We've had a lot of discussions about the antisemitism that exists on the left; such discussions tend to put us on the defensive because they are frequently framed in accusatory language, as if antisemitism were the exclusive property of the left, or as if it tainted the entire left, or as if it belonged to one cohesive group of people at all, and we all know that this is not true.

There are two articles on the editorial page of the Globe today. One is Shira Herzog's and focuses mostly on Europe's relationship with Israel. The other is an editorial. Both document what looks like a recent increase in the number of attacks on Jews in the diaspora.

I am wondering how to put this into perspective. I understand that there is a great deal of justified anger in the Middle East about the Palestinian situation, and I think it is impossible to discuss Palestinian suicide-bomb attacks on Israel, horrible as they are, without putting them into the context of an occupation and what amounts to an undeclared war. But attacks on diaspora Jews do not fit in that context.

[ 18 November 2003: Message edited by: Mycroft ]

Satan lives in George Soros

But I'm trying to make sense of the anti-Semitic incidents at this point. It seems to me that anti-Semitism is more accepted in Europe than in North America (just as it seems to me that anti-Arab attitudes and behaviour are more accepted in North America than in Europe, although it's a close race on that one). Is this a constant thing, or is it actually a growing phenomenon?

Edited to add: Read the denunciation of George Soros, and couldn't make head or tail of it. "Sartre" is on some serious crack.

The anti-Semitic epithets are about the only part of that I understood. Yukko.

[ 18 November 2003: Message edited by: Smith ]

His article is about rising anti-Europeanism in the U.S. So now we have the full complement of anti-s.

Working with stats rather than vague feelings about things, he argues that anti-Semitism has risen in the U.S. much more dramatically in the last few years than it has in Europe -- and the American stats he's using come from the Anti-Defamation League, itself a main source of worried analysis of Europe.

I wish I had seen that article. I remember reading that anti-Semitism was much more the norm in America than in Europe in the decades leading up to Hitler's rise, but I was not aware that similar things were happening in North America today.

Although it makes sense, in some ways, because there are tougher restrictions on hate speech, etc., in Europe...

[ 18 November 2003: Message edited by: Smith ]

Before I do that, though, one qualification worth remembering: In a sense, anti-Semitism in the U.S. is largely "European," of course. I suspect that it is mainly manifest among young whites (males?) who are heirs to a tradition that is broadly European and usually Christian. The same would be true in Canada. In some places in the U.S. there has also been a long history of friction between Jewish and black communities, although I suspect that that is more a class-based problem.

quote:

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Tony Judt, "The Way We Live Now," NYR 50, no.5 (27 March 2003): 6-10.

(I'm just going to type this in fast and raw, so forgive any typos. It is a longish extract for babble, but a small part of the original, so I hope this doesn't bother the NYR or Judt.)

quote:
A second Europhobic myth now widely disseminated in the United States is more pernicious. It is the claim that Europe is awash in anti-Semitism, that the ghosts of Europe's judeophobic past are risen again, and that this atavistic prejudice, Europe's original sin, explains widespread European criticism of Israel, sympathy for the Arab world, and even support for Iraq. The main source for these claims is a spate of attacks on Jews and Jewish property in the spring of 2002, and some widely publicized opinion polls purporting to demonstrate the return of anti-Jewish prejudice across the European continent. American commentary on these data has in turn emphasized the "anti-Israel" character of European media reports for the Middle East. (7)

To begin with the facts: according to the American Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which has worked harder than anyone to propagate the image of rampant European anti-Semitism, there were twenty-two significant anti-Semitic incidents in France in April 2002, and a further seven in Belgium; for the whole year 2002 the ADL catalogued forty-five such incidents in France, varying from anti-Semitic graffiti on Jewish-owned shops in Marseilles to Molotov cocktails thrown into synagogues in Paris, Lyon, and elsewhere. But the same ADL reported sixty anti-Semitic incidents on US college campuses alone in 1999. Measured by everything from graffiti to violent assaults, anti-Semitism has indeed been on the increase in some European countries in recent years; but then so it has in America. The ADL recorded 1,606 anti-Semitic incidents in the United States in the year 2000, up from 900 in 1986. Even if anti-Semitic aggression in France, Belgium, and elsewhere in Europe has been grievously underreported, there is no evidence to suggest it is more widespread in Europe than in the US. (8)

But what of attitudes? Evidence from the European Union's Eurobarometer polls, the leading French polling service SOFRES, and the ADL's own surveys all point in the same direction. There is in many European countries, as in the US, a greater tolerance for mild verbal anti-Semitism than in the past, and a continuing propensity to believe longstanding stereotypes about Jews: e.g., that they have a disproportionate influence in economic life. But the same polls confirm that young people all over Europe are much less tolerant of prejudice than their parents were. Among French youth especially, anti-Semitic sentiment has steadily declined and is now negligible. And overwhelming majority of young people questioned in France in January 2002 believe that we should speak more, not less, of the Holocaust; and nearly nine out of ten of them agreed that attacks on synagogues were "scandalous." These figures are broadly comparable to results from similar surveys taken in the US. (9)

Most of the recent attacks on Jews in Western Europe were the work of young Arabs or other Muslims, as local commentators acknowledge. (10) Assaults on Jews in Europe are driven by anger at the government of Israel, for whom European Jews are a convenient local surrogate. The rhetorical armory of traditional European anti-Semitism -- the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion," Jews' purported economic power and conspiratorial networks, even blood libels -- has been pressed into service by the press and television in Cairo and elsewhere, with ugly effects all across the youthful diaspora.

The ADL asserts that all this "confirms a new form of anti-Semitism taking hold in Europe. This new anti-Semitism is fuelled by anti-Israel sentiment and questions the loyalty of Jewish citizens." That is nonsense. Gangs of unemployed Arab youths in Paris suburbs like Garges-les-Gonesses surely regard French Jews as representatives of Israel, but they are not much worried about their patriotic shortcomings. As to Jewish loyalties: one leading question in the ADL surveys -- "Do you believe Jews are more likely to be loyal to Israel than to [your country]" -- elicits a consistently higher positive response in the US than in Europe. It is Americans, not Europeans, who are readier to assume that a Jew's first loyalty might be to Israel.

The ADL and most American commentators conclude from this that there is no longer any difference between being "against" Israel and "against" Jews. But this is palpably false. The highest level of pro-Palestinian sympathy in Europe today is recorded in Denmark, a country which also registers as one of the least anti-Semitic by the ADL's own criteria. Another country with a high and increasing level of sympathy for the Palestinians is the Netherlands; yet the Dutch ahve the lowest anti-Semitic "quotient" in Europe and nearly half of them are "worried" about the possible rise of anti-Semitism. Furthermore, it is the self-described "left" in Europe that is most uncompromisingly pro-Palestinian, while the "right" displays both anti-Arab and anti-Jewish (but often pro-Israel) bias. Indeed, this is one of the few areas of public life in which these labels still carry weight. (11)

Overall, Europeans are more likely to blame Israel than Palestinians for the present morass in the Middle East, but only by a ratio of 27:20. Americans, by contrast, blame Palestinians rather than Israel in the proportion of 42:17. This suggests that Europeans' responses are considerably more balanced, which is what one would expect: the European press, radio, and television provide a fuller and fairer coverage of events in the Middle East than is available to most Americans. As a consequence, Europeans are better than Americans at distinguishing criticism of Israel from dislike of Jews.

One reason may be that some of Europe's oldest and most fully accredited anti-Semites are publicly sympathetic to Israel. Jean-Marie Le Pen, in an interview in the Israeli daily Ha'aretz in April 2002, expressed his "understanding" of Ariel Sharon's policies ("A war on terror is a brutal thing") -- comparable in his opinion to France's no less justified antiterrorist practices in Algeria forty years earlier. (12) The gap separating Europeans from Americans on the question of Israel and the Palestinians is the biggest impediment to transatlantic understanding today. Seventy-two percent of Europeans favor a Palestinian state against just 40 percent of Americans. On a "warmth" scale of 1-100, American feelings toward Israel rate 55, whereas the European average is just 38 -- and somewhat cooler among the "New Europeans": revealingly, the British and French give Israel the same score. Is it the Poles who exhibit by far the coolest feelings toward Israel (Donald Rumsfeld please note). (13)

(Footnotes not included. If you really need them, you now have the library reference to find them.)

[ 24 July 2003: Message edited by: skdadl ]

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Thank you.

I can see how it serves the pro-Likud purpose to smear the pro-Palestinian left (particularly the European left, since American support for Israel is not currently in question) as anti-Semitic; however, what do you think is behind the growing (if it is growing, or even not shrinking) number of anti-Semitic attacks, in America or in Europe? I am not inclined to do as the pro-Likud (hell, pro-Kach) hate sites do and assume that Muslim immigrants are to blame for it all, but I don't know who is.

[ 18 November 2003: Message edited by: Smith ]

[ 18 November 2003: Message edited by: Smith ]

I am sorry, but I think the increase in antisemitism and anti-Islamic racism was all very predictable and is the manifestation of wheels put in motion by ideologues and racists with agendas.

It was argued, here, among these threads that the tactic of smearing critics of Israeli policy as antisemites was a dangerous tactic. But it was a tactic used by the pro-Israeli lobby nonethelesss in an effort to undermine the credibility of critics. They are all antisemites and therefore we don't need to hear them.

But it was argued on this site, among others, that such a tactic was stupid in that it alienated natural allies because even though the broad left abhors Israeli policy in the occupied territories the broad left equally abhors antisemitism. In fact, it is the inherent racism of Israeli policy that drives the criticis rather than any particular military or security goal. What do we know of such things?

But worse, the smear as used by the Israeli lobby reduced the sting of the attack. I don't know how many times I have been branded antisemetic on this site. Never in my life outside the confines of this board has anyone ever accused me of having anything but respect for all peoples of all faiths and all origins except for here. And my crime? Daring to insist the racist policies of Israel be viewed as such.

So if I can be labelled an antisemite, how much worse can it be for a white supremacist or someone who just hates Jews to be labelled the same? Suddenly, the bite is gone and it is just another word.

And then there is the rising acceptance of hate among the pro-Israeli lobby and among their erstwhile allies in the Christian right. The war of civilizations has begun.

A racist such as Daniel Pipes is elevated to the corridors of power and championed as a defender of free speech when it is his goal to silence everyone who disagrees with him, with war, with Israel.

It is suddenly okay to hate Islamic peoples and brand them all as suspected terrorosts. We invade their countries and regard their lives so cheaply we don't even count their dead. We import the methods of the IDF, collective punishment, into occupied Iraq.

And so they hate. They hate us, they hate Jews, they hate all that they can blame for the plight of their people mostly oppressed and repressed in anti-democratic regimes where they have little to nurture but their hate.

Hate, when set loose, has a way of getting into everything and spreading everywhere and devouring both the reasoned and the unreasoned.

We see our world dividing up into trading blocks, retreating into tribalism, and blaming "the other" for all that is wrong. Much like the 1930's, no?

quote:

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Blame the muslims?
Yes, substitue one racism for another. That will do the trick.

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quote:

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I am sorry, but I think the increase in antisemitism and anti-Islamic racism was all very predictable and is the manifestation of wheels put in motion by ideologues and racists with agendas.

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I hope you didn't think I was suggesting that was true.

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Being in Israel makes the point to me even more clear. Israelis and Jews of all stripes here are in almost complete agreement with this line. No one would argue with your right to critisize Israeli policy, indeed in cafes here I hear Israelis critisize their governement with passion and energy from all sides. But to advocate the removal of the "Jewish" state is more than a non-starter it is where today's jews rraw the line. I know you dont like to hear this but you cannot escape it and while you may want to deny their feelings it wont change the position.

quote:

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Originally posted by Mishei:
Wing most Jews draw the antisemitic line today at those who wish to eradicate the "Jewish" state of Israel and replace it with a bi-national secular state. I know that it would never be your intention to advocate antisemitism but arguing the dissolution of Israel as a Jewish state is the ultimate result.

...

So yes by all means critisize the policies of the legitimate Jewish state of Israel but please understand that it must be within the context of its legitimacy not its dissolution.

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Wing most Jews draw the antisemitic line today at those who wish to eradicate the "Jewish" state of Israel and replace it with a bi-national secular state.

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Well, that is an obvious mistake, for reasons Wingy points out above.

Criticizing either the policies or the structure of the state of Israel is not what the anti-Semitism I remember is all about.

If Israelis have decided that it is tactically clever of them to smear political critics by lumping them in the same basket with real anti-Semites, then, as Wingy says, they are cheapening the value of the charge, making anti-Semitism more ordinary, more normal.

What a stupid stupid stupid thing to do. On top of that, those who would run on such vague smears and innuendo against their critics are losing natural allies. Remember: your allies don't have to agree with you all the time, nor you with them -- but character assassination will usually drive people away permanently.

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I find calling people like many babblers who are committed leftists and who have devoted our lives to eradicating racism 'antisemites' is just as hurtful as equating Israeli policy with Nazism.

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if Israel wasn't occupying Palestine (whether justified or not) I am willing to bet that "antisemitism" would not be much of an issue.

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See, I very much disagree with that. I think it explains much of the behaviour of Palestinians towards Israeli Jews, but I do not think it makes any sense as an explanation for attacks on Jews in the diaspora. Attacking a synagogue in Turkey or Germany or Canada is not, and does not register as, a comment on Ariel Sharon or Likud. It is an act of hatred towards Jews because they are Jewish. That is why its implications are so frightening.

And it is even more counterproductive than attacking Israeli civilians. The more Jews feel threatened in the diaspora, the more they will feel the need for the promise of refuge in Israel, and the more hawkish, emotional and rigid they will become about Israeli policy.

I do not accept Mishei's broader definition of antisemitism. Questioning the wisdom or the justice of a state's structure or laws is not the same thing as willing that state and its people into non-existence; doubting the wisdom of nationalism based on race or religion is not the same thing as wishing a particular race or religion would disappear. The assumption that Mishei and his Israeli pals seem to operate on is that if those nasty Arabs are ever let into Israel as equals - true equals, with nationality rights - they will overwhelm, persecute and drive out the Jewish population, because that's just what Arabs do, and that's not an assumption I'm prepared to accept. I don't think that a binational state makes sense at this time because I believe the region is much too inflamed for that. But I do not think that discussing the possibility makes me a Jew-hater, and I resent the implication deeply. I have not yet learned to numb myself to the accusation as certain of my fellow babblers have.

[ 19 November 2003: Message edited by: Smith ]

quote:

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Attacking a synagogue in Turkey or Germany or Canada is not, and does not register as, a comment on Ariel Sharon or Likud. It is an act of hatred towards Jews because they are Jewish. That is why its implications are so frightening.

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Smith: yes and no.

I, anyway, think that it's pretty obvious that the attacks in Turkey and Tunisia can be attributed to al-Qaeda and/or related groups, whereas anti-Semitic filth here or in Europe tends to come from locals.

Personally, I don't think that hand-wringing is going to help us with major terror attacks. I do believe that al-Qaeda is going to try to kill a lot of us, and not just Jews, although Jews are a certain target.

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I believe it is a mistake to claim that this is not connected to Israel/Palestine as an issue.

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No, I believe it is connected, but I don't believe that is its primary purpose or reason for being, and I don't believe it would necessarily go away of the Israel/Palestine issue were resolved.

As for what we can do other than wring our hands, well, I was hoping to find ideas here...

[ 19 November 2003: Message edited by: Smith ]

With luck, they will "age out," if we can improve the world enough to discourage new acolytes. This has happened before, in living memory.

What can we do about European/NAmerican anti-Semitism? Build a better public-education system.

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Attacking a synagogue in Turkey or Germany or Canada is not, and does not register as, a comment on Ariel Sharon or Likud. It is an act of hatred towards Jews because they are Jewish. That is why its implications are so frightening.

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I'm not so sure. Just musing, but, I wouldn't be so quick to say that these attacks aren't 'in context' of the Middle East just because they are not in situ. Mass media have obliteraterd our old geographically defined conceptions of space, boundary, and identity. For example - the WTC attacks were 'felt' in California, creating a deep psychological impact that would have been impossible given old constraints of print media and even radio/audile connections. Toronto, hundreds of miles away from New York, in a different state was impacted just as heavily, even though 'we' (as nominally Canadians) weren't under attack. All the same, it seemed as though 'we' were under attack - the shock and awe produced by the images transcended geographically defined identities and experience. The images created a sense of belonging - as though one were involved one's self, and I think this went a long way to creating the hysteria that surrounded the event.

What I'm wondering is this: if the effects of mass media are such that they can create trans-geographical identities/affiliations so that, for instance, some Turkish people can feel a solidarity with Palestinians in a way never before imaginable, is it only a short distance to projecting this tendency onto other groups (say Jews) and so behaving as though they are all connected?

This is all connected to idea of an 'imagined community' and nationalism proper. We have no trouble speaking of Americans living in Saudi Arabia as 'Americans' no matter what they do, but in the case of Zionism and Jews things get murky. Are they an ethnic group/minority? A nation? A religious group? In some ways, those that would treat Jews everywhere as though they were Israelis/Zionists are simply applying the Zionist logic par excellance. By 'Zionist logic' I mean the tendency to look at Jews as a single nation who all owe their primary loyalty to, and situate the locus of their identity in, Israel.

I'm not saying it's right, I'm just wondering about how we can approach this problem from a position that takes into account new modes of identity formation which are the result of the obliteration of geography and space by electronic mass media. We also need to take into account how these new forms of identity intermingle with more geographically based notions of identity and the ways in which we shift from one identity to another quite seemlessly, most often without seeing that our various forms of attachment having nothing to do with each other or are even exclusive.

I don't think we can start to identify the problem here (least of all can we simply fall back on the old notions of 'antisemitism') and just dismiss this as the same phenomena as, say, what precipitated the Holocaust, though this is exactly what people will do. The Holocaust was for the most part geographically localised, and the Nazi conception of Jews very much rooted in Jews physical presence in Germany, though their 'metaphysical' presence also came into issue. This is quite different from an ideology that (however erroneously) sees Jews as representative of Israel and wishes to harm them because of this connection .

I think we first need to address the issue of how identities are formed and maintained in the post-modern electronic media universe BEFORE we can really understand what is going on.

None of this precludes the idea that these attacks involve a certain hatred of Jews. That's obvious. But hatred of Jews 'as what'? Zionists? International Bankers? Representatives of a wider civilisational/religious conflict? My curiousity is more about the shifting conceptions of context/space/geography/boundary/identity.

[ 19 November 2003: Message edited by: Courage ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Mr. Magoo:
[QB] might implement in order to at least get you back to scorning women drivers and men whose beards aren't long enough, and not blowing up buildings.

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quote:

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In some ways, those that would treat Jews everywhere as though they were Israelis/Zionists are simply applying the Zionist logic par excellance. By 'Zionist logic' I mean the tendency to look at Jews as a single nation who all owe their primary loyalty to, and situate the locus of their identity in, Israel.

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That is true, which is why this kind of Zionist logic is so dangerous.

[ 19 November 2003: Message edited by: Smith ]

quote:

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So yes by all means critisize the policies of the legitimate Jewish state of Israel but please understand that it must be within the context of its legitimacy not its dissolution.

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It is your view that the two state solution is the only one that would maintain "the legitimate Jewish state of Israel." Fair enough, for now.

But my question is as follows: Will Israel disarm, and relinquish sovereignty over, the settlers? And if they will, will the settlers leave? And if they don't, will they accept Palestinian rule? I thyink we know the answers are no, no, no, no and no.

You see Mishei, a legitimate, viable Palestinian state is not possible so long as Israel insists on maintaining the settlements and extending Israeli sovereignty into the settlements with military force.

If there cannot be a viable Palestinian state then what sort of state are you advocating for them? Is it the sort of state you would accept for Israel?

It is Israelis with the official support for, and the expansion of, settlements, Mishei, who have created the circumstances that make a two-state solution an impossibility. At least the impossibility of a legitimate and viable state that would not resemble neither a North American Indian reserve nor a South African Bantu.

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Originally posted by Mishei:
Wing most Jews draw the antisemitic line today at those who wish to eradicate the "Jewish" state of Israel and replace it with a bi-national secular state. I know that it would never be your intention to advocate antisemitism but arguing the dissolution of Israel as a Jewish state is the ultimate result.

Being in Israel makes the point to me even more clear. Israelis and Jews of all stripes here are in almost complete agreement with this line. No one would argue with your right to critisize Israeli policy, indeed in cafes here I hear Israelis critisize their governement with passion and energy from all sides. But to advocate the removal of the "Jewish" state is more than a non-starter it is where today's jews rraw the line. I know you dont like to hear this but you cannot escape it and while you may want to deny their feelings it wont change the position.

So yes by all means critisize the policies of the legitimate Jewish state of Israel but please understand that it must be within the context of its legitimacy not its dissolution. Those (yes even those who are Jews) who continue to demand the end of a Jewish state must understand what it means to the overwhelming majority of Jews world wide.

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Originally posted by WingNut:

In another thread, Mishei, I asked a question you never did answer.

It is your view that the two state solution is the only one that would maintain "the legitimate Jewish state of Israel." Fair enough, for now.

But my question is as follows: Will Israel disarm, and relinquish sovereignty over, the settlers? And if they will, will the settlers leave? And if they don't, will they accept Palestinian rule? I thyink we know the answers are no, no, no, no and no.

You see Mishei, a legitimate, viable Palestinian state is not possible so long as Israel insists on maintaining the settlements and extending Israeli sovereignty into the settlements with military force.

If there cannot be a viable Palestinian state then what sort of state are you advocating for them? Is it the sort of state you would accept for Israel?

It is Israelis with the official support for, and the expansion of, settlements, Mishei, who have created the circumstances that make a two-state solution an impossibility. At least the impossibility of a legitimate and viable state that would not resemble neither a North American Indian reserve nor a South African Bantu.

So my last question is: Can Israel be both a Jewish state and a racist state?

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"The fear of the loss of the majority has already
yielded plans for campaigns against the danger,
such as the projects for increasing the Jewish
birth rate, granting voting rights to
expatriates or even to Jews wherever they may
be. The chance of fulfilling the unitary model
is nil. But the effort to identify
binationalism only with that model is
deliberate, meant to prevent any debate about
other, more attractive alternatives.

One such alternative is a system that recognizes
collective ethnic-national rights and maintains
power sharing on the national-central level,
with defined political rights for the minority
and sometimes territorial-cantonal divisions.
That model, called "consociational democracy"
has not succeeded in many places, but lately
has been applied successfully to reach
agreements in ancient ethnic-national conflicts
such as Bosnia, through the Dayton agreement,
and Northern Ireland, with the Good Friday
agreement. That should be food for thought for
the experts who contemptuously wave off the
binational option.

. . . .

The option of power sharing and division into
federated cantons is closer to the model of the
territorial division of two states but it
avoids the surgery, so it allows the existence
of soft borders, and creates a deliberate
blurring that eases dealing with symbolic
issues, the status of Jerusalem or the
questions of refugees and the settlers. The
mutual recognition allows preservation of the
national-cultural character on the national
level and preservation of the ethnically
homogenous regions. Everything depends, of
course, on recognition being mutual and
symmetric."

What do you mean by 'Jewish State', Mishei?

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Originally posted by Courage:
Second, why do you avoid this question?

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The Jewish state allows for the Jewish people to exercise their right as Jews to self-determination.
It was founded as I have said often to provide a homeland for the Jewsih people who have been the subject of persecutution and even genocide.

In accordance with its Declaration of Independance Israel was founded as a democratic state based on the priciples of seperation of powers and complete equality before the law of all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race,, gender or nationality.

You should also know that the Declaration of Independance of the Jewish state proclaimed that Israel will be based on freedom justice and peace as envisioned by the prophets of Israel.

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In accordance with its Declaration of Independance Israel was founded as a democratic state based on the priciples of seperation of powers and complete equality before the law of all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race,, gender or nationality.

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So why then are people no longer equal before the law irrespective of religion, race, or nationality??

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Originally posted by No Yards:

So why then are people no longer equal before the law irrespective of religion, race, or nationality??

A declaration of independance is only a bunch of words . . . what about the reality of what actually happens?

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In effect a Jewish state of Israel as the declaration so states will allow the Jewish people to be master of their own fate, like all other nations, in their own sovereign state.

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Originally posted by al-Qa'bong:

Like the Cree and Québecois, to cite but two local examples?

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Or like the British, Irish, Germans, Iranians,....

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British? Do you mean Scots, English, Cornish, Ulstermen or Welsh?

"A state which is incompetent to satisfy different races condemns itself; a state which does not include them is destitute of the chief basis of self-government. The theory of nationality, therefore, is a retrograde step in history."

Lord Acton July, 1862

quote:

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quote riginally posted by No Yards:

So why then are people no longer equal before the law irrespective of religion, race, or nationality??

If you are an Israeli citizen that is the rerality. However as in any country especially young countries problems occur. Thankfully Israel has an independent judiciary to deal with such issues.

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Originally posted by Smith:

So if all Israeli citizens are equal before the law, as you claim, what makes the state "Jewish," and how is it kept that way?

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“A State For Jews Or A Jewish State”.

From the outset of Zionism as a political movement it was clear that the subject on the agenda was a Jewish state. Herzl called his famous pamphlet of 1896, which formed the basis for his entire activity and hence the establishment of the Zionist movement, The Jewish State. There were those in the movement who chose, mainly for tactical reasons, to downplay the political side of the program; they talked more in terms of a Jewish society than a state. Nevertheless, it was clear to everyone that the goal was to attain an autonomic entity in which Jews would completely control their own lives. Soon enough, it became clear to all in the movement that such an entity was only conceivable in Eretz Israel. That much was agreed upon.

It was much less clear, however, what exactly was meant by the term ‘Jewish state.’ The problem was that, as we have already seen, there was little or no agreement in the Jewish world as to what being Jewish actually implied. Even more fundamentally, there was little agreement about how the Jews should be defined as a collective. Should they be seen as a religion, like Christianity or Islam? There were those, especially in the West, that said yes.

Others saw them as a nation. What did this mean, however: a secular framework such as the French or Italian nations? Many in the Zionist movement insisted that this indeed was the case. They saw Zionism as the national movement of liberation of the Jewish people, rather like the Italian national liberation movement of the mid-19th century. Others within and outside of the movement were appalled: how was it possible to compare the Jewish nation to secular national movements of any kind? The Jews were a nation of a totally different kind; a religious nation, a holy nation whose whole culture and way of life was religious by definition.

These differences of opinion were anything but theoretical. It was clear to all that they would have very important practical consequences for the forthcoming Jewish state that was the aim of the Zionist movement. The issue was no less than the way of life that would be followed within any future autonomic society or state that Zionism might attain. What would the law of the state be? What would its constitution be? What would the character of its education system be? Would it be a state where all would keep kashrut? All of these were key questions that would have to be answered in the most concrete of terms.

For those (the majority of the Zionists) who saw the Jewish state as ultimately constituting the almost exclusive framework for the Jewish people, the question was deeper still: what would be the future of the Jewish people? What kind of a people would the Jews be? Would there be any future for Judaism?

At first, the Zionist movement served as the framework for the arguments on all of these issues. Within the movement, religious and non- religious Jews were organized into separate factions. Could they work together towards a common cause? At a certain point, as the Yishuv developed inside Palestine, the center of gravity of the movement increasingly shifted to within Eretz Israel, where the arguments between the various groupings were played out among the political parties and groups of the Jewish community. From 1948 onwards, those same arguments would be moved to a new arena: the institutions of the State of Israel.

At least three main opinions regarding the character of the Jewish state were voiced in the Zionist movement, and the institutions of the Yishuv and the early state.

A Jewish state is a neutral framework whose task is to provide a general background in which all Jews can decide for themselves how to lead a Jewish life. The state must provide the means for different groups to live their life. The state must be democratic. Groups that wish to do so are free to conduct their lives according to Jewish law without affecting the lives of others who want something else.
A Jewish state is a religious framework. The law of the land must be guided by Halacha. Individuals can do what they want within their own private spheres but all aspects of public life must be run in accordance with halachic norms. It is unthinkable, in a Jewish state, that people will be able to break Halacha publicly.
A Jewish state is a secular framework. It will be run according to democratic lines. However, certain spheres of public life which are of particular importance to religious groups will, by agreements, be given over to their supervision. In these spheres of life, life and law will be determined by Halacha rather than by democratic choices that may vary according to the make-up of the population. These spheres will be above the normal democratic process, according to prior agreement of all the groups in the polity.
Very early on within the Zionist movement, it became clear to most Zionists, including the religious faction, that the second suggestion was a non-starter since the clear majority within the Zionist movement from its earliest years belonged to the secular faction. Thus the third option was basically the best that could be hoped for, from the standpoint of the religious Zionists. Most of the non-religious Zionist majority had no wish to force a split within the movement. Ultimately, in order to avoid such an occurrence, the last option was chosen.

The question now was: which aspects of life should be given over to religious control or be brought under the principles of Halacha (Jewish religious law)? Here many years of struggle within the different groups resulted in a de facto agreement that was acceptable to all the main players. It selected a number of spheres of activity and public life where Orthodox religious norms would govern the way of life of the state-in-the-making and the state-to-be.

These were formally put to paper in June 1947 in a letter sent by David Ben Gurion, at that time the Chairman of the Jewish Agency Executive and the accepted political leader of the Yishuv. The recipient was Rabbi Yehuda Leib Maimon, the leader of the non-Zionist Agudat Israel party. The letter had no actual legal status, but was to become the basis of the division of power and the definition of spheres of influence in the future Jewish state. It has become known in history and in Israeli mythology as the ‘Status Quo agreement,’ since it basically formalized existing agreements and practice as they had evolved within the Zionist movement and inside Mandatory Palestine.

The letter made promises regarding four aspects of public life that were vital to the Orthodox:

1. Shabbat would be the national day of rest. However, the state would recognize the Christians’ and Moslems’ respective days of rest.

2. Kashrut would be observed in all kitchens under state auspices.

3. Religious courts would maintain exclusive jurisdiction over all aspects of personal status. The principal aspects of this would relate to birth, marriage and divorce.

4. Existing autonomous religious educational systems would be recognized by the future state. This applied to the two religious systems operative at the time: the national religious system of the religious Zionists and the independent Haredi system.

A few other agreements would subsequently be made in the spirit of the status quo agreement. Some, like Ben Gurions’s acquiescence for the few hundred full-time yeshiva students to be granted exemption from army service, would become extremely controversial when the numbers of such students swelled to the tens of thousands. Other aspects of the agreements, such as the implications of the Shabbat agreement, would become problematic as the state developed and pressures among the non-religious public developed for entertainment and commercial activities on that day. Nevertheless, the spirit of the ‘status quo’ is still invoked today. There are arguments over its interpretation, but it has long been accepted by most as a general framework for trying to settle disputes over issues of religion and state.

[ 23 November 2003: Message edited by: Mishei ]

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Originally posted by WingNut:
Yeah, okay.

Let's put it in plain language: How will a "Jewish" state exist in a land where a majority of its citizens are not Jewish?

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I do not expect that will happen.

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I do not expect that will happen.

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I do not expect that will happen.

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Why not? There are about fifteen million Jews in the world, versus about a billion Muslims and two billion Christians. Also, the Arab birthrate is overall much higher than the Jewish one.