Antoun Issa: Israel's loyalty oath bill

Let’s not sugarcoat this. Israel’s new loyalty oath bill is discriminatory, ethno-centric and provocative.

Should it pass into law, non-Jews would be required to pledge allegiance to Israel as a Jewish and democratic state to attain citizenship.

Enforcing an ethnic and religious aspect of a state on citizens runs contrary to the Western democratic principles of civil liberty, equality and individual freedom. Rather, it reeks of a repugnant ethnic nationalism. History has been no kind friend to ethno-centric states, from the bloodbaths of Europe in World War II, to Apartheid in South Africa and the Balkan Wars of the 1990s.

Pursuing an ethno-centric model for state preservation is a recipe for disaster, particularly in countries with ethnically and religiously diverse populations such as Israel.

Arabs constitute 20% of Israel’s population, and that does not include the approximately 4 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. It is bewildering, then, that the Netanyahu government would persist with a bill that excludes half of the population under Israel’s jurisdiction, by insisting they pledge loyalty to a religion not of their own.

Indeed, the loyalty oath bill only reinforces accusations of Israel as an Apartheid state that treats and divides its people on an ethnic and religious basis.

Critics, such as Israeli political commentator Gideon Levy, have slammed the move as “ethnocratic, theocratic, nationalistic and racist”.

The most dangerous hallmark of an ethnic nationalist state is that it creates an exclusive society that divides the privileged from the unwanted. It divided whites from blacks in South Africa under Apartheid, and will equally compel the Palestinians to an inferior status in Israel and the Occupied Territories.

By proposing the loyalty oath bill, Israel is only prodding along an already long and bloody conflict, when it should be seeking its resolution.

Internal consequences

In addition to the dangers the loyalty oath bill will have on Israeli-Palestinian peace talks are the consequences for Israel’s deeply divided Jewish society. The high profile Arab-Israeli conflict has perhaps overshadowed strongly-held opposing perceptions on what Israel represents for its Jewish population.

Any move to enshrine Judaism as the defining aspect of Israel is sure to rattle a few cages among Israel’s secular Jews, many of whom will view it as another attempt by Israel’s ultra-Orthodox to impose religious conservatism on the state.

It is a far cry from the Israel that was once upheld as the only Western liberal democracy in the Middle East. Ironically, it appears Israel is moving further away from its democratic roots to resemble more of the Middle Eastern neighbourhood it has long despised. The “Jewish Republic of Israel” – as Levy refers to it – is becoming more akin to its theocratic and discriminatory rivals in Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Reality-check needed

However, the real significance of the loyalty oath bill is its clear deviation from reality. In fact, it strikes at the core of the problem of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that is prevalent on both sides: the struggle between illusion and reality.

For behind the push for a loyalty oath bill is the romantic concept that a Jewish oasis in the middle of a desert, solely for Jews, can exist without issue. The concept won sympathy – from the West at least – post-World War II, but unfortunately the reality portrays a conflicting picture. Instead of a Jewish-only oasis, we have a state implanted on a large non-Jewish indigenous population that, including the Occupied Territories, are heading towards a majority.

Illusions are not limited to the Israeli camp either. Despite American denials, Hamas is the most powerful Palestinian faction at present, and also determines its policies on an opposing romantic ideal: an Islamic Palestine where non-Muslims would have to pledge loyalty to the Islamic character of Palestine.

The most pressing dilemma of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is that it is being strangled by two extreme and conflicting forces that have no grasp on reality, and no desire to accept it. Neither Israelis nor Palestinians are simply going to vanish, and the sooner both sides acknowledge this, the sooner an agreement can be reached.

Much progress is, of course, incumbent on the United States. The Obama administration has thus far been unwilling and unable to create a new atmosphere in which peace is attainable. Instead, it has resorted to the erroneous approaches of previous administrations of dead-end road maps and too little action.

The peace process requires not simply political will from Israelis and Palestinians, but political awareness. As it stands, the two main forces in Israel and Palestine are conservative, ethno-religious -based leaderships with flawed, extreme concepts that have no bearing on reality.

Removing the blinkers of idealism clearly reveals that Israelis and Palestinians, Jews and non-Jews have no choice but to find a way to co-exist on the same land. That might, indeed, be a difficult pill to swallow if you are Avigdor Lieberman or Khaled Meshaal, but any attempt otherwise will only further prolong an already decades-long conflict.

The powerful Israeli-right can continue to draft laws of a Jewish Israel, and Hamas can continue to preach an Islamic Palestine, but the facts on the ground are the only facts that matter, and no loyalty oath bill is going to change that.

Antoun Issa is a Lebanese-Australian freelance journalist/blogger/writer on Middle Eastern and international affairs. He wrote a highly sourced live blog from Beirut during the Israel-Lebanon 2006 war, conducting interviews with a number of media both Australian and international and has contributed toAntiwar and Crikey.

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