The following article appeared in today's online edition of World Politics Review, and was written by Avner Inbar (academic director of Molad, a liberal think-tank in Jerusalem) Inbar's interpretation of events, like any other, partly reflects his own positions; but it strikes me as a fair description and analysis that provides more context than almost all coverage in MSM, especially in the US.
It places the conflict over the fate of the Judiciary in a context of competing and irreconcilable ideologies and visions of Israel. Broadly, there are 2 factions on the Right he describes; "Bibism" and "Religious Zionism." The former often accommodates the latter but is not the same as it, and ultimately incompatible with it. The liberals in Israel, who Avner claims have been largely silent in recent years under "Bibi,"constitute a large segment of the population of Israel, and their relative complacency, says Inbar, has given way to outright alarm as they see democratic institutions under threat and ever more power going to a Right that accommodates radical Zionists once considered fringe, and in some cases illegitimate or illegal as explained below. I share it because it strikes me as a reasoable and thoughtful piece that backs up from the merely momentary news, and reflects on this as a crossroads for Israel as it reckons with its history while struggling to define its future.
Israel’s Protests Are a Battle Over the Meaning of a Jewish State
Avner Inbar
The so-called judicial reform launched by the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has roiled Israeli society, setting off massive protests that possibly constitute the largest social unrest the country has ever seen. Whole swaths of Israeli society that were previously proudly apolitical have taken to the streets, including the business sector—most notably, the booming high-tech industry—and military reservists. Start-up companies are withdrawing their funds from Israeli banks, and air force pilots are withdrawing from active service.
The energetic and resolute reaction by a liberal public that had been
considered politically moribund for years likely took Netanyahu by
surprise. Netanyahu expected smooth sailing, having secured a robust
majority in the Knesset with a new coalition that finally delivered on his promise of a government that is “fully right-wing.”
The election that brought Netanyahu back as prime minister in
November—Israel’s seventh in 10 years—was called when the previous
government fell apart under relentless pressure from the right. The
coalition of then-Prime Minister Naftali Bennett comprised parties from
the right, center and left that were united only in their determination
to keep Netanyahu from power.
In addition to having little in common on a policy level, the
coalition was assailed by Netanyahu and other elements of the Israeli
right as treasonous for having included Ra’am,
the first Arab party to ever enter a government in Israel. The gist of
the attacks against Bennet’s coalition was that a legitimate government
of the Jewish state cannot rest on the support of an Arab party, and
possibly not even include one. Ultimately, the coalition collapsed after
several members of Bennet’s own right-wing party defected, leaving him
short of a majority in the Knesset.
But the question of what, exactly, being a Jewish state means looms even larger these days, as Israelis are realizing what the “fully right-wing” version
entails. With the electoral collapse in November of the anti-Netanyahu
elements represented by Bennet, the Israeli right is now divided into
two camps.
The first and most dominant camp in terms of political representation
is the personality cult around Netanyahu—called “Bibism,” after
Netanyahu’s nickname. It can be roughly described as a populist movement
completely devoid of any political content, held together by a shared
resentment toward the left and purported cultural elites as well as
animosity toward Palestinians. It remains to be seen what will become of
Bibism after Netanyahu’s eventual departure from political life. What
is clear, however, is that it does not represent a substantive ideology.
The right’s second faction is a highly ideological movement espousing
a clear vision of Israel—in short, everything that Bibism is not. Over
the past three decades, this faction—the national-religious movement, or
religious Zionism—has become the most dynamic and, in ideologically
terms, the dominant political force in Israel.
Two processes enabled its rise to power: the left’s cultural and ideological implosion
following then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s 1995 assassination and
the failure of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process; and the secular
right’s embrace of the vacuity of Bibism. While Bibi’s supporters vastly
outnumber adherents of religious Zionism, the latter deftly positioned
themselves as a political vanguard that shapes and steers the right as a
whole, including Netanyahu himself. While the current judicial reform
has been portrayed in part as a way for Netanyahu to neuter the
judiciary at a time when he faces multiple criminal proceedings for
corruption, it is spearheaded by the religious Zionists, who see an
independent judiciary—especially a Supreme Court that can overturn laws
passed by the Knesset—as an obstacle to their goals.
Religious Zionism as currently constituted emerged in 1967, when
Israel’s occupation of the West Bank after the Six-Day War ignited the
messianic aspirations of a previously moderate and marginal
national-religious community. Their political theology allegedly
vindicated by the unexpected triumph in the war, religious Zionists
began to view themselves as the true heirs to the secular pioneers who
established Israel, summoned, as it were, to assume leadership of the
Jewish state.
Over the course of its political and cultural accension over the past
generation, the national-religious movement radicalized even further,
with the most stringently religious element—known as Hardal, or
national-haredi—becoming internally hegemonic. The current political
alliance between the national-religious party, currently called simply
Religious Zionism, and the Jewish Power Party [ Otzma Yehudit - ed]—a nationalist party
descended from the Kahanist movement movement, which was outlawed in Israel as a
terrorist organization—would have been unimaginable in the past and is a
testimony to religious Zionism’s descent into overt racism and
fanaticism.
Until now, the national-religious movement’s chief undertaking since
1967 had been promoting settlements in the occupied West Bank. The
settlements are a tremendous tactical achievement, matched only by the magnitude of their strategic failure.
More than half a century after the first Jewish settlers moved into
Hebron, their ultimate goal—annexation of the West Bank—is not close to being realized, despite widespread concerns that it is unavoidable.
This is because the earthly realization of religious Zionism’s
messianic ambitions requires the absorption and, eventually,
naturalization of millions of Palestinians into the Israeli body
politic, an endeavor that is entirely inconsistent with the modern
Zionist idea of the Jewish state. Though the settlers sometimes elide
this issue by suggesting that Palestinians could be forcibly removed
from the West Bank or denied full citizenship rights under annexation,
the former is unrealistic and the latter unsustainable. The settlement
project is much likelier to bring the modern Jewish state to ruin than
to extend its sovereignty to the entirety of what the religious Zionists
consider to be the Holy Land, or Greater Israel.
As a result, religious Zionism is at odds with mainstream Zionism,
which has always viewed the Jewish state as a vehicle for the
realization of the Jewish people’s right to national self-determination.
This commitment rested on the assumption that Jews will one day be a
sufficient majority in their state to enact their self-determination
through democratic institutions.
It furthermore relied on the essential Zionist belief that Judaism is
not only or even mainly a religion, but is first and foremost a
nationality. To be a Jewish state, therefore, Israel need not have any
necessary relationship to the Jewish faith.
Such a Jewish state is democratic in two crucial ways. First, it is
committed to the self-determination of Jews through democratic
institutions. Second, it promotes their freedom to define their
collective “Jewishness” as they please. Zionism, in short, was always
committed to the resolution of the “Jewish problem” by the establishment
of a modern, democratic, free state.
Religious Zionism rejects this essential Zionist belief that Judaism
primarily denotes a national rather than a religious kinship.
Consequently, it rejects the modern conception of the Jewish state as
essentially democratic and free. It doesn’t view the Jewish state as a
vehicle for the realization of Jews’ right to self-determination, but as
a vehicle for the Jewish people’s divine calling. For the
national-religious movement, Israel is not a normal state but, in the
words of Rabbi Avraham Isaac Kook, “the foundation of God’s throne on
earth.” This is a profoundly undemocratic conception, since it means
that the Jewish citizens of Israel—let alone its non-Jewish citizens—are
not free to conduct their affairs as they please. They must, rather,
play their predetermined role in what religious Zionists perceive as a
divine drama set in motion by the Jewish people’s reintroduction to
political power.
The irreconcilable difference between these two conceptions of the
Jewish state is the source of the social strife that is currently
unfolding in Israel. It is also the reason that a compromise between the
two sides is unlikely. After nearly three decades of political
dormancy, the liberal public in Israel is waking up to the inherent
consequences of the rise of the religious right.
The protests are currently focused on the right’s attack on the
independence of the judiciary. But if they lead to a real reckoning with
the underlying theological-political doctrine of religious Zionism and
its connection to Israel’s occupation of Palestine, they may bring an
end to the rise of the religious right. Beyond the crucial battle on
democratic values and checks and balances lies a fundamental
disagreement about the very meaning of a Jewish state.
