The media on Israel as a ‘Jewish state’

by Carmel Gould

The past week has seen an explicit resurgence of the fundamental question of the nature of the Israeli state. On Sunday, Israel’s cabinet passed a bill requiring all non-Jewish candidates for citizenship to pledge allegiance to ‘the state of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state’. The previous version only required a pledge to ‘the state of Israel’. The following day, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu offered to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas the prospect of a settlement freeze extension in return for recognition of Israel as ‘the homeland of the Jewish people’.

Both moves have elicited a cold reception in both political and media quarters. Within Israel itself, the amendment to the pledge of allegiance, has been widely condemned. Labour Minister Yitzhak Herzog and Kadima leader Tzipi Livni slammed the move. Right wing figures also voiced dissent; as well as all five Labour cabinet ministers, three Likud cabinet members voted against the bill.

Netanyahu’s offer of a freeze in return for recognition of the Jewish nature of the state of Israel also fell flat. Haaretz commentator Akiva Eldar accused the Israeli PM of being Israel’s ‘salesman in chief’ using the issue as a ‘gimmick’. The Palestinians have predictably rejected the offer, with Abbas’ spokesperson asserting that ‘[t]he issue of the Jewishness of the state has nothing to do with the matter [of negotiations].’

The world’s media have been similarly dismissive of these latest Israeli moves. The Guardian blasted the loyalty pledge amendment in its editorial, ‘Israel’s loyalty oath: Discriminatory by design’, which claimed the amendment was ‘specifically designed to exclude one fifth of its citizens who see themselves as Palestinian.’ BBC correspondent Wyre Davies dismissed the recognition gambit as ‘a tactical gesture by an Israeli prime minister who has been shifting uncomfortably in the spotlight for several weeks as peace talks with the Palestinians have stagnated’.

Common to almost all coverage of these developments was the emphasis given to how they would affect Israel’s Arab minority. The New York Times noted: ‘many critics say that it will add to the sense of alienation from the state felt by many Arab citizens, who make up 20 percent of Israel’s population.’ The Financial Times, the BBC and The Guardian likewise pondered the significance for the 20 percent strong minority, the latter citing the Israeli Arab claim that the amendment is ‘provocative and racist’.

Absent from this media characterisation of Israel’s more than one million Arabs is the fact that their representatives in Israel’s parliament have done as much as the rabble-rousing Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman (who tabled the loyalty pledge amendment) to drive a wedge between Israel’s Jewish and Arab populations. Israeli Arab Khaled Abu Toameh specifically singles out Arab MKs for the strained relations that exist between Jews and Arabs in Israel: ‘by openly siding with the Palestinian Authority, Hamas and Hizbullah against their state, the Arab representatives of Israel have put the Arab citizens in a very uneasy situation.’

It is crucial to note that the context for all this reportage is the currently-stalled bilateral talks between Israel and the Palestinians, which are supposed to culminate in the creation within a year of a Palestinian state to live alongside Israel. The same articles which demonstrate this disdain towards the idea of an Israel primarily for Jews have on their horizon the prospect of the creation of a state for the Palestinians. Article One of the Palestinian Basic Law — the closest thing the Palestinian Authority has to a constitution — states ‘Palestine is part of the larger Arab world, and the Palestinian people are part of the Arab nation. Arab unity is an objective that the Palestinian people shall work to achieve’ so there can be no doubt that Palestine will be an ethnically exclusive state.

The implication here is that the media narrative is shifting from one of ‘two states for two peoples’ to one of ‘Israel: a state of all its citizens and Palestine: a state for the Palestinian Arabs’. For the 80 percent of the Israeli population unmentioned in any of the mainstream British media this won’t do. The vast majority have signalled their acceptance of a Palestinian state but they have no intention of dismantling the Jewish element of their country, Israel.

Given the consistently high concentration of coverage devoted to Israel-Palestine, these issues are not going to go away. Most likely the situation will intensify. The intervention of EU foreign policy chief Catherin Ashton indicates that, as usual, the international community will want to treat all events Israeli, large or small, as a matter of global importance.

Journalists need to consider the history of the founding of the State of Israel. A brief glance at its declaration of independence makes it abundantly clear that Israel viewed itself as the homeland for the Jewish people from its inception. The international community recognised the country on that basis. Should Israel’s desire in 2010 to retain its Jewish character be portrayed as so controversial?

Carmel Gould

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