Distorting Israel’s Loyalty Oath, and the Reality Behind It
Is Israel becoming a fascist country? Seemingly that question would only be raised by someone hostile to Israel or ignorant. The ignorant could, for example, be informed of Freedom House’s high rating of Israel as a free country, or of the fact that this year Israel was accepted into the exclusively democratic OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development).
Yet an article posted last week on ynetnews.com — an English portal closely connected to Israel’s largest daily, Yediot Aharonot — is called “Fascism in Jewish state?” At the top it features a photo of two well-known fascists. One is Mussolini, the other … guess who?
The article, penned by leftist journalist Uri Misgav, goes on to quote mostly far-left Israeli academics who confirm that … yes, fascism is just around the corner in Israel. Israeli readers of Yediot, where the column first appeared in Hebrew, know that Israeli academia, particularly humanities and social-science departments, is a hotbed of far-left views. In Israel’s 2009 elections, the party representing such views, Meretz, won all of three Knesset seats out of 120.
Ynetnews.com’s readers from all over the world, though, may well not know those things.
The site, like Yediot itself, presents a wide range of Israeli opinion, right, left, and center — fair enough. But Israel as an imminently fascist state, with Hitler and Mussolini gazing sternly at us from the top of the page?
And what prompted this excrescence by Uri Misgav? Why, the fact that, as he explains:
On October 10th, 2010, Israel’s government decided to obligate non-Jewish naturalized citizens to pledge allegiance to a Jewish, democratic state. The debate was not fierce, with 22 ministers endorsing the proposal and only eight voting against it.
In other words, the vote was by the cabinet, not the Knesset, and could only become law if the Knesset ratified it. Meanwhile, two things have happened.
First, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the justice minister to redraft the proposed loyalty oath so that it would apply to Jews, as well as non-Jews, seeking Israeli citizenship. Second, it was reported that the bill, at least at this stage, wouldn’t pass the Knesset in any case, with only 56 out of 120 MKs supporting it.
But why the fuss in the first place? Currently, people applying for Israeli citizenship have to pledge “loyalty to the state of Israel.” Why does extending that to “Israel as a Jewish and democratic state” cause a ruckus both in Israel, where the left calls it fascist, and abroad, where critics have called it vile, racist, and the like?
To the extent that the criticism from abroad isn’t just of the de rigeur Israel-bashing type, it often reflects a misconception. Pledging loyalty to Israel as a “Jewish state” sounds, to many, like forcing people to pledge loyalty to Judaism as a religion.
To Israelis, however, “Jewish state” has a primarily national connotation and encompasses everything from ultra-religious to ultra-secular Jews. Muslims, Christians, and members of other non-Jewish religions in Israel have full religious freedom, and the oath would do nothing to change that. It would only require immigrants to avow that Israel is a Jewish — and democratic — state, the nation-state of the Jewish people that grants full rights to non-Jewish citizens.
Denying that Israel is a Jewish state means opposing its existence, and is incompatible with loyalty.If Israel ceases being Jewish, it ceases being Israel.
Like I said before, benefits come with responsibilities. An oath, or affirmation, of this in regards to citizenship is part of the larger picture of accountability.
Wait ’til they find out there is a ‘Pledge of Allegiance’ in the United States; And there is also an ‘Oath of Office’. But, the latter has become a license to lie, and they are trying to eliminate the ‘Pledge’, too.
Even the oath for the military is meaningless; Just ask Maj. Nidal Hasan.
And the way Obama and his regime are marching in unison, any reference to ‘god’ will be removed from all our founding documents and money before they are overthrown by coup.
Yes, so typical of the left to throw around words like fascist, racist, blah blah. Exposes their mindless hysteria and malice.
It is moronic for the left to use terms such as fascist to attack people on the right. Fascism itself as well as Nazism (National Socialism) were left wing in nature. These people are idiots.
Demonizing Lieberman is popular. There is also some venting of anti-Russian-Federation-immigrant sentiment that way. Many Sabras and Western immigrants think all Russians are fascist, or close to it. Otherwise, I am not sure why the fuss, especially if we understand Zionism as the national rebirth of the Jewish people, Judaism included. So there can be twenty-plus officially Christian states in the world, or more, with Christian majority populations…it’s clear that this is just another way to attack Israel’s legitimacy; the answers are clear enough. Start thinking like Lieberman for one.
Unfortunately for Israel, the birth rate among Israeli Arabs is far higher than that for Israeli Jews. Consequently, the Arab minority that was 5% in 1949 is now over 20%, despite massive Jewish immigration. The demographic profiles of the two groups indicate that Jews will themselves be a minority in Israel itself by about 2060. Consequently it behooves Israeli Jews to reach out to their Arab fellow citizens: the future there is one of coalitions across the ethnic divide, rather than the current Jewish-only government.
Laurent–Please read Yoram Ettinger for a different perspective on the future demographic growth in Israel. You may be right but there are currents and trends which strongly clash with your point of view. One factor is the decrease in Arab growth rate as they become more urbanized and more modernized and as their social welfare is taken care of by the state (Israel) so they don’t have to depend on large families. The religious Jews, National Orthodox and Chassidim, continue to populate Israel (although I am very vexed at the lack of contribution to the nation by the Chassidim). Finally, over and over it’s shown that demographic predictions are so often errant as to be almost a crapshoot. Therefore, your stated opinion remains very problematic.
For Israel, the best path would be an “embourgeoisment”of the Israeli Arab population: more education and the encouragement of property ownership and business. As occurred in France in the 19th century, this would lead to a lower population growth rate and a more stable democracy.
There is no ‘Jewish-only government’ in Israel. There are a sizable number of Arab knesset members; that there are not more is a function of the fact that some Arabs vote for ‘Jewish’ parties. There was also an Arab minister in the previous gov’t; so your comment is both patronizing and wrong.
By a “Jewish only government” I was referring to the composition of the series of ruling coalitions, not the composition of the Knesset or the courts. Ultimately, clever politicians in the Knesset will find a way to include both “Jewish” and “Arab” parties in the ruling coalition. This may be more likely if the party list system (currently used in Israel and Iraq) is modified.
it behooves Israeli Jews to reach out to their Arab fellow citizens ,
reach out to those who would not be “reached out to”, for Islam has an odious hatred of the descendants of Apes and Pigs.
There are of course many who are participating in the lifestyle and are permitting their women to drive cars, study and work out of the home.
The Israelis have reached out appointing some as judges to the Supreme Court, Heads of Departments in the big hospitals, professors in the universities and even include their players in the national football team.
Not all Arabs are Moslem, and Moslems are hardly monolithic. An increase in education, property ownership levels, and business ownership among the Arab population would lead to more rational and neighborly behavior: you don’t tear down a society when you have a stake in it.
The self-designated “left” ignore the fact that the Fascist party founded by Mussolini and the National Socialist paty of Adolf Hitler were “left-wing” socialist parties. Mussolini was the head of the Italian socialist party and founded the Fascist party as a nationalist socialist party, since the Socialist party during World War I did not support Italy during the war, since, according to Socialist doctrine, war was only between capitalists. The self-designated “left” behave as fascists, indoctrinating students, attacking those they disagree with with epithets, etc.
Laurent, to correct just one error–that the Arab minority in 1949 was 5%–after the war 150,000 Arabs remained in Israel. The Jewish population was then about 600,000. Do math.
Art of War and Warfare:
I received an email from a conservative friend of mine who lives in the People’s Republic of California and he was discussing the current administration and their bungling diplomacies, etc. and discussing chess as a game to plan war strategies, etc. I responded to my good friend with the following and entitled it the Art Of Warfare:
Exactly Doc–First of all, if you find it necessary to go to war, you then have to have as your goal, winning the war. Then, you make a plan. Then, you implement your plan. If your plan is not working, regroup and figure out why said plan did not work, and then make necessary adjustments to said plan, and act on it. And like in any planning, only scrap what does not work, keep what was working well, and then get on with the plan until your goal is achieved. If your original assessment was that war was not only the right thing to do and thus necessary, then you owe it to the cause of good and to your soldiers and to your citizens and allies to achieve the goal of defeating the enemy you found it necessary to go to war with to begin with. And, to date, in history, no wars that involved the forces of perceived good and evil, has the war been won with words and diplomacy. Diplomacy comes after you have defeated your enemy and you let the enemy know what his future rules of civility are going to be if you have any vested interest and right to be involved with his country to begin with. And, if what you are telling the enemy what his rules of civility are going to be, you have to be sure that what those rules are, are acceptable to what the majority of the citizens of said nation want. And, if you do not have the people on your side, maybe you should not be there to begin with, unless the only way to keep the nation from being an aggressor is to occupy them and keep them in check. And, with a place like the middle east where you have Muslim Regimes, who have 20th and 21st century technologies and 10th century BC mentalities, you either have to take away their technologies or capabilities of using said technologies when it comes to warfare technologies. Or, if you are not willing to do this, then you must make sure that you keep their leaders in Check to insure that they will never use those technologies against their neighbors or against any other non-aggressor nation. If the war in Iraq was necessary, then it is our responsibility now to stay in the area long enough to finish the job in the region and that may require the permanent occupation of Iraq with permanent bases to keep the Iranians and other hostiles in perpetual Check Mate. In the meantime, if part of our reason for being there is OIL because we need it, then we need to lessen the need for their oil by extracting and using our own oil which, according to our own geologists, we have plenty of it. And, as a nation, we cannot allow a group of enviro-whack jobs who have their own personalized goals and beliefs and agendas to keep us from extracting our own energy resources wherever those resources are located. And, also, when the enviro-whack jobs are endangering national security, these whack jobs need to be investigated and see which of our other enemies are they either knowingly or unknowingly colluding with. The Liberal Mindset in this country at the highest levels of power is the greatest national security threat this nation faces. And, many of them are knowingly colluding with our enemies, while, I am sure that most of them are just unknowing and ignorant pawns who go along to get along for their own selfish needs for power and approval of the powers that be. Looking at the makeup of our congress, I have never seen such an amassed group of fools and incompetents, who are able to wield so much power with an unlimited Checking Account. The current makeup of our leadership in this country is the biggest assortment of fools, lunatics, incompetents, criminals, subversives, perverts and enemy spies that I have ever witnessed. You could not plan and implement a More Perfect Storm for Disaster than what we have assembled in our government today. And, if we do not recognize this current congress and president for what and who they are, and remove them at the ballot box, and then begin to Down Size their Powers and the Abilities for them to Make another Mess of the sort they have already created, our days as a free an sovereign people living in a free and sovereign nation are numbered. This current government and it’s leadership are in bed with our enemies and in some cases, our enemies are already in positions of power in our government. The downsizing of government is absolutely necessary, and by downsizing, I mean the elimination of some of the major Agencies, Bureaus, Commissions, and Departments that do no good at all and in fact, are doing great harm to our country. And, along with these Major Unconstitutional ABCD’s of Bureaucracy, you eliminate the thousands of Tentacles of these major Bureaucracies that are spread out all over the nation like a massive root ball in a potted plant when the plant outgrows the pot. The major war we now face as a nation is the war at home. And, the citizenry of this nation have to be awakened and educated to the fact that our current government is beyond incompetent, they are criminally and suicidally incompetent. And, if we do not Win The War at home, we will continue to play into the hands of our enemies, and we will deliver the weapons and tools that our enemies will take and then destroy us and our allies with. This is the case in the middle east now. Iran is still using technologies that we gave them. The Iran we have today is the creation of Feel Good Incompetents in this government, both present and past. You can go back to Jimmy Carter, who was another incompetent warm and fuzzy president who had drank the communist kool-aid, and see how his policies put the Islamic Lunatics in power who toppled the Shah who was the head of an elected and civilized society. And, you can mark Jimmy Carter’s Presidency as the Beginning of this Islamic Terrorist War that we are still fighting today. Today, we can win the war at home with words that educate and awaken The Masses of Americans who are ignorant and are kept that way by our MSM, Hollywood, Politicians and the Public Schools. We have to end the Official Brainwashing, Lying and Propaganda Campaigns that have been waged on this country by our very so-called leaders, and tell folks what is really going on. It is my firm belief as an educator, that people make much better decisions when they are armed with the truth and good information. Mostly what the citizens of our country are being fed today are Lies, Propaganda, and Dis-Information, and it is my belief that the majority of these Lies, Propaganda and Dis-Information is being disseminated purposely by Our Leaders and the MSM and Hollywood is providing the Megaphone to Broadcast these Lies, Propaganda and Dis-Information. And, the majority of the citizens, are merely pawns who have Bought The Lies and believe the lies to be truths, and therefore are making daily decisions based on what they believe to be facts, when in fact, they have been lied to deliberately and dumbed down deliberately by the powers that be. The Liberal Democrats and other Nefarious Enemies of our Freedoms know the level of ignorance and illiteracy that exists in the USA today, because they have purposely engineered this dumbing down and brainwashing campaign over the past 4 decades, and they Prey On This Ignorance, thus the Election of the Likes of Obama, Pelosi, Reid, Barney Frank, Al Cee Hastings, John Lewis, Barbara Boxer, Chris Dodd, Joe Biden and the rest of the Capitol Hill Gang of thugs, thieves, subversives, perverts, communists and other assorted misfits, criminals, and deadbeats. And, many of them are also Lawyers, who through the writing of laws that only lawyers can understand, are perpetuating the incompetency at the highest levels of government as they perpetuate their own legalistic and litigious culture. What America Needs to Hear is Common Sense spoken In Language that anybody can understand, and what Americans need is Good, Honest and Factual Information. Armed with Good Information, Most Americans, in spite of the decades of dumbing down and brainwashing, will make better decisions. The Only Way to Defeat Our Current Government is to Expose This Government and The Criminals and Incompetents that are perpetuating it. And, you do this by Telling The Public The Truth. Americans Can Handle The Truth if give an opportunity to See and Hear the Truth. It is not that most Americans believe the lies they are being told today, it is just that most Americans today, do not trust what anybody says as they have become cynical and believe that They All Lie, so what’s the difference???? Well, the difference is this: We now have a Marxist President who was Elected By An Illiterate Populace who Believed His Lies and Who Voted in a Politically Correct Way as opposed to Having An Incompetent President if we had elected John McCain. But, the difference is that John McCain’s patriotism and love of this nation cannot be questioned, whereas Mr. Obama’s love of this country can be questioned, and should be questioned based on his past and present words and deeds. Some say that in elections, you only select the lesser of 2 evils, but what you wind up with is still Evil. But, I can assure you that given the difference in evils of Obama and McCain, I will pick McCain’s Mamby Pamby Incompetence anyday of the week over Obama’s Direct Subversion and Hatred of the U.S.A. and our standing in the nation, which he seems to be determined to tear down. Thanks–Have a good day. Jerome
Thanks and appreciation, Jerome, for your informative and intense response. Just wanted to let you know I appreciated the contribution. As Larry has already responded, no need for me to detail that the exact same process vis a vis the bubbleheaded faux liberal left has taken place in Israel though we may be slightly ahead of the USA what with the likes of the National Religious, Yisrael Beiteinu (Avigdor Lieberman) and Likud (Mr. Netanyahu) in power. Nonetheless, the fight and challenges caused by Israeli appeasers who refuse to face the unpleasant facts about our Palestinian neighbours (as well as Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran) because they’d rather believe what’s inside their pretty little heads entirely threatens Israel just as these socalled American liberals threaten the USA.
Ultimately, Israeli Arabs (most of whom identify now as ‘Palestinians’) – and here I mean the Muslim Arabs specifically – live in Israel on the sufferance of an over-tolerant majority scarred by Jewish history and being ruled by folks who identify more with Europe and the US than with their own country and values. Except for some miscellaneous groups – Muslims of Kurdish origin who are largely ignored but exist, Druze and Christian Arabs – the Arab Muslims of Israel have pretty much announced themselves as enemies to the Jewish state. This was most clearly demonstrated by the treason of Azmi Bishara, former MK, who went to hilltops in the Galil during the 2006 Hizbollah war to provide coordinates for rockets to be fired on Israeli civilians. How ironic too that many of the more than 40 people killed by the missiles were in fact Arab civilians.
As a byproduct of the softness and the b*$%-kissing to the West that afflicts the Israeli leadership of the present, MK Bishara was allowed to leave the country in peace, despite his assistance in murdering his fellow citizens. The unspoken conclusion to Hornik’s piece – a conclusion that David is himself unable to reach – is that, in time, these Muslim Arabs will be made to leave unless they give up current attitudes.
And Bishara continues to receive his Knesset pension though on the run under threat of indictment for treason. THAT is the true madness.
I suppose that would be one of the markers of a true Jewish gov’t – I mean one that is based on our ethics – that he would be brought back and put on trial. This can’t occur with a gov’t that is prepared to give up the ‘Holy Basin’ or a few other things.
Everyone knows that Hitler comparisons are only for people critical of Israel.
The major problem with such a loyalty oath is that it is only binding on the hearts and minds of Jews, Christians, Atheists and others who believe in honoring their word. It does not bind Muslims who believe in Al-taqiyya (blatantly lying to non-Muslims).
Bernard Lewis points out that the concept of nationhood is foreign to Muslims. Prior to the importation from Europe of the idea of the nation state and citizenship separate from religion, Muslims looked upon the world in binary terms; Muslim lands and everone else. In addition, Muslims regard Islam and themselves as superior to all other peoples and religions and that it is shameful to have to obey the laws of any state that is not Islamic. The fairness or efficacy of the laws are irrelevant. Such laws are not Koranic. Thus, the oath is fair and necessary. If a Moslem cannot take the oath, he will not be a true citizen. The problem of taqiyya remains.
Compare the practice of Muslims of hyper-sensativity to any perceived sleight against Islam with its utter, base attacks on Judaism and Christianity.