The Israeli Knesset will be enacting a law that designates Israel as a Jewish state. This has elicited an outcry from all corners of the world.
The US State Department interfered in Israel's internal affairs and called on Israel "to stick to democratic principles" - oblivious to the fact that the US president himself does not, with Executive Orders that bypass the newly elected Congress representing the will of the majority of Americans.
Muslims are in a loud uproar, accusing Israel of discrimination against its Arab population.
Curiously, the Druze, a sect derived from Islam, and victimized by Arab countries, is all for Israel defining itself as a Jewish nation.
Here is an article that sets the facts straight. They may surprise you.
See also the full text of the Jewish State Law - It shows no discrimination against non-Jews in Israel.
See also the full text of the Jewish State Law - It shows no discrimination against non-Jews in Israel.
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EOZ - Arabs have been unanimous in rejecting the idea of Israel being a "Jewish state." Their reasons are that by definition a Jewish state would be discriminatory against Arabs and Muslims.
If you define "Jewish" in purely religious terms, that would mean that any state that defines itself as "Islamic" is, by definition, equally guilty of this discrimination.
If you define "Jewish" in purely religious terms, that would mean that any state that defines itself as "Islamic" is, by definition, equally guilty of this discrimination.
If you define "Jewish" in ethnic or national terms, then any state that defines itself as "Arab" would be equally guilty of the racism that Israel is being accused of.
Time to check out the official hypocrisy of Israel's critics, and note the deafening silence towards this supposed Arab and Islamic racism:
Time to check out the official hypocrisy of Israel's critics, and note the deafening silence towards this supposed Arab and Islamic racism:
Map above shows "Arab" and "Islamic" countries (in green), raising objections to Israel (in red) being "Jewish".
ARTICLE 1
Palestine is part of the large Arab World, and the Palestinian people are part of the Arab Nation. Arab Unity is an objective which the Palestinian People shall work to achieve.
ARTICLE 4
1. Islam is the official religion in Palestine. Respect and sanctity of all other heavenly religions shall be maintained.
2. The principles of Islamic Shari’a shall be the main source of legislation.
Article 1
The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan is an independent sovereign Arab State. It is indivisible and inalienable and no part of it may be ceded. The people of Jordan form a part of the Arab Nation, and its system of government is parliamentary with a hereditary monarchy.
The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan is an independent sovereign Arab State. It is indivisible and inalienable and no part of it may be ceded. The people of Jordan form a part of the Arab Nation, and its system of government is parliamentary with a hereditary monarchy.
Article 2
Islam is the religion of the State and Arabic is its official language.
Continue reading excerpts of Middle East national constitutions, and read article explaining why the Jewish State Law is necessary not only for Israel, but as a model for other ME minorities such as the Kurds, the Sunni, the Shiite, and so forth.
With its unique location and history, Egypt is the Arab heart of the world.
Article 1:
The Arab Republic of Egypt is a sovereign, united, indivisible State, where no part may be given up, having a democratic-republican system that is based on citizenship and rule of law. The Egyptian people are part of the Arab nation seeking to enhance its integration and unity.
Article 2:
Islam is the religion of the State and Arabic is its official language. The principles of Islamic. Sharia are the main source of legislation.
Article 2:
Islam is the religion of the State and Arabic is its official language. The principles of Islamic. Sharia are the main source of legislation.
Article 1 [Principles]
Libya is an Arab, democratic, and free republic in which sovereignty is vested in the people. The Libyan people are part of the Arab nation. Their goal is total Arab unity. The Libyan territory is a part of Africa. The name of the country is the Libyan Arab Republic.
Libya is an Arab, democratic, and free republic in which sovereignty is vested in the people. The Libyan people are part of the Arab nation. Their goal is total Arab unity. The Libyan territory is a part of Africa. The name of the country is the Libyan Arab Republic.
Article 2 [State Religion, Language]
Islam is the religion of the State and Arabic is its official Language. The state protects religious freedom in accordance with established customs.
Preamble
The Kingdom of Morocco, a Muslim Sovereign State whose official language is Arabic, constitutes a part of the Great Arab Maghreb.
Article 6 [State Religion]
Islam is the religion of the State which guarantees to all freedom of worship.
Article (1)
The Republic of Yemen is an Arab, Islamic and independent sovereign state whose integrity is inviolable, and no part of which may be ceded. The people of Yemen are part of the Arab and Islamic nation.
Article (2)
Islam is the religion of the state, and Arabic is its official language.
Article (3)
Islamic Shari'ah is the source of all legislation.
Article 1 [Arab Nation, Socialist Republic]
(1) The Syrian Arab Republic is a democratic, popular, socialist, and sovereign state. No part of its territory can be ceded. Syria is a member of the Union of the Arab Republics.
(2) The Syrian Arab region is a part of the Arab homeland.
(3) The people in the Syrian Arab region are a part of the Arab nation. They work and struggle to achieve the Arab nation's comprehensive unity.
Article 3 [Islam]
(1) The religion of the President of the Republic has to be Islam.
(2) Islamic jurisprudence is a main source of legislation.
(2) Islamic jurisprudence is a main source of legislation.
Article 1
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a sovereign Arab Islamic state with Islam as its religion; God's Book and the Sunnah of His Prophet, God's prayers and peace be upon him, are its constitution, Arabic is its language and Riyadh is its capital.
Article 1
Kuwait is an independent sovereign Arab State. Neither its sovereignty nor any part of its territory may be relinquished. The people of Kuwait is a part of the Arab Nation.
Kuwait is an independent sovereign Arab State. Neither its sovereignty nor any part of its territory may be relinquished. The people of Kuwait is a part of the Arab Nation.
Article 2
The religion of the State is Islam, and the Islamic Sharia shall be a main source of legislation.
Article 1 [Democracy, Republic]
Algeria is a People's Democratic Republic. It is one and indivisible. Article 2 [State Religion]
Algeria is a People's Democratic Republic. It is one and indivisible. Article 2 [State Religion]
Islam is the religion of the State.
Article 1 [Sovereignty, Constitutional Monarchy]
a. The Kingdom of Bahrain is a fully sovereign, independent Islamic Arab State whose population is part of the Arab nation and whose territory is part of the great Arab homeland. Its sovereignty may not be assigned or any of its territory abandoned.
Article 2 [State Religion, Shari'a, Official Language]
The religion of the State is Islam. The Islamic Shari'a is a principal source for legislation. The official language is Arabic.
Article 1 [Sovereignty]
The Sultanate of Oman is an independent, Arab, Islamic, fully sovereign state with Muscat as its capital.
Article 2 [Religion]
The religion of the State is Islam and the Islamic Shariah is the basis of legislation.
Article 5
The Republic of Tunisia is part of the Arab Maghreb and shall work to achieve its unity and take all measures to ensure its realisation
Preamble:...
Conscious of the necessity of strengthening its ties with brother peoples, the Mauritanian people, a Muslim, African, and Arab people, proclaims that it will work for the achievement of the unity of the Greater Maghreb of the Arab Nation and of Africa and for the consolidation of peace in the world.
Title I General Provisions, Fundamental Principles
Article 1 [State Integrity, Equal Protection]
(1) Mauritania is an indivisible, democratic, and social Islamic Republic.
Article 1 [Form of Government]
The form of government of Iran is that of an Islamic Republic, endorsed by the people of Iran on the basis of their longstanding belief in the sovereignty of truth and Koranic justice,...
Article 2 [Foundational Principles]
The Islamic Republic is a system based on belief in:
1) the One God (as stated in the phrase "There is no god except Allah"), His exclusive sovereignty and right to legislate, and the necessity of submission to His commands; 2) Divine revelation and its fundamental role in setting forth the laws;
3) the return to God in the Hereafter, and the constructive role of this belief in the course of man's ascent towards God;
4) the justice of God in creation and legislation;
5) continuous leadership and perpetual guidance, and its fundamental role in ensuring the uninterrupted process of the revolution of Islam;
a) continuous leadership of the holy persons, possessing necessary qualifications, exercised on the basis of the Koran and the Sunnah, upon all of whom be peace;
a) continuous leadership of the holy persons, possessing necessary qualifications, exercised on the basis of the Koran and the Sunnah, upon all of whom be peace;
So why, exactly, is a Jewish state (whose record of equal rights far surpasses those of any of the Arab nations) morally worse than the large number of Arab and Islamic states?
Source
http://elderofziyon.blogspot.co.il/2014/11/hypocrisy-thy-name-is-arab-jewish-state.html#.VHTu_cotCM8
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RELATED
Full text of the Jewish State Law
http://elderofziyon.blogspot.co.il/2014/11/full-text-of-jewish-state-draft-law.html#.VHkRccotCM8
US State Department lectures Israel on democracy
US State Department tells Israel "to stick to democratic principles" (while the president violates them by bypassing Congress with his liberal use of Executive Orders, and remaining silent at the flagrant violation of human rights by the Palestinians.)
Read morehttp://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/187838#.VHP0hJstCM8
Israeli minister to the US State Department: Do not interfere
Israel Economics Minister Neftali Bennett tells the White House not to interfere in internal affairs of Israel.
Read more
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/187849#.VHULvpstCM9
PM Netanyahu hits back at critics of Jewish State Law
Recognition of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people is a basic requirement of any peace deal as far as Israel is concerned, Netanyahu reminded the bill's detractors.
"Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish nation. Israel is a model democratic state - that's how it (always) was and that's how it will be," the PM said. "A state which enshrines equal personal rights for each and every one of its citizens.""I don't know of a more vibrant democracy that Israel in the world - certainly not in our region" he continued. "This democracy is guaranteed. What is being challenged is Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people, and therefore we are updating via the law this national right of the Jewish people, side-by-side with a guarantee of the personal rights of all of its citizens."
Netanyahu repeated his pledge to push the law through, whilst making sure it enshrines those two core values of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. "We will continue to do this in order to clarify the fact that Israel is (both) a Jewish and democratic state," he said.
Source
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/187861#.VHUXE5stCM8
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The Druze minority
supports a Jewish State Law
The Druze in Israel are against a Palestinian state. They are all in favor of Israel being a Jewish state.
Israeli Druze “are not Palestinians,” a Druze leader said regarding a proposed law to officially codify Israel’s status as a “Jewish state.”
As opposed to Muslim Arabs, members of the Druze community tend to be pro-Israel.
“We are not Palestinians and do not have religious or cultural connections with them, but are full Israeli citizens. I want the state to be a Jewish state and not one of ‘all its citizens,’” said Atta Farhat, the head of the Druze Zionist Council for Israel, according to the Jerusalem Post.
Farhat said Jews “respect others and their way of life.”
Source:“We see what is happening in Iraq, Egypt, and other Arab countries. We don’t want to live under a government of darkness, but where we have freedom,” added Farhat.
http://israelmatzav.blogspot.co.il/2014/11/funny-you-should-mention-that.html#links
Unlike the Arabs, the Druze serve proudly in the army and police force of Israel. The case of a Druze hero.
Thousands of Jews attended funeral of Druze police officer Zidan Sayif who sacrificed his life to protect those of Jews under recent Palestinian terror attack against rabbis at a Jerusalem synagogue.
Read more and see images
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/187650#.VHUJcZstCM8
Remembering heroic Zidan Sayif
 |
| Zidan Sayif with daughter |
The Druze
The Druze are a monotheistic religious and social community found primarily in Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Jordan.[7] Rooted in Ismailism, a branch of Shia Islam, Druze beliefs incorporate elements from Abrahamic religions as well as Gnosticism, Neoplatonism, Pythagoreanism, and other philosophies, creating a distinct theology known to esoterically interpret religious scriptures and to highlight the role of the mind and truthfulness.
Read morehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Druze
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Understanding the Jewish State Law
and why Israel needs it
and why Israel needs it
By Yoram HazonyYoram Hazony is President of the Herzl Institute in Jerusalem.
Mr Hazony is the author of "The Jewish State," a book which exposes the malevolent role of the left in eroding the safety and viability of the Israel. (I highly recommend it!)
As civil war rages in Syria-Iraq, Libya and Yemen, and tensions between Jews and Arabs in Jerusalem reach levels not seen in more than a decade, the Israeli government has approved a ‘Jewish State Law’ that will confirm Israel’s constitutional standing as “the nation-state of the Jewish people.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been devoting a great deal of time and attention to this piece of legislation, which outsiders might find incongruous:
Some on the Israeli left, backed by prominent voices in the American media, have urged that the law is an unneeded provocation, if not simply racist.
In fact, however, the Jewish State law is much needed at this time — not only to assure Israel’s long-term viability, but also as the harbinger of a future solution to the broader crisis of legitimacy that has crippled the entire state system in the Middle East.
On the face of it, Israel should not need a Jewish State Law. Until recently, Israel’s status as the state of the Jewish people had never been seriously been questioned.
A bit of history
The idea of Israel as a “Jewish State” has a continuous history going back to Theodor Herzl, father of modern Zionism, who had given this title to his 1896 tract calling for Jewish national independence.
In proposals subsequently submitted to the British government, Herzl asked the empire’s assistance in establishing a territory “which shall be Jewish in character,” “founded under laws and regulations adopted for the well-being of the Jewish people,” with a Jewish name and a Jewish flag.
This concept was later incorporated into British and UN proposals for the establishment of a Jewish State in Palestine, culminating in the partition plan adopted by the UN in 1947.
Among Jews, support for such a state became virtually universal during the Holocaust — as it became clear that neither the United States nor Britain would act to save the Jews of Europe. (In fact, Britain used force to prevent Jews from escaping to Palestine throughout the war.)
In 1948, Israel’s Declaration of Independence, drafted under David Ben-Gurion, used the term “Jewish State” repeatedly.
Much Israeli legislation, including the Law of Return offering automatic citizenship to Jews of all lands, was based on Herzl’s view of Israel’s purpose, which was embraced alongside a firm commitment to equal civil rights for non-Jewish citizens.
The idea of a nation-state
The idea of a nation-state devoted to the well-being of a particular people was not, of course, unique to Israel.
Movements for national self-determination had been known in Europe at least since Dutch independence in 1581, and had gradually led to the independence of additional conquered peoples, from Greece and Italy to Poland and Ireland.
Giving eloquent voice to this movement, John Stuart Mill’s “On Representative Government” (1861) urged national self-determination as the most prudent organizing principle for the international order, arguing that only states with a high degree of linguistic and cultural homogeneity share sufficient common interests to become democracies:
Multi-ethnic states would necessarily be tyrannies, he wrote, because only oppression can keep the radically conflicting interests of the different peoples of the state at bay.
Woodrow Wilson placed this principle at the center of his proposals for reconstruction after World War I. At the time, Herzl’s proposal of establishing a Jewish State fit in perfectly.
But history has not been kind to the idea of national self-determination.
The overreaction against nationalism brings forth a different set of serious problems
Beginning in the 1960s, Western elites turned sharply against national particularism of any kind (at least as far as first-world nations are concerned), citing Nazi Germany as proof that drawing national and religious distinctions is the root of virtually all political evil.
In Europe, the result has been the attempt to dismantle the system of independent nation-states and replace it with a European Union.
In the US as well, an aversion to drawing national or religious distinctions for any purpose is now felt across a variety of issues, from immigration to national security.
The distortion of the real meaning of Zionism by other countries and by the Israeli left.
This new disdain for the principle of national self-determination has proved devastating for Israel. Both in America and Europe, the movement to brand Zionism a form of racism continues to gather steam. In Israel, too, “post-Zionism” became the buzzword of fashionable opinion in the 1990s.
In this context, Israel’s Chief Justice declared the country’s Jewish character to be “in tension” with democracy, and the Court embarked on a series of decisions aimed at gradually eroding Israel’s legal status as a Jewish State.
This process reached a climax in the 2000 Ka’adan decision, which declared policies by the Israeli government and the Jewish Agency to be illegal if not in conformity with the principle of equality.
Of course, equality has always been a crucial value in Israel. But the disappearance of Jewish national self-determination from the Court’s list of the legitimate aims of Israeli policy called into question many of the most basic aims for which the state had been founded.
Would it soon be illegal to send Israel’s security services to protect Jewish communities in other countries? To maintain a Law of Return offering automatic citizenship to Jews from other lands? To teach Judaism in the public schools?
These and similar concerns are what stand behind Netanyahu’s present “Jewish State Law” — whose purpose is to re-establish the previous status quo on issues of Jewish national self-determination.
Why the Jewish State Law is crucial for Israel's survival
But there are deeper reasons for adopting the proposed Jewish State Law.
The Herzlian political model has been a dramatic success. As the Jewish State, Israel has absorbed millions of destitute Jewish refugees from Arab lands and the former Soviet Union, offering them freedom from persecution, economic opportunity, and public schools where their children can learn Hebrew, Jewish History, and Bible (something available in the US only to Jews who can afford private school tuition).
Far from creating a xenophobic and racist regime, the Jewish State has blossomed into a raucous liberal democracy — the only country in the Middle East in which Christians, Druze and other minorities enjoy free worship and need not fear for their lives.
This success has not been in spite of Israel’s character as the state of the Jewish people, but because of it.
The ME multi-national model - as in Iraq and Syria - has resulted in non-ending carnage - as well as oppression of minorities there and everywhere else in the Muslim ME.
To see this, just compare Israel’s trajectory to that of other states established in the region at around the same time, but based on a “multi-national” model:
Syria (independent 1946) was assembled by the French by forcing together Alawite, Druze, Kurd, Assyrian Christian and Sunni Arab peoples — willfully ignoring national and religious boundaries, as well as the vocal demands by some of these peoples to be granted independent states of their own.
Iraq (independent 1932) was a similar British construct, imposing a single state on radically disparate Kurdish, Assyrian, Sunni Arab, and Shia Arab peoples, among others. Most states in the Middle East — “Pan-Arab” in name only — were built by the Western powers in just this way.
The results have been just as Mill predicted: Israel, built around a cohesive and overwhelming Jewish majority, was able to establish internal stability without repression, and quickly developed into a fully functioning democracy.
Whereas the other states of the region have been able to retain their integrity only through brutality and state terror.
The destruction of the Sunni city of Hama by Syria’s Alawite regime in 1982, and the gassing of Kurds in Halabja by Iraq’s Sunni regime in 1988, are only the best-known examples of what has been a chronic dilemma for these regimes: Either greater repression, or collapse.
We can hold off on reaching this conclusion as long as we please: But there will not be peace in Syria-Iraq until the borders are redrawn along ethnic and religious lines.
To achieve peace, ME minorities need their own nation state.
In the end, Kurds, Alawites, Christians, Druze, Sunni Arabs and Shiite Arabs must each have their own nation-state, each devoted to the well-being and interests of one people. And each must have its own “Law of Return,” offering a place of refuge and automatic citizenship to the scattered and persecuted members of this one people.
In a sense, this is a distinctly Israeli vision, emerging from the Jews’ experience of suffering and redemption in the last century. But it is also a humane and universal vision — the only one that can offer genuine hope to the devastated peoples of our region.
The proposed Jewish State Law reaffirms Israel’s commitment to the political principle of national self-determination, which made the existence of a free Jewish nation a reality in our time.
And it holds up this concept as a model and a beacon for persecuted peoples across the Middle East, who yearn to achieve for their own children what our grandparents achieved for us in bringing Israel into being.
Source
(subtitles by blogger)
Yoram Hazony's website
The Jewish State: The Struggle for Israel’s Soul
By Yoram HazonyThis is a history of the idea of Israel as “the Jewish state”—the nation state of the Jewish people.
But since there is no way to divorce the history of this idea from the political history of the Zionist movement and the state of Israel, it ends up being the history of an idea as it affects the world.
The book focuses on three things that are worth knowing about if you have any interest in Israel:
First, the philosophical and political background that led Herzl to develop the idea of a Jewish state and advance it as a viable political option for the European powers as they tried to think through the future of the Middle East.
Second, Ben-Gurion’s struggle, against both Jewish and non-Jewish opponents, to establish such a Jewish state along lines similar to those Herzl had proposed. And third, the abandonment of the idea of a Jewish state by many of Israel’s leading intellectuals and cultural figures, culminating in the trend that came, in the 1990s, to be called “post-Zionism.”
If you’re interested in political philosophy, the book also makes the argument that Herzl’s general political theory, which serves as the theoretical foundation for the state of Israel even today, is of significant interest in the history of political ideas.
There’s also quite a bit of pretty astonishing material on the political thought of leading Jewish intellectuals who opposed the idea of a Jewish state, and worked politically to prevent the state of Israel from coming into being—including Hermann Cohen, Martin Buber, Judah Magnes, Gershom Scholem, Albert Einstein, and Hannah Arendt.
Introduction to the book, followed by blurbs from enthusiastic reviews
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