Juan Cole: Israel Declares for Ethnic Nationalism
[Juan Cole is the Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History and the director of the Center for South Asian Studies at the University of Michigan.]
The Israeli cabinet has approved a measure that would require persons applying for Israeli citizenship to affirm the “Jewish and democratic” character of Israel. The new oath would at the moment affect relatively few people, mainly Palestinians outside Israel who marry Palestinian-Israelis and who wish to unite the family on the Israeli side of the green line (and are permitted to do so). But the backer of the oath, Avigdor Lieberman (a former club bouncer from Moldavia), wants a similar or even stricter oath to be administered to all the Palestinian-Israelis, who form roughly 20 percent of Israel’s population.
Supporters of the measure, such as Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, point out that this language already exists in Israel’s organic law....
It should be obvious that asking African or Asian immigrants, or even many Latinos, to make such an affirmation as the price of citizenship would be discriminatory and racist, insofar as their very oath would deprive them of first-class citizenship.
Political theorists distinguish between “civic” nationalism, such as that in the United States and France, and “ethnic” nationalism, more common in 19th century Central Europe. Civic nationalism is based on ideals (fealty to the US constitution, e.g.) and history. Thus, Crispus Attucks, an African-American, has often been seen as the first martyr to American independence, which was about ideals and not ethnicity. There was nevertheless a latent racism in American nationalism, which assumed that the “real” Americans were white Protestants. Thus, the ideal of civic nationalism is sometimes tainted by or intertwined with the sentiments of ethnic nationalism. But by and large over time, civic nationalism has won out in the American courts, though often only after a long struggle....
Ethnic nationalism is not only intrinsically unfair, but it is also based on a lie, that races are real things....
It would be an exaggeration to say that the oath makes Israel an Apartheid state inside the Green Line, i.e. inside 67 borders. Palestinian Israelis are citizens, can socially mix with Jewish Israelis, can go to university and attend the same schools, etc. They can even intermarry if they are willing and able to do so abroad. The oath does not make for Apartheid, but for an ethnic nationalism of the older German or Serbian sort. It is of course shameful for Jews to adopt such exclusivist political ideas, which harmed Jews so much....