democracy” in the US and Israel, without any hint of an explanation of what that means in context.

…There is a clear distinction between raw or radical democracy and what we in the US adopted at our founding: a constitutional republic based on federalism…The founding fathers themselves of course opposed “democracy” in its simple form and created a wonderfully elaborate system to shield government from mass democracy (you of course are aware that neither the president, the judiciary, or even senators were elected by the direct vote under our Constitution [note the 17th Amendment]).

He expands on his rejection of “raw democracy” in another passage:

Mr. Yerushalmi criticizes…raw or radical democracy where all men and all ideas and all cultures are deemed equal and given equal voice. That is of course the agenda of the Left (and often blindly supported by “conservatives”) which attempts at every turn to destroy national sovereignty with a One World Government.

There you have it. David Yerushalmi doesn’t believe in the 17th amendment and prefers returning to the Constitution circa 1789. You see, we’ve allowed too many of the unwashed masses like former slaves and Arab-Americans to enter into our democratic processes. Even we Jews have infected the body politic with our leftist notions. They shouldn’t vote for U.S. senators nor even for president. Best to return to that time in history when Blacks equalled 3/5 of a white person and Southern whites got to increase their voting power by subsuming that 3/5 into their own voting bloc.

To be fair, we should allow David Yerushalmi to reply to my own attack on him. Note the honeyed tones of pseudo graciousness which are applied to those who call him out for what he is:

Dear Mr. Silverstein:

I find it interesting that you would attack me so viciously without first reaching out to dialogue since you have done so with the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

To label someone a Supremacist or racist is fine as long as the facts would support it. Rather than just take quotes out of context, I would have thought that a man so devoted to peace and dialogue would have at least extended to me the courtesy to inquire of me whether your understanding of my views was in fact correct.

Then, you could have said that indeed went right to the source and have determined that Yerushalmi is x, y, z. That you drew conclusions of this sort without any such effort speaks volumes, does it not?

All the best,

David Yerushalmi

Keep in mind this guy thinks I’m a member of the extreme left, a traitor to all he holds dear, and dangerous for the Brave New World he’s planning. Keep in mind that he has a plan for what he’d do for people like me (and probably you) and it probably involves incarceration at places like Guantanamo and a little electric current running under the fingertips. Why he thinks I would find it useful to dialogue with him is beyond me. But he’s welcome to participate here as long as he can keep a civil tongue in his mouth.

One point that Yerushalmi raises that is valid is his discussion of Israeli democracy. He is right in the limited sense that there is an outright contradiction in the way Israel currently balances its commitments to democracy and being a Jewish state. To Yerushalmi’s way of thinking there is no possible way to bridge the divide and Israel must shed democracy in order to hold true to its real mission as a state of the Jewish people. This would include eliminating (by expulsion or perhaps more extreme measures) those Arab citizens who could not accept Israeli supremacism and Arab subjugation.

A racist Jewish state like the one Yerushalmi envisions precludes the possibility that Israel could be a state that guarantees equality to ALL its citizens while protecting the religious and political rights of all as well. My vision would be a different Israel than the current system which Yerushalmi correctly notes discriminates against its non-Jewish citizens. It might be a system closer to our own with a constitution guaranteeing equal rights to all citizens and specifying what those rights are and how they are to be protected. And it would be a BETTER Israel both for its Jewish and non-Jewish inhabitants.

tags david-yerushalmi-opposes-raw-democracy, israeli-democracy, jewish-state, larry-cohler-esses

In March, 2007, after several embarrassing episodes in which Israeli security screeners harassed prominent Israeli Arabs (and an especially egregious example here) at Ben Gurion airport, the Shin Bet head announced with fanfare that the procedures would “soon change.” It’s only taken five months and lo and behold there is a new plan. Only problem is it doesn’t end discrimination or harassment at all; it merely disguises it:

Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz announced Tuesday that Jewish and Arab citizens traveling abroad will receive the same color stickers for their luggage during security checks at the airport. Prior to the decision, security personnel at Ben Gurion Airport used different color stickers for each population sector, each color indicating a different security level. From now on, all citizens traveling abroad will receive a white sticker, indicating that they have already gone through the security check.

According to Transportation Ministry spokesman Avner Ovadia, the use of different color stickers left non-Jewish passengers feeling humiliated and discriminated against. The decision to use a single color for all citizens was made in an effort to bridge the gap between different sectors in Israel.

Ynet spoke to airport security personnel about the changes and learned that now instead of the colored stickers, luggage will be differentiated according to numbers displayed on the identical white stickers. Now everyone will have a white sticker - but Israeli Jews will receive a sticker labeled 1, Arab families and Israeli Arabs will receive a sticker labeled 2 and Arabs traveling alone a sticker labeled 5.

An airport screener said that the change was made for the benefit of the Arab public. “But it’s stupid; anyone who understands the process can see the different numbers for Jews and Arabs.”

To paraphase The Who: “Meet the new plan, same as the old plan.” If I were an Israeli Arab I’d be thinking along the lines of the character from Hester Street who says memorably: “They can’t piss on my back and make me think it’s rain.”

So we have Israeli Arabs enduring the degradation and humiliation of airport petty harassment. But now they are insulted even more provocatively by the supposed reform of a process which hasn’t been reformed at all. This is what happens in a national security state which takes the position that 20% of its citizenry are automatic security risks regardless of who they are or what they believe. I call it “flying while Arab.”

Here in the States we have a similar problem of racial profiling or “driving while Black.” Thankfully, many states have outlawed this procedure and demanded that law enforcement withdraw it from their repertoire. Unfortunately, in Israel ethnic discrimination against Arabs is embedded far deeper and interwoven with an even more noxious strand of national security threat. I should add there have been a number of incidents in which American Arab passengers have been ejected from flights in this country because of unfounded fears that they are security threats.

Apparently, the airport’s security director looks at Arab travelers and sees nothing but “happy, shiny people:”

Ben Gurion security director, Shmuel Zachai, said in response: “All the stickers in the airport are white and meant to improve the sense of equality. Ever since we implemented the change we’ve barely received any discrimination complaints.”

“Barely?” What does “barely” mean? And does the fact that Israeli Arab MKs are breathing down Diskin’s neck on this issue not constitute a “complaint?” Or would he like every Arab traveler pissed off at their treatment to take up a picket sign and stand outside his office. Would he then believe there was a problem? The only problem is those Arabs would know the Shin Bet would likely never let them fly again from Ben Gurion in retaliation.

Hat tip to Sol Salbe for another great story lead.

tags ben-gurion-airport, driving-while-black, israeli-arabs-security-risks, israeli-democracy, mistreatment-of-israeli-arabs, racial-profiling, ynetnews, yuval-diskin

**
Realistic Dove, Magnes Zionist and Tikun Olam have united to create an online petition campaign against the Knesset’s odious Jewish National Fund bill which would prevent Arab citizens from leasing the Jewish National Fund’s lands:

We the undersigned express our profound disapproval and sorrow at the Israeli Knesset’s recent passage, on first reading, of the Jewish National Fund bill. The bill would prohibit Israel’s Arab citizens from leasing land owned by the Jewish National Fund (JNF) and managed by the Israeli Land Authority (which administers 93% of Israel’s land). The Israel High Court had earlier ruled that the ILA cannot discriminate against Arabs in leasing such land. This new legislation is an attempt to circumvent that ruling.

We applaud the High Court for putting an end to a discriminatory practice that should never have existed within a democratic state. We also applaud the Israeli MK’s, Jewish and Arab that voted against the amendment. If Israel is to be truly democratic, all its citizens must have the right to lease land held in trust by the government of Israel. Israel must not settle for anything less.

We call upon to the Knesset to defeat the amendment when it comes up for its next reading and to embrace values of equality and tolerance for all its citizens.

As readers here will remember, the Knesset passed the bill on first reading by a 64-16 vote with many Labor members joining the majority including Ami Ayalon, a supposed champion of Israeli-Palestinian dialogue.

I’d be grateful if all my readers would take a moment and visit our petition and add your signature. Also, e-mail the link to this post or the petition to all of your friends, family or co-workers who are interested in this issue. We should stand together against racism and in favor of Israeli democracy for all its citizens. My view of Judaism is that is not a supremacist religion, but rather a tolerant religion that embraces–or at the very least co-exists peacefully with–other faiths including Islam. If we insist that Muslims to be tolerant of non-Muslims, what message does this bill send to Israel’s Arabs and those around the world?

You may view all the petiton’s signatures here.

tags israeli-democracy, jewish-national-fund-racism, petition-Protest-Against-Knesset-Bill-Denying-Arab-Citi

This is one of the stranger posts I’ll have written here about Israeli politics. Usually I have a hard source from either Haaretz or Ynetnews or the New York Times upon which I can base my analysis and commentary. But tonight I have several piecemeal sources none of which tell a complete story.

There is the case of Israel’s leading Arab politician, Azmi Bishara, who has mysteriously left the country for reasons that are unclear with the Israeli chattering classes expecting his resignation from the Knesset. He has not yet resigned and if he does no one is clear about why he would do so. Even stranger, Ynetnews quotes his party, Balad, complaining that an Israeli court has issued a gag order preventing it from discussing the matter:

Harmed by rumors surrounding the disappearance of Balad Chairman Azmi Bishara, faction chairman MK Jamal Zahalka said the party would turn to the High Court of Justice if the gag order on the affair was not lifted.

After leaving country for Jordan, MK’s wife and son return without the Balad party head; reports say Bishara left for Europe after Jordanian foreign minister asked him to respect Hashemite Kingdom’s sovereignty

This would seem to indicate that Bishara may’ve asked Jordan for political asylum and been rebuffed by a kingdom which did not want to rile relations with Israel. No doubt the Shin Bet has also weighed in telling the king it would regard such a gesture as hostile.

Balad comments further on the gag order:

“We find ourselves at a dead end since we cannot talk…We have nothing to hide, on the contrary, we have someone to blame. If the court does not order the gag order to be removed on Sunday, we will go to the High Court of Justice,” Zahalka told Ynet on Thursday.

“We will go all the way to the High Court to realize our right to respond to the fabricated accusations against us, and refute the malicious rumors that are being published through the media,” added Zahalka.

“Bishara is being persecuted because of his political and ideological views, and because of his national and democratic opinions. Former minister Shulamit Aloni has already told the media recently that she thought Shin Bet would try to set him up and this is what we think has happened. We wish to remove the uncertainty, we have a lot to say, if we were only allowed,” he said.

…Either way, Balad is serious about the PR attack it plans to launch once the gag order is removed.

What in the world is going on? After forwarding the Ynetnews link to my good friend and fellow Israeli peace activist, Sol Salbe, we have together come to the conclusion that the Bishara case is part of the Shin Bet’s avowed war against the Israeli Arab leadership, which recently announced a campaign to transform Israel from a Jewish state into a multiethnic democracy:

An attack on the Arab leadership, Zuabi maintains, is a natural response to this defeat. The second cause that she sees is “the vision papers” published in recent months by several Arab organizations, documents that spoke, among other things, about altering the definition of Israel as a Jewish state. “This is a political culture that Balad introduced, and now it’s become dominant in Arab society,” says Zuabi. She believes this is why someone in power decided to get rid of Balad, because “only it is capable of nurturing the idea of rejecting the Jewish state.”

The Shin Bet apparently took these papers quite seriously. About a month ago, the Israeli daily Maariv reported that Shin Bet chief Avi Diskin told the cabinet that these “vision papers” indicate that Israeli Arabs are a “strategic danger.” It’s unclear if he was referring to Bishara specifically but to the vast majority of Israeli Jews Bishara is undeniably the symbol of the threat to the state’s Jewish character. This week, Education Minister Yuli Tamir said that “Bishara has crossed the red line,” and Meretz Chairman MK Yossi Beilin made similar comments.

At the time I first read in Haaretz about the Shin Bet’s brazen declaration of war against Israeli Arabs it was a theoretical matter and I wasn’t clear how the spooks would fight it. The persecution of Bishara seems to be the first major battle in this war.

Sol believes that the Shin Bet has told Bishara that if he does not go into exile that it will arrest him on a security charge. Neither of us knows precisely what Bishara may be charged with. But Bishara visited Syria and Lebanon immediately after last summer’s war and made statements the Israeli government considered objectionable:

[In Syria,] Bishara…warned of the possibility that “Israel launch a preliminary offensive in more than one place, in a bid to overcome the internal crisis in the country and in an attempt to restore its deterrence capability.” …[In] Lebanon, [he] told the Lebanese prime minister that Hizbullah’s resistance to Israel has “lifted the spirit of the Arab people”. Soon thereafter at Interior Minister Roni “Bar-On’s request, Attorney General Menachem Mazuz ordered a criminal investigation be opened against Bashara…” [A]fter Bashara’s last trip in 2001, the Knesset passed a law forbidding MKs from visiting any enemy state.”

There are some other disturbing precedents in Israeli history. In the 1960s, the Shin Bet also waged a war of persecution against Israeli Arab political leaders of the Al Ard movement. The latter was an Arab nationalist movement founded by rebellious young Israeli Arab intellectuals devoted to the teachings of Gamel Nasser. The movement rejected the traditional Arab politics of the Communist party in favor of a more authentically nationalist politics. Israeli intelligence saw Al-Ard as a serious threat and when it put forward a list for the 1965 Knesset, the party was banned. Several members including Mahmoud Darwish, one of the greatest contemporary Arab poets, went into exile.

Sol sees the Bishara case in much the same light. The Shin Bet is threatening either to ban Balad or prosecute Bishara for national security breaches or both. They have directed him to leave the country voluntarily and resign from the Knesset. If most or all of what Sol and I surmise this would mean the most egregious governmental assault on Israeli Arab political life in a generation.

I should make clear that Sol and I are speculating based on putting two and two together from various reports we have read from the Israeli Hebrew and English language press. Unfortunately, we can do no more than speculate because it appears that the news media is either being prevented from reporting this story fully or Balad is prevented from responding fully to whatever charges are being levelled against it.

I recently read an article in Haaretz saying that Israeli Arab political leaders planned a full-scale public relations campaign against the Shin Bet’s assault. I thought it was a strange pronouncement since the public didn’t know then precisely what the Shin Bet planned. But apparently Balad even then had a pretty fair idea of what was in store. And their response was dead on. Whatever shenanigans are going on here must see the clear light of day. As we here in this country know in light of revelations of Bush Administration violations of human rights using the cover of secrecy, tyranny loves darkness. The Shin Bet must be made to answer for its actions. It must not be allowed to hound Azmi Bishara into silence or exile without a fair hearing. If Israel is a true democracy and not a security state masquerading as a democracy, it is the least we can expect.

Israeli Arabs have every right as citizens of the state to agitate for their rights. They have every right to do precisely what Martin Luther King did here in the 1960s–to transform America from a land of the free only for some of its citizens into a land of the free for all its citizens. If Israeli Arabs seek to change the nature of Israel they will not destroy the state. They will never be able to transform Israel without the consent of Jewish citizens. But they have every right to lobby for their vision of what Israel should be. Just as Jews have every right to counter with their own vision. That is what a democracy is. What a democracy is NOT–is one in which the majority cows the minority into submission through hounding, persecution and prison.

UPDATE: An Italian left publication, Il Manifesto, adds some interestesting speculation to the mix on April 8th:

According to rumours, the security services are expected to have records of phone talks between Bishara and some leading members from Hezbollah, among which is General Secretary Hassan Nasrallah himself, which came about during the days of the devastating Israeli offensive in southern Lebanon and the katyushia rockets being launched against Galilee.

Fundamentally, Bishara would seem to be accused of keeping contacts with the enemy during wartime. Yet, it looks quite improbable that Nasrallah, Israeli air force’s target, hidden in a secret place under very strict security measures, might have phoned during the war (phone lines, not least the mobile phone ones, are a formidable means in the secret services’ hands to find people) in order to engage himself in conversations with Bishara who is, in turn, kept under constant surveillance.

tags avi-diskin, azmi-bishara, balad-party, discrimination-against-israeli-arabs, israeli-arab-politics, israeli-democracy, shin-bet

There is a certain unfortunate myth among pro-Israel activists that Israel is one big happy democracy in which the Arab minority partakes of all the benefits equally with the majority Jewish population. The apologists will argue speciously about the higher standard of living Israeli Arabs enjoy compared to inhabitants of neighboring Arab countries. I say specious because the comparison should be to other Israelis and not to citizens of foreign countries. And if you compare the Israeli Arab standard of living to the general Israeli standard, the former is at the very bottom rung of society. Another argument is that Israeli Arabs vote and participate fully in Israeli democracy. While this is true, it ignores ...