I’ve reported in past years on the Israel Democracy Institute’s annual poll on the health (or illness) of Israeli democracy. The results are usually quite dispiriting if you ever believed in such a concept. But they are always instructive.
Given the IDI is a liberal Zionist organization intent on maintaining what little remains of Israeli democracy
- 60% of Israelis believe there is a troubling disparity in income which “negatively affects the State’s democratic character.”
- 58% believe the Knesset should not remove the Supreme Court’s right to judicial review of legislation (36% believe it should).
- 42% believe that democracy is good in theory but not good in running a country
- nearly 80% believe they cannot effect change in government policies
- 44% believe that the “left-wing” legal system, media and academia are frustrating the ability of the right-wing to govern
- while 26% of Israeli Palestinians said the primary purpose of a democratic state was to guarantee full equality for all citizens, only 11% of Israeli Jews believe this.
- 47% of Israeli Jews said that the meaning of a “Jewish state” meant “primarily nationality.”*44
- 29% of Israeli Palestinians said a “Jewish state” meant “racism,” while 26% said it “belonged only to Jews,” and 18% said it was “not democratic.”
- 44% of Israeli Jews said that a citizen who said Israel was “not the nation state of the Jewish people” should be denied the right to vote.
- 31% believe that government funding of the public broadcasting authority should give politicians the right to influence its content.
- around 55% of Israelis get their primary news from TV; 25% from radio; 25% from print media; 30% from social media; nearly 20% from blogs*
- 88% of Israeli Jews place their highest trust in the IDF; only 27% in the Knesset; and 15% in political parties
- 41% of Israeli Palestinians place their highest trust in the IDF (!); 19% place their highest trust in the Knesset
- 59% of Israeli Jews believe that human rights NGOs damage the State
- while the poll’s findings are in the approximate mid-range for international indices, they are extremely low compared to OECD countries. Compared to the latter: Israel is in the 14th percentile for political rights, 6% civil rights, 17% freedom of the press, 14% for representation and accountability,
A few comments on the findings: it’s bizarre that Israeli Jews would say the primary meaning of being a Jewish state is that it provides a national identity. You would either have to be a Jewish supremacist to believe this; or not understand the difference between a state and a religion. At any rate, this finding goes to the heart of the contradiction between religion and democracy and proves that they contradict each other. Nationality derives from nationhood, not from religion.
The findings about how Israelis get their news compares in interesting fashion to American habits: 57% of us get our new from TV; 38% online (social media, blogs, etc.); 25% radio; and 20% newspapers.
“Nationality derives from nationhood, not from religion”
Judaism is not a religion but a ‘peoplehood'{ maybe even a ‘consciousness-but still determined from whence the body issued}.
The ‘thread’ of the law has sustained its existence thru the ages.
In Christianity and Islam one can be excommunicated but not in Judaism even if there be a חרם etc it means the ‘excommunicated’ loses his social rights etc but he remains a Jew.
Even one born from a Jewish mother who wasn’t aware that she was Jewish the newborn is Jewish or potentially or in actu when he/she is in informed that his/her mother is Jewish.
The matrilineal line has been the defining factor for at least the last 2000 yrs.
@ marty:
There goes your credibility on the subject of Judaism.
The concept of peoplehood is so vague as to mean virtually anything. Even more so when you attach the amorphous phrase “consciousness” to it. At any rate, peoplehood has nothing to do with nationhood. So again, Israel is a NATION and being Israeli a nationality. At least it should be. Those who equate Israeliness with Judaism and Jewishness are destroying Israel’s chance of ever being a normal, tolerant & democratic state.
Nope. It sustained Jews until the Enlightenment. Since then, not so much. Halacha is an important factor in Judaism. IF Israel is a theocracy then it will be an important factor in the state’s self definition. If you’re a Kahanist-racialist-neo-Nazi, then you’re cool with that. I’m not.
And please stop offering us definitions of who is a Jew. It puts me to sleep.
The reality of Israel is that it is a rassenstaadt, a Racial State made up around the belief that Mandate Palestine was the homeland of the Jews and that they (Israelis) have the Absolute Right to run the place for their own benefit, facts on the ground be damned. Such a state cannot be run as a democratic republic as we understand the term – the racist element will always subvert the democracy. Thus it makes far more sense to run Israel as a one-party dictatorship, and Israel is now moving towards that end goal, no matter that it runs counter to the world belief in democracy. The Arab World need do nothing to Israel – it will destroy itself in a few decades and the land will be Palestinian again, though possibly radioactive.
Richard says:
”A few comments on the findings: it’s bizarre that Israeli Jews would say the primary meaning of being a Jewish state is that it provides a national identity. You would either have to be a Jewish supremacist to believe this; or not understand the difference between a state and a religion. At any rate, this finding goes to the heart of the contradiction between religion and democracy and proves that they contradict each other. Nationality derives from nationhood, not from religion.”
I don’t know whether it is bizarre that Israeli Jews say that the primary meaning of a Jewish state is national. After all being Jewish is not only a religious identity in Israel, in the Population Register and in ID cards, but it is a nationality. that after all was the purpose of Zionism, to transform the religion into a nation/race. Hence why there is no Israeli nationality because that would immediately erect a barrier between Israeli Jews and Diaspora Jews.
If Israel was not a settler colonial entity then believing that being Jewish also made you, WITHIN THE ISRAELI CONTEXT, an Israeli Jewish national, would not necessarily be Jewish supremacist though in practice it would tend that way. Of course if there were one Israeli nationality then being Jewish would simply be a non-Arabic component no more. But yes to define nationality on the basis of religion is a backward indeed medieval concept. The rise of bourgeois nationalism as per the French Revolution was to define nationality on the basis of residence and language. In this respect Israel is a throwback to the Europe of 200 years ago and the fascist regimes in Europe of the 1930’s.
Tony Greenstein http://www.azvsas.blogspot.com