Separation of church and state? Not in Israeli democracy. Differences in American and Israeli democracy also extend to protests against wars.
The US is a democracy. Israel is a democracy. Therefore, many think, American constitutional principles should be transferrable to Israel.
Yet, observe: Some Jewish religious groups who adamantly defend the wall between church and state in the US seek Israeli government funds for their religious institutions in Israel.
The Reform movement in the US adamantly supports the separate of church and state. The Reform movement in Israel adamantly lobbies the Israeli government to support its synagogues and seminaries.
A contradiction? Not really. Democracy in Israel does not separate church and state, or synagogue and state, or mosque and state. All Israeli religious institutions are supported, in part, sometimes in large part, by the government of Israel. There is no reason why the Reform movement in Israel, alongside all other religious groups there, should not seek government support.
Just as it makes no sense to seek the American model of democracy with regard to religion and state in Israel, it makes no sense to seek the American model of protest in Israel.
Observe: Some Arab Israeli citizens protested Israel’s war against Hamas. Were these citizens exercising their rights of protest in a democracy? Were they traitors? Both views are found in Israel today.
We would draw several distinctions. It is one thing to oppose a war; it is something else to wish that harm come to the warriors of one’s own country. During the Vietnam War, protests against it raged across the US. It was thought by the protesters that the US was wrong to fight in Vietnam. It was people’s democratic right to express this view in the US, and it is, in our view, an Israeli Arab citizen’s right to express an analogous view in Israel.
It is quite something else, however, to wish for, or pray for, or advocate for, the death or injury of one’s country’s own soldiers, be they Americans in Vietnam or Israelis in Gaza. Israeli Arab citizens, just like Israeli Jewish citizens, who opposed the war in Gaza should have the right to say so loudly, publicly, without repercussions. But when one advocates the death of the soldiers of one’s own country, that crosses a line that we do not believe is, or should be, protected.
If it is wrong for Jews to shout “Death to the Arabs,” it is wrong for Arabs to shout “Death to the Jews.” Protesters against the Vietnam War would yell, “Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?” It is one thing to object to the killing of the enemy, it is something else to wish the enemy luck in killing your own.
Another distinction: Anyone opposed to a war has a responsibility to articulate an alternative. One possible alternative is simply to withdraw from the war, to stop fighting. That was a viable alternative during the Vietnam War because no harm would come to American shores thereby. But if the US simply stopped fighting during WW II, then harm would have come, first to all of Europe, then, most likely, to the US, by an ascendant, genocidal, Nazi regime bent on destroying all non-Aryans.
What is the alternative to responding to Hamas’ missile attacks on Israeli civilians? To our knowledge, protesters of the war in Israel articulated no alternative. Does this mean that the protesters supported Hamas attacks on Israeli citizens? Does this mean that they cried, in effect, “Death to the Jews”? Perhaps, or perhaps not. Perhaps protesters only objected to the death of Arabs or Palestinian brothers.
But that is not necessarily so, and in any case does not address the pressing issue of the alternative response to the indiscriminate murder of Israeli citizens by Hamas.
Clearly, the issue of protest in Israel is not easily transferrable from the American context.
Copyright © 2014 by the Intermountain Jewish News
