#915 8/5/18 – This Week: A Basic Problem With American Jews’ Problem With Israel’s New Basic Law


WHILE YOU STAND ON ONE LEG:  The Jewish Federations of North America was among the worldwide voices instantly expressing concerns over Israel’s adoption a fortnight ago of a Basic Law on Israel as the Jewish State.  Its “backgrounder” acknowledged that pro-Israel critics’ concerns over specific language in the law are liable to be misinterpreted as being against “the idea of a Jewish state to begin with,” but a further concern, I think, is that the substance of two of the Jewish Federations’ three specific concerns trespass on Israel’s exclusive rights as sovereign state, an indignity singularly perpetrated against Israel by the non-Jewish world. 

This Week:  A Basic Problem With American Jews’ Problem With Israel’s New Basic Law

On the same day, July 19, on which Israel’s Knesset passed a Nation-State Basic Law, the Jewish Federations of North America issued a statement expressing its “concerns” about three aspects of that Basic Law.  Its attached background document, prepared by its Israel office, acknowledged that pro-Israel-as-the-Jewish-homeland critics of “specific wording” in the Basic Law “bemoaned the fact” that their opposition to “the specific wording of three of the clauses” would be misinterpreted as agreement with those who “were never comfortable with the idea of a Jewish state to begin with.”

Such bemoaning is certainly not paranoid, but there’s a more basic problem – all right, as I see it – with the substance of two of the American Jewish Federations’ three specific concerns with the law.  That problem is that what’s particularly infuriating about the world’s regard for Israel is the officious lecturing of Israel on matters – don’t build that apartment house in “East” Jerusalem, don’t respond “disproportionately” to the latest “protestor” act – that would be respected as any other country’s internal concern.  Two the American Jewish Federations’ three concerns fall into this category.

As spelled out in its backgrounder document, the American Jewish Federations’ three concerns are:

“(i) ‘language’ (which downgraded the status of Arabic as an ‘official language’ of Israel),

“(ii) Jewish ‘hityashvut’ (which recognizes the formation of Jewish communities as a national value); and

“(iii) ‘relationship with the Diaspora’ (which some have construed as an attempt to limit the potential influence of Diaspora Jews of religious pluralism in Israel).”

 Arabic

Under the never fully repealed Mandate law, Arabic, along with [since repealed] English, and Hebrew were “official languages.”  The new Basic Law makes Hebrew the sole official language, giving Arabic honorable mention as having “special status” to be spelled out in future legislation.  The American Federations’ backgrounder says: “Not surprisingly, since language is a core aspect of culture, this change in the status quo has met with significant resistance.  Many in the country view this as a needless affront to the significant Arab minority in the country.”

The issue for us, American Jews represented by the Jewish Federations of North America, is not whether Arabic should be “official” or “special status” or neither in Israel, but whether we, as non-Israelis, have standing to lecture Israel that changing Arabic’s standing from “official” to “special” is “a needless affront” to some of its citizens.  (And, by the way, put an Islamic symbol alongside the Mogen David on your flag; make official all the Muslim holidays along with the Jewish ones; and don’t build that apartment house over the old 1949 ceasefire lines in Jerusalem.)  In telling Israel what its official language(s) should be, are we not doing the very thing – trampling as outsiders on internal powers of a sovereign state – that we deplore others doing singularly to Israel?

Formation of Jewish Communities as a “National Value”

The American Federations’ backgrounder says that “because the clause refers exclusively to Jews, without a corresponding right of non-Jews, critics are calling it racist and discriminatory.”  (Earlier drafts of the bill had referred to a not-necessarily-Jewish right to build segregated communities, and this was deleted through lobbying in which the Jewish Federations participated.)

Caroline Glick (Jerusalem Post, 7/26/18) reminds us “the League of Nations 1920 Mandate for Palestine explicitly enjoined the British Mandatory government to “encourage  … close settlement by Jews on the land.”  A country is composed of communities, and a nation that’s a given people’s homeland can fairly call formation of that people’s communities a national value of that particular nation, without thereby discriminating against minorities and being “racist.”

For diaspora Jews to criticize the Jewish homeland for calling creating Jewish communities in Israel a national value without also calling creating Arab communities in Israel a national value not only calls for diluting the Jewish state’s national values, but again trespasses on a nation state’s right to define and declare its ethnicity.

Relationship with the Diaspora

In this clause the government of Israel is speaking bilaterally with us diaspora Jews, and certainly we have standing through our representatives to respond.  But given both the “bemoaning” concern of pro-Israel critics of specific wording in the Basic Law of misinterpretation, by the media and others, of their views as being against the Basic Law’s basic expression of Israel as the Jewish state, and of the concern expressed herein of diaspora Jewish joinder in outsiders trespassing upon internal issues of Israel as a sovereign state, the heated international debate over this Israeli Basic Law is the last forum for Israel and us to discuss it.

= = = = =

Apart from this media watch, I’m one of the organizers of a 501c3 non-profit organization, factsoninsrael.com, inc., which has a website, www.factsonisrael.com.  Much of the website is devoted to contending against the “dirty words” delegitimizing the Jewish homeland of Israel, but we have a Guest Column page.  This week, we invite you to view a letter by reader Julia Lutch, on Palestinian Arabs’ views on Basic Laws.  This Guest Column is open to grassroots Israel supporters seeking a place for their views.  If interested in submitting an article, contact us.