Fitting a Democracy into in a Jewish State

David Lamarre-Vincent

Friday, August 1, 2008

Life in this Jewish democratic state is incredibly complex with Palestinians who were here prior to 1948 and defined by the State of Israel as “the present absentee”.  Absentee because the story of the foundation of Israel 60 years ago was that the land was unoccupied. Present because these Palestinian Christians and Muslims were present. The “present absent” is an aptly ironic official legal status.

Rabbi Ari of Rabbis for Human Rights speaks of his work to call the Jews of Israel to faithfulness to the highest standards of the Torah in their relationships to the present absent. The Rabbi works for the highest values of the Torah   The organization acts on behalf of Palestinians in order to call Israeli to faithfulness to own founding statement and collective order.

This paradoxical life in a Jewish democratic state ensures a right of return for any Jew anywhere in the world. At the same time the rules controlling the present absentee is oppressively restrictive in the name of national security.

The Rabbis for Human Rights come from every religious Jewish group as they work for these high Jewish values.  But, and in this land there are always buts, only Jews have a right to return, only Jews benefit from the expansion of settlements in both Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories which have now expanded to perhaps a point of no return. Only Israelis have the use of modern superhighways from the Occupied Territories to Israel, not Palestinians. Only the present absentee Palestinian Israelis are subject to I.D. checks many times a day. Only Palestinians are subject to the daily humiliations of having their movement restricted and arbitrary security rules enforced by 18, 19, 20 year old Jewish soldiers who wield enormous power at each encounter.

Beyond all the politics and religious thought and legal talk of human rights, the result is in the eyes and acts of the children, Palestinian and Israeli.

What does attempting to fit Jewish homeland into the democratic state of Israel result in?  It results in attempting to fit a circle into a square in this Holy Land.  Children at the Ramallah check point don’t look or act like four year olds. They already bear the look of anger and hatred in their eyes.  The children of a Palestinian businessman and of a Palestinian Christian liberation theologian are prized as their greatest successes because they are good adults who survived without adopting the negative emotions of the oppressed.  What will happen to the ten year old child tied to the hood of an Israeli defense Force jeep and used a human shield?

Can the Jewish state reconcile itself with democracy and the reality of Palestinians within Israel and in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank?