There Are Some Loose Screws In The Israeli Government

The Geek often has a favorable view of Israel in comparison to its Arab neighbors, particularly those paragons of intransigence in the Palestinian Authority and the Government of Killers running Gaza.  There are occasions, however, when the Geek becomes convinced that the political leadership of Israel has lost all grip on reality.

This is one of those times.  Before continuing, the Geek has to express frustration.  Frustration with the utterly asinine acts of the Netanyahu administration as well as other, lesser elements of the government.  Frustration at the implications of their actions which necessitate comment at the expense of considering other, lesser known and fascinating subjects such as the continued downward trajectory in the North Caucasus or the slow motion disintegration of Tajikistan under the weight of armed political Islam.

Or the stupidity of the Royal Navy's high command which is reportedly willing to cut its "fleet" to as few as a dozen surface combatants so that the new aircraft carriers might be afforded.  This sort of decision making boggles the mind, particularly considering that Argentina is feeling its oats once more over the Falkland Islands.

And so to Israel.  The most shocking of the self-destructive acts of the Netanyahu crew is the new loyalty bill which would require all new, non-Jewish citizens to swear loyalty to "the Jewish and democratic state of Israel."  This measure has been a pet of the ultra-ultra right Yisrael Beiteinu party--the party headed by the Israeli version of Joe Biden, ForMin Avigador Lieberman.

Adoption of this measure by the Knesset would destroy the final vestige of the liberal, democratic, and socialist vision of Israel which gained the country so much sympathy and support among the goyim of the US a half century and more ago.  The Israel of those days was seen widely by Americans as being an outpost of the best of European or Western culture, values, norms, and institutions taking root in the hostile soil of authoritarian, often feudal, and occasionally communist Mideast.  In a real sense many of We the People saw the Israelis as being "just like us," open, tolerant, expressive, even boisterous.  Being "like us" it was easy to support the embattled country even when American national interests would have been better served by doing otherwise.

Loyalty oaths are a feature of both authoritarian regimes and societies under stress from forces abroad and hidden in the domestic population.  In the US during the Fifties and Sixties, during the era of the Great Anti-Communist Crusade, loyalty oaths for public employees and others were all the rage.  (Even the Geek as a fifteen year old swimming instructor in a Saturday morning program at the local high school had to sign a loyalty oath before he could get his paycheck, minuscule as it was.)

Israel is under stress to say the least.  The stress has an internal dimension given that a fifth of the population is non-Jewish, primarily Muslim Arabs.  It has not helped that the PA and its Arab supporters have refused to acknowledge officially a fact that is all too self-evident in reality--Israel was established to be and exists as a Jewish state.  Even though a congress of three Jews might provide at least five differing definitions of what the term "Jewish state" means, the foundational reality remains that Israel is precisely what it was founded to be--a nation-state for Jews.

Admittedly the Israelis have made attempts to render their land free of all non-Jews.  The Wars of Independence were ethically scarred by the forced removal of Arab populations--both Muslim and Christian. True, the major responsibility for the ethnic cleansing rests with the Arab states whose leaders promised the temporarily displaced locals would come back home in triumph riding Arab tanks.  That does not relieve the Israelis of that far gone day from their culpability which extended to murder.

So too were Arabs displaced forcibly during and in the immediate aftermath of the Six Day War.  Israelis got a bad case of the "victory disease," showing its worst symptoms in their treatment of the occupied territory and its residents.  Muscular expansionism, a sort of Old Testament based "manifest destiny" ruled the public mood with results which fester to the present.  To put it not unkindly but accurately, it was the attitude exhibited by the Israeli public which started the corrosive process of myth destruction which has also continued to the present with the deligitimatization campaign so odiously evident in the West generally.

The climate of stress and concomitant fear helps explain the strong need by the nationalists in government and public alike to embrace the loyalty oath.  Be that as it may, the global impact of the oath will be negative.  It will reinforce the notion which has taken a pernicious hold on many in Europe and the US that Israel is a "racist" society and polity.  It will strengthen the hand of those who argue "Israel equals Apartheid."  It will also make the Arabs both inside and without Israel more irredentist.  It will feed the needs of the extremes on both sides.

There have been some other recent actions by lesser components of the government which serve to potentate the evil effects of the oath bill.  In one the Israeli Defense Ministry has blocked the construction of an ambitious middle class oriented planned community on land which has been granted to the PA.  At issue is a stretch of two miles needed to build an access road for the town.  Two miles is in question.  The Defense Ministry with the full-throated support of "settlers" in a nearby new Israeli town has dragged its feet to the point the entire project is threatened.

This is stupidity on the level of pointing a pistol at ones own gonads--and pulling the trigger.  The PA needs a vibrant middle class and the economic consequences of having one in order to have even a faint chance of stability over time.  It needs sound stakeholders to counter the ever advancing potency of the advocates of violent political Islam.  Israel should be bending backwards to facilitate the construction of this new Arab town and not dragging up sham issues (like sewage and trash handling plans) in order to slow, perhaps stop it.  Even the "settlers" should have brains enough to realize that an increased prosperity along with the inherently more conservative mood of those who "have arrived" is their best protection against terror attacks, the drive by shootings they allege will occur if the road and town are built.

Then there is the matter of breaching the wall around the Old City of Jerusalem.  Reportedly the municipal council (Israeli of course) has floated a plan to build a new gate in the old wall so as to provide entrance to a parking lot and multi-purpose building near the Western Wall.  It has been 112 years since the wall was last breached so that Kaiser Willem II could ride in style into the Old City.  The new breach has outraged Palestinian opinion and given the PA another excuse (as if it needed one more) to postpone, stall, or stop the on-and-off talks.

Even though the Western Wall will remain under Israeli control in any final settlement, there is no reason to bring up even a remote possibility of taking down more bricks in the wall.  The Old City is a running sore of animosity as has been demonstrated when even a tunnel near the West Wall resulted in riots and killing just over a decade ago.  One has to wonder if the Jerusalem municipal council was off its collective meds at the time of making this decision or simply indifferent to reality.

The Israelis may be convinced that the threat of the UN Security Council creating a Palestinian state is unlikely to happen, but recent statements by the French ForMin bring that conviction into question.  Similarly the Israeli government is certain the PA will make no request of the Security Council to short circuit the negotiation process.  It is true that a similar proposal by the then foreign affairs chief of the European Union gained no traction either in Europe or in Washington, but a lot has happened since then--none of it to the advantage of Israel.

The opinion molding elites of Western Europe and the US have not become any more tolerant of Israeli practices or more doubting of the sin-free nature of the PA.  The current administration has not only invested all too much diplomatic capital in the present talks, it has been given an ultimatum by the Arab League.  The previous unforced errors of Mr Obama--most notably the demand for a total halt to settlement construction of an open ended nature--have provided the PA with the belief the US will do the heavy lifting on its behalf.  The Arab League ultimatum--the US has one month, no more, to get the talks back on track or something unspecified but horrid will happen--greatly increases the pressure on Obama to put pressure on Israel.

The oath bill and the lesser damaging measures show the Israeli push back on the pressures to date.  This implies that there is little more in the way of coercion available to the administration.  At the same time the inducements offered in the alleged Obama letter have no value as they are inherently non-credible given the administration's previous refusal to honor commitments made in a letter from George W. Bush.

The oath bill and the rest have hardened the PA and its supporters in demanding that the US cut the knot and bring Palestine into existence.  The questioned measures have also given fuel to the let-the-Security-Council-do-it movement currently orchestrated by the French ForMin.  Finally, they have demonstrated the limits of American coercion.

The oath bill in particular demonstrates the political will of the nationalistic right in Israel.  Even when the self-destructive potential of the bill is so evident, the force of nationalism under attack--even from presumed and previous allies--cannot be denied.  Reasoned considerations of national interest, stability, and international repute are no match for the forces of fear.