A Defense of Israel, the Religious Nation State.

Good editorial, if only for its honesty and ability to look forward and judge how our differences will divide Israelis and Americans, who share a fundamentally different definition of democracy.

One quibble? The author thinks he is pitching the piece to American Jews, not to American taxpayers as a whole. We all share a stake in Israeli's survival, and the adjustments it will take in troubled times for her continued existence as a nation state in the region. A cold "civil war" is brewing internally in Israel, but for demographic reasons, spills over the saucer into our American elections, here.

What most American Jews have never fully understood is that Israel is not a miniature America in a bad neighborhood; it is an entirely different project, with a different purpose. “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free” reads Emma Lazarus’ poem at the foot of the Statue of Liberty. America would be open to everyone, privileging — at least in principle — no ethnicity, no religion, no race.

But that was never Israel’s purpose. Israel was to be, as the 1917 Balfour Declaration put it, a “national home for the Jewish people.” Thomas Jefferson’s opening words in the Declaration of Independence are, “When in the course of human events.” Israel’s Declaration of Independence opens, “The land of Israel was the birthplace of the Jewish people.”

It was American universalism that made the United States such a welcoming haven for Jews, while in Israel, it was particularism that gave the country its purpose: to save and protect Jewish lives. While it failed to save most of Europe’s Jews from Hitler, it succeeded in saving the Jews of the Arab world, who now constitute more than 50 percent of the population and who, given their relatively recent history, harbor no warm feelings toward their Arab neighbors.

Seeking the support of world opinion and American Jews, Israeli leaders have always stressed the similarities between the two countries, but it is increasingly clear that Israel has done itself a grave disservice by papering over the purposes and natures of the countries. America has become synonymous with liberal democracy, while Israel has always been an ethnic democracy.

In 1880, only 3 percent of all the world’s Jews lived in the United States and Palestine combined. Today those communities include more than 85 percent of the world’s Jews.
...
Israelis right and left, religious and secular, still overwhelmingly believe in the importance and legitimacy of Israel as a distinctly Jewish state, in which the national narrative is Jewish history, the holidays that define the calendar year are Jewish, public religious symbols are overwhelmingly Jewish and the spoken language is the language of the Hebrew Bible.

Israeli Arabs voted in greater numbers in this election, and now, at long last, represent a formidable parliamentary bloc. They appear ready to become more involved in the political process than they have in decades. But the subject they avoid is whether or not they are willing to accept the notion that Israel is not only democratic, but Jewish...

Israel thus joins the age-old struggle of those desperately trying to preserve the historical myths of the past ("G-d Gave Us the Land") while reconciling those with survival in secular future, where indeed, the belief is that "All Men Were Created Equal" (in the eyes of God) and that we must learn to live together in peace with our neighbors, adjusting where we can, warring and winning what we must, to preserve the peace.

Will Israel take quickly to the new lesson before her? The subject her collective citizens must address is whether or not they are willing to accept the notion that Israel is not only Jewish, but democratic...

This, too, could complicate American Jews’ view of Israel. If and when even seemingly moderate Jewish Israeli voices object publicly to including Israel’s Arab Parliament members in the coalition, American Jews — imbued with America’s commitment to universalism — will most likely see a blemish in a democracy’s obligation to be ethnically blind. Meantime, Israelis will see themselves seeking to perpetuate the purpose for which their state was created

He's right.
Racism and exclusion based on ethnicity are a hard sell not only to American citizens, but in most of the West today. Israel itself has proven a successful adapter, when it can overcome the poor far-vision eyesight that plagues a people more known for looking behind than ahead. Let us pray they choose a leader -- or G-d chooses one for them -- with the strongest eyes available to help lead his people to a successful and stable future, instead of trying to sell the West on policies of racial and ethnic exclusion that no one, religious or not, is buying in modern times.