Party-Banning In Israel
James Kirchick mounts a semi-defense of Israel’s move to ban the party’s two Arab political parties. He notes, among other things, that Israel has banned parties in the past including most recently Rabbi Meir Kahane’s Kach Party that was running on basically an ethnic cleansing platform:
The standards for operating a legal political party in Israel are hardly unreasonable. The four offenses that could lead to possible banning are:
* Any rejection (in the party’s goals or activities) of the existence of the State of Israel as a Jewish, democratic state.
* Any incitement to racism.
* Any support of the armed struggle of an enemy state or terrorist organization against the State of Israel
* Any hint of a cover for illegal activity.The case for banning these two Arab parties may not be as strong as it was for the outlawing of the Kahane movement, but this decision did not just come out of nowhere. In the United States, if the Ku Klux Klan were to form a political party, advocating the dissolution of the American government and inciting violence from within and without, it would be banned, and rightly so.
I think this conflates some different issues. Obviously the United States would ban organizations that are dedicated to the incitement of violence or that are part of a conspiracy to effect the violent overthrow of the U.S. government. We would not, it seems to me, ban organizations merely for advocating or inciting racism. But America is an outlier in terms of its strong stand in favor of free speech in this regard. I think we’re right and the European and Israeli approach is wrong, but the Israeli approach is hardly outside the bounds of institutional set-ups that count as democratic. Rejecting the existence of the state of Israel as a Jewish state seems like a different matter to me. Israel is one of a number of democracies that combines religious tolerance with an established state religion (pretty much all of Protestant Europe, e.g.) and also one of a number of democracies that relies heavily on ethnic origin as a criteria for immigration (Germany, Finland, etc.) both of which are important parts of Israel’s identity as a Jewish state. If you ask me, that’s fine. But by the same token, it’s hardly beyond the pale for a political party to think that those kind of policies should be changed and if that means calling into question Israel’s existence as a specifically “Jewish state,” as opposed to a state where lots of Jews live, I don’t really see why that should be illegal.
More broadly, though, I agree with Kirchick that the pragmatics of this are hard to understand. Israeli Arab public opinion isn’t a small, violent conspiracy that you can ban and extinguish. It’s a real issue that Israel needs to grapple with.
48 Responses to “Party-Banning In Israel”
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January 14th, 2009 at 12:06 pm
The structural problem, of course, is that Israel is based upon an ethnic-religious identity that isn’t shared by many of its citizens. So the principle that you can’t run for elections on an anti-national platform–a principle that wouldn’t fly in the US but is embraced by some democracies–disenfranchises an awful lot of Israelis in a way that it wouldn’t in, say, Norway or Japan. So the CEC’s ban is the logical extension of an obvious reality: these parties wouldn’t be permitted to win, so why permit them to run?
January 14th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
“it’s hardly beyond the pale for a political party to think that those kind of policies should be changed and if that means calling into question Israel’s existence as a specifically “Jewish state,” as opposed to a state where lots of Jews live, I don’t really see why that should be illegal.”
I haven’t heard the issue framed this way before. Is that actually their objection? Usually one hears that these parties (and Hamas) “reject Israel’s right to exist”, meaning they don’t recognize Israel as a country and wish to see it wiped off the map. Holding such a stance seems a bit silly for someone actually seeking elected office in Israel, but I digress.
It always seemed to me somewhat odd that the major sticking point in negotiations with Hamas and others was that they wouldn’t recognize Israel. Why not? It’s clearly not going anywhere, and if they want a two-state solution Israel would clearly be one of the states. So why not just drop that line and recognize them? They’d look weak or something?
But if it’s actually the way Matt words it here, where they reject Israel’s right to be a specifically Jewish state, I guess it makes a bit more sense. I still think they should just drop that line though.
January 14th, 2009 at 12:21 pm
Great post
January 14th, 2009 at 12:29 pm
But if it’s actually the way Matt words it here, where they reject Israel’s right to be a specifically Jewish state, I guess it makes a bit more sense. I still think they should just drop that line though.
Christ on a crutch, isn’t that obvious?
January 14th, 2009 at 12:37 pm
The point of analogy here would be Canada and Britain. In Canada, we allow French-Canadian separtist to sit in Parliament. In Britain since the middle of the 19th century Irish nationalists have been allowed to sit in Parliament. The logic of this position seems clear: in a democracy you can’t prejudge who is and isn’t allowed to run for office.
January 14th, 2009 at 12:38 pm
The first two principles appear to be inconsistent:
* Any rejection (in the party’s goals or activities) of the existence of the State of Israel as a Jewish, democratic state.
* Any incitement to racism.
Could someone explain how insisting on Israel remaining Jewish doesn’t require a certain amount of racism (assuming we accept the wikipedia definition of a Jew as a member of an “ethnoreligious” group)? This may be worth the trade-off for the state of Israel, but the ban on incitement to racism appears to apply specifically to the anti-jewish racism of Israel’s Arab neighbors, not anti-Arabic racism common to the mainstream Jewish parties.
January 14th, 2009 at 12:46 pm
“the existence of the State of Israel as a Jewish, democratic state”
I think that insisting on a “Jewish, democratic” or “Christian/democratic” state is oxymoronic. You can’t say that you’re democratic and then insist that one group maintains control forever.
White people are about to become a minority in the U.S. Would it make sense to insist that the U.S. must remain a “white/democratic” country? How does that even make sense?
This rule of theirs basically outlaws any party advocating for a one-state solution in Israel/Palestine. Israelis have reached the point where their afraid of poliitical discourse. They’re afraid of letting journalists cover their military actions. Their democracy is already slipping away.
January 14th, 2009 at 12:48 pm
Jeet Heer beat me to bringing up the Bloc Quebecois in Canada.
Here’s the point which I’d like to make while stating for all and sundry that it is not an analogy: while the Bloc Quebecois is routinely accused by the Liberals and Conservatives of wanting to end Canada, no one would seriously propose banning the Bloc from running in elections. Not only would that be wrong, it would also be impractical. Banning the Bloc would leave a sizable minority (sovereignists or separatists) without a political voice, potentially radicalizing that minority. The same is true of trying to ban the Arabic parties in Israel: it’s both wrong and foolish.
January 14th, 2009 at 12:48 pm
The standards for operating a legal political party in Israel are hardly unreasonable. The four offenses that could lead to possible banning are:
…
* Any hint of a cover for illegal activity.
That fourth one looks unreasonable to me, at least the way it’s phrased. “Any hint of a cover” is a very low burden of proof. Is Kirchik really saying that Israel can ban a party based on mere suspicion of criminal conduct, and that that’s good?
January 14th, 2009 at 12:49 pm
The United States has a mechanism for banning political parties?
Muslims are 16% of the population and growing, I think that the forced acceptance of Israel as a Jewish state must start to stick in the craw at some point.
January 14th, 2009 at 12:51 pm
It’s a shame that simply questioning the existence of Israel in its exact, current incarnation is such an offense here in the US. People immediately jump to the sensationalized “wipe Israel off map!” interpretation of any questioning, and then people arguing a legal position are just endlessly stuck explaining that they’re not hiding Hamas members under their floorboards or something.
Can the world come to a consensus here in some kind of helpful way? Can we all agree, by now, that simply creating a country on top of a place where there are already people living is a bad thing? And that in this case, some Jewish settlers in the area living there legally does not excuse simply denying that there were such a thing as Palestinians, as used to be official Israeli policy? These are just unproductive things to do. And if we agree on one thing, it should be the absolute end to the parceling and giving away of land based on Biblical prophecy? I don’t care who lived where 2000 years ago. It really should not matter! I say this to all sides here. If you and your folks moved away out of an area, for the most part, you can’t come back hundreds of years later and claim entitlement. Life ain’t supposed to work that way and it shouldn’t. People currently living somewhere have to get highest priority.
January 14th, 2009 at 12:56 pm
AHG made my point for me.
@Adam: It’s amazing to me just what rhetoric like “rejecting the right to exist” and “wiping off the map” does to people’s perceptions. Obviously, no one would literally wipe Israel off the map–pretend it wasn’t there blow all of the land into the sea. China, for example, doesn’t recognize Taiwan (ROC)’s right to exist. This doesn’t mean they want to blow up the island. They simply insist that the government of Taiwan is illegitimate and that Taiwan is a part of China (PRC).
I guess I always thought it was obvious that when Hamas, say, or some other group does not recognize Israel, what they are not recognizing is a government they deem illegitimate. They would like to establish a completely different government. Now, clearly, this not simply a benign and simple thing. They might also like to expel the Jews or perhaps simply take their homes and land and force them to eke out an existence in a small, unsustainable enclave to which they control all access. Or maybe not.
Personally, I think the only solution for Israel at this point is the one state solution–a reconciliation between the Jews and Palestinians. Everything else is untenable. Yes, that means an end to a specifically Jewish state, but it does not have to mean another holocaust. Strong democratic institutions, a gradual granting of citizenship to West Bank and Gaza Palestinians (over a period of, say 20 years), a strong message from the US that any sort of move away from democracy and equal rights for all citizens will not be tolerated, a truth and reconciliation commission . . . basically there are ways of doing this that ensure that no one gets hurt and all are treated fairly.
January 14th, 2009 at 1:08 pm
#11, 12: Sorry, I didn’t mean to espouse the views of people who use that rhetoric. I was just using it because it’s commonly used and as far as I knew was in fact the stated position of at least some of those groups. If they want merely to replace the explicitly Jewish government/state of Israel with one of no specific religion, they should probably make that more clear, because just using the phrase “doesn’t recognize Israel’s right to exist” makes them sound awfully stubborn and makes it much easier to justify not bothering to negotiate with them. That was my point.
January 14th, 2009 at 1:13 pm
Rob Mac:
@Adam: It’s amazing to me just what rhetoric like “rejecting the right to exist” and “wiping off the map” does to people’s perceptions. Obviously, no one would literally wipe Israel off the map–pretend it wasn’t there blow all of the land into the sea. China, for example, doesn’t recognize Taiwan (ROC)’s right to exist. This doesn’t mean they want to blow up the island. They simply insist that the government of Taiwan is illegitimate and that Taiwan is a part of China (PRC).
That’s a bad analogy. (But even though you made a poor analogy, I don’t think people shouldn’t be allowed to make analogies. The should be free to try, maybe next time it will be a better analogy.)
If China was run by a religious extremists who threatened to wipe Taiwan off the map publically on a weekly basis, then the analogy would work.
Why can’t people understand that? I think that there should be a just two state solution and that a war with Iran would be a horrible idea, however I can accept the reality of what these religious nuts are saying.
January 14th, 2009 at 1:25 pm
Actually, if Hamas wanted to cause disarray and division with Israel, it could object to Israel as an Orthodox Jewish state.
My understanding is that some Reform and Conservative/secular Israelis are already kinda pissed at how the government of Israel defers to the Orthodox church on important matters like marriage, etc. Including some American immigrants who have been dismayed to discover that the Orthodox rabbis don’t consider them quite ..er.. kosher.
January 14th, 2009 at 1:25 pm
#12:
The so-called “binational solution” has been debated since the 20s and had its supporters among the early Zionists. 1948 killed it, though. Too bad.
Fwiw, Juan Cole was talking the other day about how the binational state is the only feasible long-term solution for Israel.
January 14th, 2009 at 1:27 pm
Although I suppose letting the Nazis decide who’s a Jew for purpose of Israeli citizenship was a ..er.. Solomonic compromise.
January 14th, 2009 at 1:47 pm
Nazi had a lot of sympaths too. What’s new?
Boycott Israel now. Don’t buy any products with starting bar code number: 729.
January 14th, 2009 at 2:05 pm
Israel and Germany are not remotely similar vis-a-vis barriers to immigration. Any Jew can head to Israel and get citizenship, regardless of how far back he might have to trace his pedigree to find an even a single ancestor who ever lived there. You don’t even need to be an Ethnic Jew — Connie Chung is eligible as a convert.
I, on the other hand, despite having 3/4 of my ancestors in the 1800’s coming from Germany, am not a candidate for immediate immigration to Germany.
January 14th, 2009 at 2:07 pm
We have numerous revolutionary communist parties in the United States, who advocate for violence resistance to the government, support foreign governments that are hostile to us, and seek to dissolve the United States of America as a democratic republic.
January 14th, 2009 at 2:08 pm
Finland doesn’t really use ethnic background as a basis of immigration. Germany to some extent, but in there it has not just been Christian Germans they have been taking in, but also for example Jews from former Soviet Union. In Finland there have been relaxed immigration rules for Ingrians and an offer for citizenship (in exchange of cash) for former Finnish citizens and their children which was for a limited time only. And of course, it’s easier for citizens of other European Union countries to immigrate to Finland because of the Union rules. But beyond that, no ethnic background in immigration beyond choosing particular groups of refugees. Recently preference being given to those from Myanmar aka Burma.
Also, most of European countries with Protestant state religions have been cutting the ties between government and Church. In Finland, the Protestant and Orthodox Churches start to be on their own, finally. And none of these European countries would ban parties whose goal is to change the state to be really inclusive, to include all of it’s citizens, instead of giving a place of preference to a certain group of people.
What comes to party banning in Israel, this was done by no neutral side, but other parties. Who gain not only through getting extremists more likely to support and to vote for them, but also by being able to actually get more places in parlament when these parties are not competing for the places. Yes, those banned parties have just few places, but a couple of extra places to ultra-nationalist parties would put them that much closer to a seat in the next government.
January 14th, 2009 at 2:24 pm
But America is an outlier in terms of its strong stand in favor of free speech in this regard. I think we’re right and the European and Israeli approach is wrong, but the Israeli approach is hardly outside the bounds of institutional set-ups that count as democratic. Rejecting the existence of the state of Israel as a Jewish state seems like a different matter to me. Israel is one of a number of democracies that combines religious tolerance with an established state religion (pretty much all of Protestant Europe, e.g.) and also one of a number of democracies that relies heavily on ethnic origin as a criteria for immigration (Germany, Finland, etc.) both of which are important parts of Israel’s identity as a Jewish state.
Matt, this whole paragraph ranges from unacceptably imprecise to downright wrong as far as Europe is concerned – you clearly don’t know what you’re talking about here, it’s quite embarrassing.
January 14th, 2009 at 2:38 pm
joe from Lowell makes an excellent point in rebuttal to Kirchick. Since the 1950s, it’s been completely legal to have an American political party that advocates the overthrow of the US government and its replacement with whatever sort of undemocratic regime you might want. The limitation is that you can’t be advocating imminent criminal acts against the existing government and, even then, I believe that it would only be the individual speaker (and other conspirators) who could be subject to criminal penalties, not the political party itself. I’m certainly not aware of any means by which a political party could be “banned” in the US so long as the party’s candidates met whatever the objective criteria were for getting on a ballot.
January 14th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
If you do a little digging, the Orthodox movement (the preferred term, IIRC) has enormous power in Israeli marriage and divorce and other domestic issues. If you’ve ever wondered why you never see women praying at the Wailing Wall, look no further than the Orthodox.
January 14th, 2009 at 3:42 pm
The point of analogy here would be Canada and Britain. In Canada, we allow French-Canadian separtist to sit in Parliament. In Britain since the middle of the 19th century Irish nationalists have been allowed to sit in Parliament. The logic of this position seems clear: in a democracy you can’t prejudge who is and isn’t allowed to run for office.
I don’t think the situation with the Bloc is the same. The Bloc is a separatist party – they advocate Quebec’s secession from the rest of Canada. As far as I know, they don’t doubt the rest of Canada’s right to exist as an Anglophone country – especially after a hypothetical secession. If the Arab parties in question only advocated the secession of some Arab communities from Israel that would be an apt analogy, I think. But I believe they don’t want any of the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea to be Jewish – which is not separatism. It’s the advocation of the dissolution of a country.
I’m not saying this is necessarily a good reason to ban a party, either.
January 14th, 2009 at 3:46 pm
This may be worth the trade-off for the state of Israel, but the ban on incitement to racism appears to apply specifically to the anti-jewish racism of Israel’s Arab neighbors, not anti-Arabic racism common to the mainstream Jewish parties.
As Matthew’s post indicates, it’s not exclusively directed against antisemitic parties. Kahane’s Kach party was anti-Arab, and they were the first party ever banned.
January 14th, 2009 at 3:50 pm
If you do a little digging, the Orthodox movement (the preferred term, IIRC) has enormous power in Israeli marriage and divorce and other domestic issues. If you’ve ever wondered why you never see women praying at the Wailing Wall, look no further than the Orthodox.
Of course you see women praying at the Wall. Just not with men. But there’s a women’s area right next to the men’s section, which AFAIK, keeps the same hours.
The Orthodox Jews do have a significant amount of power in the more “religious” matters for Jews. Back in 1948, the secular government compromised with the Orthodox, saying that they could be the Jewish authority on things like kashrut, marriage, divorce and conversion. (Muslims, Druze and Christians are not bound by this obviously.) There is evidence that their hold is slipping, as other denominations question their monopoly.
January 14th, 2009 at 3:56 pm
You don’t even need to be an Ethnic Jew — Connie Chung is eligible as a convert.
Are you sure? I think it has to be an Orthodox conversion.
I, on the other hand, despite having 3/4 of my ancestors in the 1800’s coming from Germany, am not a candidate for immediate immigration to Germany.
That doesn’t mean they aren’t similar. Just variations on a theme.
January 14th, 2009 at 4:49 pm
Yep. But there’s still issues as the validity of some Orthodox conversions is being questioned.
January 14th, 2009 at 6:30 pm
“Any rejection (in the party’s goals or activities) of the existence of the State of Israel as a JEWISH, democratic state.
* Any incitement to racism.
What’s wrong with this picture?
January 14th, 2009 at 7:16 pm
Re: Matt, this whole paragraph ranges from unacceptably imprecise to downright wrong as far as Europe is concerned – you clearly don’t know what you’re talking about here, it’s quite embarrassing
Can you name a Protestant European country (other than the Netherlands, Latvia and Estonia) which doesn’t have an established church?
January 14th, 2009 at 9:10 pm
Re Matt B
Mr. Matt B it totally full of shit. Anyone who can demonstrate that he/she had a grandparent who was a German citizen can get a German passport and German citizenship without knowing a word of German or ever having set foot in Germany. A former blogger named Alon Levy, who was born in Israel, is just such a person.
January 14th, 2009 at 9:35 pm
The Knesset members of those Arab parties have illegally visited enemy states such as Syria, without permission. Let’s recall that the Communist Party was declared subversive in the United States during the 1950s and many of its leaders spent time in the slammer (Gus Hall for instance) just for being a member. The party was also banned from the ballot in a number of states.
January 15th, 2009 at 12:46 am
I don’t think the situation with the Bloc is the same. The Bloc is a separatist party – they advocate Quebec’s secession from the rest of Canada. As far as I know, they don’t doubt the rest of Canada’s right to exist as an Anglophone country – especially after a hypothetical secession.
Speaking as an anglophone employee of the Gov. of Canada, I strongly object to Canada’s “right to exist as an Anglophone country.” I would object even more, if Canadians tried to enforce this “right” by banning non-anglophone political parties.
The fact that the Bloc may agree with you, is precisely what is wrong with their philosophy. And I question whether most Bloc supporters would even consider banning anglophone Quebec parties.
January 15th, 2009 at 4:06 am
Can you name a Protestant European country (other than the Netherlands, Latvia and Estonia) which doesn’t have an established church?
Let’s turn this around:
Matt’s criteria – protestant state church – only fully apply to the Scandinavian countries. The Church of England is a state church, but it occupies a middle ground between catholicism and protestantism. The Church of Scotland is the national church, but not a state church. Conversely, most European protestants live in Germany, which doesn’t have a state church. It’s just much more complex than Matt says and “pretty much all of Protestant Europe” is simply wrong.
Anyone who can demonstrate that he/she had a grandparent who was a German citizen can get a German passport and German citizenship without knowing a word of German or ever having set foot in Germany.
Not true, you need to do some reading on current legislation.
January 15th, 2009 at 6:48 am
Lets suppose that “Anyone who can demonstrate that he/she had a grandparent who was a German citizen can get a German passport and German citizenship without knowing a word of German or ever having set foot in Germany”, is true. This situation is still substantively different from Israel’s law of return. German citizenship could have been held by an Polish German, an Ashkenazi Jew, or a Turkish Muslim. The critical difference is that there is no such thing in Israel because Israel is not a state of its citizens. Israel is a state of the Jewish people, and hence discriminates against its minorities, especially its indigenous minorities, the Palestinians, Druze, Beduoin etc who live in Israel. Its an issue that Matt Y is certainly aware of, because a number of people, myself included, keep bringing it up. The question I have is why does neither he nor his compatriot Ezra Klein have even a hint of shame in proclaiming their support for Israel remaining an Apartheid State.
January 15th, 2009 at 9:36 am
Re Zaid Khalil
The difference is that Alon Levy showed up at the German Embassy in Tel Aviv (actually, I’m not sure about that; he may have showed up at the German embassy in Singapore) with his grandfathers German passport and was granted German citizenship and a German passport. If Mr. Yglesias showed up at the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C. with proof of being Jewish, he would not be granted an Israeli passport or Israeli citizenship.
However, Mr. Khalils’ comment relative to discrimination against Israeli minorities has some truth in it. Thus, he is correct in that parsons identified as Palestinians do not serve in the IDF. However, he is incorrect in that Druze and Bedouins do serve in the IDF (in fact there are high ranking Druze officers in the IDF).
January 15th, 2009 at 3:55 pm
SLC,
January 16th, 2009 at 9:11 am
Re Ziad
Your admiration for the IDF and apparently the McCarthy era speaks volumes about how fascist your thinking is.
Mr. Ziad has an unfortunate tendency to read in to my comments opinions that are not there. At no time did I say that I agreed with the discrimination policy against the Communist Party, even though subsequent information, based on released KGB files, indicates that Mr. Hall, amongst others, was taking money from that infamous organization. Just for the record, I opposed the policy of the Un. of California which prevented Dorothy Healy, the chairman of the California Communist Party, from speaking on campus.
I do not believe you are correct about grandparents having German citizenship being a basis for immigration to German. I am guessing that Alon Levy is Jewish and his family were probably ethnically cleansed from Germany during the Nazi era. Germany has a repatriation of Jews whose family were forced out of Germany between 1933 and 1945.
That’s not the way Mr. Levy tells it, but maybe he doesn’t know what he is talking about. I can only state that he provided this information in response to a question that I posed to him on his blog which he has not updated for 2 years. However, it is my information that Germany has provided citizenship to a number of non-Jewish people who were trapped in areas of Germany that were ceded to Poland and Russia after WW 1 (e.g. the ancient Prussian capitol, Koenigsberg).
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