How can Israel ‘invent’ peace and adopt the best possible form of democracy
For eighty years now, on Eretz Yisrael, a terrific and yet terrible thing is going on – it can be put in a few words. A people is coming back to the land of their ancestors, another people is driven off the land of their ancestors.
They wouldn’t lack space to both live on the same land. Nor a Jew loathes the idea of living next to a Palestinian, or vice versa.
The conflict has NOT generated deep-seated hatred. Next to a Jewish housing block, a Palestinian skyscraper could stand without issues.
The teachers needed could be found, to raise the bar for everyone. And no doubt Jewish-run businesses would create jobs for everyone and deliver high-quality production.
But yet power is granted by elections. This prevents the two peoples from living together.
In 1947, allocating a territory to Israel, the UN meant that Jewish immigrants would have the power, not election winners.
Attacked twice, Israel expanded that territory. Ruling the new territory is up to Israel, not to election winners.
Was Israel in 1948 bound to adopt electoral democracy? And is it now?
In my opinion, that is the question. A right answer could lead to peace in Israel.
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Please let me take Saudi Arabia as an example.
Too many would find it highly objectionable. However, isn’t that prejudice born out of ignorance?
The Saud family ruled a tribe next to Riyadh. Out of more than a hundred tribes, the Saudis have built Saudi Arabia.
It took them two centuries; they finally gained full control over Mecca and Medina, the holy cities.
The Saudis patiently involved other tribes in state governance, to allow them to enjoy the benefits; keeping however the essence of power in the hands of those who founded the state.
And Saudi Arabia is always called Saudi.
Israel would definitely be able to involve Palestinians in the stewardship of the common good; keeping power and the military in the hands of those who founded the state in 1948.
And no matter the number of Palestinians, Israel would still be called Israel.
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Palestinians allegedly would like to self-govern.
But this need DOES NOT originate from them.
The Palestinians’ self-govern claim is prompted entirely by Israel.
In fact, several million Palestinians live in an Israeli-ruled territory, but the State of Israel rejects being their government. It follows that they lack a government.
In such a crazy situation, some of them tried to revive the two-state solution; while others are calling for the destruction of Israel. But what they simply want isn’t equal rights? For all people living on the territory under Israeli rule – including those who fled it, due to war.
Among these rights, THE RIGHT OF VOTE IS NOT NECESSARILY INCLUDED
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No war has ever lasted forever.
Nor will the one for Israel’s existence. However, it could result in immense and pointless tragedies, which could be avoided.
What is needed RIGHT NOW, to wait no more? Both Israel and its enemies, what steps should they take?
Here is the step-by-step process, as I see it.
1) Hamas must reaffirm and widely publicize their 2017 decision to remove the goal of destroying Israel from its charter.
2) Israel needs to acknowledge that the main barrier to peace IS NOT SOMEONE’S INTENTION TO DESTROY ISRAEL; rather the need to recognize – eighty years later – the rights of the descendants of Nakba refugees, both as compensation and right to live on their land.
3) Israel must abandon western electoral democracy, adopting a new constitution featuring a one-party system, without elections; so that Israel will always be the State of Israel, even if the Palestinians were to be the majority.
4) Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran must agree: that Israel should annex Gaza and the WB; and that a single Zionist party will rule Israel, with a new constitution of the State of Israel securing absolutely equal civil rights for all citizens, both Jews and Palestinians.
5) Israel must actualize – within a reasonable timeframe – the restoration of the rights of all Palestinians currently deprived of them: the descendants of Nakba refugees, the West Bankers and the Gazans. Once compensated, a descendant of Nakba refugees should be authorized to buy a property or to sign a lease in Israel.
6) Israel should test nationwide democratic consultations and decisions – and then enshrine it in the constitution of the state – to determine accurately what citizens want the government to do, across every sector of the public administration; apart from the military and foreign affairs, where decisions would rest with the single Zionist party.
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The following is to illustrate the above, point (6).
I think it is absolutely necessary: Israel cannot give up being a model of democracy.
Just as USA founded a revolutionary nation two hundred forty years ago, adopting representative democracy – which throughout most of the world was seen as a pipe-dream; so Israel could make history by enshrining a new form of democracy in its constitution, which is in essence MUCH BETTER: usually they call it “deliberative democracy”.
FOR THE LONGEST TIME, ACADEMICS WORLDWIDE DEAL WITH DELIBERATIVE DEMOCRACY. WHOLE UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENTS FOCUS ON IT.
No state in the world has so far adopted deliberative democracy. Yet the State of Israel could do it: Israel would have both the motivation and the capabilities.
Israel’s motivation is so strong: the experience of western democracy meaning ethnic cleansing.
The capabilities would be equally outstanding: ordinary Israelis have the high-level skills required to blaze a new course, just as American colonists in 1788.
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Following is a COHERENT and ACTIONABLE project of deliberative democracy.
This is meant to be just an example, out of many models proposed by scholars and researchers.
Its sole purpose is to show that drawing up a new constitution of the State of Israel, based on a better democracy, and making it work, is quite conceivable.
This project is outlined in broad strokes. In a future post, we could look closer at its mechanisms.
(The following 1, 2, 3 procedures were successfully tested by the writer on a small scale, in Milan, Italy.)
– 1 –
Sampled citizens, split into groups of five to seven, write the PAGES of a “government program as citizens want it”. The government will be required to carry it out.
Citizens write a draft PAGE for each of the public administration’s main sectors: Justice, Healthcare, Security, Taxation, Labour, Education, etc.
THAT SAME PAGE of the program is written by several hundred groups of five/seven citizens: in order for their drafts to be merged into a final draft that truly reflects the popular will.
– 2 –
Group members are summoned only once, and remain convened until their work is done.
Following a pre-set guideline, each group works out a draft of the PAGE of the “citizens’ program” concerning their assigned PA sector.
– 3 –
Specially trained civil servants merge the citizen-generated drafts of the SAME PAGE of the program into a final draft of that PAGE.
To verify and fix this final draft, new groups of five to seven citizens are being summoned. They ensure the substantial compliance of the final draft with the original groups’ will.
Then the same civil servants summarize the drafts so improved, into the official PAGE of the “government program as citizens want it” concerning that PA sector.
– 4 –
The government of the State of Israel is appointed by the single Zionist party.
The government is bound to abide by the citizens’ will, as expressed in the PAGES of the “citizens’ program”. The government takes the measures needed to carry it out, AND THOSE ALONE.
The government, when required to take a measure that conflicts with a law in force, opens an online public consultation to draft a new law.
A dedicated “constitutional court of the program” assesses if a government’s measure is compliant with citizens’ will, as well as useful to carry it out. Otherwise, the court set it aside.
– 5 –
The “constitutional court of the program” periodically reviews whether the “government program as citizens want it” is properly implemented by the government. In the event of a material breach, the court dismisses the government, asking the single Zionist party to replace it.
– 6 –
The military and foreign policy are entrusted directly to the government, without prior guidance from citizens.
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Right after the end of World War II, the Allies enforced ethnic cleansing wherever they needed it.
15 million East Europe Germans were driven off their ancestral lands, and dispossessed of all their property. Millions of other people, mainly Polish and Ukrainians, were likewise driven off their land.
Everyone bowed their heads and yielded.
(Not to mention that most properties of the murdered Jews were simply seized; whereas they should have been transferred to their heirs, no matter how distant.)
But then, applying the same methods to the Palestinians, was that the UN perspective in 1947?
The land allocated to Jewish immigrants was populated by roughly the same number of Jews and Palestinians: yet the UN didn’t provide clear guidelines. Therefore, they took full responsibility for the Nakba. To claim otherwise would be sheer hypocrisy.
The 1947 situation is recurring today, following wars in which Israel was the attacked party. And then, once again: how to safeguard the Jewish identity of the State of Israel, as determined by the UN?
Palestinians did not accept ethnic cleansing in 1948. They didn’t bow their heads back then, and they won’t today or tomorrow.
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Israel owes nothing to the United States. The money spent by the US on Israel, has been widely paid off: as western countries made huge profits in the Middle East, leveraging Israel to control the region.
A conflict has been going on for a few years, between the West on one side and China, Russia and some emerging countries on the other.
Israel needs to find a way, while it’s ahead, to pull out of this confrontation, THAT IS NONE OF ITS BUSINESS, and could be highly dangerous for the State of Israel.
If it’s not in its best interest, Israel is also under no obligation to act as a representative of western democracy.