On Wednesday, August 8, 2018, Israel's Left stood up in Israel's Knesset to argue that a new 'Nation-State' Law (passed by the Knesset July 29, 2018) tears up Israel's Declaration of Independence. Is this correct?
The new Law enshrines the Jewish character of Israel into Israel's Basic Law, which is the closest thing Israel has to a formal constitution. The Left abhors this 'Jewish enshrinement'.
Israel's Left makes many claims about this new Law. For example, it claims that the new law destroys the balance between the ideas of Jewish and Democratic that appear in Israel's original Declaration of Independence. Then again, it suggests this new Law makes Israel put Jewish ahead of equal rights, thereby altering the founding intent of the Declaration of Independence--to make Israel a democracy.
These Leftist claims were reported by news outlets everywhere, and few of these stories were kind to Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who had supported the new Law. As the Christian Science Monitor put it, "Does new law tilt Israel away from its democratic values?" (here). In Israel, the Left was more brutal about 'what Netanyahu had done'. Leftist Tzipi Livni asked, “What the hell has Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu got against the Declaration of Independence?”..“We’re the side that believes in a covenant of equals,” (here).
Are these attacks correct? Is Israel's Declaration of Independence really all about a "covenant of equals"?
Judge for yourself. Read Israel's Declaration of Independence. In the full text below, I highlight how many times there appear references to "Jews" and "Jewish", and such Jewish concepts as "Bible", "prophets", "Book of Books" and the "religious and spiritual identity" of the Jewish people. I highlight also how many times such words as "democracy" and "equal rights" appear. You'll be able to judge for yourself if the Declaration is a 'covenant of equals'--or something else altogether.
As you read, count how many times the Jewish-centric words above appear and how many times the democracy-centric words appear in the Declaration. Ask yourself, does the number of times such words appear have anything to say about the importance of their meaning to the founding of the modern state of Israel?
Also, think about the actual positioning of such words in the Declaration; that is, how close to the beginning of the Declaration do the key words appear? Can you deduce anything from the words' positioning about how foundational 'Jewish' and 'democracy' are to the creation of the modern state of Israel?
I don't know if you can answer these questions. But I highlight the key words/phrases for you. The full text comes from Israel's official website (here):
Provisional Government of Israel
Official Gazette: Number 1; Tel Aviv, 5 Iyar 5708, 14.5.1948 Page 1
The Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel
Official Gazette: Number 1; Tel Aviv, 5 Iyar 5708, 14.5.1948 Page 1
The Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel
The Land of Israel was the birthplace of the Jewish people. Here their spiritual, religious and political identity was shaped. Here they first attained to statehood, created cultural values of national and universal significance and gave to the world the eternal Book of Books.
After being forcibly exiled from their land, the people kept faith with it throughout their Dispersion and never ceased to pray and hope for their return to it and for the restoration in it of their political freedom.
Impelled by this historic and traditional attachment, Jews strove in every successive generation to re-establish themselves in their ancient homeland. In recent decades they returned in their masses. Pioneers, defiant returnees, and defenders, they made deserts bloom, revived the Hebrew language, built villages and towns, and created a thriving community controlling its own economy and culture, loving peace but knowing how to defend itself, bringing the blessings of progress to all the country's inhabitants, and aspiring towards independent nationhood.
In the year 5657 (1897), at the summons of the spiritual father of the Jewish State, Theodore Herzl, the First Zionist Congress convened and proclaimed the right of the Jewish people to national rebirth in its own country.
This right was recognized in the Balfour Declaration of the 2nd November, 1917, and re-affirmed in the Mandate of the League of Nations which, in particular, gave international sanction to the historic connection between the Jewish people and Eretz-Israel and to the right of the Jewish people to rebuild its National Home.
The catastrophe which recently befell the Jewish people - the massacre of millions of Jews in Europe - was another clear demonstration of the urgency of solving the problem of its homelessness by re-establishing in Eretz-Israel the Jewish State, which would open the gates of the homeland wide to every Jew and confer upon the Jewish people the status of a fully privileged member of the community of nations.
Survivors of the Nazi holocaust in Europe, as well as Jews from other parts of the world, continued to migrate to Eretz-Israel, undaunted by difficulties, restrictions and dangers, and never ceased to assert their right to a life of dignity, freedom and honest toil in their national homeland.
In the Second World War, the Jewish community of this country contributed its full share to the struggle of the freedom- and peace-loving nations against the forces of Nazi wickedness and, by the blood of its soldiers and its war effort, gained the right to be reckoned among the peoples who founded the United Nations.
On the 29th November, 1947, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution calling for the establishment of a Jewish State in Eretz-Israel; the General Assembly required the inhabitants of Eretz-Israel to take such steps as were necessary on their part for the implementation of that resolution. This recognition by the United Nations of the right of the Jewish people to establish their State is irrevocable.
This right is the natural right of the Jewish people to be masters of their own fate, like all other nations, in their own sovereign State.
Accordingly we, members of the People's Council, representatives of the Jewish Community of Eretz-Israel and of the Zionist Movement, are here assembled on the day of the termination of the British Mandate over Eretz-Israel and, by virtue of our natural and historic right and on the strength of the resolution of the United Nations General Assembly, hereby declare the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz-Israel, to be known as the State of Israel.
We declare that, with effect from the moment of the termination of the Mandate being tonight, the eve of Sabbath, the 6th Iyar, 5708 (15th May, 1948), until the establishment of the elected, regular authorities of the State in accordance with the Constitution which shall be adopted by the Elected Constituent Assembly not later than the 1st October 1948, the People's Council shall act as a Provisional Council of State, and its executive organ, the People's Administration, shall be the Provisional Government of the Jewish State, to be called "Israel."
The State of Israel will be open for Jewish immigration and for the Ingathering of the Exiles; it will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.
The State of Israel is prepared to cooperate with the agencies and representatives of the United Nations in implementing the resolution of the General Assembly of the 29th November, 1947, and will take steps to bring about the economic union of the whole of Eretz-Israel.
We appeal to the United Nations to assist the Jewish people in the building-up of its State and to receive the State of Israel into the community of nations.
We appeal - in the very midst of the onslaught launched against us now for months - to the Arab inhabitants of the State of Israel to preserve peace and participate in the upbuilding of the State on the basis of full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its provisional and permanent institutions.
We extend our hand to all neighbouring states and their peoples in an offer of peace and good neighbourliness, and appeal to them to establish bonds of cooperation and mutual help with the sovereign Jewish people settled in its own land. The State of Israel is prepared to do its share in a common effort for the advancement of the entire Middle East.
We appeal to the Jewish people throughout the Diaspora to rally round the Jews of Eretz-Israel in the tasks of immigration and upbuilding and to stand by them in the great struggle for the realization of the age-old dream - the redemption of Israel.
Placing our trust in the Almighty, we affix our signatures to this proclamation at this session of the provisional Council of State, on the soil of the Homeland, in the city of Tel-Aviv, on this Sabbath eve, the 5th day of Iyar, 5708 (14th May, 1948).
Daniel Auster Mordekhai Bentov Yitzchak Ben Zvi Eliyahu Berligne Fritz Bernstein Rabbi Wolf Gold Meir Grabovsky Yitzchak Gruenbaum Dr. Abraham Granovsky Eliyahu Dobkin Meir Wilner-Kovner Zerach Wahrhaftig Herzl Vardi Rachel Cohen Rabbi Kalman Kahana Saadia Kobashi Rabbi Yitzchak Meir Levin Meir David Loewenstein Zvi Luria Golda Myerson Nachum Nir Zvi Segal Rabbi Yehuda Leib Hacohen Fishman David Zvi Pinkas Aharon Zisling Moshe Kolodny Eliezer Kaplan Abraham Katznelson Felix Rosenblueth David Remez Berl Repetur Mordekhai Shattner Ben Zion Sternberg Bekhor Shitreet Moshe Shapira Moshe Shertok
Israel's Declaration of Independence has 19 paragraphs. In the first 12 paragraphs--that is, in the first 63 percent of the Declaration--there are no references at all to Democracy, democratic or equal rights.
Instead, this first 63 percent of the Declaration is all about matters Jewish. Reference to matters Jewish appear at least 25 times (depending on how you define "matters Jewish").
So, for all those Leftists who talk about the importance of Democracy in Israel's Declaration of Independence, how does the first, initial score of Jewish--25, Democracy--0 strike you? Is this score proof that Democracy is paramount in this Declaration? Or, does this overwhelmingly Jewish score so early in the document suggest something else--the significance of Jewish over Democracy in this declaration?
It is only in the remaining 7 paragraphs of the Declaration that we find reference to something we call, 'equal rights'. But look at the context for that reference (in paragraph 13). That context is not Democracy. The context is 'the prophets of Israel'--a decidedly Jewish context.
Look again at the paragraph that discusses matters Democratic (paragraph 13). Yes, you'll see the reference to freedom, justice and peace--ideas we understand to be linked to 'Democracy'. But, to repeat, that 'Democracy' reference is not in the text associated with Democracy. It is linked instead to the Jewish Tanach: Israel will be based upon freedom, justice and peace "as envisioned by the prophets of Israel". The context is Jewish, not Democracy.
Second, notice that the only reference to social and political equality in the text does not stand isolated into its own free-standing sentence. It's connected to the clause, "as envisioned by the prophets of Israel" by a semi-colon which--if you remember your high-school grammar lessons--literally connects what follows the semi-colon to what has immediately preceded it--the prophets of Israel.
The semi-colon, in other words, has a purpose. It connects two closely-related ideas. The two closely-related ideas here are not 'equality' and 'democracy'. The connection is between 'equality' and 'the prophets of Israel'. Democracy doesn't come into play here. Jewish does.
This Declaration of Independence is not a Democracy-oriented document, as the Left would have you believe. It is a Jewish-oriented document, with a nod to 'equal right' - -but only as envisioned by the prophets of Israel'.
Israel's Declaration of Independence is no 'covenant of equality'. If anything, it is a 'covenant of what is Jewish'.
Clearly, Israel's Left hasn't been studying the Declaration of Independence. This is why the new Nation State Law is needed. The Left pushes aside the original Declaration's Jewish principles and seeks an anti-Jewish agenda for Israel. It's been working at least 38 years to un-Jewish Israel. Now Israel's Law enshrines Jewish over Democracy for Israel.
The Left rejects this. So it lies. It proclaims that the new Jewish Nation-State law "tears up the Declaration of Independence" (here). It does not. It re-establishes the founding Jewish principles of the Declaration.
The Left hates this. This Law opposes and undercuts everything Israel's Left has worked for over the last 38 years. The Left howls in pain.
The Left declares war against the Jewish of Israel (here). It is the Left that seeks to tear up the Declaration of Independence, not today's Israeli government. It's the Left that hates the Jewish of Israel. To repeat, this hate of Jewish is precisely why we so badly need the new Law's reaffirmation of our Jewish character.
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