What Did You Expect?
As of this writing, American and Israeli citizens have, respectively, completed the election process of the system we call Democracy. America knows what its next government is going to look like, while Israel does not. I did note one similarity between the two – in both, anti-Israel candidates did very well.
Israel’s Arab vote came out in force and the Arab parties secured 19 seats as a block, That is a big block. Big enough to have a say in the makeup of the next government. A lot of people have a problem with this. My question is – did you not see this coming? It is very noble to allow a minority population “full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its provisional and permanent institutions.” That is a quote from Israel’s Declaration of Independence. If made to a non-hostile population, then it may be workable. This Arab leadership – elected by their supporters – support Hamas.
This was a question that would come up when discussing annexation of Judea-Samaria: what about the Arab population? Do we really want to incorporate another 3.43 million Arabs with a vote into Israel proper? Well, as for me, I would take the population. I would also revoke any national privilege and responsibility from all of them. That means no vote.
Not democratic you say? Why not? All citizens would get to vote. The Arabs who are here could live here with all the benefits of residents. They would have access to academic and professional opportunity, the open market, freedom of religion. It is actually what they have now, but without the influence on Israel’s national – domestic and foreign – interests.
Democracy has certain basic tenets and principles: freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, one citizen, one vote. Some aspects of Democracy are rather flexible. How one becomes a citizen, for example, differs from country to country. There are places where even if one is born there, he is not a citizen because his father is not a citizen. At the same time, that child born to that man would have the citizenship of his father’s country, because the law there differs.
None of this is imposable. It is the kind of change that requires the growing into, or out of, where we are now. And where we are now is a kind of limbo. I had hoped that the attack on Simcha Torah (October 7) would have made a bigger impact on how we see ourselves. Not so fast, I guess. We still have a left that will cut a deal with the enemy; we have a significant number that refuse to accept the state, but insist on accepting from it. There is an enormous religious-secular-orthodox-reform-Israeli-Diaspora divide that will one day be too big to ignore, and at the same time too big to face.
We cannot realistically defeat the enemy from without, without fully understanding and accepting who we are. Get a good seat – this might take a while.
