The Jewish-Democratic "Paradox," Again

"A Hard-Liner Gains Ground in Israeli Race"
A1, Monday 2/9/09
By Ethan Bronner

For an article about Lieberman and his "resonant political message: Israel is at risk not only from outside but also from its own population," Bronner does little to explain why this message is so resonant among Israelis.

In explaining the concerns of members of Likud, Kadima and Labor, Bronner writes that they "fear his focus on a normally submerged paradox of political life here – how a state of Jews and Arabs can define itself as both Jewish and democratic – undermines a delicate coexistence.”

In general, this is a good point. Yet Bronner evades the real issue. The coexistence is not delicate because, as implied by "paradox of Jewish and democratic," that Israeli Arabs feel disenfranchised.

As Haaretz's Israel Harel writes, it's a delicate coexistence because of "the increase in oppositional activities among Israeli Arabs - which often exceed the bounds of legitimate expression of opinion - against Israel as the state of the Jewish people, strident tones whose main chord is an overidentification with Arab-Palestinian nationalism, even during a vicious war of terror against Jews, and a heightened determination of the Arabs to secede from the state and establish their own political and cultural autonomous region."

This has "alienated" Israelis, especially "voters from the left". One might conclude that this extremisim may be due to a feeling of disenfranchisement. However, it's a two-way street when it comes to the problems facing, and faced by, Israeli Arabs. A stubborn refusal, stoked by Israeli-Arab politicians, to be a part of the system and thus reap its benefits, has led to this delicate existence.

Bronner correctly notes Israel's military assault was "on the Hamas rulers of Gaza" and not simply on Gaza. He goes on to write that this assault helped Lieberman because "Israeli Arabs sympathetic to Gaza protested the war," a benign rendering, until Bronner correctly notes their "Death to the Jews" chants. Yet the problem is more endemic, as noted above.

Bronner states that "many would like to shift Israel's identity from that of a Jewish state to one that is defined by all its citizens, arguing that only then would they feel fully equal." He then states that Lieberman "says that there is no room for such a move and that those who fail to grasp the centrality of Jewish identity to Israel have no real place in it." ["move," as if this is an option to be taken seriously]

The problem with Bronner's rendering of "state defined by all its citizens" is that this mantra is often dishonestly proclaimed by those who themselves have very strong feelings of Arab nationalism. Another problem is that it's not just Lieberman who says "there's no room for such a move," but those across the Israeli political spectrum. The difference is that other politicans are reluctant to say Israeli Arabs who reject Israel "have no real place in it."

Lieberman's firebrand rhetoric aside, what other conclusion is one to reach?