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The changing face of racism
By Sefi Rachlevsky, Haaretz, Thu., March 18, 2010
The most prominent example of a country that refused to allow Jews to marry non-Jews was Germany, when it enacted the Nuremberg Laws. While Israel makes sure it doesn't disengage entirely from the rest of the world by recognizing marriages outside its borders, marriages between Jews and non-Jews here are forbidden. Now, in an effort to address the "problem" of those who immigrated to Israel under the Law of Return but are refused status as Jews by the state, these people will have the option of entering a state-sanctioned covenant with their spouse, but only if the spouse is also classified as a non-Jew.
It's as if there were never a guarantee in the Declaration of Independence that assured Israelis "complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex."
The most outspoken opponent of Israel's becoming both a Jewish and democratic state was Rabbi Meir Kahane. The effort "to solve his problem" only pushed the country further into the abyss. To prevent his re-election to the Knesset, lawmakers launched an initiative to disqualify party lists that opposed democracy in Israel. This is a reasonable idea for a democracy that does not yield to those who seek to destroy it from within.
Yet as a compromise between Labor, Likud and the religious parties, an addendum to the law banned any party that opposed Israel's standing as a Jewish state. Thus a new standard was reached via the tortuous, Israeli route. In principle, no party can run for the Knesset because it's clear that if most citizens want a state that is not tethered to Judaism, that's their basic right.
Since then, the combination of "Jewish and democratic" has taken root in Israel and its laws. The phrase "Jewish" does not refer to the Jewish people in the same vein as it was applied in the Declaration of Independence and the UN Partition Plan calling for a Jewish state and an Arab state.
Rather, it refers specifically to the Jewish religion, an entirely different matter than what the Zionist revolution had in mind. As such, Israel is disconnecting itself from the modern world by virtue of the 42-year-old reality of racist apartheid in the territories of Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem - areas in which Jews are citizens and their non-Jewish neighbors are not. Denial of citizenship to non-Jews also contravenes the halakhic principle of ger toshav, which afforded special status to gentiles in the Kingdom of Israel.
The dilemma of a state that is bound by ancient ties to a certain nation while promising "full equality of rights" for all its citizens is not unique to Israel. Many other nation-states such as France have experienced similar conundrums. The concept of the dominance of one religion within a single national entity was also not an Israeli invention. Catholicism traditionally played a much larger role in the identities of people living in Italy, Spain, France and Ireland. Having been drawn into the religious-racial-nationalist black hole, Israel now joins the Iranian-Afghan galaxy.
From Sheikh Jarrah to the bones discovered during the expansion of Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon, from the so-called Nakba Law to the war on evolution being waged by the Education Ministry's chief scientist, from the foreign minister to the interior minister - Israeli democracy is losing its status as "a present absentee." The state still has a hand mirror that reveals the face of a young Dorian Gray. Yet in reality its racist defilement is changing its look.
"The problem of timing" does not belong to the Jerusalem District Planning and Building Committee. In the run-up to the clash on the Iranian front, when the state will need all the domestic and foreign support it can muster, Israel is turning itself into an entity whose democratic right to exist is self-destructing.
The changing face of racism - Haaretz - Israel News
By Sefi Rachlevsky, Haaretz, Thu., March 18, 2010
The most prominent example of a country that refused to allow Jews to marry non-Jews was Germany, when it enacted the Nuremberg Laws. While Israel makes sure it doesn't disengage entirely from the rest of the world by recognizing marriages outside its borders, marriages between Jews and non-Jews here are forbidden. Now, in an effort to address the "problem" of those who immigrated to Israel under the Law of Return but are refused status as Jews by the state, these people will have the option of entering a state-sanctioned covenant with their spouse, but only if the spouse is also classified as a non-Jew.
It's as if there were never a guarantee in the Declaration of Independence that assured Israelis "complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex."
The most outspoken opponent of Israel's becoming both a Jewish and democratic state was Rabbi Meir Kahane. The effort "to solve his problem" only pushed the country further into the abyss. To prevent his re-election to the Knesset, lawmakers launched an initiative to disqualify party lists that opposed democracy in Israel. This is a reasonable idea for a democracy that does not yield to those who seek to destroy it from within.
Yet as a compromise between Labor, Likud and the religious parties, an addendum to the law banned any party that opposed Israel's standing as a Jewish state. Thus a new standard was reached via the tortuous, Israeli route. In principle, no party can run for the Knesset because it's clear that if most citizens want a state that is not tethered to Judaism, that's their basic right.
Since then, the combination of "Jewish and democratic" has taken root in Israel and its laws. The phrase "Jewish" does not refer to the Jewish people in the same vein as it was applied in the Declaration of Independence and the UN Partition Plan calling for a Jewish state and an Arab state.
Rather, it refers specifically to the Jewish religion, an entirely different matter than what the Zionist revolution had in mind. As such, Israel is disconnecting itself from the modern world by virtue of the 42-year-old reality of racist apartheid in the territories of Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem - areas in which Jews are citizens and their non-Jewish neighbors are not. Denial of citizenship to non-Jews also contravenes the halakhic principle of ger toshav, which afforded special status to gentiles in the Kingdom of Israel.
The dilemma of a state that is bound by ancient ties to a certain nation while promising "full equality of rights" for all its citizens is not unique to Israel. Many other nation-states such as France have experienced similar conundrums. The concept of the dominance of one religion within a single national entity was also not an Israeli invention. Catholicism traditionally played a much larger role in the identities of people living in Italy, Spain, France and Ireland. Having been drawn into the religious-racial-nationalist black hole, Israel now joins the Iranian-Afghan galaxy.
From Sheikh Jarrah to the bones discovered during the expansion of Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon, from the so-called Nakba Law to the war on evolution being waged by the Education Ministry's chief scientist, from the foreign minister to the interior minister - Israeli democracy is losing its status as "a present absentee." The state still has a hand mirror that reveals the face of a young Dorian Gray. Yet in reality its racist defilement is changing its look.
"The problem of timing" does not belong to the Jerusalem District Planning and Building Committee. In the run-up to the clash on the Iranian front, when the state will need all the domestic and foreign support it can muster, Israel is turning itself into an entity whose democratic right to exist is self-destructing.
The changing face of racism - Haaretz - Israel News
