By David Lehrer
With Israeli elections on the horizon, one would expect progressive parties to recognize how dangerously close the Jewish state is to a complete democratic meltdown, and to put forward initiatives that have a realistic chance of stabilizing Israeli democracy. An independent Jewish state and an independent Palestinian state living side by side in peace may no longer be a realistic solution.
It is time for the Israeli public to ask itself what kind of a future it wants for its children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. For this reason, I propose that political parties that champion a democratic Jewish state should demand a national referendum to decide where the country wants to be five years from now. The referendum will express whether Israel wants to be a country that is isolated from the rest of the world including much of world Jewry, that continues to deny basic civil and human rights to millions of Palestinians and that curtails the civil rights of its own citizens for the sake of national security – or whether it wants to be a country that champions democracy and shines a light upon the nations.
This broad notion of public choice in a pragmatic way presents some challenges. Currently, Israel has a legal mechanism for a national referendum on territorial concessions, but not on annexation. The legislation would need to be expanded to enable a nationwide debate over the opposite scenario for which it was developed.
A referendum on the annexation of the West Bank and Gaza to the State of Israel and the granting of full citizenship to all residents would certainly raise a clamor from all sides of the Israeli political spectrum. While there are those on the left and on the right who support different variations of a one-state solution, it is not clear that all would agree to granting full citizenship to Palestinians. In my opinion, however, a national referendum on annexation in a democratic state could not propose anything less – that would be an official acknowledgment of apartheid.
A referendum on annexation of the West Bank and Gaza would enable us to break out of the entrenched political positions and reconsider what is really important to Israelis and Palestinians. The official Palestinian position will likely be to oppose any unilateral move by the State of Israel. However, there are already many voices within Palestine arguing that the two-state solution is no longer a viable option. An initiative to annex the territories and grant full citizenship to Palestinians residing there opens up a whole new set of questions, including those relating to the nature of the Jewish state and the roles that will be played by democracy, religion and ethnicity. The initiative also removes some discussions from the negotiating table, such as the status of Jerusalem, and enables a paradigm shift for other issues, like the right of return for Palestinians and Jews.
There is of course no guarantee that the referendum would result in a vote in favor of annexation. Would a rejection of the referendum mean that the country is then morally bound to determine and implement a clear policy in favor of two states? How would the Palestinians respond to a rejection?What about Palestinian citizens of the State of Israel? These are questions which must also be considered.
But it seems likely that if the Israeli public began discussing the granting of full citizenship to West Bank and Gaza Palestinians, while many Palestinians would oppose such a move, others might rise to the occasion and begin to demand those rights themselves. Finally, a referendum on the annexation of the West Bank and Gaza might create new alliances between left and right, which would enable Israel to move out of the current political quagmire and onto solid democratic ground.
David Lehrer is the Executive Director of the Arava Institute, now on sabbatical. This article represents the views of the author and do not represent the views of the Arava Institute.
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the other joe
Yeah, that’ll work. Or not.
Mikesailor
Will the Palestinians receive the vote to determine whether or not they also wish annexation? Or is such referendum only to determine Israeli viewpoints, as if the wishes of the occupied don’t matter at all?
pabelmont
Everything Israel has done since 1945 has been unilateral. The Palestinians didn’t invite Balfour, didn’t invite large Jewish immigration, didn’t invite the terrorism that led to British withdrawal and UNGA-181, didn’t invite the continuation of that terrorism which became the war of 1948, etc. Why ask NOW if they would be consulted.
Isn’t it funny how Israel objects to Palestinian “unilateralism” at the UN when its entire history and pre-history have been unilateral?
Kolumn9
I love it when an article starts with a logically flawed opening assertion. Let’s consider “With Israeli elections on the horizon, one would expect progressive parties to recognize how dangerously close the Jewish state is to a complete democratic meltdown” for a second. Israel is apparently dangerously close to a democratic meltdown on the eve of democratic elections. Does anyone else see the contradiction here? No? Ok, let’s try to change it up a little. Does the assertion “With Egyptian elections on the horizon, one would expect progressive parties to recognize how dangerously close Egypt is to a complete democratic meltdown” make any sense?
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The rest of the article is clearly also not meant to be taken seriously. Even if such a referendum were to take place it would certainly be rejected by Israelis in favor of the status quo, by the international community as a call for illegal annexation and by the Palestinians as a Jewish trick.
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Pabelmont, how could the Palestinians invite Balfour when there were no Palestinians at the time Balfour sent his letter?
caden
You have to understand pabelmont. He is a mondoweiss regular. And in that world Israel is the center of all that is evil. Not to mention that they’re very big into counting Jews.
Vicky
Caden, if the frequency with which you mention the place is anything to go by, you spend an awful lot of time on Mondoweiss yourself. You seem to bring it up in practically every comment thread, always attached to the same slur.
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A commenter who got banned from 972 had that habit. You appeared roughly around the same time as he left, so you might not be aware that this sophisticated debating technique has lost its lustre – unless, of course, you are the same person and now posting under a different name?
annie
“how could the Palestinians invite Balfour when there were no Palestinians at the time Balfour sent his letter?” I love it when an article ends with a logically flawed assertion/not.
let me guess, +972′s court jester will chime in around now, like the broken record that he is, and inform us who counts jews over at mondoweiss!
caden
Annie, honey, Before 1948 when you referred to Palestinians you meant Jews. Surely someone has up on all things Jewish like you are would know that.
annie
david, i guess what i am not understanding is how this referendum will solve anything. for example if there was a national referendum where the country wants to be five years what’s going to inspire or coerce the people who do not agree with the outcome to go along with it? for example, if by some miracle 60% of the people all agreed to the idea of two states wouldn’t there still have to be a political process to define those states? israel wouldn’t even submit border proposals to the quartet last january. where are your politicians who would carry out this referendum? and what if the majority of the country decided they wanted to annex the rest of palestine and drive all the palestinians to jordan? do you think the palestinians will accommodate that plan? who is going to face the settlers? they are growing and the goi is facilitating the growth of the settlements. do you think a referendum will stop that process?
Vicky
OK, five minutes of Internet digging and I’m now 90% sure that Caden and Bill Pearlman are the same person. I could be wrong (my sincere apologies to you, Caden, if I am). But it’s odd for 972 to attract two people from New Jersey who openly declare support for Kahane, share the same disdainful attitudes to charedim (and use the exact same phrases to describe them), repeatedly talk about other posters’ commenting history on Mondoweiss, and have a tendency to take their misogyny out for a walk when disagreeing with a female poster. Then there are the shared linguistic idiosyncrasies, some of which are really quite unusual (never putting question marks when asking a question, using fragments as full sentences, etc.). Finally, Caden appeared not long after Bill was banned. If this is a coincidence, it’s a pretty large one.
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Caden/Bill (I will resist the urge to address you as ‘poppet’) it’s of little significance to me if you are the same person. But if you are, other people might not want to spend hours debating things that they already discussed ad nauseam with you under another name. If you want an honest discussion with people, try not to be so bumptious and condescending in future, and engage with what they actually say rather than invoking Mondoweiss in the way that one might summon up a hobgoblin. That advice stands whether you are the same person or not.
David Howard
Interesting idea, but it’s unlikely to get any traction in the foreseeable future.
The sad truth is that, no matter how much they kvetch, beat their breasts and pity or despise the Palestinians, Israeli Jews are enamored of the status quo (i.e, the Occupation and its attendant horrors).
the other joe
@Caden the idea that there were no non-Jewish inhabitants of the land at the point of the Belfour Declaration is nonsense. A rhetorical point which has been repeatedly disproved even by Israeli historians.
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Maybe they weren’t calling themselves Palestinians (which actually I doubt, but never mind), maybe they didn’t identify themselves as a nation. So what? North American indigenous tribes were localised and called themselves all kinds of things. Nobody seriously suggests that they didn’t therefore exist in North American nor that mass killing of indigenous people there was needed to create the USA. Why does the name or the national aspiration of indigenous people make any difference to whether they existed?
sh
@Vicky – you’re right, I noticed it as soon as Caden appeared, but assumed that now that he knew from experience where the threshold was he wouldn’t cross it again. Thing is, apart from the bees in the bonnet you mention, he doesn’t have anything to say. Reacting to him is not worth the bother.
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Re the referendum proposed here, the issues inherent in annexation have been cautiously approached in various op-eds by the likes of Moshe Arens. but no noticeable wave of public enthusiasm ensued. Have any surveys been taken on this subject?
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Heads of government saying unexpected things like Olmert did when they’re unlikely to be able to implement them is an old trick. But why would Bibi need to organize a referendum even if “progressive parties” agitated for one? Which parties were you suggesting Mr. Lehrer? And what is a democratic Jewish state? That might be the thing to try to define before even considering a referendum on annexation.
Kibbutznik
” might create new alliances between left and right ”
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dream on David
no way will we ever make “alliances” with those murdering sons of bitches
aint going to happen
not in my life time and not in anyones that still holds Rabin’s memory close.
caden
Vicky, I have to admit I go to mondoweiss a lot. Its the go to site to keep on top on the international Jewish conspiracy. And to keep aprised of the exact percentages of Jews in all walks of life and what they are doing. If Sheldon Adleson blows his nose Annie is on it
Leen
Well My great grandfather lived during the Ottoman times, British Mandate and Israeli occupation and he always called himself a Palestinian. So the whole ‘it didn’t exist’ is completely false and a tactic to indicate that the inhabitants were ‘nomads’ before the arrival of Zionists.
Rowan Berkeley
Since the infamous Pearlman “openly declared support for Kahane,” let me raise a question which has been puzzling me. Kahane, as far as I can make out, held to the normal Jewish orthodox position regarding conversion, i.e., if a person sincerely wanted to convert to Judaism, they should be able to do so. Lubavitch, on the other hand, hold that Jewish and non-Jewish souls are intrinsically and eternally different, on the metaphysical equivalent of the species level, and thus, conversion of a non-Jew to Judaism should be completely impossible, unless the non-Jew had a Jewish soul but had been born non-Jewish in this lifetime as a punishment for sins committed as a Jew in a previous lifetime, which would be hard to establish before a Beth Din. The Lubavitch view strikes me as decisively more racist than Kahane’s view. Am I missing something?
David Lehrer
Annie,
I believe that more than 60% of the citizens of the State of Israel agree with a 2 state solution and have so for many years. It is this fact which has motivated me to look for an alternative track. Due to a dysfunctional democratic system, the will of the majority of the state of Israel goes unheeded by the politicians and the will of a small minority, of messianic settlers that is shaping Israel’s foreign policy (or lack there of). A referendum can only be implemented by a government coalition. If such a coalition does arise and there is a vote, the government would then be bound by the outcome of its own initiative. If there ever was a government that was capable of making a decision to drive the Palestinians out of the territories it is the current one and yet it has not done so. The government does not need a referendum for such a crime but I don’t believe even Lieberman is that insane. A referendum is a tool of a democracy and can only be used to resolve democratic questions.