Israel is a liberal democracy stuck in the blind alley of a morally corrupting 43-year-old occupation that has made force its reflexive mode of operation. Several factors have nudged the country rightward: religious-settler extremism; obliviousness to the Palestinian plight now concealed behind walls; Russian-imported strands of Arab-baiting intolerance. But it is still a liberal democracy, home to a level of debate and openness unknown elsewhere in the Middle East. This needs broader acknowledgment.
What Israel in turn must realize — before it is too late — is that the real threat it faces today is not one of destruction but of de-legitimization. Its tactical lurches, often violent, do not add up to a strategy; they have resulted in a shocking erosion of Israel’s stature. I was talking the other day to the Israeli ambassador to a West European nation and he complained that he could rarely set foot on a university campus these days. Universities represent the future.
The only way to re-legitimize Israel and integrate it is an end to the occupation and the achievement of a two-state solution, with Israel as the homeland for the Jewish people and Palestine as the homeland for the Palestinian people.
Israel cannot do this alone. Feckless Arab powers must step forward. But Israel emphatically cannot do this, ever, by succumbing to a deeper and giddier embrace of those terrible twins, victimhood and force — terrible because at once addictive and blinding.
Comments
Blaming Arab-baiting on Russian immigrants seems extreme and anachronistic. Tensions and antagonism clearly existed between the two communities before the mass influx of Soviet Jews in the 80s. The real problem with the state of Israel is that it has to be Jewish. By definition, this requirement means that Arabs will be excluded or, at least, marginalized. Personally, I don't blame the Jews for this; it is an anomaly of history. But one should be careful about the term 'liberal democracy' when a majority of the population does not enjoy full rights and will never be allowed to rule.
*a majority of the Arab population
I agree with the criticism of the "liberal" part. I thought the same thing when I was posting it. In a liberal democracy the state focuses less on majority identity and more on protecting minorities.
I think "ethnic democracy" is a more suitable term, a la Estonia.
