Day: June 27, 2017
Settlements threaten Zionism
Threats to Israeli democracy were front and center at Friday’s conversation “Settlements at 50 Years – An Obstacle to Peace and Democracy” at the Middle East Institute. Moderated by Haaretz journalist Amir Tibon and featuring Talia Sasson – president of the New Israel Fund (NIF) and former special legal advisor to then-prime minister of Israel Ariel Sharon – the talk highlighted the dangers of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s self-interested politicking, infringement upon the Palestinian right of self-determination, and the pernicious delegitimization of the Israeli left.
The dynamic playing out between far-right pro-settlement Israelis, the Israeli government, and the Trump administration is complex. After the initial euphoria in the wake of Trump’s election, the American president’s reluctance to endorse construction in the West Bank has tempered the elation of the Israeli right. Fearing a return to Obama-era restrictions and American intransigence, the right puts pressure on Netanyahu’s coalition. Netanyahu makes a show of forbidding the construction of further outposts—illegal under Israeli law—but concedes the right to continue construction around existing Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Finally, Netanyahu turns to Trump: look what the people want! My hands are tied.
The settlements are built.
“The whole thing is internal political theater,” Sasson said wryly. She argued that this kind of politicking poses a grave threat to Israeli democracy.
Not only does the construction of settlements push the limits of Israeli law – it compromises the very principles of national sovereignty upon which the Israeli state claims to be based. “To be a patriot of the State of Israel,” insisted Sasson, “you can’t put into that definition depriving the Palestinians of the right to have their own state.” The fundamental principle underlying the 1948 partition – a principle Sasson affirmed despite occupation and the current post-1967 boundaries – is that no party to the conflict claims all the land. Perhaps in the spirit of recognizing Palestinian nationality, Sasson called Israeli Arabs – Israeli citizens of Arab ethnicity and descent – “Palestinian citizens of Israel.”
In addition to ongoing controversies surrounding Israeli settlements in the West Bank, the principle of legal and social equality for Israeli Arabs lies on a fault line between the Israeli right and the left. The right, Sasson warned, is doing its best to convince the Israeli public that there is a necessary conflict between Israel’s status as a democracy and its status as a Jewish state. Equality for all Israeli citizens—Jewish and Arab—allegedly violates Jewish primacy. For this reason, contended Sasson, those leftists and activists who demand equal rights for Jews and Arabs are painted as enemies of the state.
“I think in Israel, we have a delegitimization of the left for many years,” she explained. While figures on the right such as Prime Minister Netanyahu discredit human rights organizations with claims that they are unpatriotic, opposition leaders such as Isaac Herzog claim that radical democrats are ruining the left. To compound the issue, the end of Obama’s tenure as president signals the end of an era of American temperance in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Nowadays, lamented Sasson, a minority of the Israeli citizenry holds her views publicly. Most identify with the right or with the center – but Sasson believes that “many feel that something is wrong.”
For this reason, Sasson’s New Israel Fund continues to oppose the construction of settlements in the West Bank alongside its more popular, less controversial projects such as defending women’s rights and the rights of the LGBTQ+ community. According to Sasson’s emphatic brand of Israeli patriotism, the solution may lie in a return to Zionism.
“I believe in the old way of Zionism, not the settlements,” she said. The old way, she clarified, is her interpretation of the 1948 Israeli Declaration of Independence. It is democracy and a home for all Jews.
“Settlements,” warned Sasson, “are the death of Zionism.”
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A bona fide boon to lawyers
That’s what the Supreme Court has decided you need: a bona fide (genuine, real, sincere, non-deceptive) relationship with an individual or entity in the US to come here from six Muslim-majority countries (Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Sudan, and Yemen). President Trump is claiming this vindicates his effort to block all immigration and refugees from these allegedly dangerous countries, from which no terrorist has arrived since 9/11.
Far from it. The merits of the bans he ordered will be considered in the fall. For now, all the Court has decided is that people without a bona fide relationship with the US are not entitled to the ban on the travel ban issued by lower courts.
The question then becomes: what is a bona fide relationship? The Court made clear that category includes familial relations as well as contractual ones, like documented admission to a US university. The only clearly excluded category would be relationships that are deceptive, for example one entered into for the sole purpose of getting into the US.
So the consequence of this decision, as the dissenting minority that wanted to back Trump more fully said, will be a flood of litigation to determine what is a bona fide relationship with a US individual (notable: not necessarily a citizen) or entity. Is an invitation to speak at a conference evidence of such a relationship? Do hotel reservations or airline tickets qualify? What about acceptance into a refugee resettlement program sponsored by the State Department? I’m fairly confident this is a slippery slope to admitting many people.
The problem is that the public image will lean heavily in Trump’s direction, not least because of his exaggerated claim to vindication. This will encourage immigration officials to take a draconian attitude towards enforcement. It will also offend Muslims worldwide, who don’t like the restrictions:
In fact, the countries where majorities like the restrictions are mainly those where ethnic nationalism is rampant: Hungary, Poland, Russia, and Israel fit that category.
Al Qaeda and the Islamic State also relish Trump’s hostility to Muslims, which confirms their assertions about the US and the need to attack it. Trump’s crowing about this Supreme Court decision could easily boost extremist recruitment, both inside and outside the US. The restrictions will likely cause more terrorism than they prevent–it will take only one such act inside the US by someone from one of these countries to prove that point.
Trump however will try to use any terrorist attack in the opposite direction. He all too obviously sees such attacks as opportunities to make his political points. He has used each and every attack in Europe as an opportunity to generate antipathy toward Muslims in general. He’ll no doubt amplify that attitude if and when there is an attack in the US, thus generating more resentment and helping extremist recruitment.
It is true of course that he also has friends in the Muslim world: autocrats like Saudi Arabia’s King Salman, Turkey’s President Erdogan and Egypt’s President Sissi have nothing to fear from this president, who has ignored their brutal and indiscriminate crackdowns on liberal democrats as well as terrorists. Citizens, residents and travelers through those three countries have been involved in terrorist acts in Europe and the US since 9/11, but Trump wouldn’t want to offend his friends by blocking their citizens from the US.
We face another round on the immigration ban at the Supreme Court in the fall, with lots of litigation in the meanwhile. This Administration is a big boon for lawyers.
PS: If you don’t like that chart, try this one:
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