So, I when I read this commentary in Ha'aretz this morning, I felt the satisfaction of being right about something I hoped I was dreadfully wrong on.
Nor are the Druze unique. Most Arab Israelis declare that their Palestinian
identity trumps their Israeli identity. More than a few Jewish settlers declare
that their duty to obey their rabbis takes precedence over their duty to obey
the laws of the state. The ultra-Orthodox believe that the laws of the state are
secondary to the commands of Jewish law (as they interpret it). And some people
claim that discrimination against Mizrahim (Jews of Middle Eastern descent)
justifies ignoring the crimes committed by a few of their number.
The Ha'aretz article continues:
Studies have proven this. The social solidarity index, published ahead of the
Sderot conference that opens on Wednesday, showed a decline in the public's
belief in mutual civic responsibility (this year, 54 percent do not trust
government agencies to help them in times of trouble, double the 27 percent
recorded in 2003). The democracy index, which was published by the Israel
Democracy Institute five months ago, found that only 31 percent of Israeli
citizens trust one another, and only 27 percent believe that the state's
interests are more important than personal interests (down from 64 percent in
1981). When respondents were asked to define their identity, only 39 percent put
"Israeli" in first place, and while 59 percent said they had a feeling of
belonging to the state, this was down from 79 percent four years ago.
While I think this point is definitely valid, I think he misses, and not surprisingly considering that its the Ha'aretz, the left's floundering association to the state. Those on the left protest that the right is chock full of tribalism, whereas the left's dissent is individualistic. I don't buy it. First off, it doesn't really make a difference- either way, the state is ripping at the seems. But more importantly, just because the left doesn't have a rabbi, or an ethnic minority status, doesn't mean its thinking is any less 'tribal.' Britain is an amazing example of this idea: It is in vouge to be against the current, but only within a group. The 'counterculture' of the left is also one swept with tribal feelings- to left ideology. Not all people, on any side, are swept up by their ideology. I'm actually fairly 'left' when it come to stuff, but that's only when you make a scorecard. People tow the party line without thinking, whether on the left or the right.
Further, you could argue that the left has its leaders and bastions of cultural indoctrination. Yose Be'elin and Amos Oz come to mind on the first front; the universities come to mind on the second. Honestly, I don't really buy the 'leftist indoctrination' at universities crap. Is there? I'm sure of it- again, all information is propaganda, whether intentional or not. But it's more likely that Israeli universities simply reflect the nature of the state, and of those in the state who become intellectuals. Let's face it: Israel was definitely born on the left.
But, back to the point: people are self-interested. That's just a fact. It's a fact that's needed for survival in most cases, but its also a fact that is detrimental to living in society. Especially a society with Jews in it. The cohesiveness caused in the beginning of Israel was due to a) the trauma of the Holocaust b)the realization of the goals of auto-emancipation. Suffice it to say that it's a bit hard to be united by those goals anymore. And certainly, Israeli Arabs have no reason to be at all.
What can be done though? A misleading aspect of the article quoted above is that, though less and less Jews are feeling Israeli or part of the Israel qua Israel, more and more are feeling part of the 'Jewish nation' - whatever that means. Most people think that this is simply a rightist thing, but I disagree. Post-Zionist like Avraham Burg also feel more connected to world Jewry than to Israel. I think the solution can be found in this point: a reconception of Jewish polity. If you read my blog in the future, you will hear this type of solution a lot. I hope to go in depth into when I have fleshed the idea out.
Suffice it to say that this is not the be all and end all of the issue: Israel, as a state, has a commitment to democracy that it needs to maintain. This solution sort of ignores Israeli Arabs. And, it isn't completely new: Many Jews in Israeli have always felt a)more Jewish than Israeli b)that Jewishness and Israeliness are synonymous. But, I still think the basic aim should be a reorientation of society's self-conception- so that instead of tribalism, the focus is on nationalism.
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