Opposition to the Jewish State Law is not about Democracy

by Moshe Feiglin

Many of the shining knights of democracy and equality up in arms now about the Jewish State law were at the forefront of the battle for the cruel expulsion of law-abiding citizens from their legal homes in Gush Katif – simply because they were Jews.

The Police Chiefs and the officers, the professors and the broadcasters, the politicians, the judges and the writers – had suddenly forgotten all the lofty values of democracy and equality, while strictly clinging to the technical procedure for passing the Disengagement Law. (The procedure was blemished and included open deception with the Likud members’ referendum on the Disengagement, the dismissal of ministers in order to tip the scales in favor of the plan and additional problems that raise the question of the law’s legality).

Today’s opposition to the Jewish State Law is not because anybody’s civil rights are being undermined. No Druze, Arab or leftist interviewed succeeded in explaining in practical terms how he was impaired in any way by the law. Opposition to the law is not because it is missing the word ‘equality’, either. The strong opposition to the law is because it includes the words ‘Jewish State’.

In the months leading up to the expulsion of the Jews from Gush Katif, leftist Professor Kreminitzer and his colleagues from the Israeli Democratic Institute rallied to defend the law that steamrolled over all basic values of equality and human rights.

“Will you, in the name of democracy, conduct yourself in the same way when the government will do this to Arab villages”? I asked Kreminitzer. “Will you run to all the Arabs to convince them to resign themselves to their expulsion?”

Kreminitzer – with honesty – answered in the negative. “Do me a favor,” I said then to Kreminitzer and his friends, “Say that you oppose settlements, say that you are in favor of a state of all its citizens. That is fine. Just don’t talk to me about democracy.”