Yachad: UK Jews TOGETHER in contempt for Israeli democracy

by Hadar Sela June 9th 2012


http://cifwatch.com/2012/06/09/yachad-how-much-of-the-uk-jewish-left-possess-contempt-for-israeli-democracy/



There is a long-overdue conversation which must be had. It will not be a particularly pleasant one, but it is essential all the same.

When the self-defined ‘pro Israel, pro peace’ group Yachad set up shop in the UK last year, its ‘statement of core principles‘ placed it firmly on the Left of the political map. Whilst history has proved time and time again that ‘Left’ does not necessarily equate to ‘democratic’, Yachad does claim to be “committed to Israel as a democratic and Jewish state”.

Let us, for the time being, put to one side the irksome fact that despite the above claim, Yachad appears to have no qualms about co-operating and collaborating with a whole plethora of organisations and individuals decidedly less than dedicated to maintaining a democratic Jewish state – including its support for the non-negotiated unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state and its latest excursion into Ben White territory, as documented here.

The conversation I believe we must have is about democracy, and it is one which also applies to other bodies acting in a similar manner to Yachad, such as J Street and the New Israel Fund.

A basic principle of democracy is that the citizens of a given nation together, by means of universal suffrage, determine the policy, laws and actions of their state. Democracy is also based upon the important principles of equality and freedom. Under the democratic system in the State of Israel – to which Yachad claims to be committed – every citizen over the age of 18, whose name appears on the electoral roll, may vote. That right to vote is not, of course, dependent upon religious affiliation, ethnic background, wealth, or any other factor which would undermine the principle of universal suffrage.

And yet, despite not being citizens of the State of Israel and therefore not eligible to take part in the democratic system, the members of Yachad and similar groups seek to influence the policies, laws and actions of that state. In fact, they seek to side-step Israeli democracy which, despite their fine declarations, is obviously something which deeply disappoints them.

The members of Yachad are of course by no means the first to be disappointed by and frustrated with the results of democracy. In fact, such disappointments can be said to be an inherent part of the system, but the art of preserving and safeguarding a democracy is rooted in the recognition of the very simple fact that although it is a system under which one does not always get the results one wished for, those results must be upheld and respected all the same.

From the Geneva Initiative to J Street and Yachad, there have long been those who tried to circumvent the will of the people when the will of the people did not square up to their own ideals and expectations. The common denominator between such bodies is that they are convinced that they know better than the Israeli voters – whom only they can save from themselves.

And so, such groups (claiming to speak for an unquantifiable number of people because they have been elected by no-one) will try to bypass the annoyances produced in plenty by the democracy they claim to uphold through the use of money and the influence it buys: antithesis to the idea of democracy if ever there was one, as well as being inherently foreign to Left-wing ideals.

A clear example of this was seen only a couple of weeks ago in a Knesset sub-committee meeting in which the unelected leader of an unelected body claiming to represent British Jews (who, incidentally, also took credit for the formation of Yachad) informed those present that for the UK Jewish community to be effective in the support of Israel, the voices of their leaders (ie the speaker) must be heard within Israel.

But not only is the idea that interested parties unable and unwilling to take part in the democratic process in Israel should bypass that process by means of hard cash abhorrent. The members of these foreign Jewish groups also seem remarkably unconcerned by the fact that 20% of Israeli voters are not Jewish. What moral right can Jewish groups such as Yachad claim to have as they coincidentally attempt to influence the futures and lives of Israel’s Muslim, Druze, Christian, Bahai, Bedouin and Circassian citizens?

One will often hear the argument put forward that because all Jews are in theory entitled to make aliyah and become Israeli citizens, the voices of Jews abroad – members of the Jewish nation – should be heard in Israel on an equal footing. That argument is, of course, not supported by Israeli law, which makes taking part in the democratic process conditional upon citizenship. Even if we were to put aside the fact that the right to vote is dependent upon certain obligations such as living in the country, paying taxes and contributing military service, there is another facet to that argument too.

The voices we hear from abroad trying to influence Israeli policy come exclusively from the West. Even if one did contemplate the idea that Jews abroad should have a stake in deciding Israel’s future, one must necessarily include in that Jewish voices from outside the English-speaking bubble. And that would include voices which represent a very different Jewish experience to the one exemplified by groups such as Yachad or J Street.

Such different voices exist inside Israel too – where not only Jewish experiences are relevant – and indeed they are part of what shapes the choices made by Israeli voters. What groups such as Yachad and J Street fail to appreciate time and time again (somewhat condescendingly and with more than a whiff of old colonial-style attitudes), is that the Western, left-liberal, English-speaking approach to the many thorny problems which Israel faces is far from being the only legitimate view-point.

The voices of Jews expelled from Arab lands, or of Israeli Druze and Bedouin, or of the former Lebanese civilians who found refuge in Israel 12 years ago (to name but a few) are no less legitimate or important because those groups do not have vast amounts of money with which to purchase influence.

That is why we have democracy in Israel: so that all the members of our beautifully rich and varied society can have their say, no matter what their personal status. So that all the people who will be affected by any choices the Israeli government takes can make their opinions on those decisions known.

As someone who comes from the Left and believes fervently in Israel’s truly multi-cultural liberal democracy, I find it offensive that some Jewish groups abroad apparently have so little to learn from the opinion-forming experiences of Israelis and so little respect for Israeli democracy that they seek to bypass it, thereby silencing voices different – both politically and ethnically – to their own.

I would hope that Left-leaning, liberal democratic British Jews would find that offensive too.

Democracy is flagging in both the Palestinian Territories

Aug 12th 2010 Gaza and Ramallah

The Economist http://www.economist.com/node/16793370?story_id=16793370&fsrc=rss

HANNA NASIR, the head of Palestine’s Central Elections Commission, is not prone to expletives. But the Christian nuclear physicist and former dean of Palestine’s leading university was full of them when the cabinet of the Palestinian prime minister, Salam Fayyad (pictured above left), who runs the West Bank, recently cancelled the municipal elections he was organising. If anything, his rival prime minister in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas (pictured on the right), is even less keen to put his movement’s popularity to the test.

It was the third election the Palestinian Authority (PA) has annulled in less than a year. The terms of the PA’s presidency, parliament and municipalities have all now expired. With no date for fresh polls and in constitutionally uncharted waters, officials increasingly rule by fiat. How far, bemoans Mr Nasir, has Palestine fallen from the heights of 2005 and 2006, when he ran elections that international observers hailed as being among the fairest in the Middle East. Instead of building a democratic state, the PA is fast on its way to creating just another Arab autocracy.

Western governments which bankroll it do not seem unduly worried. Most of them view the PA as a necessary bulwark against an Islamist electoral tide, which in 2006 swept Hamas, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, into power in the Palestinian territories. Instead of accepting the Islamist victory, Western governments diverted funds from the PA’s democratic institutions into the PA security forces under the control of Mahmoud Abbas, the PA’s previously (and fairly) elected president, whose secular Fatah party Hamas had beaten in the 2006 general election. When, the year after, Hamas chased Fatah out of Gaza, Western governments invested in an unelected emergency government established in the West Bank under Mr Fayyad, a technocrat appointed by Mr Abbas though not in hock to Fatah.

Western governments have hailed Mr Fayyad for his efficient rule. In contrast to Yasser Arafat, the PA’s capricious but charismatic first leader, Mr Fayyad has made the wheels of bureaucracy turn smoothly. His well-managed service-delivery is lubricated by Western largesse but also by the collection of electricity bills. Still, a growing chorus of Palestinian sceptics say they have yet to see evidence of the institutions Mr Fayyad has promised to build.

Nor do they see tangible signs of his promised state. Palestine’s biggest symbol of sovereignty, its parliament, has been emasculated. For three years Mr Fayyad’s government has rebuffed efforts to revive it and put legislation to parliamentary scrutiny. “The focus on Fayyad’s personal virtues has obscured a series of unhealthy political developments, and mistakes honest administration for sound politics,” says Nathan Brown of George Washington University in Washington, DC.

The result is that in both Palestine’s cloven halves, governance is remarkably similar. Both Hamas and Mr Fayyad rule by decree, merging executive and legislative arms into one. Both promise elections sometime in the future but in the meantime round up their opponents and silence unlicensed independent media outlets. As a signal of their intention to rule without the restraints of impending elections, Mr Fayyad has a two-year plan for government; Hamas has a ten-year one. Both try to replace popular participation with populism. Mr Fayyad ostentatiously parades in public, telling his people not to buy products made in Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Mr Haniyeh, his Hamas counterpart in Gaza, takes to the pulpit in mosques and personally dishes out dollars to his beleaguered people.

In both parts of the Palestinian territories, most people accept their rulers’ decrees without a murmur, for fear they may otherwise be thumped. If they are lucky, dissenters are invited to tea with local intelligence officers. Repeat offenders are sent to prison. Applicants for a government job, such as a post as a teacher, must get a certificate of good conduct—in the West Bank from local security officials and in Gaza from the local mosque. So most people are wary of stepping out of line.

But such constraints have sown apathy in both Palestine’s halves. The main political factions either boycotted Mr Nasir’s local elections or were too disorganised to mount effective campaigns. Protests after their cancellation were meek and brief. Opinion polls say most Palestinians are more or less willing to put up with their muzzled lot, since they have been exhausted by their own intifadas (uprisings), by Israeli repression and by periodic chaos.

Western policymakers, now straining to get direct talks to resume between Israel and the PA, with luck in the next few weeks, seem in no mood to promote a new round of elections that could lead to another triumph for Hamas. Fatah, the faction they favour, is fractious and disorganised. Faced with Egypt’s proposal for a new caretaker government to succeed the rival governments in the West Bank and Gaza and to prepare for elections there, the American administration and the European Union have both balked. “The last thing many in Europe want is for Hamas to regain an executive role in the West Bank,” says a European official. “We prefer division and no elections to reconciliation and elections.”

Instead, some appear to favour grafting the model that prevails in Jordan, where King Abdullah intermittently suspends parliament and rules by decree, but maintains stability, refuses to threaten Israel and listens as keenly to his foreign backers as he does to his own people. Egypt may even have urged the PA to halt its local elections.

But such regional policies have drawbacks. Keeping the status quo means putting off the task of reuniting the West Bank and Gaza and building a single Palestine state. With scant hope of peaceful change through elections, challengers inevitably consider other, more violent, options. “We had a choice of seeking power by democracy or revolution,” says Mahmoud Zahar, a Hamas leader in Gaza. Like most Palestinians, his faith in democratic change has been undermined by Western-backed efforts to overturn or ignore the results when Hamas won in 2006. The ascent of Mr Fayyad, whose party won only two of the Palestinian parliament’s 132 seats in that election, has taught other aspirants that the ballot box is not the only way to the top.

Mr Fayyad is only 58, but his list of rivals, some of them armed, is long. And contenders are already baying to replace the PA’s increasingly frail president, Mr Abbas, now 75, who often says he wants to step down. Succession in Palestine may yet come by appointment, palace coup or something even bloodier, rather than by the ballot box.