This campaign ad by the Haredi Shas party is being blasted as racist in the media. For the Hebrew-impaired, the ad shows a very obviously Russian bride telling her groom that she converted by dialing *Giyur.
Let's go to the videotape.
In the 1990's, the Jewish Agency decided to fill immigrant 'quotas' by recruiting non-Jews to move to Israel to improve their economic lot. No, not all Russians are non-Jews. But a substantial number are, and this is not the first time that the chattering classes here have chosen to ignore the issue by branding anyone who raises it as 'racist.'
There's nothing wrong with Shas raising the issue.
An appalling editorial that misstates facts right and left graces the pages of Sunday's New York Times. Who wrote it? I'd love to know....
Six decades after Israel’s founding, its citizens remain deeply at odds over the future of their democracy. The latest illustration is the disintegration of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s new governing coalition after only 10 weeks.
The coalition is just fine thank you. Kadima, a party that currently has 29 seats, but which polls say will drop to single numbers in new elections, has left the coalition. Why do you think they joined in the first place? Hint: It wasn't because they actually care about the issues.
But when Shaul Mofaz and his centrist Kadima Party joined the government in May, the merger created a much broader coalition. It seemed to give Mr. Netanyahu — a disappointing, risk-averse leader — unprecedented authority to get things done.
Actually, Kadima joined the coalition to save itself from electoral defeat. They latched onto one populist issue - the need for a replacement for the Tal Law - and hoped to use it to bootstrap themselves back into the Knesset. Recent polls make it clear that no one was fooled by that ploy.
Mr. Mofaz became deputy prime minister and outlined an encouraging agenda. The first priority would be integrating minority populations of ultra-Orthodox Jews and Israeli Arabs into the military and civilian service.
Actually, one of the main reasons that the partnership with Kadima failed was the fact that Kadima was opposed to drafting 'Israeli Arabs.' They were only interested in 'getting' the ultra-Orthodox. The rest of the coalition had broader goals. No way you would know that from reading the New York Times.
The coalition would also revive peace negotiations with the Palestinians, pass a national budget and enact electoral reforms.
It takes two to tango on 'peace negotiations.' Is the Times even aware that Abu Mazen canceled a meeting with Mofaz? No Israeli coalition can decide to 'revive peace negotiations with the Palestinians' unless the 'Palestinians' also want to revive them. That is clearly not the case. The coalition actually did start work on a national budget, which is not something that happens overnight (although the Times is also loathe to point out that our most recent national budget - which was for two years - was passed more recently than the last Obama administration budget).
But the coalition quickly collapsed over the issue of military service, which has exacerbated tensions between secular and religious Jews and with Arabs. Secular Israelis are increasingly resentful of the tendency of the ultra-Orthodox to refuse to serve and to separate themselves from the country’s mainstream.
The issue came to a head after the Supreme Court invalidated a law that granted draft exemptions to thousands of religious students and mandated that it be rewritten by Aug. 1.
The Times acts like Mofaz joined the government after the court ruling. But that's not the case. The court ruling was the main reason Kadima joined the government. They saw an opportunity to save their political skins. It didn't work out that way.
There was also talk of doubling army enlistment for Arabs. Israeli Palestinians are not required to join the army, and most do not. Many feel like second-class citizens and are deeply conflicted about their place in Israeli society.
Whose talk was that? Not Mofaz's. And what's an 'Israeli Palestinian'? I would guess that anyone who describes themselves as an 'Israeli Palestinian' would feel quite conflicted about their place in Israeli society. But we refer to them as 'Israeli Arabs,' while some of them refer to themselves as 'Palestinians.' Unless the Times is referring to Arabs who live beyond the 1949 armistice lines, and no one is proposing to draft them.
Demographic changes are making political compromise harder. Experts say an influx of Jews from the former Soviet Union and a high birthrate in the ultra-Orthodox community mean that many Israelis have a cultural mistrust of the democratic values on which the state was founded.
Jews from the former Soviet Union and ultra-Orthodox Jews (especially the ones who come from New York City) have a 'cultural mistrust' of the 'democratic values' on which the state was founded? Who wrote that line? Bill Clinton? Two words: Prove it.
The Palestinian population is also expanding, hastening a day when Jews could be a minority.
Actually, the 'Palestinian population' is expanding at about the same rate as the Jewish population, and if the world would allow them to leave, many of them would opt to do so. So that line is nonsense. Based on current trends, Jews will not be a minority here.
Mr. Netanyahu’s past dependence on hard-line parties has manifested itself in aggressive settlement building and resistance to serious peace talks with the Palestinians — who themselves have not shown enough commitment to a solution. Without Kadima’s moderating force, these trends will continue.
Actually, Mr. Netanyahu has not built a single 'settlement' since taking office, implemented a 10-month 'settlement freeze' and has spent the last 3+ years calling for 'talks without preconditions' with the 'Palestinians.' It's the 'Palestinians' who have refused to come to the table. Oops.
There are other worrisome developments. The Association for Civil Rights in Israel has expressed concern over “intensifying infringements on democratic freedoms.” In the past two years, activists say, more than 25 bills have been proposed or passed by the Parliament to limit freedom of speech and of the press; penalize, defund or investigate nongovernmental groups; restrict judicial independence; and trample minority rights.
I think that throwaway line was referring to this. It's been more than a year, and the NGO's still seem to be around. Hmmm.
Wondering why most Israelis don't think like him anymore, Matt Yglesias claims that Israel is afflicted with 'post-Jewish Zionism' (Hat Tip: Memeorandum).
The existence of Christian Zionists is, of course, not new. But what is new is that Israeli politics has drifted toward the hawkish right over the past ten years even as Jewish Americans remain on the progressive left. That change in Israeli politics, meanwhile, has been in part driven by a demographic shift away from the kind of secular ashkenazi Jews who predominate in the American population. At the same time, Christian Zionist sentiment has boomed in America and the Palestinian cause has never been less popular among America’s overwhelmingly non-Jewish population.
This is all part of what I’ve called the trend toward post-Jewish Zionism. That’s not to say that there are no Jewish Zionists in the United States (or Canada, etc.) but merely to observe that Jews as such are decreasingly relevant to the politics of Israel. In Europe, too, we’re seeing a boom of far-right parties (True Finns, Geert Wilders’ Freedom Party, the Danish People’s Party) with strong pro-Israel stands.
But look at whom he is defining as 'post-Jewish.'
Daniel Levy's article on Israeli demographics is also relevant to this. If you're a typical Jewish American, this is quite literally not your father's Israel. The Palestinian, Haredi, "national Orthodox," and Russian immigrant shares of the population have all grown substantially.
While it's true that the Haredi, national Orthodox (by which I assume he means National Religious) and Russian immigrant (by the way, most of whom are not religious and many of whom are not Jewish at all) populations have grown, that does not explain why Israelis have become what Yglesias calls 'hawkish right,' nor does it explain why fewer and fewer Israelis are sympathetic to the 'Palestinian' cause.
The Likud gets very few Haredi votes and probably not a whole lot of National Religious votes or Russian immigrant votes either. What's driven Israel to the right is not changing demographics but changing perceptions of the possibility of peace (without scare quotes) with the 'Palestinians.' Most Israelis have realized the truth over the last 6-11 years (look up those dates): That it's not peace or a state that the 'Palestinians' want. It's that they want to destroy the Jewish state. We won't roll over and play dead for them.
Some people would call that kind of shift democracy.
And by the way, those Haredim and National Religious Jews are more Jewish (in practice) than Yglesias will ever be. I would definitely not call them 'post Jewish.' That's absurd.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
