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Jewish Political Studies Review Abstracts
Volume 2, Numbers 3-4 (Fall 5751/1990)
"Israel as a Jewish State"
Beyond Israel's self-definition as a Jewish state, the
question remains as to what extent Israel is a continuation of
Jewish political history within the context of the Jewish
political tradition. This article addresses that question, first
by looking at the realities of Israel as a Jewish state and at
the same time one compounded of Jews of varying ideologies and
persuasions, plus non-Jews; the tensions between the desire on
the part of many Israeli Jews for Israel to be a state like any
other and the desire on the part of others for it to manifest its
Jewishness in concrete ways that will make it unique. The
article explores the ways in which the traditional domains of
authority into which power is divided in the Jewish political
tradition are manifested in the structure of Israel's political
system, both structurally and politically; relations between the
Jewish religion, state and society; the Jewish dimension of
Israel's political culture and policy-making and how both are
manifested through Israel's emerging constitution and the
character of its democracy.
The central puzzle of Israeli politics is how democracy has
been maintained at all, given the lack of democracy in countries
of origin, the deep internal divisions, and the permanent state
of war. At least part of the answer lies in understanding Jewish
political traditions. The Zionist movement was, in large degree,
a revolt against Jewish history. But inevitably Zionists were
influenced by an extensive Jewish experience of self-government
in the East European shtetl. This experience involved political
institutions that were voluntary, inclusive, pluralistic, and
contentious. It was also a closed system, facing a hostile
external world and not equipped to deal with non-Jews as a group.
It was marked by the necessity of bargaining, lack of defined
hierarchy, proliferation and influence of organized groups, and
the reality of power-sharing, rather than undiluted rule of the
majority. These patterns of behavior have much in common with
what contemporary political scientists call "consensus"
democracy, in contrast to the more common majoritarian model.
The central thesis of this paper is that Israel's political
culture is mixed, and contains both democratic and non-democratic
traditions. Liberal democracy in Israel was built on religious
opposition to arbitrary rule, on pluralism in the Jewish
tradition, on the practice of self-government in the Jewish
communities of the diaspora, on the quasi-federalism of the
Zionist movement, on the voluntarism of the Yishuv, and, finally,
on the liberal and social-democratic Weltanschauung of the
founding fathers of Zionism. On the other hand, the existing
tendencies towards authoritarianism originated in the higher law
tradition of religious Orthodoxy, in the absence of civil rights
as a basic value in the ideologies of all major political camps,
and in the oligarchical-secretive patterns of thought and
behavior imported from autocratic and revolutionary Eastern
Europe.
In what ways does the existence of the State of Israel shape
the national consciousness and identity of different Jewish
circles in Israel? This research explores that question through
the perspective of three central concepts around which the
conceptions of the different circles move. The first concept is
defined as "general normalization," i.e., the view that perceives
Jewish existence, whether in its religious expression in the
diaspora or in its national-territorial expression in the State
of Israel, as a moral phenomenon that does not differ from other
nations or religions. The second is "unique normalization," an
attitude prevalent among the majority of Jewish intellectuals in
the U.S. who, on one hand, consider Jewish existence as similar
to that of other ethnic groups in their country in its
characteristics and status; on the other hand, they emphasize its
unique relationship with the State of Israel. The third concept
carries the paradoxical name "Jewish normalization," meaning the
streams in public thought that view the Jews as one nation in
spite of their territorial dispersion and cultural fragmentation;
i.e., the normal element emphasizes Jewish nationality while the
unique Jewish element as compared to other nations consists of
the disruption of the conscious relation between nationality and
national territory that characterizes the other two attitudes.
This article examines the first and third of those concepts from
the Six-Day War in 1967 to the present.
The dilemma of choosing between goals that emanate from the
ethno-national setting of Israel as opposed to those serving the
state is rooted in Zionist thought and international behavior.
The origins go back to the founding fathers of Zionism in the
nineteenth century who responded to different challenges of their
environment. Two case studies in which the Zionist movement had
to choose between its loyalty to the Land of Israel and the idea
of an immediate materialization of a Jewish state are examined.
One case is the Uganda Controversy and the second is the
partition debate of 1937.
This article seeks to clarify the nature and manifestations
of the Jewish dimension in Israeli foreign policy. Sensitivity
to the interests of diaspora communities is generally
subordinated to raison d'etat. External Jewish intervention in
Israeli foreign policy is negligible, though greater involvement
on the part of diaspora leaders can be detected. The impact of
Jewish psycho-cultural factors on Israel's external relations is
decreasing as a result of the secularization of Israeli society
and the diminishing weight of Jewish cultural baggage.
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