Israel at 61: Still questioning
Get our your plastic hammers, wave a piece of cardboard over warming charcoal, put on your hiking boots and affix an Israeli flag to your car window: Today is Yom Ha'atzmaut, Israel's 61st birthday.
- Even on Independence Day, the editorialists at Ha'aretz don't take a break from their criticism to herald the accomplishments of the Jewish state. Instead, it's another opportunity to bemoan stagnation:
Stagnation has taken the place of change when it comes to matters within our control... The new government is not only not heralding change and hope; it is calling for steps backward - in its approach to both Israel's Arabs and to our neighbors and the world.
Those who have embraced "conflict management" and have despaired of a solution, and those for whom governing is an end in itself rather than a means for change and improvement, will find themselves marking time and treading water with us all, driven by crises instead of growing and renewing.
On Independence Day, we belabor the obvious: The State of Israel was established to fulfill dreams, not to arm itself ahead of the coming of the Messiah.
- Writing in the Jerusalem Post, Gershon Baskin of the Israel-Palestine Center for Research and Information expresses hope for another kind of Independence Day:
On Independence Day 2001, at the height of the second intifada, I received a telephone call from a Palestinian friend from Bethlehem who called to wish me a Happy Independence Day. This was a first for me. I was literally dumbfounded. I am not one who is often at a loss for words - but I was taken off guard and didn't know what to say. One year later, being prepared for his phone call, I was able to respond with "I hope that you too will soon be able to celebrate your independence!".
- Keren Applebaum asks in Ynet, "Why is it that the State of Israel, which promises a secure home for every Jew, has turned into a society haunted by troubles more than any other?" Today, she writes,
We are witnesses of an ego that has grown beyond all bounds, causing suffering to ourselves and everyone around us. The history of our young state clearly shows that there is no brotherly love between us, and thus, that we aren't a true nation. When each individual in our nation attains real freedom – freedom from his ego, the ability to go through life with love for his fellow men - then the State of Israel will attain its true independence. We have to catch up to the modern reality and join forces in order to rise above our egos, which separate us. Then each individual in the nation will feel united to the rest, and will contribute to the group that nourishes him.
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As far as I’m concerned, Israel’s biggest problems are demographic and internal in nature.
The first is that Israel is getting squeezed in demographically by the rapid growth of three populations: The haredi population, the religious-nationalists/settlers, and the Israeli Arabs, all of whom have much higher birth rates than the secular and traditional Israelis who simultaneously favor an eventual peace deal, are loyal to the state, and who serve in the army. What happens when these Israelis find themselves in the minority in the country? How does Israel continue to exist as a modern, industrial, democratic, first-world country?
The second issue is that Israel does not officially regard the overwhelming majority of American Jews as being, in fact, Jews. Nontraditional, Conservative, Reform, and even some Orthodox Jews are “suspect” in the eyes of Israel’s official rabbinate, and many would get a big fat “non-Jew” stamped on their papers if they ever made aliyah. Why should these 80% of American Jews feel loyalty to a state that does not recognize them as members of the tribe? Sure, they could get in under the Law of Return if they had to, but they would have fewer religious freedoms in Israel than in America, including no right to marry or be buried in Jewish cemeteries. But as the haredi population in Israel grows, their control of the rabbinate will only become more entrenched, further alienating an American Jewish population that sends Israel abundant financial support and that lobbies Washington extensively on their behalf. Israel spites these American Jews at its peril.
Anyone have any idea what Israel is doing to deal with these unsustainable and ever-growing problems?
If Israel meets its downfall, it won’t be due to external threats. That’s the history of the Jewish people--it’s always internal strife, domestic disunity, and sinat hinam that brings us down.
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Ami Nahshon
04/29/09 04:42 PM
“Even on Independence Day, the editorialists at Haaretz don’t take a break from their criticism to herald the accomplishments of the Jewish state.” Fair enough—Israel has endless remarkable accomplishments that should be—and are— celebrated on Yom Haatzmaut. But which of the criticisms quoted do you think are unfair, or untrue? And who, other than Haaretz, has the courage to give them ink, even on Yom Haatzmaut when it might be unpopular.