Israel as a "Jewish State"

The principle of Israel as 'a Jewish state' was supremely
important to Israeli politicians from the inception of the state
and was inculcated into the Jewish population by all conceivable
ways. When, in the early 1980s, a tiny minority of Israeli Jews
emerged which opposed this concept, a Constitutional Law (that
is, a law overriding provisions of other laws, which cannot be
revoked except by a special procedure) was passed in 1985 by an
enormous majority of the Knesset.

By this law no party whose programme openly opposes the principle
of 'a Jewish state' or proposes to change it by democratic means
is allowed to participate in the elections to the Knesset. I
myself strongly oppose this constitutional principle. The legal
consequence for me is that I cannot belong, in the state of which
I am a citizen, to a party having principles with which I would
agree and which is allowed to participate in Knesset elections.

Even this example shows that the State of Israel is not a
democracy due to the application of a Jewish ideology directed
against all non-Jews and those Jews who oppose this ideology. But
the danger which this dominant ideology represents is not limited
to domestic affairs. It also influences Israeli foreign policies.
This danger will continue to grow, as long as two currently
operating developments are being strengthened: the increase in
the Jewish character of Israel and the increase in its power,
particularly in nuclear power. Another ominous factor is that
Israeli influence in the USA political establishment is also
increasing. Hence accurate information about Judaism, and
especially about the treatment of non-Jews by Israel, is now not
only important, but politically vital as well.

Let me begin with the official Israeli definition of the term
'Jewish', illustrating the crucial difference between Israel as
'a Jewish state' and the majority of other states. By this
official definition, Israel 'belongs' to persons who are defined
by the Israeli authorities as 'Jewish', irrespective of where
they live, and to them alone. On the other hand, Israel doesn't
officially 'belong' to its non-Jewish citizens, whose status is
considered even officially as inferior. This means in practice
that if members of a Peruvian tribe are converted to Judaism, and
thus regarded as Jewish, they are entitled at once to become
Israeli citizens and benefit from the approximately 70 per cent
of the West Bank land (and the 92 per cent of the area of Israel
proper), officially designated only for the benefit of Jews. All
non-Jews (not only all Palestinians) are prohibited from
benefiting from those lands. (The prohibition applies even to
Israeli Arabs who served in the Israeli army and reached a high
rank.) The case involving Peruvian converts to Judaism actually
occurred a few years ago. The newly-created Jews were settled in
the West Bank, near Nablus, on land from which non-Jews are
officially excluded. All Israeli governments are taking enormous
political risks, including the risk of war, so that such
settlements, composed exclusively of persons who are defined as
'Jewish' (and not 'Israeli' as most of the media mendaciously
claims) would be subject to only 'Jewish' authority.

I suspect that the Jews of the USA or of Britain would regard it
as antisemitic if Christians would propose that the USA or the
United Kingdom should become a 'Christian state', belonging only
to citizens officially defined as 'Christians'. The consequence
of such doctrine is that Jews converting to Christianity would
become full citizens because of their conversion. It should be
recalled that the benefits of conversions are well known to Jews
from their own history. When the Christian and the Islamic states
used to discriminate against all persons not belonging to the
religion of the state, including the Jews, the discrimination
against Jews was at once removed by their conversion. But a
non-Jew discriminated against by the State of Israel will cease
to be so treated the moment he or she converts to Judaism. This
simply shows that the same kind of exclusivity that is regarded
by a majority of the diaspora Jews as antisemitic is regarded by
the majority of all Jews as Jewish. To oppose both antisemitism
and Jewish chauvinism is widely regarded among Jews as a
'self-hatred', a concept which I regard as nonsensical.

The meaning of the term 'Jewish' and its cognates, including
'Judaism', thus becomes in the context of Israeli politics as
important as the meaning of 'Islamic', when officially used by
Iran, or 'communist' when it was officially used by the USSR.
However, the meaning of the term 'Jewish' as it is popularly used
is not clear, either in Hebrew or when translated into other
languages, and so the term had to be defined officially.

According to Israeli law a person is considered 'Jewish' if
either their mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and
great-great-grandmother were Jewesses by religion; or if the
person was converted to Judaism in a way satisfactory to the
Israeli authorities, and on condition that the person has not
converted from Judaism to another religion, in which case Israel
ceases to regard them as 'Jewish'. Of the three conditions, the
first represents the Talmudic definition of 'who is a Jew', a
definition followed by Jewish Orthodoxy. The Talmud and
post-Talmudic rabbinic law also recognise the conversion of a
non-Jew to Judaism (as well as the purchase of a non-Jewish slave
by a Jew followed by a different kind of conversion) as a method
of becoming Jewish, provided that the conversion is performed by
authorised rabbis in a proper manner. This 'proper manner'
entails for females, their inspection by three rabbis while naked
in a 'bath of purification', a ritual which, although notorious
to all readers of the Hebrew press, is not often mentioned by the
English media in spite of its undoubted interest for certain
readers. I hope that this book will be the beginning of a process
which will rectify this discrepancy.

But there is another urgent necessity for an official definition
of who is, and who is not 'Jewish'. The State of Israel
officially discriminates in favour of Jews and against non-Jews
in many domains of life, of which I regard three as being most
important: residency rights, the right to work and the right to
equality before the law. Discrimination in residency is based on
the fact that about 92 per cent of Israel's land is the property
of the state and is administered by the Israel Land Authority
according to regulations issued by the Jewish National Fund
(JNF), and affiliate of the World Zionist Organization. In its
regulations the JNF denies the right to reside, to open a
business, and often to work, to anyone who is not Jewish, only
because he is not Jewish. At the same time, Jews are not
prohibited from taking residence or opening businesses anywhere
in Israel. If applied in another state against the Jews, such
discriminatory practice would instantly and justifiably be
labelled antisemitism and would no doubt spark massive public
protests. When applied by Israel as a part of its 'Jewish
ideology', they are usually studiously ignored or excused when
rarely mentioned.

The denial of the right to work means that non-Jews are
prohibited officially from working on land administered by the
Israel Land Authority according to the JNF regulations. No doubt
these regulations are not always, or even often, enforced, but
they do exist. From time to time Israel attempts enforcement
campaigns by state authorities, as, for example, when the
Agriculture Ministry acts against 'the pestilence of letting
fruit orchards belonging to Jews and situated on National Land
[i.e., land belonging to the State of Israel] be harvested by
Arab labourers', even if the labourers in question are citizens
of Israel. Israel also strictly prohibits Jews settled on
'National Land' to sub-rent even a part of their land to Arabs,
even for a short time; and those who do so are punished, usually
by heavy fines. There is no prohibition on non-Jews renting their
land to Jews. This means, in my own case, that by virtue of being
a Jew I have the right to lease an orchard for harvesting its
produce from another Jew, but a non-Jew, whether a citizen of
Israel or a resident alien, does not have this right.

Non-Jewish citizens of Israel do not have the right to equality
before the law. This discrimination is expressed in many Israeli
laws in which, presumably in order to avoid embarrassment, the
terms 'Jewish' and 'non-Jewish' are usually not explicitly
stated, as they are in the crucial Law of Return. According to
that law only persons officially recognised as 'Jewish' have an
automatic right of entry to Israel and of settling in it. They
automatically receive an 'immigration certificate' which provides
them on arrival with 'citizenship by virtue of having returned to
the Jewish homeland', and with the right to many financial
benefits, which vary somewhat according to the country from which
they emmigrated. The Jews who emigrate from the states of the
former UUSR receive 'an absorption grant' of more than $20,000
per family. All Jews immigrating to Israel according to this law
immediately acquire the right to vote in elections and to be
elected to the Knesset -- even if they do not speak a word of
Hebrew.

Other Israeli laws substitute the more obtuse expressions 'anyone
who can immigrate in accordance with the Law of Return' and
'anyone who is not entitled to immigrate in accordance with the
law of Return'. Depending on the law in question benefits are
then granted to the first category and systematically denied to
the second. The routine means for enforcing discrimination in
everyday life is the ID card, which everyone is obliged to carry
at all times. ID cards list the official 'nationality' of a
person, which can be 'Jewish', 'Arab', 'Druze' and the like,
with the significant exception of 'Israeli'. Attempts to force
the Interior Minister to allow Israelis wishing to be officially
described as 'Israeli', or even as 'Israeli-Jew' in their ID
cards have failed. Those who have attempted to do so have a
letter from the Ministry of the Interior stating that 'it was
decided not to recognise an Israeli nationality'. The letter does
not specify who made this decision or when.

There are so many laws and regulations in Israel which
discriminate in favour of the persons defined in Israel as those
'who can immigrate in accordance with the Law of Return' that the
subject demands separate treatment. We can look here at one
example, seemingly trivial in comparison with residence
restrictions, but nevertheless important since it reveals the
real intentions of the Israeli legislator. Israeli citizens who
left the country for a time but who are defined as those who 'can
immigrate in accordance with the Law of Return' are eligible on
their return to generous customs benefits, to receive subsidy for
their children's high school education, and to receive either a
grant or a loan on easy terms for the purchase of an apartment,
as well as other benefits. Citizens who cannot be so defined, in
other words, the non-Jewish citizens of Israel, get none of these
benefits. The obvious intention of such discriminatory measures
is to decrease the number of non-Jewish citizens of Israel, in
order to make Israel a more 'Jewish' state.

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"A people who are not convinced of their uniqueness and value
will perish." (David Lane)

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