16 October 2010 By
Jonathan Cook In all likelihood, I will be one
of the very first non-Jews expected to swear loyalty
to Israel as an ideology rather than as a state. Until now, naturalising
residents, like the country's soldiers, pledged an
oath to Israel and its laws. That is the situation in
most countries. But soon, if the Israeli parliament
passes a bill being advanced by the government,
aspiring citizens will instead be required to uphold
the Zionist majority's presumption that Israel is a
"Jewish and democratic state". My application for citizenship is
due to be considered in the next few months, seven
years after my marriage to a Palestinian citizen of
Israel. The country's 1.3 million Palestinians --
usually referred to by officials as "Israeli Arabs" --
are a fifth of the population. I, like a few others in
my position, am likely to make such a pledge through
gritted teeth and with my fingers crossed behind my
back. Whatever I declare publicly to interior ministry
officials will be a lie. Here are the reasons why. One is that this law is
unapologetically racist. It applies only to applicants
for citizenship who are non-Jews. That is not because,
as most observers assume, all Jews in Israel would
willingly make the pledge but because one significant
group would refuse, thereby nullifying their right to
become Israelis. That group is the ultra-Orthodox,
religious fundamentalists distinctive for their black
dress, who are the fastest growing group among
Israel's
Jewish population. They despise Israel's
secular state institutions and would make a
loyalty oath
only to a state guided by
divine law. So Israel is demanding from
non-Jews what it does not require of Jews. Another reason is that I do not
believe a Jewish state can be democratic, any more
than I believe a democratic state can be Jewish. I
think the two principles are as incompatible as a
"Christian and democratic state" or a "white and
democratic state". I am not alone in this assessment.
Eminent academics at Israel's universities think the
same. They have concluded that the self-declared
Jewish state qualifies not as a
liberal democracy
but as a much rarer politlcal entity: an ethnocracy. One of the leading exponents of
this view, Professor Oren Yiftachel of
Ben
Gurion University in the Negev,
points out that in ethnocracies, the democratic
aspects of the regime are only skin deep. Its primary
goal is to maintain one ethnic group's dominance over
another. Israel, it should be noted, has many laws but
none guarantees equality. The discrimination, Prof
Yiftachel notes, is legislated into the structure of
citizenship so that one ethnic group is entitled to
privileges at the expense of the other group in all
basic aspects of life: access to land and water, the
economy, education, political control, and so on. Even the ethnic group's majority
status is maintained through sophisticated
gerrymandering: Israel gives citizenship to Jewish
settlers living outside its recognised borders, while
banning the Palestinians it expelled in 1948 from ever
enjoying immigration rights that are shared by Jews
worldwide. The third reason is that the new
oath itself strengthens an elaborate structure of
institutionalised discrimination based on Israel's
citizenship laws. Few outsiders understand that
Israel provides citizenship under two different laws,
depending on whether you are a Jew or a non-Jew. All
Jews and Jewish immigrants, as well as their spouses,
are entitled to automatic citizenship under the
Law of
Return. Meanwhile, the
citizenship of Israel's Palestinians -- as well as
that of naturalising spouses like myself -- is
governed by the Citizenship Law. It is this bifurcated
citizenship that made possible a previous outrage:
Israel's ban on the right of its Palestinian citizens
to win citizenship, or often even residency rights,
for a Palestinian spouse through naturalisation. It is again the Citizenship Law
for Palestinians, not the Law of Return for Jews, that
Israel is preparing to revise to force the spouses of
Palestinian citizens, myself included, to pledge an
oath to the very state that confers on them and their
Palestinian partners second-class citizenship. The fourth reason is that this
oath is a classic example of "slippery slope"
legislation. Despite the exultations of
Avigdor Lieberman, the far-right
minister who campaigned under the election slogan "No
loyalty, no citizenship", this law in its current
formulation will probably apply to only a few hundred
applicants each year. Currently exempt are all existing
citizens, whether Jews or Palestinians; non-Jewish
spouses of Jews naturalising under the Law of Return;
and Palestinian partners blocked entirely from the
naturalisation process. Only the tiny number of
non-Jewish spouses of Israel's Palestinian citizens
will have to take the pledge. But few believe that the
oath will remain so marginal for ever. A principle of
tying citizenship rights to a declaration of loyalty
is being established in Israel for the first time. The next targets for this kind of
legislation are the non-Zionist political parties of
Israel's Palestinian minority. The Jewish parties are
already formulating bills to require parliament
members to swear an oath to a "Jewish and democratic
state". That is designed to neuter Israel's
Palestinian parties, all of which share as their main
platform a demand that Israel reform from a Jewish
state into a "state of all its citizens", or a liberal
democracy. Next in Lieberman's sights, of
course, are all of Israel's 1.3 million Palestinians,
who will be expected to become
Zionists or face a loss of
citizenship and possibly expulsion. I may be one of
the first non-Jews to make this pledge, but many are
sure to be forced to follow me. Jonathan Cook is a writer and
journalist based in
Nazareth,
Israel. His latest books
are "Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq,
Iran and the Plan to
Remake the
Middle East"
(Pluto
Press) and "Disappearing
Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair" (Zed
Books). His website is
www.jkcook.net
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