Part 2. Ten Myths on Israel: Not how a “Democratic State” behave (by Ian Pappe)
Posted by: adonis49 on: June 20, 2018
Part 2. Ten Myths on Israel: Not how a “Democratic State” behave (by Ian Pappe)
No, Israel Is Not a Democracy
Subjugation of Minorities in Israel Is Not Democratic
By lan Pappe
From Ten Myths About Israel, out now from Verso Books.
June 12, 2018 “Information Clearing House” – Israel is not the only democracy in the Middle East. In fact, it’s not a democracy at all.
In the eyes of many Israelis and their supporters worldwide — even those who might criticize some of its policies — Israel is, at the end of the day, a benign democratic state, seeking peace with its neighbors, and guaranteeing equality to all its citizens.
Those who do criticize Israel assume that, if anything went wrong in this democracy, then it was due to the 1967 war.
Subjugation of Minorities in Israel Is Not Democratic
The litmus test of any democracy is the level of tolerance it is willing to extend towards the minorities living in it. In this respect, Israel falls far short of being a true democracy.
For example, after the new territorial gains several laws were passed ensuring a superior position for the majority: the laws governing citizenship, the laws concerning land ownership, and most important of all, the law of return.
The latter grants automatic citizenship to every Jew in the world, wherever he or she was born.
This law in particular is a flagrantly undemocratic one, for it was accompanied by a total rejection of the Palestinian right of return — recognized internationally by the UN General Assembly Resolution 194 of 1948.
This rejection refuses to allow the Palestinian citizens of Israel to unite with their immediate families or with those who were expelled in 1948.
Denying people the right of return to their homeland, and at the same time offering this right to others who have no connection to the land, is a model of undemocratic practice.
Added to this was a further layering of denial of the rights of the Palestinian people.
Almost every discrimination against the Palestinian citizens of Israel is justified by the fact that they do Not serve in the army.
The association between democratic rights and military duties is better understood if we revisit the formative years in which Israeli policy makers were trying to make up their minds about how to treat one-fifth of the population.
Their assumption was that Palestinian citizens did not want to join the army anyway, and that assumed refusal, in turn, justified the discriminatory policy against them.
This was put to the test in 1954 when the Israeli ministry of defense decided to call up those Palestinian citizens eligible for conscription to serve in the army. The secret service assured the government that there would be a widespread rejection of the call-up.
To their great surprise, all those summoned went to the recruiting office, with the blessing of the Communist Party, the biggest and most important political force in the community at the time.
The secret service later explained that the main reason was the teenagers’ boredom with life in the countryside and their desire for some action and adventure.
Notwithstanding this episode, the ministry of defense continued to peddle a narrative that depicted the Palestinian community as unwilling to serve in the military.
Inevitably, in time, the Palestinians did indeed turn against the Israeli army, who had become their perpetual oppressors, but the government’s exploitation of this as a pretext for discrimination casts huge doubt on the state’s pretense to being a democracy.
If you are a Palestinian citizen and you did not serve in the army, your rights to government assistance as a worker, student, parent, or as part of a couple, are severely restricted. This affects housing in particular, as well as employment — where 70% of all Israeli industry is considered to be security-sensitive and therefore closed to these citizens as a place to find work.
The underlying assumption of the ministry of defense was not only that Palestinians do not wish to serve but that they are potentially an enemy within who cannot be trusted. The problem with this argument is that in all the major wars between Israel and the Arab world the Palestinian minority did not behave as expected. They did not form a fifth column or rise up against the regime.
This, however, did not help them: to this day they are seen as a “demographic” problem that has to be solved.
The only consolation is that, still today, most Israeli politicians do not believe that the way to solve “the problem” is by the transfer or expulsion of the Palestinians (at least not in peacetime).
Note: Israel is emulating the USA incremental genocide strategy on the “other minorities”
Adonis Diaries 
Leave a Reply