Mere Legislative Details
Among all the nations upon this earth how is it that it falls upon the State of Israel to exhibit tendencies, celebrate a rare type of inclusiveness and practise a high moral standard simply not demanded of any other country? All this, of course, while the country itself is in a state of perpetual danger from without and incipient danger from within.Since its formal statehood Israel has had to fend off deadly offensives aimed at its very existence by its many neighbours who practise Islam, whose sacred creed forbids land once occupied by Muslims to fall into the hands of infidels. Since 1948 Israel has fought one war after another, all designed to remove it from the geography of the Middle East, along with its Jewish population.
While some of the antagonists have over time seen fit to pull back from military aggression against Israel and now stand in (still-tentative) agreement with its right to existence in the Middle East, those countries whose stand against the interloper in their midst remains ongoing comprise a more deadly threat than ever before by virtue of the fact that their game of war has become deadlier, more dedicated, totally implacable to reason.
This is a tiny country within the unfriendly bosom of surrounding nations all of whom are larger in size and population, most of which are determined to drive Israel from the scene. Anti-semitism has become the mantra of the dispossessed and the Islamist protagonists, and the education of young Muslim children to despise and fear Jews has been unrelenting.
Israel, neither in its governance, its politics, its popular culture and its own apprehension through long sad experience, is the perfect state. Since human beings, whatever their derivation, their ethos, historical culture and traditions, let alone religions are not without fault, any state that they design to represent the entire entity will be fallible.
However, in comparison to the dictatorships and kingships; theocratic, military and semi-democratic in inspiration, Israel is a beacon of light as a participatory democracy whose rationale is solidly planted in the democratic ideal of social inclusion, pluralism, tolerance, freedom of speech and the media, and a proudly independent judiciary.
At some time in the future when and if the state is ever able to breathe a sigh of relief as events around it coalesce into a universal acceptance of its existence and peaceful co-existence with its neighbours, then it will have to become introspective and look within itself for answers to some of the exigencies it has accepted as a course of action, despite questionable ethics.
For the meantime, it can congratulate itself on being exceptional in a region known for hysterical rhetoric, human rights abuses, neighbourly aggression, aggravated battery of citizens' rights, and the general oppression of women. Israel has welcomed its Arab and Kurdish populations to take part in its parliamentary democracy as elected members of its Knesset.
Now it faces another threat of annihilation as a state whose function and purpose has historically been to preserve Judaism in the face of a world quiescent and uncaring when Jews faced the very real threat of extinction through the Nazi edict of eradication. Israel's very own non-Jewish citizens have become the threat that some Israelis always feared they would transmute into.
A new movement, the Advocacy Center for Arab Citizens in Israel has published a position paper insisting on recognition as a "national minority". They demand changes to the country's flag and anthem, altered immigration quotas and the official recognition of the dreaded "right to return". All of which, implemented, would sound the death knell of the country as a distinct place of refuge for Jews worldwide and transform the country in yet another Arab state, with Jewish residents.
The Arab-Israeli advocacy group insists that in addition to equal rights to which each citizen of the country is entitled, the Arab minority feels additionally entitled to "group differentiated" rights, listing ten significant "rights" that it demands Israel grant them, ranging from recognition as a "native" minority, to official status for the Arab language and culture, to autonomy in education, religion and culture. To a Canadian, this sounds suspiciously like the "two solitudes" of English and French, the historical divide between the two founding nations in Canada.
Trouble is, it doesn't work. The Arab-Israeli population will never be content to consider itself a part of Israel, no matter how many concessions it might manage to wring out of the government. And the government of Israel, mindful of its dedicated place in the world as a refuge and respite for Jews when all other governments and peoples fail them, will never and can never agree to these demands. They are illogical and counter-productive for a state such as Israel.
That which once was can never be returned to historical status. This is not the way the world turns. It never has worked that way. No one in their right minds could ever expect that an embattled country like Israel could or should entertain any thoughts of extending additional rights to its non-Jewish citizens, for it is paramount that all citizens of a country be treated equally; none has due cause for demanding additional rights.
This is a non-starter and must be recognized as such by those issuing these demented demands. Enemies without, enemies within. Detractors everywhere. Apply the same measure of good common sense to the needs of Israel as a determined success story for its people as would be applied to any other (non-regional) country.
posted by Pieface @ Wednesday, December 06, 2006
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