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<h1 class="reader-title">Why Israel cannot be called a
democratic state</h1>
<div class="credits reader-credits">Joseph Massad - August 23,
2019<br>
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<p>The Israeli elections last spring were seen in the
Western press and among some Western politicians as
confirmation that Israel is becoming less democratic,
and more racist and chauvinistic. </p>
<p>This we are told is undermining Israel as a “Jewish and
democratic state”. The New York Times reported: “To the
<a
href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/10/world/middleeast/benjamin-netanyahu-israel-election.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share"
target="_blank">left</a>, Israeli democracy is on the
defensive. To the ethnonationalist right, which
succeeded last year in <a
href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/19/world/middleeast/israel-law-jews-arabic.html?module=inline"
target="_blank">enshrining Israel’s self-definition as
the nation-state of the Jews</a> in a basic law, it is
in need of an adjustment.” </p>
<p>The general celebratory line that Israel has been able
to balance its two important ideals and core principles
- namely, that it is “a <a
href="https://www.knesset.gov.il/laws/special/eng/basic4_eng.htm"
target="_blank">Jewish and a democratic</a> state” -
has shifted recently with some now lamenting that this
alleged balance has been offset by the country’s
“recent” right-wing tilt. </p>
<h3>Commitment to ethnic cleansing</h3>
<p>The major fact that such a depiction deliberately
ignores is that “democracy” in Israel was established
for Israeli Jews after the Zionists expelled <a
href="https://jps.ucpress.edu/content/38/3/259"
target="_blank">90 percent</a> of the Palestinian
population when Israel was founded in 1948, making
themselves a majority overnight in the ethnically
cleansed country.</p>
<p>They opted for liberal democratic governance for the
colonial Jewish majority, while instituting a legal
apartheid system for the Palestinians they could not
expel, including dozens of racist <a
href="https://www.adalah.org/en/content/view/7771"
target="_blank">laws</a>.</p>
<p>This commitment to ethnic cleansing and Jewish
supremacist rule has been an ideological cornerstone of
the Zionist movement since its inception. </p>
<p>Theodor <a
href="https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/quot-the-jewish-state-quot-theodor-herzl"
target="_blank">Herzl</a>, the father of Zionism,
devised plans on what to do with the native
Palestinians. In his 1896 foundational pamphlet <i>The
State of the Jews</i>, he cautioned against any
democratic commitments and advised that “an infiltration
[of Jews into Palestine] is bound to end in disaster. It
continues till the inevitable moment when the native
population feels itself threatened, and forces the
[existing] government to stop further influx of Jews.
Immigration is consequently futile unless based on an
assured supremacy.” </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The so-called formula of a 'Jewish and democratic
state' ... was always based on an arithmetic of Jewish
supremacy and ethnic cleansing</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The Jewish colonists, Herzl wrote in his diary, should
“try to <a
href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/oct/03/israel1"
target="_blank">spirit the penniless</a> population
across the border by procuring employment for it in the
transit countries, while denying it any employment in
our country …</p>
<p>"The removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly
and circumspectly. Let the owners of immovable property
believe that they are cheating us, selling us things for
more than they are worth. But we are not going to <a
href="https://books.google.ca/books?id=5v-iBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA225&lpg=PA225&dq=%22Let+the+owners+of+immovable+property+believe+that+they+are+cheating+us,+selling+us+things+for+more+than+they+are+worth.+But+we+are+not+going+to+sell+them+anything+back.%E2%80%9D%22&source=bl&ots=EedZsT0n6e&sig=ACfU3U2pIAku-EO4ArVYCy3B7owvhiGo9A&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj_npjk8pTkAhVBIjQIHRxkAyIQ6AEwAnoECAgQAQ#v=onepage&q=%22Let%20the%20owners%20of%20immovable%20property%20believe%20that%20they%20are%20cheating%20us,%20selling%20us%20things%20for%20more%20than%20they%20are%20worth.%20But%20we%20are%20not%20going%20to%20sell%20them%20anything%20back.%E2%80%9D%22&f=false"
target="_blank">sell them</a> anything back.”</p>
<p>As Jewish colonies multiplied, so did the expulsion of
Palestinians. Polish agronomist and colonist Chaim <a
href="https://books.google.jo/books?id=XvT8CWv2DakC&dq=tom+seven+one+palestine+complete&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjh--j50YHkAhUQMuwKHVy3CQ4Q6AEIJjAA"
target="_blank">Kalvarisky</a>, a manager of the
Jewish Colonization Association, reported in 1920 that
as someone who had been dispossessing Palestinians since
the 1890s, “the question of the Arabs first appeared to
me in all its seriousness immediately after the first
purchase of land I made here. I had to <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/future-nakba/24236"
target="_blank">dispossess</a> the Arab residents of
their land for the purpose of settling our brothers.”</p>
<p>Kalvarisky complained that the “doleful dirge” of those
he was forcing out “did not stop ringing in my ears for
a long time thereafter”. </p>
<h3>Categorical opposition</h3>
<p>Zionists’ fear of universal democracy, and their
commitment to ethnic cleansing, was so strong that after
the First World War, when the British - concerned with
overextending themselves - wanted to ask the US to
assume part of the responsibility for Palestine, they
opposed it categorically.</p>
<p>The World Zionist Organization (WZO) objected
vehemently to US involvement: “<a
href="https://books.google.jo/books?id=XvT8CWv2DakC&dq=tom+seven+one+palestine+complete&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjh--j50YHkAhUQMuwKHVy3CQ4Q6AEIJjAA"
target="_blank">Democracy</a> in America too commonly
means majority rule without regards to diversity of
types or stages of civilization or differences of
quality … The numerical majority in Palestine today is
Arab, not Jewish. Qualitatively, it is a simple fact
that the Jews are now predominant in Palestine, and
given proper conditions they will be predominant
quantitatively also in a generation or two,” the WZO
stated. </p>
<p>“But if the crude arithmetical conception of democracy
were to be applied now or at some early stage in the
future to Palestinian conditions, the majority that
would rule would be the Arab majority, and the task of
establishing and developing a great Jewish Palestine
would be infinitely more difficult.”</p>
<p>Note that the WZO ignored the fact that Native
Americans and African Americans, among others, were not
included in the US version of “democracy”.</p>
<p>In the same year, Julius <a
href="https://mideastanalysis.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/a-protest-to-president-woodrow-wilson-against-a-zionist-state.pdf"
target="_blank">Kahn</a>, a Jewish US Congressman,
delivered a statement endorsed by around 300 Jewish
personalities - both rabbis and laymen - to
then-president Woodrow Wilson, whose administration
supported Zionists.</p>
<p>The statement denounced Zionists for attempting to
segregate Jews and reverse the historical trend towards
emancipation, and objected to the creation of a
distinctly Jewish state in Palestine as contrary “to the
principles of democracy”.</p>
<h3>'Compulsory transfer'</h3>
<p>Herzl’s foundational fear of democracy was adopted by
his Zionist followers. On the right, the founder of
Revisionist Zionism, Vladimir <a
href="http://www.marxists.de/middleast/ironwall/ironwall.htm"
target="_blank">Jabotinsky</a>, argued in 1923 against
the Zionist Labor “left” who wanted to expel the
Palestinian population through trickery, explaining that
there was no escape from the violent formula that Jewish
colonisation and expulsion of the Palestinians were one
and the same process.</p>
<p>“Any native people … will not voluntarily allow, not
only a new master, but even a new partner. And so it is
for the Arabs,” Jabotinsky noted. “Compromisers in our
midst attempt to convince us that the Arabs are some
kind of fools who can be tricked … [and] who will
abandon their birth right to Palestine for cultural and
economic gains. I flatly reject this assessment of the
Palestinian Arabs.”</p>
<p>In the 1920s and 1930s, Zionists strategised plans for
the ethnic cleansing (what they termed “transfer”) of
Palestinians. Concurring with Jabotinsky, David Ben-<a
href="https://books.google.jo/books?id=UIFtAAAAMAAJ&q=nur+masalha+expulsion&dq=nur+masalha+expulsion&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjmg7qF1oHkAhVQDuwKHS_GCw0Q6AEIKDAA"
target="_blank">Gurion</a>, the Labor Zionist leader
of the colonial settlers, declared in June 1938: “I
support compulsory transfer. I do not see anything
immoral in it.” </p>
<p>His statement followed the policy adopted by the Jewish
Agency, which set up its <a
href="https://books.google.jo/books?id=UIFtAAAAMAAJ&q=nur+masalha+expulsion&dq=nur+masalha+expulsion&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjmg7qF1oHkAhVQDuwKHS_GCw0Q6AEIKDAA"
target="_blank">first</a> “Population Transfer
Committee” in November 1937 to strategise the forceful
expulsion of the Palestinians. Two <a
href="https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/04/2013416134034777609.html"
target="_blank">additional committees</a> were
established in 1941 and 1948.</p>
<h3>Enemies of Palestinians</h3>
<p>Chaim Weizmann, head of the WZO, entertained in 1941
plans to expel one million Palestinians to Iraq and
replace them with five million Polish and other European
Jewish colonists. He told his plans to the Soviet
ambassador in London, Ivan <a
href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300180671/maisky-diaries"
target="_blank">Maisky</a>, in hopes of obtaining
Soviet support.</p>
<p>When Maisky expressed surprise, Weizmann replied with a
racist argument, not unlike that used by fascists
against European Jews in the same period: Palestinians’
“laziness and primitivism turn a flourishing garden into
a desert. Give me the land occupied by a million Arabs,
and I will easily settle <a
href="https://books.google.ca/books?id=84d2CgAAQBAJ&pg=PA331&lpg=PA331&dq=%E2%80%9Claziness+and+primitivism+turn+a+flourishing+garden+into+a+desert%22&source=bl&ots=X_b0QKyiFb&sig=ACfU3U0QIoz0TkOLlOfPpYe6TzwVeVV2zw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwivyrzS7pbkAhUI11kKHcyyAbgQ6AEwAHoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=%E2%80%9Claziness%20and%20primitivism%20turn%20a%20flourishing%20garden%20into%20a%20desert%22&f=false"
target="_blank">five times</a> that number of Jews on
it.” </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Other settler colonies were able, after centuries of
ethnic cleansing, to institute white demographic
supremacy</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The so-called formula of a “Jewish and democratic
state”, which so many of Israel’s apologists fear may
now be in peril, was always based on an arithmetic of
Jewish supremacy and ethnic cleansing - not unlike the
white supremacist liberal democracies established after
ethnic cleansing in the US, Canada, Australia and New
Zealand. </p>
<p>But while the other settler colonies were able, after
centuries of ethnic cleansing, to institute white
demographic supremacy - although the current anti
non-white-immigration policies in the US show how
delicate this balance has become - Israel’s colonial
Jewish population went back to being a minority facing a
Palestinian native majority.</p>
<p>That majority continues to resist ethnic cleansing and
Jewish supremacist rule, which Israel’s <a
href="https://www.cfr.org/article/democratic-candidates-israeli-palestinian-conflict"
target="_blank">supporters</a> and the enemies of
Palestinians celebrate as “a Jewish and democratic
state”. </p>
<p><i>The views expressed in this article belong to the
author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial
policy of Middle East Eye.</i></p>
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