Israel

There was an op-ed in today's NY Times, maintaining that Israeli leaders have a 1.5 percent doctrine, wherein they consciously desire to maintain control of the West Bank, and deny the Palestinians a state. I think this thesis is completely false, however, I do think that Israeli leaders have too long maintained the status quo, figuring that "if it ain't broke, don't fix it", not realizing just how "broke" it is. Of course, there are legitimate security concerns: Terrorist attacks have gone down, and the PA works with Israeli security forces to maintain that reality. At the same time, much of the PA-controlled media fuels anti-Israel or even anti-Semitic material, and because there still is an occasional attack - such as the brutal murder of a settler family last year - Israelis still live in fear of attack. Fear is inherently irrational, and many Israelis fear that compromise with the PA means compromising their own safety.

Israeli politicians take advantage of that fear: They use it to get elected, and once in office, use it to be lazy. Let's get one thing straight: Israel's main enemy is not Iran. Israel's main enemy is Israel. The social problems of the society, in which different segments are pitted against each other, along with corrupt politicians and an inept beaurocracy, are the true threats to Israel. But Iran makes a convenient scapegoat, allowing Netanyahu not to deal with any of Israel's real problems, like rising inequality, culture wars between Haredi and secular society, and growing racism against Arabs - of course, since Arabs, despite their legal equality, are in effect considered second-class citizens, it is doubtful Netanyahu would care about that anyway. That is not to say Iran is not dangerous - any totalitarian regime that preaches genocidal rhetoric should be prevented from getting a nuclear weapon, and Israel is right to worry. But Netanyahu takes advantage of this legitimate worry, to turn it into irrational fear, so he can avoid having to talk about other issues.

Let's take, for example, the recent lynching of an Arab youth in downtown Jerusalem: While the majority of Israelis, both politicians and civilians, were horrified and condemned the attack, the incident is indicative of a rising tide of racism within Israel. This is becoming a society increasingly obsessed with the fear of being contaminated by the Other. But that is not surprising: In Israel, different segments of society live in complete isolation from each other, and discrimination is considered normal. Even the rabbinic right's obsession with "proper" conversion is in part, motivated by fear of contamination and miscegenation. While most Israelis condemned the attack, had low-level social racism not been tolerated as an inevitable part of society, the high-level, violent racism would have had a harder time taking root. This tolerance of intolerance comes from a perception that racism is not "our" problem, it is the problem of the Other, who is being discriminated against. In reality, however this is "our problem" because a society characterized by racism and intolerance is an unhealthy society, where different factions cannot work together for the good of society. It is a society too torn apart by bickering to progress, and a society characterized by the opposite of human kindness, which is an essential ingredient of a healthy society. After all, how can there be social justice without it?

What does this have to do with the Occupation? Well, the Occupation leads to racism against Palestinians, which is the key racism from which all others flow. You see, the Occupation puts many Israelis in positions where they are seeing the Palestinians as the enemy, the military target, and the inferior, since these Israelis are in a position of power when they serve in the West Bank. Furthermore, the Occupation begets its own logic: Humans cannot live with cognitive dissonance, thus, racist actions necessitate racist ideologies, and not vice versa. That is why racism against Africans and African-Americans did not really take off until the Atlantic Slave Trade and the Colonial Era. The roots were there beforehand, but they did not blossom into a full-blown racist ideology until afterwards, when such an ideology was needed to justify acts in progress. Once there is racism against Palestinians, all other groups that are not mainstream Ashkenazi Jews can then be classified by their proximity to Palestinians: First Israeli Arabs, then Sudanese (non-Jews), then Sephardim from Middle Eastern Countries. Each degree of difference from Palestinians, is a degree less of racism that the offending group will have to experience.

The NY Times op-ed maintained that making Palestinians full Israeli citizens, while officially annexing the West Bank, is an option for peace. I agree with that in principle, but have two objections: 1. Is that what the Palestinians want? I suspect it would leave their desire for statehood unsatisfied. 2. Terrorism takes a while to die out. Is it a security risk to suddenly have no borders between Palestinians and Israelis? After all, imposing said borders or security checks would make the Palestinians second-class citizens, but not doing so would fail to take into account residual anger from Palestinian radicals that would not be appeased by making them Israeli citizens.

If these two objections can be satisfactorily answered, I could support such a measure. Meanwhile however, I think Israel should ask itself why it has become the society that it is today. Personally, I believe it comes down to the very definition of a Jewish State: Right now, in Israel, there is rudimentary Biblical education, official Jewish holidays, and official government sponsorship of a corrupt rabbinate that controls marriage and divorce proceeding for all Israelis, while controlling the lives of religious Israelis in such a way that you sometimes wonder if they don't wake up in the morning asking "How can I make people so disgusted with Judaism that they'll want to become not-religious today?". That is not my definition of a Jewish State, or of Zionism.

What is my definition?: An Israeli state that is not afraid to seriously engage in its own Jewish identity, by having an in-depth yet non-coercive Jewish education curriculum which all schools - secular and public - must follow. This curriculum should include some units on Islam and Christianity as well, taking into account those minorities and focusing on similarities between the three religions, as well as the way that knowledge of the Jewish tradition can helps us to be ethical, involved people in the modern world. Such a society does not have to obsess over the Other, because it is building a society built on shared common values, not on "who is less like you than I am". It is building a positive identity, defined by what we share, not a negative one, defined by what we do not share with others. Furthermore, perhaps such an Israel would not feel the need to patronize a radical rabbinate as a way of proving its Jewishness to itself, a way of passing the basic requirement of being a Jewish State, so that it can justify its own existence. Such an Israel would be too confident in its identity as a Jewish State to sell that identity to a bunch of rabbis. Maybe it would even be confident enough that it could start discussing Isaiah's musings on social justice, in the context of a debate on how to build a better society. Maybe it could discuss how there is space within the Jewish tradition to debate the demerits of extreme inequality, without destroying the capitalist system. This would certainly be a state I would be proud to be part of, because it would be a state in the process of growing, of finding itself - and what could be more Jewish than that? Isn't that what Abraham did from the moment God told him to leave his father's house? Isn't that why we have the concept of yearly repentance, because every year is a step towards becoming our better selves? If nothing else, this State would be a State where an Arab and a Jew could sit down on a bentch and kvetch together about the upcoming test on the life of Mohammed, and story of Genesis - because nothing cements social bonds like complaining about a class while munching on chocolate.