The politics of Israel’s nation-state law are still evolving and the law might yet be amended. Objections usually concern equal status of Israel’s minority groups in defining “Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people.” Are Arab and Druze Israelis to be considered second-class citizens?
Critics have hardly noticed a deeper reach in the law, and I don’t understand why because it concerns the relation of the law’s provisions to creating a Palestinian state.
The law enunciates three basic principles:
- The Land of Israel is the historical homeland of the Jewish people, in which the State of Israel was established.
- The State of Israel is the national home of the Jewish people, in which it fulfills its natural, cultural, religious and historical right to self-determination.
- The right to exercise national self-determination in the State of Israel is unique to the Jewish people.
It’s the “national” in national self-determination that’s the key point.
When the law says that only the Jewish people have the right to national self-determination in the State of Israel, this is not directed at the Arab Israelis or the Druze. No one thinks of somehow carving out an Arab Israeli or Druze nation-state within the boundaries of Israel.
The ban on national determination seems directed toward the possibility of a Palestinian state.
The goal is to prevent or preclude the establishment of a Palestinian state in the “Land of Israel.” But what is the Land of Israel? That’s the fudge. It equates to the State of Israel. The Land of Israel expands if and when the State of Israel expands.
Israel’s borders are not yet defined permanently in international law. That definition is meant to happen in a two-state agreement, reached through negotiations, that would also draw the boundaries of a new Palestinian state. Today the boundaries of a Palestinian state are not even temporary, because there is no Palestinian state.
What is Israel’s strategy? Apparently to continue settlement building, however slowly, on what Israel sees as a legal basis. The State of Israel would then be expanded by annexing new settlements in addition to the current settlements -- principally Ariel, Gush Etzion and Maale Adumim. In expanding the State of Israel, the Land of Israel expands, according to this law. The law says vaguely that Jewish settlements are a national value that the government will encourage and promote. Increasing the size of the State and Land of Israel amounts to squeezing the maximum number of West Bank Palestinians onto the minimum territory.
This is a modulated Greater Israel strategy, one that involves no outright annexation of the West Bank but also creates no space for negotiations with the Palestinians about a state.
No negotiations and no agreement form the core idea of this strategy of separation of Israel from the Palestinians. Forget the peace process and the two-state solution: Israel will act unilaterally.
Most Israelis probably now endorse the idea of separation rather than negotiation, including the opposition parties. Tzipi Livni, a prominent opposition leader, said that the opposition was ready to sign the nation-state law if there had been a small addition in wording about equal rights within Israel. It didn’t happen. She said that a Netanyahu ally told her that he wanted the opposition to have to vote against the law. A majority of Israelis support the law, and Netanyahu had the votes in parliament. Forcing the opposition to vote no means the Netanyahu government appears more nationalist, more Zionist, more Israeli -- especially since most Israelis believe that dealing with the Palestinians is hopeless.
The strategy aims to stretch the Land of Israel until it is as large as Israeli opinion and the international forces at play will tolerate. The government will then solemnly and unilaterally announce that Israel’s borders are now complete and definitive as an expression of Israel’s national self-determination. Israel’s “separation” from the Palestinians will be complete. Conservative “Greater Israel” Prime Minister Ariel Sharon achieved a separation from Gaza when he forcibly removed Israeli settlements there in 2005. The Palestinian authority was left in charge until a subsequent election resulted in an unexpected victory for Hamas. Hamas then defeated Fatah militarily and forced them out. Hamas is still in charge, and Gaza will be treated separately from the West Bank because of it.
On the reduced West Bank, the issue will be what a rump Palestinian territory will become. An independent statelet? An autonomous republic? One entity in a confederation with, say, Israel and Jordan? It is still to be determined.
For me, the fundamental issue regarding the Palestinians is future of the Palestinian people, not a Palestinian state. Over a half century, Palestinian leaders have failed their people, and the conflict between Fatah and Hamas is only one aspect of this historic failure. Not making the concessions necessary to end Israel’s military occupation is another part of it.
A last consideration: Is the nation-state law necessary at all? Isn’t proclaiming the State of Israel as “the national homeland of the Jewish people” unnecessary in the fact and unnecessarily provocative in the result?
This is arguable. It seems to me that the question mark hanging over the existence of Israel in international law and in political rejection of it by the Palestinian resistance must end. Israel should become a normal country. Fine. Now comes the trouble.
I believe that the Jewish people need a country. History shows this. Israel is still a safe haven for Jews who need one. Fifty thousand French Jews have emigrated to Israel since the year 2000. Fully 10 percent of a population of 500,000 and from a country like France decided to leave everything behind. This is not a matter of rescuing a few thousand Jews from a country like Ethiopia.
One day Israel will be a normal country. One day the Palestinian future will be clearer, resolved with the interests of the Palestinian people first. The issues of a haven for Jews in danger and of whether it’s provocative to call Israel “the nation-state of the Jewish people” will be moot.
