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CounterPunch
January
25, 2003
Israeli Democracy
Fact or Fiction?
by WILLIAM A. COOK
Israel's bulldozing of 62 shops in the village
of Nazkt Issa, north of Tulkarem next to the West Bank line with
Israel on Tuesday and its refusal to allow International and
Israeli peace activists to witness the devastation illustrates
the total control of the military in what is supposed to be a
democratic state. Americans saw and heard little of this action
except that it was caused by the illegal establishment of the
shops by Palestinians. In a democratic state, the alleged "illegality"
would be dealt with in a court of law, not by an army protecting
bulldozers from citizens throwing stones. But Americans hear
only what Sharon allows the corporate media in America to receive
from his minions as he prevents outsiders from witnessing the
demolition.
The impending Israeli elections and the
plethora of commentary that touts Israel as the only bastion
of Democracy in the mid-east warrants consideration of the truth
of the claim in light of Tuesday's devastation. It would appear
that the American public accepts the reality of Israel as a democratic
state and finds comfort in its compatibility with American values.
That comfort translates into approximately three billion dollars
per year for Israel, more aid than any other country receives.
A true Democracy must meet two criteria:
one philosophical that presents the logic of its argument in
a declaration and/or constitution; the other practical that demonstrates
how the Democracy implements legislation, distributes resources,
and makes equitable all policies and procedures for all its citizens.
Democracy is first and foremost a concept,
a philosophical understanding concerning the rights of humans
relative to the government that acts in their name. A Democratic
government serves through the manifest consent of the governed.
That government receives its authority through the citizens in
whom the right resides. Inherent in this philosophical understanding
is the acceptance of the rights of all citizens that reside in
a state: each and every citizen possesses the right to consent
to the legitimacy of those who govern, and each and every citizen
must receive equal treatment before the law.
For a state to claim a Democratic form
of government, it must have an established geographic area accepted
by other nations as legitimate and defined. The need for established
borders is both obvious and necessary with necessity arising
out of the obvious. Without borders, there can be no absolute
determination of citizenry, and, therefore, no way to fulfill
the establishment of the rights noted above. What has this to
do with the Democratic state of Israel? Everything.
Israel has no accepted legitimate borders
other than those provided to it by Resolution 181, according
to Anthony D'Amato, Leighton Professor of Law at Northwestern
University, in his brief "The Legal Boundaries of Israel
in International Law": "The legal boundaries of Israel
and Palestine were delimited in Resolution 181." Since the
1967 war, the borders of the current area controlled by Israel
exceed those outlined by the UN in Resolution 181 of 1948 as
the current incident in Nazkt Issa illustrates. Despite numerous
resolutions from the UN demanding that Israel return to its proper
borders, most especially Resolution 242, Israel defies the world
body continuing to retain land illegally held. The reality of
this dilemma is most manifest in the settlements. Here, Jews
residing in Palestinian areas continue to vote while Palestinians
literally surround them and cannot vote. Where is the state of
Israel? A look at a map would make it appear that Israel has
the spotted coloration of a Dalmatian. Clearly, those living
under Israeli domination are not considered citizens of the state
of Israel even though they reside within parameters controlled
by Israel. Since they are not citizens of Israel, and since there
is no Palestinian state, these people are without a country and,
therefore, without rights; an untenable position for any group
which is recognized as a distinct governing group by the UN through
its election of the Palestinian Authority as its governing body.
That election followed democratic procedures including the creation
of a constitution and the international monitoring of the election
process.
A Democratic state must declare the premises
of its existence in a document or documents that present to the
world the logic of its right to govern. That usually comes in
the form of a constitution. Unlike the Palestinians, Israel has
no constitution. Chuck Chriss, President of JIA writes, "Israel
has no written constitution, unlike the United States and most
other democracies. There was supposed to be one. The Proclamation
of Independence of the State of Israel calls for the preparation
of a constitution, but it was never done." It's been more
than 50 years since that "call". Why has Israel demurred
on the creation of a constitution? Both Chriss in his article
and Daniel J. Elazar, writing in "The Constitution of the
State of Israel," point to the same dilemma: how to reconcile
the secular and religious forces in Israel. Elazar states: "Israel
has been unable to adopt a constitution full blown, not because
it does not share the new society understanding of constitution
as fundamental law, but because of a conflict over what constitutes
fundamental law within Israeli society. Many religious Jews hold
that the only real constitution for a Jewish state is the Torah
and the Jewish law that flows from it. They not only see no need
for a modern secular constitution, but even see in such a document
a threat to the supremacy of the Torah"
The consequences of this divide can be
seen in the discrepencies that exist in practice in Israel. While
"the State of Israel is described in the Proclamation of
Independence as both a Jewish State and a democracy with equal
rights for all its citizens," the Foundation Law of 1980
makes clear that Israeli courts "shall decide [a case] in
the light of the principles of freedom, justice, equity and peace
of Israel's heritage." Without a written constitution, Israel
relies on a set of laws encased in Israel's heritage, "some
blatantly racist in their assignment of privilege based on religion,"
according to Tarif Abboushi writing in CounterPunch in
June of 2002. But the structure of Israel's governing process
that depends on a Knesset is also flawed. According to Chriss,
"Members of the Knesset are elected from lists proposed
by the parties on a national basis. Following the election, the
parties get to assign seats in the Knesset based on their proportion
of the national vote, drawing from the party list.Thus, individual
MKs owe allegiance to the party chiefs and not directly to
the electorate." (Emphasis mine). He goes on to say,
"This political system has resulted in some distortions
in which Israeli law and government do not reflect the actual
wishes of the voting population."
For a state to claim a Democratic form
of government, it must accept the equality of all residents within
its borders as legitimate citizens regardless of race, ethnicity,
creed, religion, political belief, or gender. For a state to
claim it is Democratic and reserve the rights of citizenship
to a select group negates its claim. It is an oxymoron to limit
citizenship rights to Jews alone and call the state Democratic.
As Joel Kovel has stated in Tikkun, "a democracy
that is only to be for a certain people cannot exist, for the
elementary reason that the modern democratic state is defined
by its claims of universality." Yet this inherent contradiction
exists in Israel. And this brings us from the philosophical phase
to the practical one.
Daniel Elazar, reflecting on this conundrum
in the postmodern era, notes that this "makes it impossible
for the State to distinguish between the entitlements of Jewish
citizens and others based upon obligations and performance; i.e.,
more benefits if one does military service than if one does not."
How does Israel implement the Democracy
it claims to possess? First, any Jew from anywhere in the world
can come to Israel and receive citizenship by virtue of his/her
Jewishness. By contrast, a Muslim or Christian Palestinian living
in exile because of the 1948 war cannot claim citizenship even
though they were indigenous to the area, nor can their descendents
claim citizenship. Second, ninety percent of the land in Israel
is held in restrictive covenants, land initially owned by Palestinians
for the most part, covenants that bar non-Jews from ownership
including the Palestinians who hold a limited version of Israeli
citizenship. Third, Israeli citizens who are Muslim or Christian
do not share the rights accorded Jews who serve in the military,
nor do they receive the benefits extended to those who serve
in the military. Non-Jews are taxed differently than Israeli
citizens and the neighborhoods in which they live receive less
support. As recently as June 12, 2002, Paul Martin writing for
the Washington Times noted "Israeli Arabs are trying
to strike down a new law reducing family benefits, arguing that
it has deliberately been drafted in a way that will affect Arabs
more harshly than Jews."
While Arabs constitute 20% of the population
within Israel, their voice in government is limited. Recently,
an "expert" working for the General Security Service
submitted his "expert opinion" to the Central Election
Committee that undertook to disqualify Azmi Bishara and other
Arab MKs from taking part in the election. This action would
have deprived the Arabs of a voice in the Knesset if it had not
been overturned by the Israeli court. The reality of Israeli
political parties virtually assures non-representation of the
Palestinians in the governing process. Even with Bishara permitted
to run, the voice of the Palestinians is muted. As Uri Avnery
noted recently, "One glance at the poitical map shows that
without the Arab votes, no left-wing coalition has any chance
of forming a government not today, nor in the forseeable
futureThis means that without the Arabs, the Left cannot even
dictate terms for its participation in a coalition dominated
by the Right."
Perhaps the most graphic illustration
of the non-democracy that exists in Israel comes from Human Rights
Watch and the US State Department reports published in Jurist
Law. The range of abuses listed by the State Department includes
detainees beaten by police, poor prison conditions that did not
meet international standards, detainees held without charge,
holding of detainees as bargaining chips, refusal to allow access
to Obeid by the Red Cross, imposition of heavier sentences on
Arabs than Jews, interference with private rights, etc,, and
finally, "Trafficking in women for the purpose of forced
prostitution is a continuing problem."
Human Rights Watch offers a litany of
abuses, many more serious than those proferred by the Department
of State: Israel has maintained the "liquidation" policy
targeting individuals without trial by jury, lack of investigations
to determine responsibility for killings and shootings, increased
use of heavy weaponry, including F-16 fighter jets etc. against
"Palestinian police stations, security offices, prisons,
and other installations." HRW also references the Israeli
Information Center for Human Rights in the occupied Territories
for the wanton killing of civilians by settlers. The listing
is too extensive to offer in its totality here.
As I mentioned at the outset of this
article, the American public hears constant reference to Israel
as the only democratic nation in the mid-east. They receive little
or no information about the accuracy of that statement. Yet Americans
accept this administration's and past administrations' support
of Israel in large measure because they believe that it reflects
the ideals expressed in the American Constitution and they are
willing to spend their tax dollars in support of those ideals.
In reality, American democracy and Israeli democracy are decidedly
distinct.
Democracy cannot exist in ignorance of
policies, processes, and actions undertaken on behalf of the
people including the refusal to admit citizens to areas like
Nazkt Issa where non-democratic action exists. Silence by the
peoples' representatives concerning reasons for actions taken
in their name corrodes democracy. Americans have not been told,
for example, that American authorities removed 8000 pages of
information from the 12,000 provided by the Iraqi government
to the UN Inspectors, according to former MP Anthony Wedgewood
Benn in an interview on BBC January 12th , pages removed to protect
corporations that provided Iraq with chemicals and other material
that could be used to develop WMD. Die Tageszeitung, a
Berlin Daily, reported the names of the corporations that acted
with the government's approval through the '80s and up to 1991
supplying Saddam with nuclear, chemical, biological and missile
technology. An extensive report on the chemicals sent to Iraq
by the US was disclosed in the Sunday Herald by
Neil Mackay and Felicity Arbuthnot, but received little press
beyond this paper. How can the American people respond intelligently
to the designs of this administration against Iraq without knowing
how Iraq obtained its capability to develop WMD and the reasons
for developing them?
Similarly, Israel cannot restrict its
citizens, including peace activists, or its American supporters,
from knowing how it acts relative to Palestinians by preventing
reporters or activists from describing what is done in their
name. Preventing the UN investigation of the Jenin "massacre"
is only one example. Restricting journalists from occupied territory
is another. Preventing Israeli and international peace activists
from Nazkt Isa is the most recent.
While the founding fathers' verbalized
the concepts and ideals that are the foundation of American Democracy
in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, the
full implementation of those ideals took many, many years to
bring to fruition: a Civil War that freed slaves more than 70
years after the creation of the nation, Women's Rights more than
120 years after the founding, and the Civil Rights Acts of the
'50s and '60s more than 150 years after its birth. That, however,
is not a reason for Israel, or any nation moving toward a democratic
status, to delay implementation of equal rights for all of their
citizens; rather it is a demonstration of the necessity to introduce
and ensure equity from the outset.
William Cook
is a professor of English at the University of La Verne in southern
California. His new book, Psalms for the 21st Century,
will be published by Mellen Press in January. He can be reached
at: cookb@ULV.EDU
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