Living with division

Over the past years, the divisions in our society have grown deeper, and the alienation that many Israelis today feel towards other Israelis has never been more troubling. The tribes in our society, as former President Rivlin described them, have so few turning points that ideas about dividing Israel into separate cantons or sub-states are beginning to emerge. Israel and Judah are one such division that has been spoken of. The State of Tel Aviv and the State of Jerusalem is another way to look at it. I live in Jerusalem in a neighborhood that was once considered secular. Today it is under the control of the Haredim. Indeed, today Jerusalem is more religious than ever, and I often feel like the only Jewish man on a bus or train without a kippah on my head. Jerusalem is also divided by 40% of the Palestinians who live in their own neighborhoods, but during daylight hours they are all over the city in commerce, restaurants, in all kinds of jobs, in hospitals and on public transportation. Likewise in Israel, with large concentrations in the Galilee, the Lesser Triangle, Wadi Ara and the Negev, there are large concentrations of Palestinian citizens of Israel. The mixed cities and settlements in the occupied territories have large numbers of national religious Jews. We are separated by political worldviews, values, lifestyles, where we study, where we shop, what we eat and where we spend our free time.

The unity that politicians often advocate is a fallacy in Israel in 2023. It is true that the protest movement of the past 20 weeks has brought together groups of Israelis who in the past did not demonstrate together. There are common threads among those who took to the streets to save what they call Israel's democracy. But there are many other people in the community who are not part of the protests, even if they do agree with some of the goals. Of course, there are others in an entirely different camp. Palestinians in Israel have not joined the protest movement because as long as the call to protect Israeli democracy does not include a constitutional law for equality, to abolish the nation-state law and end the occupation, the idea of a Jewish democratic state is utter hypocrisy. I share this belief. The Haredim are in an entirely different camp. They don't care about Israeli democracy. They do not want to protect the independence of the judiciary. They want to live their lives and get from the state what the state can give them and then be free from what the state may demand of them. The national-religious camp in the so-called religious-Zionist camp and the Jewish Power Party prefer Jewish religious law to Israeli civil law and would prefer if all the Palestinians would simply disappear from here. There are of course exceptions to all generalizations in every tribe. But this is a picture of the trends of divisions within our society.

I don't want to live in the Haredi world any more than they want to live in mine. The only thing I have in common with the Haredi world is that my ancestors were once the same. I do not want to have anything to do with the Zionist religious camp and the Jewish power camp, and I view them as a mortal threat to my way of life and my values. I think they look at me the same way. The Zionist spirit of the State of Israel no longer exists as it was created by the founders of the Zionist movement. Zionism was the secular answer to the Jewish people as religious Zionism was a small sect. The June 1967 war left the messianic currents and the settler movement in Gush Emunim. The miraculous victory in six days against Israel's enemies as the much smaller and weaker State of Israel realized in the three weeks leading up to the war that a second Holocaust was upon it led to the belief that God was truly on Israel's side and that the call was the full settlement of the Land of Israel. It is the belief that title to the Land of Israel has been divinely bestowed upon the Jewish people that has transformed the political struggle between opposing national movements over the land into a war over identity and religion. Who owns this land and to whom did God give it?

Looking ahead is our challenge to enable a relatively peaceful life without violence, death and destruction between Israelis and other Israelis and between Israelis and Palestinians. Here are some ideas of possible ways forward. The federal and confederate models are probably where we might find some solutions. I am referring to what he called the entire territory of the Land of Israel/Palestine between the river and the sea. Any existing form cannot be copied and pasted. We will need to do the hard work and come up with something that fits our needs and circumstances. First, there are some basic principles that should guide us - equality for all people living on Earth should be the North Star that guides us forward. Equality is indivisible and should apply to all people of all faiths, nationalities, ethnicities, genders and other identities. The second principle should be entitlement to autonomy in matters of personal status, education, culture, and public space. Within these principles, there must also be certain guarantees for the rights of minorities who may continue to reside within the space governed by the majority identity group. There must also be some agreements among all identity groups about basic tenants of governance, the rule of law, some basic aspects of education, and acceptance of the rights of other identity groups to exist freely within the borders of the newly defined state. There should also be agreements across all sub-states on environmental and public health issues because disease and pollution know no borders.

Cantons or sub-states may be defined geographically, while others may be defined by group identity within a geographical area. The Greater Tel Aviv District is one geographically defined sub-state. Wadi Ara and parts of the Galilee with a large Arab population may also possibly be defined as a geographic sub-state. Beersheba and its Jewish cities could be a geographic sub-state while the Bedouin communities in the area could be defined as another. It is also possible to define a geographic region with a diverse population as a sub-country and apply independent functions to that population. In this way, the Galilee could be a single sub-state with granted autonomy in the fields of education and culture. In all cases based on principles of equality and protection of minority rights, a person may live anywhere in any sub-state without restrictions under the law. Similarly, in mixed sub-states, all societies should have equal rights to develop, plan and build and share equally available natural and other resources (including land and water).

Political representation can be based on constituencies according to the size of the population where the number of representatives in parliament is according to the number of people in the constituency. The entire country will be divided in such a way as to allow for equal representation of all population groups. I think it would be prudent to consider the creation of a second legislature that would have representatives from every subsidiary state regardless of its size. I would like to see that these two representatives will be one woman and one man from each sub-state.

I am not suggesting a model. At this point, I have no preference for the Federal or the Confederate model. I don't know how we should proceed from here. I think our current situation is broken. no longer works. I was part of the so-called Zionist left. The ideology I believed in was shattered by the contradictions instilled at home by the inability to end the occupation and create true equality for all Israeli citizens. The rapid growth of the Haredi population with such large families and such a small percentage serving in the army and not joining the productive labor force will spell a future economic disaster for the country. Ultra-nationalism, religious Zionists and their racist attitudes towards non-Jews created a new form of apartheid that became the State of Israel. This is unacceptable and immoral. We need new thinking and we need all segments of the population - from the river to the sea - to sit at the table. This is the collective challenge we face if we are to have any kind of common future.