“Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people”

Bibi and Rotem
by Victor Rosenthal

Thanks to Rotem Sela, an Israeli actress, model, and TV personality, we can learn a lesson about Zionism, nationalism, racism, and the Israeli and American Jewish Left.

Here is what happened: Miri Regev, Likud loyalist and Minister of Culture and Sport, noted that if Netanyahu’s main opponent, Benny Gantz, were to form a government, he would have to include anti-Zionist Arab parties in his coalition. Sela, on her Instagram page (because that is how actresses, models, and TV personalities communicate), said, in part (Hebrew link, my translation):

My God, there are also Arab citizens in this country! When the hell will someone in this government broadcast to the public that Israel is a state of all of its citizens? Every person was born equal. Even Arabs, God save us, are people.

PM Netanyahu responded as follows (also my translation):

Rotem my dear, an important correction: Israel is not a state of all its citizens. According to the Nation-State Law that we passed, Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people – and only them. As you wrote, there is no problem with Arab citizens of Israel – they have equal rights with everyone…

In Israel, the reaction to Sela’s comment was predictable – anger on the Right and agreement on the Left (and yes, Gal Gadot expressed her support for her friend Sela in a relatively non-political way).

The usual suspects in America, J Street, If Not Now, the New Israel Fund, the Israel Policy Forum, and others, were on it like one of those Israeli hopping spiders on a cockroach. “Racist,” “undemocratic,” “cynical,” “morally repugnant,” and on and on. If Not Now referred to “racism” not once but twice in their statement.

I wouldn’t have called Sela “my dear,” but Netanyahu’s response was otherwise entirely correct. Even without the Nation-State Law, Israel has never been a “state of all its citizens” as Sela, who is supposed to be well-educated, asserted. Like Japan and numerous other countries, but unlike the US, Israel is a nation-state, a state in which – or by which – a particular people or culture expresses its right of self-determination.

The USA was defined by its founding fathers to be a state of all its citizens (although it took some time before it was ready to accept all of its legal inhabitants as citizens with full rights). Israel, on the other hand, was created to be “the state of the Jewish people,” while at the same time it endeavored to provide equal rights to all of its citizens. One way to understand this is to say that there are “civil rights” – the right to vote and hold office, education and employment, and so on, and “national rights,” which include the symbols, languages, and religions of the state, and – particularly important in the case of Israel – the objectives of encouraging immigration from the national diaspora and maintaining a national majority.

The nation-state law explicitly affirms the intention of the founders that national rights in the State of Israel belong to the Jewish people, and to nobody else. It does not limit the civil rights of national minorities. Rotem Sela doesn’t seem to understand this distinction. Netanyahu does, which may be one of the reasons he is PM and she is a fashion model.

This is nothing new, and it is neither racist, undemocratic, fascist, or morally repugnant. Nationalism and nation-states are out of fashion today, particularly in Europe, whose European Union is a (failing) attempt to replace those things with a universal government, and among the American Left, which is in the grip of the pathological ideology of “intersectionalism” (this will require a dedicated post).

There is a reason that Israel’s founding fathers defined it as the nation-state of the Jewish people and not something else, and that is the Zionist understanding that only in a majority Jewish state with Jewish symbols, culture, institutions, government, police, military, and so on can Jews be guaranteed a normal life and freedom from oppression without giving up their Jewishness.

This was the conclusion drawn by the early Zionists, from on the historical experiences of their people. It was further confirmed by the Holocaust, and the mass expulsions of Jews from Muslim countries following 1948. Today it is being confirmed yet again by the worldwide resurgence of antisemitism, even in places like the US and the UK where it had been thought to be dead. And it should also be clear that even without anti-Jewish violence, in places where Jews are a minority, they will be silently swallowed up by assimilation.

The definition of Israel as the state of the Jewish people has both symbolic and highly practical consequences. It justifies the use of Jewish symbolism in the flag, the national anthem, the symbol of the state, and so forth. It justifies the decision to observe Jewish holidays as national holidays, and to use the Hebrew language. But most important, the Law of Return for Jews (and no one else) is grounded in the understanding that Israel is the state of the Jewish people. It is the most concrete expression of national rights possible.

This isn’t “racism” (although by current American standards, who knows what that means?). It is nationalism, in particular Jewish nationalism, or in short, Zionism.

If Israel were to be redefined as a state of all its citizens, as the extreme Left and many Arab citizens want (and Rotem Sela appears to believe has already happened), what would be the justification for a Law of Return for Jews? Why shouldn’t there be one for Arabs? Why should Israel act as a place of refuge for persecuted Jews such as the Jews of Ethiopia, or even European Jews fleeing antisemitism? Why would it be important to have our capital in Jerusalem?

Israeli critics of the Nation-State Law (including Benny Gantz) have said that they would like to add a statement to it guaranteeing “equality” to all citizens of Israel. This is a bad idea. Equal civil rights for all are guaranteed by other basic laws. The Nation-State Law is the only one that specifically deals with national rights, and adding a statement about equality to it could be interpreted as diluting its force. It would be like the recent action of the American Congress, which diluted-to-death a resolution about antisemitism by making it a catch-all statement against every kind of bigotry. Even the antisemites were then able to vote for it.

The reactions of J Street, et al., illustrate that they are not only critical of Israel’s actions, but that they are critical of the most basic foundation of the Jewish state, the Zionist idea itself.

Thank you for helping clarify that, Rotem.

March 15, 2019 | 13 Comments »

Leave a Reply

13 Comments / 13 Comments

  2. @ David E Chase:

    I think they offered him free haircuts for life, but as he wasn’t sure what they REALLY meant, he declined…

    I’m kidding.. I personally believe that it was a case of euphoria, and Socialism combined. And also, he was spending much of his time in his long-ongoing fighting against Weizman so as to do him out of the premiership. He succeeded, and shunted him off to the “balcony”… a purely ceremonial, “figurehead” job, where all he had to occupy hs mind were thinking about the mistakes he’d made, and receiving foreign dignitaries…. Also going around shaking handis, and cutting “opening” ribbons, etc.

    Weizman (who in the mistake of his life, trusted the British) in my opinion, deserved the leadership, out of which, he’d been “winkled” by the more ruthless Ben Gurion who was a master, and dirty in-fighter. (even synagogue politics was child’s-play to hm)

  3. The non abiding to the state minorities communities ( arabs – orthodox ) own the solutions to their lack of integration ; They must willingly declare that they will start to serve a National Civil Service ( sherut leumi ) . Once they serve their duty , they have proven their loyalty , and to the Nation State Law , will be added a clause stating that the Nation State of the Jewish People will protect the individual rights of every communities members who prove its loyalty to the State . All the other arguments are non-sense

  4. Thank you for your comment.I never understood how or when it was/is that Arabs in Israel gained political rights- that always puzzled me how it somehow happened and bothered me that it did. Thanks for the clarification. Doesn’t seem like Ben Gurion got anything in return.

  5. @ dreuveni:

    Surprise..!! .There ARE (or were) actually some Arabs serving in the IDF …Fortunately very few T.G. Some years ago the govt. for some unknown reason, tried hard to persuade Arabs to join up. By G-D’s Blessing, only a handful joined. There are also some who do what they call “national service” …..

    The vast majority just sit on their fat backsides puffing away at hookahs filled with hashish… That’s when they are not actively or passively aidng and abetting terrorists.

    I have a very low opinion of Arabs…. as you might have noticed.

  6. @ David E Chase:

    You got to it before I did… One major point…. Israel Arabs DO have political rights as you know well, including their own terrorist supporting Knesset parties.

    And as you point out they were NOT to have them…. Why Ben Gurion and his cronies allowed it to them, especially knowing the Balfour and Mandate clauses inside out etc. I do not know. Weizman also never mentioned it I suppose they were dizzy from actually being allowed something from the Goyim that they actually wanted

    Damned Socialists…

  8. I like the fact that no-one offered to mention that Israeli Arabs do not serve in the IDF and when asked, claim they will make no effort to protect Israel (where they get all their goodies) from the aggressive intentions of the very countries they mostly emigrated from, namely Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt. I would hate to be an Arab citizen of Israel because then I would also have to be prepared to cut off my nose to spite my face.

  9. One last point- this is not something you get to learn and correct from your mistakes. They won’t have a second chance. The left can embrace Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people without having to become Haredi.

  10. Great article. There is one point that I’m sure most Israpundit readers already know but I think it’s important, very important, to,point out that even prior to the designation of ‘“Palestine” (which ceased to exist actually with the creation of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people in 1948) in the San Remo conference and the subsequent Mandate for Palestine of 1922 -the Balfour Declaration of 1917 encoded that all non-Jewish residents of said future Jewish State would be guaranteed full civil and religious rights ONLY and not political rights- the very political rights they are fighting for with cries of racism and apartheid to vote the JEWISH country out of it’s existence. You are welcome but if you object to Jewish public symbols, the flag, and the playing of Hatikvah at political,and public events then you can leave. They are free to stay and enjoy another capiltalistic economy and raise their families but if they object to Israel being the nation-state of the Jewish people, Israel will happily let them leave. There are 22 other Arab countries they can go to plus other countries around the world. Jews have nowhere else to go. If the left in Israel objects to that, perhaps they should move to a more “democratic” European nation where they can practice their theology of racist objectionism in their worship of diversity and multiculturalism but when they wake up one day and realize that the diversity and multi-culturists they’ve embraced aren’t really so inclusive and don’t like that they are still Jewish they will thank God that they still have the “Zionist” nation-State of Israel to return to. Arabs in Israel have it a lot better than Jews, even today more and more, in the multiculturalist European countries. Why aren’t they the 1,000,000 Arab-Israeli citizens refugees flocking to Europe by the millions if Israel is such a racist, discriminatory state because it has the audacity to say it’s a Jewish State. The Nation-State bill isn’t just correct- it’s a necessity- even for the non-identifying Jewish Israeli leftist inhabitants and they should or need to learn better and learn it soon. There is no tomorrow.