WHICH RAISES A TROUBLING QUESTION:

Israel to reject refugees (MATTI FRIEDMAN, 8/20/07, The Associated Press)

Israel said Sunday it will no longer allow refugees from Darfur to stay after they sneak across the border from Egypt, drawing criticism from those who say the Jewish state is morally obliged to offer sanctuary to people fleeing mass murder. [...]

Israel’s response to the unexpected arrivals has been mixed. Threats to expel them have clashed with sentiments inspired by the memory of Jews seeking sanctuary from the Nazis before and during World War II and being turned away. Some volunteers have helped migrants find jobs and housing.

Eytan Schwartz, an advocate for Darfur refugees in Israel, objected to any ban on the asylum seekers. “The state of Israel has to show compassion for refugees after the Jewish people was subject to persecution throughout its history,” he said.

The Association for Civil Rights in Israel said in a statement that it is, “Israel’s moral and legal obligation to accept any refugees or asylum seekers facing life-threatening danger or infringements on their freedom.”

But Ephraim Zuroff of the Nazi-hunting Simon Wiesenthal Center said the Jewish people could not be expected to right every wrong just because of its past.

“Israel can’t throw open the gates and allow unlimited access for people who are basically economic refugees,” Zuroff said.

Some months ago we received an excellent book by Alex Grobman, Nations United: How the United Nations Undermines Israel and the West. Therein, Mr. Grobman provides a useful short history of Israel and an invaluable account of how the Soviet Union and Arab states used the auspices of the UN, the ideologies of anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism, and, in particular, United Nations Resolution 3379 (which singled out Zionism as a form of racism) as weapons with which to distract their own restive internal populations and to attack Israel and its Western allies. He shows just how successful this strategy was and the degree to which it caught its targets off-guard, though we were finally able to repeal the resolution in the wake of the Gulf War alliance and the collapsing Iron Curtain. The book is remarkably thorough, passionately argued, and refreshingly fair and honest.

One function of Mr. Grobman's honesty though is that the main argument against the Resolution and against how Israel has been treated at the UN is not that there is no validity to the notion that Zionism entails a certain level of "racism" but that there is nothing unique about that and that there are certain historical reasons for it in Israel's case. Mr. Grobman describes Zionism as "an attempt to transform the Jewish people into becoming like all the other nations of the world" and as "an effort to enable Jews to live in their own land like every other nation." Zionism then is pretty indistinguishable from any other form of nationalism, except insofar as the reaction it has provoked, and nationalism is inextricably bound up with ideas of ethnicity.

The elements of nationalism (a less inflammatory term than racism) are easy enough to trace in Israel. Never mind that its central purpose is to provide a Jewish homeland, there are also policies like allowing any Jew in the world to make aliyah, while denying native Palestinians the "right of return," and Ariel Sharon's decision to disavow the drive for Eretz Israel and to create a Palestinian state in order to limit the number of Arabs within Israel's borders. While completely justified from the perspective of maintaining Israel's distinctively Jewish and democratic nature, such steps have undeniable racial components. What's most notable in this regard is that when, for example, the Scots seek to separate themselves from Great Britain, and polls show that the English overwhelmingly support seeing the back of them, we see none of the hysteria and rancor that Israel is subjected to for similarly nationalist sentiment. Or, to take another normal democratic ally in good standing, consider Japan, which has one of the most restrictive immigration policies in the free world, for no other reason than to preserve the nation's ethnic identity. Despite a recent past of mass murderous nationalist warfare against its neighbors, Japan's current policies go largely unremarked. Meanwhile, the Jewish nation, whose people are recent victims of genocide are vilified for trying to preserve their national identity. Reasonable folk can differ over the advisability of the respective policies pursued by Scotland, Japan and Israel, but it is obviously unreasonable -- and something quite a bit more sinister -- to single out Israel for criticism.

It is, however, at the point where we might question these nationalist policies that the big question comes into play: is it a good idea for Israel to seek to be just another nation and to orient its policies around a nationalist axis? As a threshold matter, treating Jews as an ethnically distinct people, as a biological nation, makes Judaism an intellectual support for precisely those nationalist ideas that undergird Applied Darwinism. From a purely Darwinian standpoint, what can have been "wrong" with a struggle between the Germanic people and the Jewish, however violent? And once we repudiate the merely biological view of mankind and invoke Judeo-Christian morality and Western tradition in its stead, we open several cans of worms. What moral basis can a state have for treating two ethically similar people differently simply because they differ ethnically? While a state need not extend citizenship rights to those who seek its destruction, on what basis may it deny those rights to those who embrace the premises upon which it functions and the ends for which it was founded? And these are only the sorts of theoretical/philosophical issues that we encounter. On the more practical front, it appears that Israel has only bought itself some time when it comes to demographics. Eventually, perhaps not too many years from now, Jews will be a minority and Arab Muslims a majority even within the more modest borders that are being finalized. If steps are not taken now to base Israel's future on a more inclusive set of ideals, then how can it integrate non-Jews and treat them as Israelis yet still expect to preserve the Zionist vision? And, if that preservation came to require a denial of democratic rights to the majority or even a large minority, then what will have become of the moral claims of Judaism? And ought we to expect an America that is not nationalist, is explicitly organized around Judeo-Christian ideals, and always has been the main force for liberalization/democratization in the world to retain its unusually close relationship with an Israel that may be forced by nationalist considerations to depart so drastically from the American model?

These are all questions that we ought to be grappling with now, especially those of us who love, admire and support Israel. But it is difficult to discuss them in calm and considered fashion, in no small part because Israel's enemies may welcome the admissions that are required. This might well be the final victory of the Zionism=Racism crowd, that they have so tainted public dialogue that we choose a comfortable silence rather than a difficult debate. That would be truly tragic.

MORE:
Don't Back Away (HILLEL HALKIN, August 21, 2007, NY Sun)

This week the Israeli cabinet voted, in a much-publicized decision, to create a national service program for youth that does not serve in the army. It's a good idea and not entirely a new one, since the option of working for a year or two in some socially useful capacity instead of serving in the Israel Defense Force has been available to religiously observant girls for several decades.

What's new is that now this option will be made available to other categories of youngsters as well, especially Arabs and ultra-Orthodox Jews. This is what makes the new program both highly promising and highly problematic, since it touches on the two sectors of the Israeli population that are the country's least integrated and the greatest threats to its long-term stability.

Traditionally, neither ultra-Orthodox Jews nor Arabs have served in the army, in which — in principle, at least — there is universal conscription at the age of 18. Despite being totally different from one another, both groups reflect a similar story. In neither case have they wanted to serve, in neither case has this bothered the army, and in neither case, therefore, has the government made them serve.

Their disinclination to serve is understandable.

Posted by Orrin Judd at August 20, 2007 11:36 PM