Why did Israel suddenly formalize its definition as a Jewish, democratic state ?

By David Bedein, Israel Resource Review

Media coverage of the new Israeli government initiative to define itself as both a Jewish and democratic state has not touched upon why this seemingly surprising legislative initiative was introduced at this time by the government of Israel.

The hidden context of this legislation is growing power and influence of the 2007 Haifa Declaration,, which represents the position of more than thirty leading Israeli Arab organizations who have coordinated a systematic effort to undermine the Jewish nature of the state of Israel as a Jewish state.

The Haifa Declaration signees such as Ittijah, I’lam, Mossawa and Adalah have openly stated that its goal is to replace Zionism as the basis of the state of Israel, with the implementation of the “right of return” for Palestinian Arab refugees and their descendants who now wallow in the indignity of teeming UNRWA refugee camps.

to reclaim lands lost in the 1948 war.

Ms. Hanin Zoabi, currently a member of the Israeli Knesset with the Israeli Arab “Balad” party, the former director of I’lam, the Israeli Arab media center, often repeats thr mantra that she is not loyal to Israel and says, that as the director of I’lam, she enthusiastically signed and embraced the Haifa Declaration which a call for Israel to cease a Jewish identity and to abandon “its destructive role towards the peoples of the Region.”

Currently, Israel non profit organization law states that ‘A non profit organization shall not be registered if any of its objectives negates the existence of the democratic character of the state of Israel.’”

If the amendment to Israel’s basic law would change, Israel non profit organization law would declare that ‘A non profit organization shall not be registered if any of its objectives negates the existence of the democratic AND JEWISH character of the state of Israel.”

In other words, this proposed legislation could potentially block the flow of funds from the New Israel Fund and the European Union to Israeli Arab organizations that signed on to the Haifa Declaration, a document which amounts to nothing less than an insurrection against the raison d’etre of the state of Israel.

October 15, 2010 | 7 Comments »

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  2. So the bottom-line question is, why are the Israelis holding back from what they should be doing? They can’t win either way with the world’s scumbags; may as well go for it all, and get RIGHT up their noses.

  4. Jew versus arab:

    Jewish Israel wants to be officially known as the Jewish State of Israel. The Jew-haters scream bloody murder, because this will allow “prejudice against the non-Jewish minorities”.

    By no coincidence, these same Jew-haters will not tell you that the OFFICIAL name of Egypt is “the ARAB republic of Egypt”, and the OFFICIAL name of Syria is “the Syrian ARAB republic”. Egypt has a large non-arab minority of orthodox christian copts. Syria has large non-arab minorities of christians and kurds. All those minorities are discriminated against and persecuted by the majority muslim arabs.

    But the Jew-haters opposed to a Jewish state do not complain about mistreatment of non-arabs by arabs, which is already happening. Instead, they complain non-stop about the “potential” treatment of non-Jews by Jews.

    It’s time to remove the blinkers. When the goyim say they are “anti-Zionist”, and only want Israel to alter its policies, they are really just pure traditional Jew-haters in a modern form, who want to see all Jews dead.

    Hitler was straightforward. Obama, Clinton, the liberals, and the leftists are Orwellian instead. But they all are working towards the same end result: they want to build a new wing of the Holocaust Museum dedicated to Israeli Jews.

  5. I like this email, but as the author notes, there are several problems, one of them being the ability to discern what constitutes a “broken oath” and the other being what happens to the “oath breakers,” given the fact that there are Israeli wackos (would you believe) going around the lecture circuit openly defaming their country.

    We need to buy a very remote, uninhabited Pacific (or Atlantic) island and ship the “oath breakers” there.

    Then there’s the problem of defining “living Jewish”. Who defines that? The Ashkenaz crew or the Sephard, or whatever? And if people devoutly go to synagogue regularly, but in their lives, don’t obey the fundamentally important Ten Commandments (you’re heard this from me before), where does that put them? Jews by rote but not by heart?

    My feeling is that Netanyahu did this because he deliberately wants to get up the noses of the anti-Jewish-Israel crowd, including the “Uma”. Which is just fine with me.

  6. You want a Jewish country? Live a Jewish life. And if living “Jewish” is no different from living “Italian” or “Californian” or “Australian” then it means nothing and anything goes, oath or no oath. If “Jewish” doesn’t mean Torah, the sanctity of the Land and the People of Israel and the Temple Mount, then it means nothing. Passing a loyalty oath to a meaningless category is just pissing into the wind. (Excuse me, but nothing else expresses it quite so accurately.)

    Bravo!

  7. email

    That would be an entirely different proposal from one that requires only repetition of a verbal formula with no legal consequences. There are already laws on the books in this regard that Israel is not enforcing. Political parties may not stand for office if they are “undemocratic” (whatever that means) or if they deny the “Jewish character” of the state (whatever that means). Anti-democratic and anti-Zionist parties hold the Knesset seats and no move is made to oust them b/c they are Arab parties and the government foolks are afraid they might be called racists. Or something. “Arab” and “Muslim” are PC and sacrosanct. So this law would mean no more than the existing ones.

    What if Mexico were to demand an oath of loyalty to Mexico as a “Mexican” state? It would be absurd. Mexico has no need of such a affirmation because it IS Mexican. France might have occasion, some day soon, to demand loyalty to France as the nation state of the French people, as similarly Holland, England, Denmark, etc. But there is visible insecurity revealed by the demand for such an oath, particulary when it has no legal consequence. And clearly, it has none. What if someone lies about his loyalty to Israel as a Jewish state? Will that person’s citizenship be revoked? Israel doesn’t even do that for outright treason.

    You want a Jewish country? Live a Jewish life. And if living “Jewish” is no different from living “Italian” or “Californian” or “Australian” then it means nothing and anything goes, oath or no oath. If “Jewish” doesn’t mean Torah, the sanctity of the Land and the People of Israel and the Temple Mount, then it means nothing. Passing a loyalty oath to a meaningless category is just pissing into the wind. (Excuse me, but nothing else expresses it quite so accurately.)