Print
PDF FormatThis tactic is evident already in the first chapter, which deals with national states generally. There the authors distinguish between countries such as the United States, in which nationality is defined “politically”—that is, in terms of one’s citizenship alone—and those such as Israel, Germany, and Poland, in which nationality is defined “ethnically.” In the latter group, the state is depicted as being “controlled” by a certain ethnic group that it is “diffcult for minority groups to join.”65 The efforts to build a world based on the idea of the national state have therefore failed, and with grim consequences:
The aspiration to establish nation-states… escalates the social, economic, and political tensions between national minorities and the national groups comprising the majority…. Moreover, these tensions frequently turn into violent struggles….66
Before he knows it, the student finds himself reading a tirade on the evils of the nation-state, which focuses on the bloodshed it has brought in virtually every corner of the globe, including Iraq, Lebanon, Georgia, Chechnya, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Croatia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Spain, India, Nigeria, Ethiopia, the Congo, and Rwanda. The authors then conclude the chapter on an ominous note:
In these places, blood-soaked civil wars have been waged between members of different nationalities who were for decades citizens in the same country. Citizens who studied and worked together, and in many cases had become family relations, turned overnight into sworn enemies, because of their struggle to win control over the nation-state….67
But there is a way out, the authors seem to indicate. Though nation-states seem doomed to failure, bloodshed, or civil war, those countries that are based on “political nationalism,” such as the United States, have no problems of sufficient magnitude even to deserve mention. In democratic countries belonging to this category, “the state is identified with all of the citizens in the country and not with a particular ethnic group….” Hence, the authors term such a democracy a “state of all its citizens.”68
This same term comes back in the very next chapter, “The State of Israel: Different Approaches.” Alongside the five species of Jewish state that are described, the authors present a sixth view, according to which “the State of Israel must be a state of all its citizens, a state that is not identified with the Jewish nationality, but is instead a democratic state that is committed to giving fully equal rights to all its citizens….”69 The decision to discuss this viewpoint in the ministry’s textbook on citizenship, while it reflects a departure from the 1994 curriculum, is not problematic in and of itself, and is in many respects even commendable. The concept of the “state of its citizens” has become salient in Israeli discourse, in large part through the efforts of MK Azmi Bishara, and the schools have a role to play in educating students to understand the demand that Israel be transformed into such a state.70 But the problem is that To Be Citizens in Israel presents the option of Israel’s being a “state of all its citizens” not only as legitimate—which is unprecedented for an Education Ministry textbook—but as the highest realization of democratic principles. In the words of the authors,
This approach strives to see in the State of Israel a democratic state that belongs to all of its citizens, a state in which the national identity is political-Israeli, and its values democratic.71
Moreover, nowhere in the chapter is there any reference to the fact that accepting this idea would require the jettisoning of the central political traditions of the Israeli state, and the repudiation of the central vision that led to its founding.72
In addition to presenting the option of a non-Jewish state as having advantages without drawbacks, the authors go out of their way to lend credibility to this option by making it the centerpiece of the discussion they aim to spark among students learning from the book. At the end of the chapter, students are asked to read and classify six lengthy citations from various scholars and public figures—of which three turn out to favor one or another element of transforming Israel into a “state of all its citizens.” The author of the first excerpt, Yitzhak Reiter, a Hebrew University lecturer in the field of Arab-Israeli affairs, calls for amending the Law of Return so that it will no longer discriminate against Arabs and “changing several lines from the national anthem” so that “they express the Arab tradition.”73 In the second excerpt, Atallah Mansour, an Arab-Israeli journalist who writes for the national daily Ha’aretz, describes Israeli Arabs as the victims of structural inequality and discrimination, which can be cured only if Israel enshrines in a constitution the idea that “it is a state like all states, which takes care of the welfare and security of all its citizens.”74 And the final excerpt in this chapter, by Assad Ghanem, a scholar of Arab-Israeli affairs at Haifa University, takes this line of thinking to its logical conclusions:
In order for Israel to become democratic, in the manner that is customary in the democratic world, it must effect a very substantial foundational and ideological change, so that it becomes via this transformation a state of all its citizens… and in parallel and beyond its recognition of Jewish nationalism, it must recognize the Arab nationalism of its Arab citizens and give them collective rights that are equal to those of the Jews.75
In a similar vein, the section explaining “What Is a Jewish State?” ends not with an explanation of why such a state is desirable, but with a passage that is headlined, “The Consequences of Israel’s Being a Jewish National State for Arab Citizens in Israel.” It reads as follows:
The fact that Israel is the state of the Jewish people means that it is the state of all members of the Jewish people, including those who are not citizens of the state. This fact at times causes the Arabs to feel that the state of Israel is not their state, but rather the state of the Jewish people. They see the Law of Return as a law that discriminates in favor of Jews, because it gives all Jews the right to immigrate and claim citizenship. Moreover, the Arabs feel that they are not equal citizens in their own country, because there are special national institutions whose aim is to help only Jews, such as the Jewish Agency, which is responsible for relations between the State of Israel and the Jewish diaspora…. All of these institutions, which redound only to the well-being of Jewish citizens, serve to exacerbate the sense of inequality that Arab citizens feel, and their feeling that the State of Israel is not their state.76
In case this passage is not sufficient to persuade the students that Arab-Israelis are being treated unjustly, the exercises at the end of the chapter present students with an entire page of argumentation from a study claiming that Israeli Arabs are harmed financially by Jewish immigration, as well as an advertisement of a Finance Ministry policy aimed at assisting Jewish educational institutions in the diaspora. “Examine the excerpt and the advertisement,” the book instructs the student, and then goes on to ask:
7a. What hardships do Arab citizens of Israel face because of the fact that it is the state of the Jewish people?
Other exercises in this chapter are of this same type:
5. In your opinion, is it the case that the fact of Israel’s being a Jewish national state, whose symbols are special only to Jews, harms its character as a democratic state? Explain.6. There are those who believe that the Israel Lands Law does unjustified harm to Arab and Druze citizens. Do you agree with this view? Explain.9. Today, one hears voices calling to change the flag, the seal, and the anthem of the state. Do you support or oppose these changes? Justify your position.77
In each of these questions, the assumption is that there is good reason to think that the Jewish state might not be defensible as a full-fledged democracy because of the deleterious impact of its nationalist character on the Arab population.
