{"id":16111,"date":"2024-05-05T13:26:59","date_gmt":"2024-05-05T10:26:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/?p=16111"},"modified":"2024-05-07T16:10:10","modified_gmt":"2024-05-07T13:10:10","slug":"%d7%9e%d7%93%d7%99%d7%a0%d7%aa-%d7%99%d7%a9%d7%a8%d7%90%d7%9c-%d7%9e%d7%94%d7%aa%d7%91%d7%92%d7%a8%d7%95%d7%aa-%d7%9c%d7%91%d7%92%d7%a8%d7%95%d7%aa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/%d7%9e%d7%93%d7%99%d7%a0%d7%aa-%d7%99%d7%a9%d7%a8%d7%90%d7%9c-%d7%9e%d7%94%d7%aa%d7%91%d7%92%d7%a8%d7%95%d7%aa-%d7%9c%d7%91%d7%92%d7%a8%d7%95%d7%aa\/","title":{"rendered":"The State of Israel \u2013 From Adolescence to Adulthood"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3 style=\"direction: ltr;\">The actual collective picture is better than the image Israelis have of themselves. Still, the identity crisis casts its shadows on Israel\u2019s sovereign existence, and its gravity should not be downplayed.<\/h3>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Prof. Yedidia Stern: We need public space that expresses the Jewish character - without coercion\" width=\"604\" height=\"340\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/nCWZPzAU_gU?list=PLtmovPy1LBfAgoGvP9NXwoqQin5Ee6vpg\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p style=\"direction: ltr;\">When you ask an Israeli how he or she is doing, the answer you commonly get is \u201cPersonally, fine.\u201d It\u2019s a dual response: positive about one\u2019s personal situation, but with implicit reservations about the general state of affairs. Indeed, the overall feeling is that collective life in Israel is \u201cstuck\u201d \u2013 that our sense of togetherness is flawed. Do the facts support this sense of crisis?<\/p>\n<p style=\"direction: ltr;\">At first glance, the answer is no. In terms of security, Israel`s situation has never been better. It is a military power whose traditional enemies no longer pose an existential threat. The economy is stable and robust, with exceptional performance in the knowledge-intensive industries of the future. On the geopolitical level, the situation is improving: Israel is on good terms with the leaders of the major powers, has signed peace treaties with its neighbors to the south and east, and has ties with the nations of the Sunni axis. On the face of it, Israel is riding a wave of success that ought to inspire optimism; yet Israelis are actually mired in \u201cIsraeli melancholy.\u201d Why? The weak point of Israeli society appears to be an identity crisis: a dispute over the Israeli vision \u2013 the purpose of the Zionist enterprise at this time.<\/p>\n<p style=\"direction: ltr;\">When the state was founded, many of Israel\u2019s leaders expected it to bring about a resolution to the question of national identity. They believed that the creation of a Jewish political entity that would gather within it all the Jews scattered throughout the Diaspora and act as an organic unit with independent institutions, in a culturally hegemonic environment that speaks a single language \u2013 Hebrew, risen from the ashes \u2013 would succeed in consolidating the nascent society around it and disentangle the welter of Jewish identities in the Diaspora. But these expectations were unmet. It turns out, after 75 years of a \u201cJewish state,\u201d that Israel not only does not represent a resolution of the national-identity quandary, but that the state itself constitutes an arena of struggle between disparate identities.<\/p>\n<p style=\"direction: ltr;\">The success of political Zionism actually raised, in full force, questions that require conceptual and practical decisions regarding the character and meaning of Jewish collective existence in our time. The functioning of the Jewish state breathed life into an array of ideological visions that compete with each other to assign interpretations, meanings, and orientations to \u201cJudaism\u201d itself.<\/p>\n<p style=\"direction: ltr; text-align: center;\">*<\/p>\n<p style=\"direction: ltr;\">In the Israeli public sphere there are four competing visions regarding the state\u2019s purpose. Each of these four proposals for a collective \u201clife\u201d aims to calibrate the Israeli compass so that it points in a different direction \u2013 sometimes the opposite direction from that preferred by one of the others. Each vision is supported by a (quantitatively and qualitatively) important segment of Israeli society. The visions contend aggressively for preeminence in the marketplace of ideas and in the political arena, and the result is a culture war where no one comes out on top. This is the source of the present Israeli melancholy. What are these visions?<\/p>\n<p style=\"direction: ltr;\">The secular-Zionist vision seeks to grow a model enlightened society in a normal state, \u201clike all other nations,\u201d a state whose uniqueness lies in its Jewish nationality. Nationalism is seen as a substitute for religion. The tallit is replaced by the flag; the ancient liturgy is converted into \u201cHatikvah\u201d; the role models are statesmen, philosophers, and cultural and military figures, not rabbis or <em>poskim<\/em> (decisors of Jewish law); the holy tongue is upgraded to modern Hebrew; and the responsibility for Israel\u2019s security shifts from \u201cour Father in Heaven, Rock and Redeemer of Israel\u201d to the Israel Defense Forces.<\/p>\n<p style=\"direction: ltr;\">The ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) vision is the polar opposite. In this vision, the Zionist aspiration to normality is tantamount to forbidden \u201cHellenization;\u201d \u201cEnlightenment\u201d in the European sense means the denial of the distinctively Jewish self; nationalism without religion is a foreign invention with no Jewish roots. The State of Israel has no intrinsic value; it is only a \u201cmanagement\u201d for the Jews. The Haredim support the state because it facilitates Jewish physical survival and because it is a <em>gvir<\/em> \u2013 a deep-pocketed benefactor of the Torah world.<\/p>\n<p style=\"direction: ltr;\">Religious Zionism operates in the light of a third vision: it is an ally of secular Zionism on the national side, and of the ultra-Orthodox on the religious side. But the Religious Zionist vision is not a \u201ccommon denominator,\u201d but rather an independent and distinct proposition: the State of Israel is part of a theological system \u2013 a crucial stage in the redemptive-messianic process that neither the secular nor the ultra-Orthodox share. The ingathering of exiles, \u201cmaking the desert bloom,\u201d the expansion of borders and the flourishing of Torah study are early harbingers of the Messianic age. The present generation is witnessing the certain dawning of the redemption \u2013 the first light of dawn that will gradually illuminate the entire world, propelling reality into a completely new paradigm.<\/p>\n<p style=\"direction: ltr;\">The fourth vision is that of Israel\u2019s Arab citizens. Documents detailing this vision, published by the Arab Israeli leadership over a decade ago, express a desire to eradicate all Jewish characteristics from the state so that Israel will be a \u201cstate of all its citizens.\u201d In their view, Judaism is a religion, not a nationality, and Zionism is merely a form of Western colonialism; the Zionist enterprise is in any case thought to be fundamentally flawed, and any preference for Jews over others is a severe violation of the basic principle of civil equality.<\/p>\n<p style=\"direction: ltr;\">Each of these four visions expresses a different perception of reality and entails different ways of dealing with the dilemmas that challenge Israel in everyday life. One prominent example is the attitude toward Israel\u2019s constitutional definition as a \u201cJewish and democratic state\u201d and its interpretations. In the view of secular Zionism, \u201cJudaism\u201d is primarily a nationality, and \u201cdemocracy\u201d is a fabric of liberal or conservative values. In Haredi eyes, \u201cJudaism\u201d is solely a religion, while \u201cdemocracy\u201d is simply a mode of governance. For Religious Zionism, \u201cJudaism\u201d is a combination of religion and nationality, while attitudes toward \u201cdemocracy\u201d differ between religious liberals and others, e.g., those identifying as <em>Hardalim<\/em> (right-wing religious nationalists). Israel\u2019s Arab citizens object to the state\u2019s Jewishness and want to view Israel solely as a democracy whose core value is \u201cequality\u201d (on the personal level, equality between citizens; and on the collective level, equality between national and religious groups).<\/p>\n<p style=\"direction: ltr;\">The controversy translates into an emotional discourse on how reality should be interpreted, and the direction in which the Israeli collective compass should be pointed. It breathes negativity into relations between Israeli citizens of different population groups, undermines solidarity between the various segments of Israeli society, and erodes Israelis\u2019 trust in the state institutions. It sometimes seems that Israel\u2019s many internationally acclaimed achievements are dwarfed by the intensifying winds of a culture war.<\/p>\n<p style=\"direction: ltr;\">There is no reason to assume that identity disputes in Israel can be settled or decided in the foreseeable future. This is true not only from a realistic point of view \u2013 none of the parties to the dispute are expected to disappear or to change their identity preferences \u2013 but also from a theoretical perspective: the melting-pot approach is considered inappropriate in a liberal world. Flowers of every kind should be allowed to bloom. Unlike the fundamentalist views that exist at the ideological margins of every sector, pluralistic liberalism recognizes that there is no reference point from which to determine who among the parties to the controversy is right, and who is wrong.<\/p>\n<p style=\"direction: ltr; text-align: center;\"><strong>*<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"direction: ltr;\">If we were to compare our sovereign existence to the lifecycle of a person, we might say that Israel has made it through infancy and childhood with flying colors: We have ingathered the exiles, created a formidable national security architecture, nurtured a flourishing economy, reconstituted our culture, and established a democratic political system with liberal characteristics. We have survived the common childhood diseases. But in the current generation \u2013 and especially now in the country\u2019s eighth decade of independence \u2013 Israel is experiencing the typical torments of adolescence: a radically and dramatically judgmental attitude toward others; turmoil, confusion, and instability in coming to grips with reality; the impulse to test limits; and a broadening of the emotional range, sometimes to a disruptive degree. Like many adolescents, Israel is molding and remolding the clay of identity.<\/p>\n<p style=\"direction: ltr;\">In its childhood, Israel was a \u201cconsensual democracy.\u201d There was basic agreement between the different sectors regarding the state\u2019s vision and goals. In its adolescence, however, Israel has become a \u201cdemocracy in crisis,\u201d marked by disagreement and constant conflict between different conceptions of the common good. The discord persists along the national divide, between Israel\u2019s Jewish and Arab citizens; across religious fault lines, between secular, traditional, national religious, and ultra-Orthodox Jews; on the social front, between center and periphery; and at the cultural level, between liberals and conservatives.<\/p>\n<p style=\"direction: ltr;\">The severity of the crisis stems from the fact that unlike most multicultural countries \u2013 where each population group strives first and foremost to protect its own interests and has no aspiration to dictate the national outlook as a whole \u2013 in Israel every group has a vision that it wants to instill and impose upon everyone else. The controversy relates to the common destiny, not just to the common good.<\/p>\n<p style=\"direction: ltr;\">The depth of the identity crisis is reflected in the repeated failed attempts to enshrine Israel\u2019s most canonical document, its Declaration of Independence, in law. The agreements reached when Israel was newly born, when it was resource-poor, sparsely populated, subject to an all-out Arab offensive on its borders, and lacking a governmental tradition, are no longer acceptable in today\u2019s reality where the state is strong, thriving, and successful by any objective comparative measure.<\/p>\n<p style=\"direction: ltr; text-align: center;\"><strong>*<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"direction: ltr;\">After the tumultuous crisis of its adolescence, will adulthood arrive with all the balance and discernment that characterizes maturity?<\/p>\n<p style=\"direction: ltr;\">As noted, Israel`s identity crisis is not resolvable in the foreseeable future. It can be argued that Israel\u2019s ideological diversity is a paradoxical source of wealth \u2013 \u201criches kept by the owner thereof to his benefit.\u201d But in order to progress from adolescent turbulence to adult equanimity, we need to achieve a pan-Israeli consensus regarding the rules of conduct and decision-making on the basis of which we will manage our identity dispute. As long as it is impossible to reach a common vision that would enable the enactment of a full constitution, it is appropriate to take a second-order approach to the controversy: rules of the game that, while not silencing any of the participating voices, will nevertheless promote an Israeli public life marked by social solidarity and cooperation between the different segments of society. These rules of conduct and decision-making are the substance with which, in my view, Israelis need to imbue the uniquely Israeli term <em>mamlachtiyut<\/em>, which roughly translates as statehood \u2013 the idea of setting aside partisan differences for the sake of the state.<\/p>\n<p style=\"direction: ltr;\">Israel\u2019s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, coined the term even before the state was established and put it to invaluable use with his contemporaries during the crucial years of state-building. Ben-Gurion\u2019s <em>mamlachtiyut<\/em> had the power to channel the various streams that flowed into Israel from all over into a mighty river \u2013 to turn the individual fingers into a clenched fist, prepared for any expediency. Even today Israelis experience <em>mamlachtiyut<\/em> as an adjective describing central matters in their lives, such as education, army, health, and ceremonies of various kinds. But in the past 75 years reality has changed and the challenges of the past have been replaced by new challenges, in particular an identity crisis that makes it difficult for Israelis to live together harmoniously.<\/p>\n<p style=\"direction: ltr;\">In an era of culture war, the <em>mamlachti<\/em> approach obliges the parties to the dispute to commit themselves to inclusivity. This inclusivity rejects fundamentalist demonization of the other, is not zealous for a particular vision, does not view Israel as a battleground of all against all, and is capable of acceptance in the sense of affording full legitimacy to conflicting visions. A <em>mamlachti<\/em> code of state conduct should include a ban on incitement, boycotts, loyalty-versus-treason rhetoric, and other offensive language that undermines the legitimacy of the other. <em>Mamlachtiyut<\/em> is the order of the day because the intellectuals of all of Israel\u2019s major identity camps have failed to adopt an inclusive strategy of coexistence with those who hold other visions. Public life in Israel is steeped in hand wringing, with no serious, principled plan for a satisfying life under conditions of controversy. That is why pluralism, which accepts the idea that \u201cthese <em>and<\/em> those are the words of the living God,\u201d is rare in Israel; and even tolerance with its \u201clive and let live\u201d approach does not appear to be a core value. A <em>mamlachti<\/em> approach that would restrain discord on the social-ideological level is a proven recipe for bolstering Israel\u2019s resilience and social solidarity, stabilizing its governmental systems, ensuring that the economy, science, and culture flourish, and restoring the balance between preserving Israel\u2019s cultural wealth and framing it in governmental systems concerned with the common good.<\/p>\n<p style=\"direction: ltr;\"><em>Mamlachtiyut<\/em> is supposed to enable Israelis not only to manage their disagreements in a mature fashion, but also to decide their outcomes, when necessary, in a mature way. As is well known, in the past generation identity disputes \u2013 which are supposed to take place in the marketplace of ideas and in the political sphere \u2013 have steadily drifted into the legal arena in Israel. There the dispute is conducted in normative language \u2013 a discourse of rights \u2013 with the aim of reaching a determination. But besides the fact that a rights discourse is unsuitable for managing identity conflicts, due to the nature of that discourse, the judicialization of the culture war is poisoning the relationship between large swaths of the public and the judicial system. <em>Mamlachtiyut<\/em> must therefore also regulate the manner in which the rights discourse seeking to decide the controversy will be conducted. It must affirm that the three branches of government, when exercising their powers in legislative, executive, and judicial activity, are charged with the responsibility of respecting the identity stratification and ideological diversity that characterize Israeli society. The future of the rule of law in Israel depends on the success of all the branches of government in conveying to the Israeli public the message that they conduct themselves fairly when encountering ideological adversaries.<\/p>\n<p style=\"direction: ltr;\">The legislative branch must exert legislative authority in a way that eases the sense of alienation felt by those who are not part of the hegemony and avoids a \u201cwinner takes all\u201d agenda. The Knesset majority must avert frequent changes to the Basic Laws, which are part of our nascent constitution. Israel does not have a full constitution or bill of rights. In this sense, Israelis live on shifting sands. <em>Mamlachti<\/em> Knesset members have to be sensitive to this and submit to the basic norms of liberal democracies, even if they are formally authorized to discard them.<\/p>\n<p style=\"direction: ltr;\">The executive branch, in exercising its power \u2013 the strongest form of governmental authority vis-\u00e0-vis the individual and the public \u2013 must strike a balance between the aspiration to implement a preferred policy (for which purpose elections are held) and the restraint required in light of the needs and sensitivities of groups outside the governing coalition.<\/p>\n<p style=\"direction: ltr;\">This is even more true regarding the judiciary. The judicial branch is not elected by the public and is not meant to promote the identity preference of a specific group, and so the demand that it respect the ideological controversy and refrain from determining its outcome is even stronger. Indeed, the big question now reverberating in Israel is how to regulate the exercise of judicial power in light of the court\u2019s involvement in the identity discourse. A judicial system aiming to meet the challenge of <em>mamlachtiyut<\/em> must recognize the important distinction between issues that are the province of politics and those that are the province of law. The court must recuse itself from deciding issues of the first type.<\/p>\n<p style=\"direction: ltr;\">The right way to ensure that the three branches of government meet the challenge of <em>mamlachtiyut<\/em> is to enact a \u201cthin\u201d constitution. This differs from a full constitution in that it does not include sections pertaining to the identity of the state and basic human rights \u2013 about which, at this moment in adolescence, it is not possible to agree \u2013 but only a section dealing with the relations between the branches of government. A thin constitution would contain chapters that bring together, with adjustments, the existing Basic Laws \u2013 those pertaining to the president of the state, the Knesset, the government, the judiciary, and the state comptroller \u2013 with the addition of what is lacking today: Basic Law: Legislation. The constitution would stipulate that the arrangements set forth in it will be safeguarded so that any change or amendment could be made only with a two-thirds Knesset supermajority. Such a constitution would lay out the rules of the game by which the ideological dispute is to be conducted. It would subdue the current fracas between the branches of government over their powers and over the ability to decide the present Israeli controversy, and it would do this without silencing any of the ideological camps that are party to the controversy.<\/p>\n<p style=\"direction: ltr; text-align: center;\"><strong>*<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"direction: ltr;\">The actual collective picture is better than the image Israelis have of themselves. The identity crisis casts its shadows on Israel\u2019s sovereign existence, and their gravity should not be downplayed. Israelis can cope with them with a broad national consensus that transcends identity camps, and by adopting a <em>mamlachti<\/em> approach toward both the management of the identity struggles and how they are to be decided. This is the bridge from adolescence to adulthood on which the State of Israel will be able to walk in the next generation.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"direction: ltr; text-align: left;\"><strong>Professor Yedidia Stern is the President and CEO of the Jewish People Policy Institute, Professor Emeritus in the Faculty of Law at Bar-Ilan University, and a former Dean of the Faculty.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sorry, this entry is only available in \u05e2\u05d1\u05e8\u05d9\u05ea.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16115,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16111"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16111\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16383,"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16111\/revisions\/16383"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}