Opinion

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Dry Bones

Editorial

A Loyalty Oath?

T

he loyalty of Israel's Arab
minority is an increasingly
troublesome issue. But a few
members of the Knesset have chosen
the absolute worst way of addressing
it. They introduced a bill that would
make it a crime to deny Israel exists as
a Jewish democracy. Violations would be
punished by a year in prison.
A similar bill, also sponsored by the
right-wing parties, would require Israeli
citizens to take an oath of loyalty to the
state.
Neither bill is given much of a chance
of passage. But they do reveal the mind
set of a significant number of Israelis. A
survey conducted this month indicated
that 66 percent of Israelis favored the
loyalty oath.
The outcry from the rest of the politi-
cal spectrum was immediate.
To many Israeli liberals, the fact that
such measures even would be intro-
duced was a dangerous trend.
"These bills negate the substance
of Israeli democracy;' warned Arye
Carmon, president of the Israel

Democracy Institute, a Jerusalem
think tank. "Inclusivity is the funda-
mental building block of democracy.
Democracies, by their very nature, bind
a diverse body of citizens to a uni-
fied political framework that includes
and protects them irrespective of their
beliefs."
Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman
made these proposals part of his elec-
tion campaign this year and promises to
keep pushing them forward. At the very
least, they are sparking a lively debate
about the character and nature of the
Jewish state.
Israeli Arabs have undeniably become
more outspoken about expressing soli-
darity with their Palestinian "brethren."
To many Israelis, that comes very close
to the borderline of treasonous activi-
ties. Charges of terrorism and spying
now are requently leveled at the Arab
population.
A recent University of Haifa poll
indicated that just 41 percent of Israeli
Arabs recognize Israel's right to exist
as a Jewish state, down 25 percent from

VILLAGE: "A
PLACE WHERE
PEOPLE LIVE."

WEST BANK
DICTIONARY

BEHIND ME YOU
SEE AN ARAB
VILLAGE!

just six years ago.
Nevertheless,
the idea of Israel's
government requir-
ing loyalty oaths is
repellant; and when
it comes to deny-
SETTLEMENT;
BEHIND ME YOU
ing recognition as
"A
PLACE WHERE
a Jewish state, such
SEE A JEWISH
SEWS LIVE."
a dragnet might
SETTLEMENT!
also pick up Jewish
ti
extremists who dis-
pute Israel's right to
make such a claim.
More than that,
these measures
stand as a contra-
diction to what they
purport to protect.
Democracies do not
DryBonesBlog.com
criminalize dissent
except in the dire
maintaining a balance between their
instance of total war.
demands for expanded rights and the
Israeli Arabs have enjoyed the great-
supposition that they will remain loyal
est amount of political freedom of any
to the state.
such population in the Middle East. The
It is in this balance that democracy
government has always been faced with
lives. These bills would destroy it. F1

MEDIA

Reality Check

Wizard Of Blah

D

uring the worst days of the
Vietnam War, a U.S. military
official was quoted as saying,
"We had to destroy that village in order to
save it!"
What he meant was that the village
would have been captured by the Viet
Cong, its leaders executed and its young
men forced into the guerilla army. Instead,
American troops burned down the village
and withdrew its people to a presumably
safer and more defensible place.
The statement was seized upon by
opponents of the war and ridiculed. It
was an oxymoron, they sneered; a prime
example of the emptiness of U.S. policy.
Now we leap ahead some 40 years and
hear President Obama declare that "We
had to destroy that company in order to
save it!'
Maybe not in so many words. What he
did say in his televised speech on the day
General Motors went into bankruptcy was
that today's workers would have to sacri-
fice their jobs so that America would con-

tinue to have an auto industry
in the future.
I'm sure that the thousands of
newly unemployed auto workers
and dealers took great comfort
upon hearing the President's
platitudes. But somehow the
inherent contradiction in his
statement passed unnoticed.
Save enough companies this
way and there will be no one
left to buy the products they
make.
There are certain similari-
ties between the first months of
the Franklin D. Roosevelt and Obama
administrations. Both presidents enjoyed
enormous personal popularity while polls
showed their policies were opposed by a
majority of Americans. Nonetheless, their
presence was so comforting that people
took solace just in that.
FDR's famous Fireside Chats, in which
he discussed issues of the day in a folksy
manner on the radio, are a prime example.

Want to know how many were
broadcast? A total of 30. Not 30
in his first months in office, but
30 in the entire 12 years he was
President.
But President Obama has
been appearing on television
these days about as often as
the guy who wants to sell you
ShamWows.
Instead of meting out these
appearances to emphasize the
most important and heighten
their impact, the great and the
trivial are all jumbled up together
without any sense of order or purpose.
Obama is, of course, a wizard of media
who comes across as masterful on TV. But
there should be greater reason than that if
a president is to use the media to the high-
est effect.
So he is often reduced to spouting
empty rhetoric, as with the GM speech.
After all, once the camera is pointed at you
and the red light comes on you've got to

say something.
There are now 61 staffers in his admin-
istration whose jobs are related to media.
That is "significantly more than the com-
munications staffs of many Fortune 500
corporations:' writes Michael Wolff, in the
current issue of Vanity Fair.
When Wolff said he wanted to write
about the procedure rather than the sub-
stance of the Obama White House's use of
media he was denied access to sources.
Because that clanking behind the
curtain, the procedure of manipulating
media, is pretty much all there is. We are
supposed to either ignore it or pretend the
wizard is really up to something wonder-
ful back there.
According to the polls I cited before,
most Americans are starting to suspect
there is nothing behind the curtain. But
they want so much to believe in this
wizard. Li

George Cantor's e-mail address is
gcantor614@aol.com .

jN

June 18 a 2009

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