What are we fighting for?

By: Gershon Baskin

In demonstrations to save Israeli democracy, I carry a sign that says, "No democracy with occupation." It's not a very common sign and at every demonstration some people feel compelled to tell me it's not in the right place. My answer to them is that these words are essential to the struggle for Israel's democracy and if they don't like it, they have to deal with it. For me, this is the crux of my objection. I know that the majority of the hundreds of thousands of Israelis who have taken to the streets are not there because of the occupation. Most Israelis still accept the anomaly in the concept of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. I also once believed that Israel could be a democratic nation-state for the Jewish people. I can't believe it anymore. Many years of systematic discrimination against Palestinian citizens of Israel. Many years of Israeli occupation and control over millions of Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Many years of talking about the Palestinians as a "demographic threat". Israel is not a democracy and cannot be based on Jewish supremacy, which means the preference for Jewish citizens of Israel. The unfortunate truth is that for 75 years we have maintained a facade of democracy. We can even convince the majority of Israelis that there is real democracy. We can even make the majority of the member states of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development believe that Israel is a democracy. But if we are really honest with ourselves, we all know that democracy and inequality cannot exist together. No honest Israeli citizen can claim that the Palestinian citizens of Israel live as equal citizens of the State of Israel. Israel has never seriously considered issuing a Basic Law of equality for all of its citizens. No honest Israeli can claim that military control over millions of Palestinians without the most basic civil, human and political rights can truly be called democratic. No one on the right wing of Israeli politics has any plan for the future of the Occupied Territories (even if they call it liberated Judea and Samaria) that includes equality and democracy for the Palestinians who live there. Most leftists still cling to the two-state solution, which may be unworkable for the territories, and do not consider any real democratic option, including equality.

Since the founding of the State of Israel in 1948, more than 900 towns (villages, towns, and cities) have been built for Israeli Jews, but none for Palestinian citizens of Israel except for a small number of towns planned by the government to house Palestinians displaced from their lands and communities of origin by Israel. There are also dozens of Palestinian villages and communities in Israel, some of which predate the establishment of the state, which are not recognized by the government, receive no government services, and are not even included in official maps. Only about 3% of the total land in Israel falls under the authority of Palestinian municipalities, even though Palestinian citizens of Israel make up 21% of the population.

The Israeli government directly controls 93% of the land in Israel and systematically discriminates against Palestinian citizens of Israel in its allocation through official agencies such as the Israel Land Authority and the quasi-governmental Jewish National Fund. Combined with the discriminatory admissions committee law, approximately 80% of state land is off-limits to Palestinian citizens of Israel, who face significant legal obstacles in accessing this land for residential, agricultural, or commercial development. Just drive near the Palestinian towns and cities in Israel and witness the massive traffic. For example, it is very clear that something is very wrong with driving from the beautiful and spacious Zikhron Ya'aqov, south of Haifa, to Fureidis which is more like a Brazilian favela than a place anyone would like to live.

Citizenship and Entry into Israel Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip (including those expelled from the towns and villages that became Israel in 1948) who are married to Palestinian citizens of Israel are denied residency or citizenship. The law forces thousands of Palestinian citizens of Israel to leave Israel or live apart from their spouses and families. This law has been renewed every few years since the second intifada in 2000, although there is no real security justification for its renewal. It's all about demographics - which means it's all about racism and discrimination.
The Law of Return allows Jews from anywhere in the world to immigrate to Israel and obtain automatic citizenship, regardless of their family origin, while denying the original Palestinians the right to return to the lands from which they were expelled during the establishment of Israel, which prevents the reunification of many Palestinian families. This also applies to Palestinians living abroad who want to reside in the West Bank or Gaza, not just in Israel.
There are also numerous attempts to systematically erase and deny Palestinian identity and history. This applies to many readers of my articles in Israeli newspapers who claim that I should use the patriarchal term "Israeli Arabs" and not the term I use "Palestinian citizens of Israel". Sorry, but the Arab citizens of Israel are 100% Palestinian, no different from their brothers and sisters in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza.

The so-called Nakba Law, passed in 2011, prohibits public funding of institutions and groups involved in activities commemorating the expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians during the creation of Israel as a Jewish-majority state in 1948.

As hundreds of thousands of Israelis take to the streets feeling like a rope is about to choke off their basic freedoms and destroy their democracy, we may finally have reached our "wake up moment". The ultimate goal of the current Israeli government's anti-democratic agenda is not to weaken the Supreme Court so that it can rule without any interference. Their goal is to allow them to annex the West Bank and implement policies that have the potential to lead to another Nakba - first against the Palestinians in the West Bank and then, or in parallel, with the Palestinian citizens of Israel. The current laws being passed will give the government the power to pass additional laws that will make it almost impossible for Palestinians to be elected to the Knesset, unless they accept the basic tenets of Zionism - that the Land of Israel belongs to the Jewish people and that Palestinians have no right to a collective national identity - not only in Israel itself But even in the West Bank and of course in East Jerusalem.

While many Israelis have finally awakened to the distortions of our democracy and the threats facing us all, they may now also be awakening to the need to confront the central core of our existence. As a modern liberal society there must be full equality for all those who live under the same system.