No President Biden, Israel Cannot be “Jewish and Democratic”
By Sami Abou Shehadeh
In recent weeks, as violence flared across the region sparked by Israel’s attempts to expel Palestinians from their homes in occupied East Jerusalem and provocations in Al Aqsa Mosque, Palestinian citizens of Israel were brutally assaulted by mobs of extremist Israeli Jews encouraged by hateful-anti Arab incitement from Israeli officials and even some media outlets. Peaceful protesters demanding an end to Israel’s attack on Gaza were confronted by Israeli Jews chanting “death to Arabs”, subjected to physical attacks, mass detentions, destruction of property and even extra-judicial executions. The Israeli police were complicit in these attacks as were elected Israeli politicians, including some close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who encouraged them.
Yet, this deeply alarming situation and the fate of 1.8 million Palestinian citizens of Israel, more than 20% of the country’s population, has been utterly ignored by the Biden administration. Officials in Washington should know better. Until recently, the State Department's human rights report made explicit references to the institutional discrimination Palestinian citizens suffer from, which has been widely documented by human rights groups for years. This, just like references to Israel’s occupation and illegal settlements were deleted by the Trump administration. But even if the Biden administration has changed the US’ official narrative, it is far from taking the necessary steps in order to ensure that the root causes of the problem in the region are addressed.
The Biden administration’s statement that both Israelis and Palestinians “deserve equal measures of freedom, security, dignity and prosperity” was a positive step. It’s compatible with our core demands for freedom and equality: The end of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land that began in 1967, including East Jerusalem, and Israel becoming the state of all its citizens, ensuring equal rights regardless of religious, national or ethnic origin. But then we got another declaration, this time from President Biden himself: “Until the region says unequivocally they acknowledge the right of Israel to exist as an independent Jewish state, there will be no peace”.
A simple review of US diplomatic history shows that until relatively recently the only demand was for the region to recognize Israel as a state. This was also a condition for establishing relations with the PLO, which Palestinians agreed to and did — twice. But recognition of Israel as a “Jewish State” means something else. It means that Palestinians, and the rest of the region have to recognize Israeli policies that ensure Jewish supremacy over Palestinian Christian and Muslim citizens, laws that enable the confiscation of our lands, prevent us from living in hundreds of segregated communities around the country, and deny our fundamental right to self-determination. Calling for recognition of Israel as a “Jewish State” also means endorsing one of the latest talking points of an Israeli government that is categorically opposed to Palestinian self-determination of any kind and is looking for any excuse to make negotiations more difficult. It’s important to note that this demand was not made by Israel when negotiating with Palestinians prior to the 2000s. Nor was it demanded of Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Bahrain or the UAE, as part of the agreements those countries signed with Israel.
For many western powers, Israel is a “democracy” they “share values” with. They acknowledge that Israel has “a problem” with regards to the occupation and illegal colonial-settlement enterprise that prevents the establishment of an independent State of Palestine in the occupied territories. But it stops there. Their reluctance to take any action to ensure that long-overdue Palestinian freedom prevails is directly linked to their position on Palestinian rights in general. Their message to Israel is that it has a veto right over Palestinian self-determination.
Regarding Palestinian citizens of Israel the situation is even more dramatic: The message is that our rights don’t exist. Whether President Biden understands the legal and political implications of his statement is something else, but in practice he is advocating for what the racist Jewish-nation state law says: “The right of national self-determination in the state of Israel is unique to the Jewish people”.
In 2014, Palestinian experts with Israeli citizenship published a major study on the implications of recognizing Israel as a “Jewish State,” concluding it perpetuated a system of discrimination that prevents the fulfillment of our rights. The conclusions were similar to what B’Tselem and Human Rights Watch referred this year to as policies of the crime of apartheid committed by Israel.
Some argue that Israel can be a “Jewish and democratic state”. But if you say the state is Jewish, then by definition Palestinian citizens are not equal. This is not democracy as it is understood and practiced in liberal western countries. For 73 years, we have been systematically discriminated against in every aspect of life, including land ownership and housing rights, education, employment, health care, and family reunification, and subjected to brutal, racist state violence as an unwanted minority in the “Jewish state.” President Biden’s call is an implicit endorsement of this reality.
In 2018 my party Tajamu/Balad introduced a proposed basic law to Israel’s Knesset called “A state for all its citizens”. It recognized the rights of all communities and specified that it “protects the equal rights of all citizens based on the principles of human dignity, liberty, equality and justice, subject to international law”. We were barred from even discussing the bill because these universal values were considered to be against the state. Can you imagine what kind of state we are talking about?
The consequences of recognizing Israel as a Jewish State will affect our people and US policy for generations to come, preventing any prospects for a just and lasting peace. Palestinian citizens of Israel cannot be ignored or excluded from a comprehensive solution. Our demonstrations over the past weeks should serve as a reminder that we are not going to accept anything less than the full rights and equality we are entitled to.
Sami Abou Shehadeh is a Palestinian historian living in Jaffa and member of the Israeli parliament for the Joint List and member of Tajamu/Balad.
