Western Media and Israel's Democratic Facade

Despite Israel’s identity and international reputation as a Western liberal democracy, Israeli academics such as Sammy Smooha have identified Israel as an ‘ethnic democracy.’

 

This implies serious consequences which not only have the potential to deviate from the traditional definition of a liberal democratic nation-state, but has implications on how international law is interpreted and applied.  In fact, the very premise of defining the nation-state as an ‘ethnic democracy’ imply a differentiation of rights which are ethnically based in favour of the majority. 

 

The definition or the term may reflect reality, but in its very premise as an ‘ethnic democracy’ may violate the basis by which traditional views of democracy, international law and human rights are based. 

 

In the case of Israel which is widely viewed as being in the Western democratic tradition by western media, it is defined in academic terms as an ethnic democracy by some and an ethnocracy by others.  Laws and policies designed to meet these demands invariably collide with the development and systemitization of human rights in the international context.  Within this definition of ethnically based political systems, most of the Middle East has a well documented history of compromising human rights domestically based on international laws and conventions.   

 

Smooha identifies liberal democracy and consociational democracy as the main variants of the democratic form.  Liberal democracy is the prevalent form of democracy and is firmly established in places such as the United States and France.  Consociational democracy is prevalent in places such as Switzerland and Belgium where large ethnic groups are brought in to the democratic system through power sharing and various systems of proportionality. Nation-states such as Canada utilize a form of multicultural democracy which combine features of these two types of democracy.

 

Smooha makes the argument that states which have a record of ethnic nationalism are practicing a diminished form of democracy based on favoring the ethnic majority of the nation-state.  He cites countries in Central and Eastern Europe such as Slovakia, Estonia, Latvia, Northern Ireland and Israel as examples where “these and other states are internationally accepted as democracies despite their digression from the Western tenets of centrality of citizenship, equal rights and civic nation.”

 

Smooha characterizes some of its features in the following way:

 

"The ethnic nation, not the citizenry, shapes the symbols, laws and policies of the state for the benefit of the majority.  This ideology makes a crucial distinction between members and non-members of the ethnic nation.  Members of the ethnic nation may be divided into persons living in the homeland and persons living in the diaspora.  Both are preferred to non-members who are ‘others’, outsiders, less desirable persons, who cannot be full members of the society and the state.  Citizenship is separate from the nationality, neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for membership in the ethnic nation, unlike the situation in the West where the idea of a civic nation is prevalent."

 

Ethnic democracy may meet the minimal and procedural definitions of democracy but by taking the ethnic nation, rather than the citizenry, as the cornerstone of the state,  “the state privileges the majority and strives to advance its interests rather than to serve all its citizens equally.  The minority cannot fully identify itself with the state, cannot be completely equal to the majority and cannot confer full legitimacy on the state.”

 

Smooha identifies four factors conducive to the emergence of ethnic democracy:

 

1. The primary condition is the pre-existence of ethnic nationalism and the ethnic nation which influences the form of governance. 2. The existence of a threat to the ethnic nation which requires the mobilization of the nation-state to cope with internal and external threats. 3. The majority’s commitment to democracy, without which a non-democracy would emerge. 4. When the minority is either small or disorganized, the majority can opt for a workable ethnic democracy without renouncing its domination.  Facing a very large or too strong a minority, the majority may choose ethnic non-democracy because it is too difficult to maintain democracy.

 

Conditions of stability for ethnic democracies include a clear numerical and political majority for the main ethnic grouping in the country.  In Israel, where the Arab Israeli minority and Palestinian populations are growing at a faster rate than the Israeli Jewish majority, the public sphere includes debates around what is defined as a potential ‘demographic threat.’ 

 

Smooha defines a second condition as the majority’s sense of threat.  A third feature includes non-interference in an ‘external homeland.’  A fourth feature is ‘non-intervention against, or even support for, ethnic democracy by the international community as an important aspect of maintaining stability.’

 

In traditional liberal democracy, Rousseau made a distinction between the general will and the will of the majority.  Societies based on justice, equality and freedom may need to rely on the general will to a greater degree than the will of the majority. Smooha acknowledges that:

 

"...Ethnic democracy is conceptually inadequate because it can be seen as a contradiction in terms, an impossible unity of equality and inequality.  It is a confusing and dismissable overstretching of the concept of democracy because a regime that by definition denies full equality of rights cannot and should not be construed as democratic…according to this criticism, ethnic democracy and Herrenvolk democracy are similarly non-democratic because they share hegemonic control and tyrrany of the majority."

 

Smooha makes the argument that ethnic states maintain a democratic façade and “it is retained only as long as the majority is able to exercise its hegemony.”

 

Benjamin Neuberger argues that ethnic democracy does not meet the minimum requirements of democracy and that the system and process is more akin to a semi-democracy.  In his view, ethnic democracy does not meet the basic requirements of the procedural minimum definition of democracy which include the premise that all citizens enjoy full rights and secondly, that the “equality of rights they enjoy does not stand in contradiction to any hierarchical principle.”

 

Smooha, in addressing the claim that ethnic democracies may serve to freeze internal conflicts, argues that such systems can moderate deep ethnic cleavages.  He argues that, “as a mode of conflict regulation, it is superior to genocide, ethnic cleansing, involuntary population transfer and systems of non-democratic domination.”

 

Smooha however does not address the question of whether the system is morally just or whether the application of unequal rights can actually lead to long-term stability.  There is a legitimate argument that governance on this model could perpetuate existing cleavages which could continue to exacerbate social ruptures and inequality.

 

Smooha cites Arab Israeli Member of the Knesset and critical scholar Azmi Bishara in presenting the view that:

 

"ethnic democracy is objectionable because it misrepresents a non-democracy as a democracy, thereby legitimating the illegitimate.  It is maintained that ethnic democracy wrongfully serves as a normative model for democratising states and as a tool for justifying injustices perpetrated by non-democratic states and majorities."

 

Israeli jurist Yehuda Cohen makes the argument that since democracy is secondary to the existence of the ethnic nation, ethnic democracies can work  and even allow for some collective and individual equal rights for minorities to the extent that the application of those rights do not impinge on the national character of the state.

 

In this sense, the academic terminology and its presentation as a normative model does in practice legitimize the practises to an extent even if it reflects the working reality of the system.

 

Ruth Gavison has argued that there are some elements of allowing for equal rights of minorities which are irreconcilable with principles of equality and justice.

 

Smooha identifies four normative ways of dealing with the nature of ethnic democracy.  He identifies defining ethnic democracy as a form of lesser evil because it allows for maximum freedom and openness while maintaining stability and the interests of the majority as “a mode of conflict management that is superior to violence, domination and other non-democratic modes.”

 

Smooha also identifies ethnic democracy as a pragmatic response to the temporary necessity of maintaining order within a conflict environment.  In the extension of this argument, relatively new states which face existential threats are justified in setting up structures to harness the state apparatus for the purposes of ensuring national survival and enacting ‘a set of policies commensurate with ‘affirmative action’ in favour of the ethnic majority.’ 

 

This is also a flaw in his argument in that ethnic democracy has become the long-term reality of the state and serves to exacerbate tensions within the country and outside of it.  Whether maintaining that status is more or less dangerous than a more advanced form of democracy is difficult to empirically verify.  However, it could be effectively argued that as a process of state building, maintaining order in a conflict environment and implementing a political agenda, it is remarkably effective if international law and other human rights obligations are not part of the evaluation.

 

Smooha makes the additional argument that ethnic democracy is compatible with universal minority rights including UN treaties such as International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.  There are also European Council agreements such as the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages and the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities.  This is a questionable argument since many civil society organizations and international bodies regularly cite the violations of these covenants in the enactment of discriminatory legislation practiced by Israel.

 

Additionally, a more advanced system may merely create a new model of codifying inequality in order to meet the basic requirements of maintaining an ethnic state.

 

The other argument for the justification of ethnic democracy as a mode of governance despite the disequilibrium inherent in its supposition is that liberal democracy also has structural flaws which support elite formations and corporatist interests.  As every democracy is flawed by its structural bias, so to is an ethnic democracy.  This relativity in interpreting the status and legitimacy of a democracy must be weighed against the normative values and standards of the existing international system.

 

Another element in ensuring a Jewish majority in the state is the Law of Return which guarantees Jews the right to return to and settle in Israel.  The law also works to deny the right of 3.5 million Palestinian refugees to return to the country and remains a contentious issue.  At the Camp David Accords and many other peace processes, there are some allowances for some return but the issue is addressed through financial compensation.  Additionally, restrictions on citizenship through marriage for the spouses of Arab Israelis who are Palestinian are still a matter for debate at a public level. 

 

Israel’s use of Hebrew as the official and dominant language is also an important aspect of its nationhood and identity.  Although Arabic is also an official language of Israel, it is not dominant and is limited in its public expression in public and private institutions and is the subject of cases of discrimination brought before the courts. 

 

Additionally 93% of the land in Israel is controlled by the state or Jewish public bodies.  Public institutions and planning authorities engage in discriminatory planning practises and policies as part of the process of land usage according to civil society organizations.  There are policies in place which displace Arab Israeli citizens from land in order to support Jewish settlement policies.

 

Smooha cites three perceived threats to Israel which form part of the basis of the argument that states under duress will tend to organize around a political form and system which benefits the dominant group that seeks to maintain its nationalist aims and ambitions.

 

 The first threat is the perceived threat in the region for Israel.  Since Israel is much more interested in integration with the West and although it has signed peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan, neighbouring countries such as Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran and other Muslim states continue to raise issues with its existence in the region.

 

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad hosted a racist international conference about the denial of the Holocaust in December 2006.

 

Secondly, Arab citizens of Israel are perceived as an internal threat due to their growth as a population and their increasing political sophistication.  They are accused of being disloyal and some politicians in Israel regularly refer to the “demographic threat” in Israel and openly advocate forms of ethnic transfer.

 

Smooha also cites anti-semitism and other forces which work to undermine Jewish culture and tradition in the diaspora as a threat to the state. 

 

The very premise of ethnic democracy belies an acknowledgement of the status quo policy framework which openly discriminates on the basis of ethnicity.  This may be accurate in explaining how things are, how they have developed and the ideas behind policies that may arise in the future to protect to the greatest extent possible, the Jewish and democratic nature of the state.  Historic injustices to the Jewish community also help explain some of the official forms of historical justification for the political system which has been created in Israel due to the trauma inherent in Israeli collective identity.

 

Independent critical journalist Jonathan Cook from Britain argues in his latest book, The Unmasking of the Jewish and Democratic State, that issues of demography are at the root of many of Israel’s contentious public policies.  Former US President Jimmy Carter argues in his latest book that the Israelis and Palestinians must pursue peace or live with an ethnically divided state.

 

Though Zionism emerged from Eastern European roots in response to the anti-semitism which existed there, it was also firmly attached to Western values and forms of governance from its inception.  Its largest supporters were influenced by both social democratic and liberal democratic values.  After the establishment of the state, Israel has consistently stayed in the Western tradition, rather than join the non-aligned movement with other social democratic countries at the time such as India and Yugoslavia. 

 

Smooha has argued that the willingness of Israeli governments to withdraw from occupied territories has largely been due to the demographic debate which exists within the borders of Israel.  By supporting an independent Palestinian state in theory and, by setting up an ethnic democracy within its own borders, Israel has continued with its policies of attempting to maintain both a Jewish and democratic state at least in its facade.  This has, in turn, affected the basic human rights of Palestinians and Arab Israelis.

 

Daniel Levy cites two significant challenges in the short-term:

 

1) While the world waits for the next pronouncements of Israel’s cabinet, new, often devastating, realities are being shaped by bulldozers, builders, and bureaucrats.  The construction of the separation barrier, deep inside Palestinian territory in some places, creates a physical as well as mental obstacle for those who believe in and advocate a realistic two-state solution…these facts raise the possibility of a cumulative undermining of the viable two-state solution through settlement expansion that on some day passes the point of no return…either the magic formula for finally freezing settlement construction must be discovered, or the focus needs to be undone for a peaceful solution to prevail. 2) The greatest threat to the two state solution may in fact be the tenuous position of the Palestinian center and its prospective replacement by a leadership that abandons the two-state paradigm (eg. Hamas)…Abbas and his group symbolize reform, democratization, and non-violence, all wrapped up in the most evocative image in the Muslim world today – the Palestinian cause.  If this trend loses out to the forces of violence and extremism in Palestine, then the regional and global spill-over effect could be catastrophic.

 

Edward Said in his collection of essays and articles, The End of the Peace Process, remained critical of the official peace process and argued that the Oslo Accords of 1993 simply created a legal structure around the administration of occupied lands without setting up a permanent two-state solution.  In his view, the Oslo Accords merely legitimized the Israeli occupation and de facto control over occupied lands.  Said remained a supporter of a future one-state solution.

 

The Israeli policies and governing philosophy which contribute to this approach is partially premised on some basic assumptions.  First, that the international community will not intervene on behalf of the Arab Israeli population.  Secondly, that the regional Arab countries will not intervene on behalf of Arab Israelis and Palestinians in the occupied territories. 

 

The Israeli state’s distortions from the liberal democratic practices become the concern of civil society when normative models deviate from international standards and obligations related to human and collective rights.  Critiquing Israel on this basis is an effective methodology to build domestic and international support for institutional reform as a framework of engagement and in building broad domestic support for reform. 

 

Civil society organizations have also been important in bringing issues of equal rights related to the Arab Israeli population to the United Nations and other regional bodies such as the European Parliament.  Human rights reports have also begun to more thoroughly document policies which would be seen as discriminatory and are identified as distortions from the traditional liberal forms of democracy which Israel attempts to model.

 

Smooha makes the argument that Zionism began as an ethnic nationalist movement in Eastern Europe and has utilized a Western form of democracy to meet its ideological and philosophical ends effectively to a large degree.  Its support from Western interests in particular has been instrumental in its development and continued ability to manage complex regional tensions.  The US, the European Union and individual European nation-states have been crucial to its very survival in terms of being able to buttress differing Arab nationalist movements in the region who have taken on the Palestinian cause or had diplomatic disagreements with Arab neighbours.

 

Israeli academic Illan Pappe has challenged extensively the founding narratives of the Israeli state and has written extensively of the removal of Palestinian Arabs in what is now Israel.  He has regularly debated Israeli historian Benny Morris on the accuracy of documented Israeli history.  Morris has recently argued that ethnic transfer of Arab Israelis should be viewed as a realistic public policy option if Israel is to maintain its Jewish and democratic character.

 

According to Smooha:

 

"Ethnic democracy is located somewhere in the democratic section of the democracy-non-democracy continuum.  Ethnic democracy is a system which combines the extension of civil and political rights to individuals and some collective rights to minorities, with institutionalization of majority control over the state.  Driven by ethnic nationalism, the state is identified with a “core ethnic nation,” not with its citizens…at the same time, the minorities are allowed to conduct a democratic and peaceful struggle that yields incremental improvement in their status." 

 

The level of coercion which such an approach implies clearly has a traumatizing effect on the polity which is the subject of differential treatment.  The development of a political agenda, the sophistication of methods to win legislative advances and other aspects of social practises apply within this context.

 

 Smooha goes on to argue:

 

"Israel proper qualifies as a political democracy on many counts…Notwithstanding concerns that Israeli democracy is an “overburdened polity”…it has thus far functioned quite well…Simultaneously, Israel is a special case of an ethnic state.  It defines itself as a state of and for Jews, that is, the homeland of the Jews only…the state extends preferential treatment to Jews who wish to preserve the embedded Jewishness and Zionism of the state."

 

In a critique of Smooha’s model of ethnic democracy and the way it is applied to Israel, As’ad Ghanem, Nadim Rouhana and Oren Yiftael have attempted to:

 

"extend ... previous questioning of the model’s viability, sustainability, and content, and to question its empirical and theoretical claims and coherence.  We acknowledge, of course, that important democratic features are practiced in Israel, but make a distinction between these features and a democratic state structure, which is lacking in the current regime."

 

This criticism of Smooha’s model of ethnic democracy by Ghanem, Rouhana and Yiftael is presented on the following basis:

 

1. Though Smooha makes a distinction between individual and collective rights, the limitation imposed on collective rights also entails the violation of individual rights and, hence, the breaching of a fundamental democratic principle of individual civil equality. 2. That Israel cannot be considered as an archetypal example of an ethnic democracy, nor can the process of Judaization be historically isolated out of context since it is still in process.  They argue that this merely legitimates the “tyranny of the majority” basis of ethnic democracy. 3. The rupturing of state boundaries through the development of settlements and by the political engagement of the diaspora community.  The traditional definition of ‘demos’ is distorted within a conflicted state environment.  Structural ethnic expansion and undefined borders also add to this critique.  These issues include “civil inequality and lack of minority consent, ethnic exclusion, and problems in the definition of state boundaries.  Together, these deficiencies cast doubt on the model’s empirical and theoretical value.” 101

 

On this basis, the three argue that basic principles of equality and consent are absent in the Israeli state system.

 

They also make a more problematic assertion which Smooha has been unable to refute adequately:

 

As an ethnic state, Israel makes equality between Arab and Jew impossible in practise or in theory.  It is membership in the Jewish people, not citizenship in Israel, that is the chief criterion for the claim of state ownership.  The state system is predicated on a constitutional arrangement that contradicts the conditions of equal citizenship and, therefore, democracy.

 

The three make the argument that assimilation in to Israel for Arab Israelis will be difficult as long as the Israeli Jewish citizens receive preferential treatment.  They cite Human Needs Theory in explaining that equality and identity are basic needs that are not subject to negotiation.  On this basis, they argue that legally sanctioned ethnic inequality is a major source of ethnic tension and conflict in the region.  Smooha refutes this point by arguing that the regional equation forces Israel to follow these policies.

 

Additionally, mainstream political debate includes right wing elected politicians openly calling for the ethnic transfer of Arab Israeli citizens, such as Member of the Knesset, Avigdor Lieberman. The Mossawa Center, an NGO representing Arab citizens of Israel, reacted critically to the announcement of Lieberman as Deputy Prime Minister in the following way in a press release:

 

"The Mossawa Center, the Advocacy Center for the Arab Citizens of Israel, calls upon the international community to act against Prime Minister Olmert’s coalition agreement with Yesrael Beitino and Avigdor Lieberman’s appointment as minister for strategic threats, deputy prime minister and member of the security cabinet.   Lieberman’s racist propaganda and platform to transfer the Arab community of Israel are blatant violations of human rights, contradicting not only the international agreements signed by Israel, but the democratic values of the state as well. With such influential political positions, Lieberman would have a frightening amount of power to make his outright racist position a reality at the price of the human rights of the Arab minority in Israel."

 

Underlying these polemic and existential debates about political systems is the process of time utilized by state authorities to redraw boundaries and implement policies in the short and long term which alter the basis of the conflict such as the construction of the Separation Wall, the expansion of settlements and other policies which place at their center the Judaization of the land where Arab Israelis and Palestinians are not equal partners. 

 

Since September 11th, the expansion of using security concerns as the primary means of pushing forward policies which further legitimize unequal rights is of very real concern to Palestinians and Arab Israelis.  Additionally, policies of unilateralism continue to serve Israeli interests in the broader perspective.  How the European Union engages in these matters of human rights remains an important question.

 

Defenders of Israel argue that many social and political movements in the Arab world have the destruction of Israel as their prime organizing principle.  As such, as a state which faces existential threats within a conflict environment, Israel is justified in pursuing policies in the name of strategic security and defense.  If the threats did not exist, Israel would not need to follow such hawkish policies according to this view. 

 

Furthermore, by placing normative democratic principles on to a long-term conflict environment, they argue that such critiques are lacking full contextualization and do not adequately acknowledge the extent of the threats which Israel faces.

 

In responding to Smooha, the three state an important point:

 

"As shown in a wide body of literature, there is little theoretical rationale, moral justification, historical evidence, or political foresight in expecting that a national minority should accept unequal status within its own homeland, especially when its minority status within the homeland is based on its recent collective dispossession. Considering equality as a continuum on which the constitutional position of the subordinate group can only improve but never reach full equality, as the model of “ethnic democracy” would have it, is an innovation that can become a recipe for protracted social conflict.  Inequality becomes a central issue of mobilization and political consciousness to the subordinate group that can be maintained only if the dominant group is willing to use force as its ultimate means of control, thus violating one of the essential ingredients of democratic government."

 

They also argue that improvements in socio-economic conditions of the minority may in fact continue to lead to destabilization due to increased awareness, capacity and ability to participate in public affairs. 

 

On this basis, they make a clear point which coincides with Hungarian dissident Istvan Bibo’s theme of fear utilized in undemocratic states as a form of coercion:

 

"Thus the viability of the model is, by definition, based on control and not on consent – a clear violation of democratic practice."

 

Other writers and thinkers, such as Noam Chomsky in Manufacturing Consent, would argue that even Western liberal democracies have deep structural flaws and are subject to distortions by elite formations.

 

Marx, Gramsci, Althusser and Foucault make similar critiques from different perspectives.  Even post-structuralist thinkers like Juergen Habermas view the understanding of distortions in state systems as fundamental to understanding power arrangements.  However, the baseline of appropriate assessment standards either philosophically, theoretically or built in to international conventions has not been thoroughly established at the practical or institutional level. 

 

In criticizing Smooha, the three cite Alex de Toqueville’s warning against the “dangers associated with constitutional tyrrany of the majority.”

 

Additionally, it is their contention that it breaches the fundamental principle of the protection of minorities.  Arab Israeli citizens feel alienated by the primarily Jewish symbols of the state including the flag and the national anthem.

 

They argue that legislation which reinforces the Arab’s inferior status continues to be ratified at the political and legal level including land development policies, housing evictions and demolitions and restrictions on citizenship through marriage.  

 

They also argue that the potential for upward mobility and the establishment of rights for the Arab minority as part of an historic evolution has limits which are irreconcilable with basic principles of equal rights.  Furthermore, settlers in occupied territories receive at least 18 Knesset seats which is more than the number of elected Arab Members of the Knesset.  The Palestinian diaspora also lacks the political lobbying power and acumen of the Jewish diaspora in Western nation-states.

 

Based on the current legal framework of Arab Israeli citizens, Yiftachtel makes the argument that Israel should be correctly identified as an ethnocracy since it is:

 

" a more appropriate analytical term to account for the structure of the Israeli political system, which is neither democratic nor authoritarian.  In ethnocratic regimes, the state is appropriated by one ethnic group and its diasporas, relegating other groups to a secondary type of citizenship."

 

In responding to Smooha’s argument in support of calling Israel an ethnic democracy, they also make the argument that the political agenda of the Orthodox Jewry is inherently undemocratic and reliant on religious foundations which are fundamentalist in basis.  Due to the political clout of the Orthodox Jewish community, they are able to build a political agenda which can be perceived as undemocratic to the Arab minority due to its impact on the minority population.  This means that classical democratic themes such as demos and ethnos are distorted by the actual system, process and outcomes of government policy.

 

That the Western media continues to support the idea that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East is built on a highly questionable framework.  There is a human rights problem in the entire Middle East, including inside Israel.