Israel’s Problematic Oath

While yet another peace process between Israelis and Palestinians crumbles, the Israeli government seems set on digging in their heels even more.  Last week, the Israeli cabinet approved a bill that would require all new citizens (who are not Jews, since all Jews have an automatic “right of return” to Israel) to take an oath swearing loyalty to the “Jewish and democratic state” of Israel.

Of course, this is an oxymoron of the most obvious degree.  How can a state both be democratic and require an oath to a specific religion?  And even defining what “Jewish” means within Israel is problematic– how can the state expect new citizens to swear an oath to it?  Condemnation of the legislation was swift from around the world.

“It would turn Israel into the very kind of country which historically Jews themselves have rightly cursed for their unequal treatment of non-Christians and non-Muslims,” wrote the Central Conference of American Rabbis.

Thousands of protesters in Israel (both Arab and Jewish) also held a demonstration this weekend.  The social affairs minister, Isaac Herzog, referred to the proposal as a “whiff of fascism.”  So far, the government hasn’t backed down.

There’s no immediate danger that the bill will go into effect: it first has to be approved by the Knesset and then the country’s supreme court can deliberate on whether or not the oath is constitutional.

It also wouldn’t affect that many people: only approximately 20% of Israel’s current population is non-Jewish, and these people are already citizens.  Furthermore, few non-Jews apply for citizenship in Israel.  Some have pointed out that right now, this would only really affect a Palestinian who marries an Israeli Arab, for example, and then wishes to become an Israeli citizen.

But the emotional and political impact of the proposed oath is a dangerous one. It seems designed to sting.  Many Arabs took it as a slap in the face, another way for Israel’s hawkish government to say Arabs are not welcome– or at least, are not on equal footing with the Jewish majority.  And many observers around the world took is as yet another sign that Israel isn’t truly willing to negotiate an end to decades of hostility.

Perhaps more ominously, as an editorial in the Guardian pointed out, such an oath may be preparation for what might happen later: “…there is calculation in this. It seeks to pre-empt negotiation on the third core issue after borders and the division of Jerusalem – the right of return of Palestinian refugees to sovereign Israeli territory.”

If that’s true, that should make us even more wary of the likely failure of the latest round of peace talks.  If the current Israeli government is preparing for ways to control or discriminate against the Arab population even far into the future, how much can we trust them to negotiate a peace settlement now?

The Ayodhya Conflict

It’s a holy site for two religious whose adherents have been fighting for decades, sometimes with deadly results.

No, this isn’t somewhere in Israel or the Palestinian territories: it’s in Uttar Pradesh state in India, at a site just as hotly-contested as others elsewhere that get much more Western media attention.

The site is the Babri Mosque in Ayodhya, a city in north-central India.  The mosque dates to the 16th century, but local Hindus say there was a temple there first– and that the site is the birthplace of Lord Ram, one of the most important dieties in the Hindu religion.

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In 1992, violent clashes after a political rally left thousands dead and the mosque destroyed.  Hindu and Muslim groups have been locked in a court battle ever since, and there have been other deadly clashes, as well, though not on the same scale.

Last month, as the country geared up for the international Commonwealth Games, the Allahabad court ruled that the site would be divided into three sections, two Hindu and one Muslim. Commentators called the ruling a milestone, and an uneasy peace seemed to hold, with no outbreaks of violence reported.

But what was more remarkable were the actions that the Indian government took to prevent any violence from breaking out.

The government took the extraordinary step of banning some text messaging (bulk messaging and multimedia messaging) and arresting thousands of people– pre-emptively.  No threats of violence had been reported, no bombs were uncovered, no suspicious texts were found.  Most remarkably, very few news reports even mentioned these actions had taken place.  Information about the government’s actions was scarce in online media.

The attitude seemed to be: better that some freedoms are restricted than some lives lost– this was a perfectly natural step!  We’ve seen this before, of course– notably in the U.S., for example, during World War II and much more recently during the war on terror when dozens of prisoners were kept in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.  Some of them are still there.  Presumably, the prisoners in India were shortly released– although news on this, too, was no where to be found.

So what happened to India being a democracy, with human rights to uphold and respect?  As the largest democracy in the world (by population), and a leader in Asia, it should be embarrassed at the actions of its security forces.  No matter what its size, actually, it should be embarrassed: democracies shouldn’t be in the business of arresting people without cause, or out of fear of what might happen. And the media shouldn’t be giving India a free pass, either.  Where’s the outrage?