The
common believe among many Jews and Christian communities is that God
gave the land of Palestine to the Jews and that “stronger Israel
is a fulfillment of biblical prophecy”.
God is not in the real state business.
President G.W. Bush publicly stated on numerous occasions
that he is “Committed to the security of Israel as a Jewish
state”. Hypnotized by
political rhetoric, Americans are unaware that Israel is not a
democracy in the American sense of the word.
Let us look at the kind and degree of democracy to be found
in what is frequently referred to as the “only real democracy in
the middle east”.
The
United Nations General Assembly on November 2, 1947 passed the
Partition Resolution required that a “Constituent Assembly” of
the proposed Jewish state to draft a democratic Constitution for the
state. To date after
its founding, the state of Israel still has neither a Constitution,
nor a Bill of Rights. Lacking
a constitution, the state of Israel has by legislation created two
classes of citizens: Jews and non-Jews.
Jews all over the world are granted automatic Israeli
citizenship by virtue of the law of return passed in 1952; therefore
Jews can become citizens of Israel by merely going there and opting
for this citizenship. By
the state’s own declarations, its citizenship or nationality base
can not allow any significant number of non-Jews to become citizens
or nationals of the state, something which non-Jews might seek to do
were the procedures for obtaining citizenship more democratic.
Democratic process would threaten the demographically Jewish
character of Israel. Thus
of the 150,000 Arabs in Jerusalem, regardless of whether they were
born or lived there most of there lives, only 100 -150 have been
granted citizenship. In
this way, the Government of the state of Israel can insure a Jewish
majority at all times. More
importantly, the deprival of citizenship is inherited.
That is, a child born of a “stateless” couple is not
granted citizenship by reason of his birth in Israel.
In
1970, a law was enacted that provided that “religion” and
“Jewish nationality” are identical.
A Jew is defined as a person “born of a Jewish mother or
one who has converted”, thus, the civil law resorts to religious
criteria and to the religious establishment.
The rabbinical judges, rule according to the laws of the
Torah and are exempt from the necessity of swearing allegiance to
the laws of the state even though those laws require the citizen to
abide by their rulings. In
Israel then, church and state have become inseparable.
This is not compatible with the western approach to democracy
that is embodied in the principal of separation of church and state.
When
the State of Israel came into existence in 1948, an estimated 80% of
the Jewish population was of European stock.
In more recent years, non-European immigrants the so-called
“Oriental” or Arab Jews represent 75% of the total.
Yet despite this fundamental change in the ethnic composition
of the state, the Knesset structure remains essentially as it was at
the time of its creation, with 70% of its members representing
Israelis who immigrated into the country before 1948, an element
which today represents only about 10% of the population.
The Israeli citizen has no voice whatever in the selection of
the party lists because he/she doesn’t vote for a candidate, but
votes for a party. The
Knesset members are not elected; the party leaders appoint them and
their loyalty is obviously to those leaders rather than to the
voters. The large
community of Jews from Arab lands, with serious social and economic
problems, is generally ignored in a system still led by Eastern
Europeans. In the
Israeli democracy, the 70% of the population which is Oriental has
had to content itself with 3% of all top executive government posts
and less than 20% of the seats in the Knesset.
Israel cannot be called a democracy as long it adheres to its
Jewish character. Israel
must abolish its apartheid system, which designed to disenfranchise
the Arabs just as was done to the blacks in South Africa.
Ali
Labib is the founder and
former
president of the Kalamazoo chapter of
the
American Arab Anti-Discrimination
Committee
(ADC) and is co-chairman of
the
ADC Media Committee. He is co-chair-
man
of BRIDGES (Bringing Respect and
Diverse
Groups to Enhance Sensitivity),
serving
with U.S. Attorney for the Western
District
of Michigan Margaret Chiara.
