Both the Israelis and the Palestinians have an oft-evolving view of democracy and how their societies will, if at all, embody values that promote open discourse and equal rights. Israel is often characterized as the Middle East’sd only democracy, a title it rightfully claims because, for the most part, non-Jewish Israeli citizens enjoy equal rights. Palestinian societal institutions, on the other hand, are still forming and it remains to be determined how much the Palestinians will embrace democratic values or drown in the oppression-laden approach taken by many Middle Eastern countries.
Regardless of these two different status’ of this blog’s most frequent characters, both Israelis and Palestinians seem to be taking steps slightly away from democratic values and toward positions that centralize power.
Let’s start with the Palestinians. Jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiabo received the Nobel Peace Prize today for standing up to the oppressive and human rights-violating Chinese government. Xiabo has called for the dismantling of one-party communist rule in exchange for democratic reforms that would give the Chinese people more say in their day-to-day lives and their government. Because his views are considered seditious in China, Xiabo has been jailed for years after being accused of undermining the government.
The Palestinians have similar problems to those of the Chinese. There is no Palestinian state (yet) and the peace process with Israel is fragile at best. Subversion to the Palestinian Authority’s position has long been a major fear of the Palestinian government, with security forces under both Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and former PLO-head Yasser Arafat regularly cracking down on dissent. That dissent has regularly come from Hamas, which pushes for an Islamist society and rejects any negotiations with Israel. To ensure stability, the PA has jailed dissenters and suppressed speech in a very similar way to the Chinese.
It appears that the similarity in tactics was not lost on the Palestinian either. Only a handful of countries refused to attend the Novel Peace Prize ceremony for Xiabo, and the Palestinians proudly exited as well. That list includes, China, the Palestinians, Afghanistan, Algeria, Cuba, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, the Philippines, Russia, Kazakhstan, Iraq, Iran, Vietnam, Venezuela, Sudan, Tunisia, Morocco and Sri Lanka. That’s quite the list.
None of these countries are champions of democratic values, and the Palestinians choosing this alliance merely sheds additional light on the government’s rejection of democracy in exchange for stability. This Palestinian-Chinese-Iranian-Saudi union merely provides further evidence that Palestinian values are largely odds with the ideals of the West. Expecting democratic values from the Palestinians at this stage is unlikely, although eventually the PA or any subsequent governing body might embrace human rights once more stability is attained.
On to Israel. The bulk of Israeli land is not sold to individual purchases, but is instead managed by a Jewish agency that then rents the country’s dunams to Israelis. The Jewish agency’s holding this land forbids rich Arab countries – such as Saudi Arabia – from buying all the land and effectively purchasing away a Jewish state. Regardless of that nuance, Israeli land and houses are “bought” and “sold” in similar fashion to land in the United States, with the new land “owners” having the same rights to their property even though the Jewish National Fund technically owns the plot.
A group of religious rabbis are now calling on Jewish Israelis not to sell or rent their land to non-Jews. Their rationale is that non-Jews living in Jewish areas could encourage inter-marriage and also represents a security risk because Muslims – the demographic group that many fear will conduct terror attacks in Israel – are sprinkled throughout society and not quarantined to specific areas.
That segregationist call led to outrage from critics, on both human rights and Halachic grounds. Critics of the ultra-religious rabbis, contend that the Halacha mandates that Jews and non-Jews have the same rights in society. Further, refusing to rent or sell homes to Jews has been a constant discriminatory pattern in Europe, which led to the deaths of millions of Jews. That segregationist policy, now targeting non-Jews, has some critics of the ultra-religious rabbis fearing that Jews will now discriminate against others in the same manner that rights were stripped from European Jewry.
The rabbis’ call was not for a legislative or regulatory change – instead they called on the population to use social pressure to forbid the sale or rent of property to Arabs (in part, because Israeli law already restricts land sales through the JNF).
That distinction, while pertinent, does not promote human rights and instead fosters discrimination and segregation against the non-Jewish Arab population. As a champion of democracy, Israelis should dismiss the rabbis’ call and provide equal housing opportunity to residents of Israel, imposing the same criteria on Jews and non-Jews alike to rent homes. Changing the law to broaden land purchases by Arabs is open to far greater debate, as the character of the country could easily transform with the influx of foreign funds to buy the land. But, the renting of property should not be subject to discriminatory practices, and the ultra-religious in Israel are once more trying to pull the country away from Jewish democratic values and toward positions that would undermine the foundation of the state.
However, some ultra-orthodox rabbis seem to understand democracy; they are pushing legislation that would allow rabbis working for the state to make whatever pronouncements on Halacha they so choose without facing disciplinary action for those statements. I embrace the rabbis’ ability to urge their fellow citizens to engage in actions – however prejudiced they are – and calls by the ultra-orthodox community to support democratic values such as freedom of speech. If only those rabbis, though, would support an expansion of democratic values to individuals outside of the isolated ultra-religious community and reform their misguided sense of superiority and human rights-stripping ideas to embrace real Jewish and democratic ideals.
