Franklin Cider Mill
“A FAMILY TRADITION”
views
point
continued from page 8
certain factions for narrow, populist
political gain.
Although the measure tilts the bal-
ance toward the Jewish identification
of the state, it does not override the
many checks and balances that infuse
Israel’s democracy, including the
sacred principle of equality.
And don’t think for a minute that
some minority political leaders are
not using this ill-advised law to
grandstand and pursue their own
political agendas. The fallout from
the law obscures many new, posi-
tive developments, including soaring
rates of Arab advancement in higher
education and in the workplace,
including for women.
There is much more that needs
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continued from page 8
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August 23 • 2018
Amos Yadlin, Maj. Gen. (ret.), a former head of
Israeli Military Intelligence and one of the coun-
try’s best-known defense and foreign policy
experts, is executive director of the nonpartisan
Institute for National Security Studies.
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to be done to ensure greater oppor-
tunities for peripheral populations
— Arab, Bedouin, Druze and even
Jewish — but this misguided law
does nothing to nullify or erase the
enormous strides that our society has
taken toward a truly shared society.
This was a case of political “friendly
fire,” a self-inflicted wound. But the
understandable consternation should
not be exaggerated or misinterpreted
as undermining Israel’s democratic
traditions, which remain strong and
resolute. •
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language in America, and few people
would argue that this makes America
undemocratic.
Indeed, Israel’s new law goes much
further than many other democracies
in guaranteeing minority language
rights, thanks to one provision accord-
ing Arabic “special status” and another
stating that nothing in the law “under-
mines the status enjoyed by the Arabic
language in practice before this Basic
Law came into effect.” The latter provi-
sion actually preserves Arabic’s status
as an official language de facto. It may
have been stupid not to preserve it de
jure as well, but “stupid” isn’t the same
as “undemocratic.”
All of the above explains why even
the heads of the Israel Democracy
Institute — a left-leaning organization
usually harshly critical of the current
government —said at a media briefing
that the law “doesn’t change anything
practically,” “won’t change how the
country is run” and is merely “sym-
bolic and educational.”
The law was meant to solve a
specific constitutional problem: The
courts have frequently interpreted
the Jewish half of “Jewish and demo-
cratic” at a “level of abstraction so
high that it becomes identical to the
state’s democratic nature,” as former
Supreme Court President Aharon
Barak famously said. Yet no definition
of “Jewish” can be complete without
recognizing that Judaism has par-
ticularist, as well as universal, aspects
because it’s the religion of a particular
people with a particular history, cul-
ture and traditions. By emphasizing
some of those particularist aspects,
the law is supposed to restore the
intended balance between the Jewish
and democratic components of Israel’s
identity. But it doesn’t eliminate those
democratic components, which are
enshrined in numerous other Basic
Laws, nor was it intended to do so.
I’m skeptical that the law will
achieve its intended purpose, but I see
no good reason why it shouldn’t exist
in principle. Israel isn’t just a generic
Western democracy; it’s also the
world’s only Jewish state. And its con-
stitution-in-the-making should reflect
both halves of its complex identity. •
Evelyn Gordon is a journalist and commentator
living in Israel.