The Jewish Power Blog: Power over Identity
The late Charlie Kirk spoke out in support of “replacement theory,” which contends that Jews are behind the effort to replace white Americans with non-white immigrants. A few hours after his despicable murder, Prime Minister Netanyahu eulogized him as one who “stood tall for Judeo-Christian civilization.” The city of Netanya immediately renamed a city square in his memory.
The nation-state law, passed in 2018 by a 62-55 majority of the Knesset, was declared to be a “Basic Law,” of constitutional status. It states that the “State of Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people.” Sounds intuitively obvious, no? Many have wondered why such a legal declaration was necessary. Actually, to me this seems a problematic formulation. Around half of the Jewish people live scattered around the world; no one asked them – and there is no mechanism by which to ask them – whether the state of Israel is their nation-state. They are, of course, citizens of other nation-states. They have no say in determining the policies of the Israeli state; they may make donations or not, but they pay no taxes, nor do they serve in the army. But by proclaiming Israel to be the “nation-state of the Jewish people,” the state places them, willy-nilly, in a situation of responsibility vis a vis the state. This law undermines any attempt to make distinctions among antisemitism, anti-Zionism, and dissent from the current policies of the government elected by Israel’s citizens. Maybe that’s its purpose…
Meanwhile, of course, around 25% of Israel’s citizens are not defined, by themselves or the state, as Jewish. But as citizens, it is inconceivable that the state of Israel is not their nation-state too. After all, they have no other.
I live in Israel as a citizen. I may disagree with the government’s policies and even demonstrate vociferously against them. But ultimately, those policies are executed in my name. I am responsible for them. When the day comes for a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, my only defense will be that I banged on the guardrails really hard at Saturday night demonstrations, I bought the T-shirts and bumper stickers, I donated to the opposition parties. But I lived here, voted here, paid taxes here. My very vociferousness in opposition is proof of my acceptance of responsibility.
But what about a Jew in Chicago, who may or may not feel any emotional or religious link to Israel, who may or may not donate or visit, who may be enthusiastic about – or feel confused or vaguely uncomfortable with – what they know about Israel’s policies. According to Israel’s Basic Law, Israel is their nation-state. Israel is acting in their name, just as it is acting in mine. And so it should not be surprising that their fellow US citizens might come to see them as representatives of Israel, bearing responsibility for its actions. And those citizens might legitimately confront them in protest over the behavior of “their” nation state. And if our Chicago Jew were to conclude that the protest had merit, and joined it, publicly opposing Israeli policies, they would find themselves labeled as a self-hating Jew, a traitor to the Jewish people. From “We Are One!” to “Together We Will Win!”, portraying Jewish unity as an existential necessity casts any dissent as betrayal.
The idea that the Jewish state embodies, or at least represents, the entire Jewish people predates the nation-state law. In the early nineteen-fifties, in the bitter debate over whether to negotiate and accept German reparations payments after the Holocaust, there was not much debate over the role of the new state of Israel: as foreign minister Moshe Sharett put it: “The State of Israel speaks for the Jewish people […] it is the only country the Jewish people has. That is a fact.” (Y. Sharett, The Reparations Controversy, 2011, p. 5) It seemed obvious that the way for the German people to compensate the Jewish people was for the new German government to compensate the new Israeli government.
However, ever since the state was founded, the potential has existed, even though we never wanted to think about it, for a conflict between the interests of the state and the interests of the Jewish people at large. In the situation described above, in which diaspora Jews are associated with and blamed for Israel’s policies, there is nothing much to be done, as the state has to pursue its interests as a state, even if its actions are unpopular in other countries.
In 1970 I was part of a delegation of American Jewish students that met with Ambassador Yitzhak Rabin in New York to complain about Israel’s support for US policy in Vietnam. His response: Israel needs the support of the US government more than it needs the approval of American Jewish college students. In a real world, a real state has to practice realpolitik.
However, in our time the dilemma has shifted gears: It seems that the state’s leadership sees the state’s interest lying in alliances with persons and groups that are explicitly anti-Semitic. Obviously, a state must pursue its own interests; but if those interests are openly in conflict with the interests of Jewish communities elsewhere, who don’t have a voice in the state’s decision-making, then maybe we need to admit that the claim to be the “nation-state of the Jewish people” is neither meaningful nor helpful. The government of Israel has the authority to risk or sacrifice its citizens’ lives: soldiers, hostages, border communities; but who gave it the authority to risk or sacrifice the lives of Jews elsewhere in the world?
