Saturday, May 8, 2010

State And Religion - by Yeshayahu Leibowitz



STATE AND RELIGION
Yeshayahu Leibowitz (translated by David Landau)
First appeared in Tradition Volume 12, No.3-4 (Winter/Spring 1972)


 A. General Principles
  (1) The state has no intrinsic value; only an instrumental value. This principle is common to both the religious (theocentric) approach and the humanist  (anthropocentric) approach. Attributing to the state an intrinsic value is the essence of the fascist approach.
  The state itself is the enemy of the individual, since it is—by its very nature—an apparatus of power and coercion. Being an apparatus of this kind, it can neither realize nor embody "values" (in every sense of the term "value"): things of value are only achieved by men and not by the "state" (i.e. the governmental apparatus), and to achieve them men struggle among themselves within the framework of the state. There is not—nor can there be—unanimity among men concerning "values": thus the state serves as an arena for internal struggles.
  The only reason, the only justification, for the existence of the state is the need it fulfills. This "need" exists on two levels: the existence of the individual ("Were it not for fear of the government men would swallow each other alive"); and the existence of "The Nation." All power and all authority of the state beyond the fulfillment of these vital needs is tyranny, since all authority (in any regime) is converted immediately from a means to an end, and is exploited by the rulers (in every conceivable régime) to strengthen their own rule. The essence of democracy is the limitation of governmental authority to the minimum required to fulfill the vital needs of the citizens. In other words—democracy means defending the individual from the power of his state.
   (2) A "nation" is not a given natural entity, but an entity created by consciousness. Therefore there are no criteria of "nation" which are applicable to every unit of people which existed in history or exist today as "nations." Not all "nations" are distinguishable by the same type of identification marks—biological origin, territory, language, religion, political framework, way of life, tradition, etc.; of the Swedish "nation," the German "nation," the American "nation," the (classical) Greek "nation," the Arab "nation," the Jewish "nation." Each "nation" is defined by certain elements of its existence and its consciousness. Sometimes these elements are specific to a particular nation and are not form part of the definition of other nations. Thus, the relationship of the state to the nation is not the same in every nation. There is no meaning to the terms "a normal nation" or "a normal state"; each "nation" has its own norm, and the same applies to the form of its state.
  (3) The two levels of needs which the state fulfills [see (1) above] are really one and the same: if there exists a national consciousness, then the existence of the nation becomes the personal need of the individual, who sees himself as part of that nation. Thus, the basis and justification for the existence of the state are anthropocentric—it exists for the sake of the individual, and it is led and guided by the individual's needs and their fulfillment. However, opinions vary as to what the supreme human interest is: from the viewpoint of the humanist approach, it is embodied in the "Rights of Man" (see The American Declaration of Independence); from the viewpoint of the Fascist approach (wittingly, or—as in some cases—unwittingly) it is embodied in the apparatus of authority which man establishes—the state.
(4) The historical Jewish Nation—as a unit which maintained the continuity of its existence and its own identity throughout the evolution of time—was not identified as a national entity by criteria of race, nor of territory, nor language, nor political structure. As long as the very existence of the Jewish Nation was not problematical—either to Jews or to Gentiles—the only definition of the continuous existence and identity of the Jewish Nation was its Judaism. This was embodied, empirically speaking, in the Torah and Mitzvot, the crystallized form of which is the Halakhah. By this definition, the Jewish Nation is a group of people who have the obligation to observe Torah and Mitzvot; the Halakhah rules who is bound by this obligation—whether by birth (and the obligation is not voided if a Jew refuses to abide by it), or by a free-will decision to join the Jewish Nation by acceptance of the yoke of Torah and Mitzvot.
  (5) The motif of the pattern of life laid down by the Halakhah for individual and community is not anthropocentric but theocentric. (See the first paragraph of the Shulchan Arukh, Orakh Chaim: "He should be strong as a lion to rise up in the morning for the service of God.") It does not recognize the rights of man, but only the duties of man towards God.
  Even the network of Mitzvot between man and his fellowman—and  these include Mitzvot between man and society, man and the nation, and man and the state—were not instituted from a humanist motivation. Human reality—both individual and collective—is viewed not per se, but from the viewpoint of the service of God. That which from an anthropocentric angle is seen as the ends of the state and the needs and interests of the individual related to it, is seen from the religious viewpoint as only the means to an end.
  This leads to a basically critical approach to the state, even though its existence is recognized as essential. The conflict between religion—in the sense of Judaism of Torah and Mitzvot—and state is of the essence of both religion and the state. Every state—and this includes the state of the Jewish Nation as it in fact existed in the past, as it exists at present, and as it will exist in the future, excluding the Messianic-Utopian state must by definition be secular. Never throughout history did the Jewish Nation have a "Torah state": at various periods it had states wherein those who observed the Torah fought battles for the Torah—from spiritual-educational struggles to bloody civil wars.
  Both during the Biblical period and during the Second Temple, the histories of the Jewish states were mainly the histories of struggles between religion and the state apparatus, even when that apparatus itself was created by religious inspiration. The vital religious importance of the historical Kingdoms of Israel was in that they served as arenas in which battles for Torah and Mitzvot were fought out –a fortiori this should apply to the State of Israel today, which was not created by any religious impetus, but by a secular nationalist movement in the Jewish Nation. Therefore, to present the State of Israel as a politico religious symbiosis is absurd.
  (6) The dualism "national religious" is not maintainable one unless one or both of the terms are falsified, i.e. either "national" must be distorted from its purely secular meaning, widespread at least since the French Revolution, and must be given a meaning directed at the traditional term "the Community of Israel”—in which case it becomes synonymous with "religious" and is superfluous; or else "religious must be distorted from its true meaning denoting the system of the Halakhah –and must be made to mean merely an accessory of national-political life –in which case it is valueless.
B. Religion and the State of Israel
  The problem of "state and religion"—which is in fact the problem of the future character of the Jewish Nation and Judaism—is not raised by the official existence of the State of Israel, but by the administrative and legal disputes between the various partners in the executive and judicial apparatus of the state. The two great states of values, the religious and the humanist, the open conflict between which moulds the character of the individual and his society, are not represented by two camps fighting for these values. The "religious" camp does not fight for the Torah, the "secular" camp does not fight for man: 'they both fight for the state; the nationalist passion which is common to both sides leads to the situation wherein the state—which is only the external trappings of some content of intrinsic value—takes the place of that content itself.
  A basis was found for running the state by a clerical-atheistic coalition, independent of the substance of the political reality: it was agreed that the state was to be secular, but that it was to be "known in public" (Yadu'a Batzibbur) as religious. This agreement is offensive both to religious and to humanitarian values. From the religious viewpoint, it leads to profanation of God, contempt for the Torah and the downfall of religion; from the humanist viewpoint, it leads to the corruption of public life; from the viewpoint of any sensitive person, it leads to the corruption of the people by lies and hypocrisy.
  The State of Israel was established in 1948 by the common actions, common efforts and common sacrifices of both religious and irreligious Jews as a state of secular character. It has remained of secular character, and it will continue perforce to be of secular character—until a spiritual and social metamorphosis of revolutionary dimensions overtakes the people who live in it. The secularism of this state is not the product of any conscious intent but of its essential reality: it was riot established on the strength of the Torah, nor from any impetus of the Torah, nor by the guidance of the Torah or by its commands, nor is it run according to the Torah.
  The principle that "the State of Israel as a state rules by secular law and not by Halakhah” is recognized by all—including the religious as operating with regard to the procedures, government and administration, in which official religious Jewry has taken an active part since the establishment of the State. Whether we define ourselves as "religious" or as "irreligious," all of us set up together this state as Jewishpatriots, and Jewish patriotism—like all patriotism—is a secular human trait with no religious or holy content. Holiness only exists in keeping the Torah and observing the Mitzvot—“and you shall be holy to your Lord."
  We have no right to connect the establishment of this State of Israel with religious concepts of Messianic redemption, which entail the idea of the religious salvation of the world, or at least of the Jewish People. One must not affix a religious halo to a politico-historical event, and one must not view the very existence of this state as a religious phenomenon.
  From the viewpoint of religious faith and conviction this state is the State of Israel (just as the kingdoms of Jeroboam, Ahab, Menashe and Herod were in their time the Israelite State); and the Jew—even the religious Jew—cannot and must not cut his tie with this state, even though it is at present a secular state, i.e. based on the rebellion of the people against the Torah. One must not cut this tie, just as one cannot and must not cut one's tie with one's parents if they are criminals or with one's son if he erred from the true path. However, while fully recognizing the legitimacy of the existence of this state, one must hold out, in place of its present character and the character of its society, the character of a religious state and society, i.e. a state and society where the Torah is sole authority. There must be none of this infiltrating religious showpieces by administrative means into the secular reality, while recognizing the authority of the secular government over them.
C. The Religious Need for Separation of Religion from the State
  The demand for the separation of religion from the existing secular state stems from the vital religious need to prevent religion from becoming a means for supplying politico-social requirements, to prevent religion from becoming a department of a secular government, a function of governmental administrative bureaucracy which "supports" religion and religious institutions not out of any religious motivation, but as a concession to particular pressure-groups out of transient and shifting interests of political power. Religion under the patronage of an irreligious government is the very antithesis of religion: it prevents the possibility of religious education and influence on the public and on the country's mores.
  From the religious viewpoint there could be no worse than an atheist-clerical regime. What have we here? A state secular in its essence and irreligious in most of its outward manifestations, which recognizes religious institutions as governmental institutions, supports them with its funds, and imposes on its citizens by administrative means not religion, but particular religious services, arbitrarily selected according to party-political agreements—and all this while stressing its non-recognition of Torah and Mitzvot ("a state ruled by law, not by Halakhah"); a rabbinate "under the auspices," which receives its appointment, its authority and its salary from a government of irreligious people, and limits itself accordingly to the range of activities which this government lays down for it within the framework of  the administrative service of the state.
  "A religion whose standing in the state is similar to that of the police, the sanitation authorities, the post office or the customs… there could be no worse abasement of religion; nothing weakens the strength and influence and persuasiveness of religion and prevents the winning of hearts more than religious institutions which are kept by a secular state, more than investing secular with an official religious aura, than religious laws included like aberrations in a code of secular legislation; than a secular government which imposes an arbitrary selection of religious practices on the public without obliging itself or the public to recognize the authority of religion; than religion not for holy motives but for political convenience.
  All this is a falsification of reality, a perversion of social truth and religious truth and a source of intellectual and emotional corruption. The secular state and secular society must be brought to declare themselves openly, without a fraudulent religious front—and then it will be clear whether they have anything to offer as a Jewish state and a Jewish society. And the Jewish religion must be brought to declare itself without the administrative cover of a secular government—and only there will its true power be revealed and it will be able to become are educative and influential force."
  These words were written more than ten years ago (in a discussion about separation of religion from the state, which was fought out on the pages of the periodical B'terem during 1959-60), and they have proved their truth since then to a terrifying degree. The Jewish religion does not exist within the State of Israel and among its people as a spiritual factor and an independent public force, but as one section of the administrative apparatus of the secular government. While sympathy for the demand for separation of religion from state as a religious demand grows deeper and more widespread among observant Jews, the religious establishment (the rabbinate and the religious parties) continue to hang on to the coat-tails of the secular regime, and in exchange for the right to be recognized as a partner in this regime they continue to cover up the abasements and denigrations which the Jewish religion receives daily at the hands of the government, the administration and the judicature of the regime which controls the religion of Israel in the State of Israel, and which exploits it for its own ends and benefits—"supports" it as a kept woman is supported.
  In this atmosphere of lies and hypocrisy all concepts are forged and falsified. In the political and social reality in Israel today, religion does not present itself as a force for a change in values and for the shaping of private and public life according to its own all-embracing scale of values. On the contrary, it is careful to appear as an inseparable part of the secular regime, and to act in the name of that regime and under the authority which that regime gives it. It makes its demands only with regard to particular details within the general framework of the secular law and the secular life of the State and of society; these demands are divorced from the overall programme of life which the Torah lays down, and they seem strange, illogical and unjust against the background of the totality of secular life. To the majority of the people, these demands are uncomprehended and incomprehensible, since they are put forward within the framework of the laws and regulations of a secular regime, and therefore they produce only mockery and anger. The form which religion has taken on in the reality of the Israeli State and society gives it the appearance of petty interferences, hindrances and pinpricks against the "normal"—i.e. secular—fabric of life, and not that of an alternative way of life. Therefore it is both hated and despised.
  The truth is that religion lacks all power in the State of Israel land in its society and lacks all real influence in shaping their character. Yet there are large segments of the public who feel that they are subject to "religious coercion." The "religious laws" in the State are enacted by a secular authority in the form which suits it best (out of governmental interests).  They lack all religious meaning, and in most cases their content—which from a formal viewpoint is religious—in fact goes against the clearly stated rules of the Halakhah. The truth is that they constitute secular governmental coercion of religion, and at the same time they provide ammunition for anti-religious elements to arouse irritation and ire against religion—and no doubt this is the intention of those secular groups in the government (particularly Mapai) who oppose the separation of religion from the State.
D. The "Religious" Laws are in fact Secular Laws
  The very best example of this situation is the Shabbat—the central institution of the Jewish religion and of Jewish religious life. In the present situation, when religion is supposed to be a part of the State, the Shabbat is deliberately profaned by the State. The Shabbat Law is in fact the Shabbat Profanation Law. This Law recognizes the right of every individual to profane the Shabbat, for instance, by riding; and the police and judicial apparatus of the State have often been used in defense of this right against those who sought to deny it—and this is the apparatus of the regime with which representatives of official religious Jewry cooperate in practice, and for whose actions they share responsibility. The prohibition which the secular regime imposes in certain places (only in those places, and not in others) on public transport on Shabbat is no more than a bribe to Orthodox Jews to look the other way. This prohibition also lacks all religious meaning: the Halakhot of Shabbat contain no such ridiculous commandment which permits Jews to travel on Shabbat, but forbids buses to operate on Shabbat. The hypocrisy of this arrangement, which is insisted upon by the religious establishment, denigrates the honour of religion and makes the religious stand laughable.
  The same applies to the train service. Here an explicit agreement exists between the "religious" and the "secular," whereby to keep up the pretense of Shabbat observance, the trains not run passenger services openly, but all the maintenance repair work which a railway system requires are done particularly on Shabbat. Recently, a railway bridge was deliberately constructed on Shabbat "so as not to disrupt weekday traffic." The National Religious Party cabinet ministers fulfilled their religious obligations (after the event) by a protest, but, of course, they continue to hold office in the government responsible for this act, i.e. to share the responsibility—from both a legal and moral standpoint—for  wicked profanation of the Shabbat.
  It must be stressed that no law of the secular authority—whatever its content—can have any religious meaning, since it does not emanate from the force of the Torah. A law enacted by the Knesset—which is not a religiously motivated assembly—(Kenessiah Le'shem Shamayim)— and which is enforced by the government which does not recognize the authority of the Halakhah, is by definition a secular law. The same applies to every administrative institution appointed by the secular regime: "The agent of a man is like the man himself." The rabbinate, appointed by the secular regime according to a secular law, which receives its salary from this regime and which facts within the framework of the authority which this regime allows it, is not a Torah institution but one of the branches of the secular administration, and its decisions and legal verdicts have no religious meaning. Let us just imagine what the religious significance and historic value to Judaism of Elijah the Prophet would have been, had he been the Minister of Religious Affairs or the Chief Rabbi of Jezebel's government! (There is no intention here of comparing Golda to Jezebel, Dr. Warhaft or Rabbis Unterman and Nissim to Elijah the Prophet.)
  But with regard to the Shabbat, which is (and this must be stressed repeatedly) central and basic to the character of the Jewish state and Jewish society from the standpoint of religions life, religious Judaism,— through its dovetailing into the secular governmental apparatus and through taking its authority from it—has suffered a terrible defeat, not only on the moral and philosophical plane, but also on the social plane and on the practical plane of the lives of observant Jews and the conditions in which they live. Under the cover which establishment Orthodoxy gives to the government, the administration and the judicial process of the secular regime by actively cooperating with it—and thus also sharing its responsibility—this regime is creating in the state a social and economic fabric  of  society which limits the horizons of religious Jews, curtails their chance of entering certain professions or services, shuts sources of income in their faces, and pushes them into a corner of the socio-economic set-up. Hundreds of factories in all sectors of production operate on Shabbat with government permit, and are thus barred to Jews who observe Shabbat, and who are faced with an attempt to dissuade them from their beliefs and their religion; this is also the case in the mines, in the transport services—the trains, the ports, the shipping lines, airfields, airlines—and  broadcasting services. Apart from the rare cases of "necessity of life" (for which provision can be found within the framework of the Halakhah), the permits for work on Shabbat are issued "on economic grounds"—i.e. for reason of financial profit. Just as in the Middle Ages the Gentile governments could set aside certain "Jewish trades" by barring Jews from all other sources of income, so too in the State of Israel certain "trades for Shabbat observers" are being set aside—commerce, the free professions, clerical work in certain sectors  (not all). In other words: a social-vocational ghetto for religious Jews is in the process of being created. The case has already occurred of an immigrant from Russia, an electronic engineer by profession, .who had succeeded by great personal sacrifice in working at his profession for many years in that country and under that regime without transgressing the Shabbat—who was sentenced to unemployment in Israel because of his refusal to work on Shabbat.
  Faced with these facts, we cannot but ask: which standard is more reprehensible—the brazen impudence of the irreligious who complain about "religious coercion" in the State of Israel, the low and shameful standard of the "religious" leaders who continue to be partners in this government.
E. Releasing Religion from its Subservience to the Political Regime
  At the present time, the idea of "the rule of the Torah" in the State is unreal and has no meaning. This is not the problem of the State of Israel but the problem of the spiritual-cultural structure of the Jewish People; at any rate, it is a problem for generations. At present, the task incumbent on religious Jewry is not to restore to the Torah its position of authority over the Jewish People, a position which has been smashed in recent generations, but—as a first stage in the renaissance of Torah Judaism—to restore to the Torah its dignity which it has lost thanks to the shameful stand of religious Jewry in the State of Israel. The first condition for this is the separation of religion from the state, in other words: the removal of religion from the integration in the secular administrative apparatus and from its subservience to the secular regime, and its conversion into an active independent force. The immediate fruits of separation would be a great improvement in the internal organization of religious Jewry and in the orientation of its relations with the secular governmental establishment of the State.
  Here are some examples:
  The religious institutions would be the property of the religious community and would operate according to religious considerations and out of the interests of religion, and not to fit a framework laid down for them by the secular authority. There would be no appointments to religious posts by government agencies which do not consider themselves bound by the Torah. Religious concerns and institutions of religion will not be run by departments of state or their agencies. A rabbinate would arise which would serve religious Jewry; and not a rabbinate "under the auspices"—one of the most despicable institutions in the history of the Jewish People. A rabbinate would arise which would be the representative and the leader of the religious community, and not a governmental department of what is in fact a secular state: a rabbinate which would be permitted to express itself and make its voice heard on every subject and every public issue on which it has something to say from the standpoint of the Torah and the Halakhah, and not only on those issues which the secular authority assigns to it. The voice of the Torah and the authoritative opinion of the Halakhah would make themselves heard at every place and on every issue—whether or not those who hear the voice are prepared to obey it. The current dreadful situation would cease whereby the rabbinate—as a State-bureaucratic institution—is obliged to refrain from voicing its opinion on the question of secular and religious education, which is the foremost religious problem, and to be silent when cases come to light of the enticement of Jewish children away from their religion by inducements or coercion. There would no longer be frictions and arguments between the religious functionaries of an atheistic government—between the "Minister for Religious Affairs" and the "Chief Rabbi"—who dispute among themselves not over Torah passages or Halakhic decisions, but over the division of the pathetically little powers bestowed on them by the secular regime.
  Who is to maintain the religious institutions which the religious community needs? The answer is clear: first and foremost the religious community itself, with its own resources, as it did in all ages and in all places for as long as organized religious Jewish communities have existed on earth. Of course, this requires sacrifices, but the Orthodox Jewish community has always—and in all places—borne these sacrifices as self-understood and as an integral part of its religious existence. Even the poorest community in some outlying village in Yemen or Morocco, or in the caves of Libya, maintained from its own resources—without the help of the United Jewish Appeal or contributions from the Imam or the Sultan—its rabbis, its shochtim, its synagogues, its graveyards, etc., and never complained. Only in the State of Israel, which has turned religion into a departmental service of the secular government, has the Orthodox community become corrupted and become used to receiving funds for maintaining its religious institutions from the secular authority, and in this way making its very existence dependent on this authority. There can be no doubt that, after an initial period of confusion which would follow the separation of religion from the state, the former glory would be restored, and the religious community would once again support its own institutions as religious institutions which religious people maintain out of their own free will. The honour of the Torah and the honour of those who maintain it would be restored and would rise again, after having sunk to the lowest depths through their dependence on the bounty of the secular state.
  On this issue one may allow oneself to draw comparisons from the unsacred to the sacred, from the Gentiles to Israel—from the scorn and contempt which was the lot of the Catholic Church and clergy in France in the nineteenth century, after the Napoleonic Concordate which made them into services or servants of the state, and the rise in their honour and influence in the twentieth century, after the separation of church and state, when all the Church institutions and their staff were sentenced to subsist on the support and donations of believers alone.
  There is room for research as to whether the Jewish religious institutions in the secular State of Israel must, or may—from a halakhic standpoint—receive financial support from the state's coffers. The present writer feels that Orthodox Jewry—for the sake of the honour of the Torah—would have to refuse to accept such support. If the religious community, after due consideration, decided otherwise, then this same support would be given them even after the separation of religion from the state, by their rights as a group of taxpayers and loyal citizens who share in the state's burdens.
  The religious councils would be elected by all the religious Jews who are interested in them and in their activities. They would not be agents of the "Ministry for Religious Affairs," which is itself a secular authority. The abolition of the Ministry for Religious Affairs would free Judaism and religious Jews from the religious nightmare—which official religious Jewry today passes over in silence—of the institutions of other religions (some of which are defined as idolatry according to strict Halakhah) being maintained by Jewish money. If there were no longer a Ministry for Religious Affairs, and Jewish religious institutions were no longer maintained by government funds, then out democratic state would be exempt from the obligation to maintain other religious institutions: all the religions would maintain their own institutions.
F. Would Civil Marriage Split the People?
  Concerning the problem of personal status, which is currently posed as the central problem in the relations between state and religion, the following was written twelve years ago:
  The contention that the State's recognition of civil marriages would split the Jewish People into two nations who would be unable to intermarry is based on a false premise. It is false to suggest that such recognition would mean the end of the institution of kiddushin. Anyone so suggesting is ignoring—deliberately or through ignorance—the fact that hundreds of thousands of religious Jews in the West live their married lives in the holiness and purity of Torah Law under the authority of state laws which recognize civil marriage and divorce and even insist on them. An observant Jew will continue to marry with chuppah and kiddushin (according to Jewish Law), and if he must divorce, he will do this, too, according to the Law of Moses and Israel. Those who rebel against religion will make do with registering their "marriage" or "divorce" in a government office to be set up by law. Here the two vital terms are set in inverted commas, since from a religious standpoint it would appear there is no marriage at all, but simply fornication with an unmarried woman, and thus it follows that the problem of divorce does not arise. Where there has been no (religious) marriage, there can be no mamzerut—a child born out of wedlock is not forbidden to marry a Jew. We have yet to see the institutes of Torah learning making a serious attempt to decide the halakhic implications of "civil marriages"—whether in fact they have any halakhic significance at all. It is difficult to think that a woman who has sexual relations with a man in reliance on a registration in a government office would be considered by the Halakhah a married woman, since the couple expressly signified their intention not to contract a marriage according to the Jewish Law.
  This situation, which would reduce the danger of mamzerut to a minimum, would be an enormous improvement on the existing state law of Marriage and Divorce, which is no more than a law for the multiplication of mamzerim in Israel. For the prohibition of adultery, which applies to physiological facts affecting only the parties involved, cannot be justified on moral or social ground and is only a strict religious injunction: therefore, in wide sections of the public where the force of religious law has waned—and this includes many quite respectable people—adultery is not considered wrong. The upshot is that those who impose kiddushin on a public which does not subscribe to its sole validity, flagrantly transgress the commandment of “Before a blind man, you shall not put a stumbling block," and through coercing the observance of the injunction against cohabiting with an unmarried woman—the transgression of which does not produce mamzerim—they cause many people to transgress a commandment the punishment for which is korut or death.
  However, there can be no hope of the rabbinical institutions giving this issue objective thought, since they themselves are interested parties –just as one cannot hope for the rulers of the Histadrut and its parties to give objective thought to the problem of removing the country's health services from the control of the Histadrut.
  Moreover, the fear that a split in the nation would follow the abolition of the law of marriage and divorce is risible and perhaps insincere—in the face of the reality which already exists today: can a man and a woman live as a couple, if one of them considers himself/herself bound by the Torah laws of marital purity, while the other does not recognize them or does not live by them? Are not these injunctions, the punishment for which is korut immeasurably more severe than the injunction against cohabiting with an unmarried woman, or than the very slight fear of mamzerut?
  Closely connected with the above subject is that of Who is a Jew?—a problem which could only have been carried on the basis of the inclusion of religion within the sphere of authority of the secular state. We have witnessed how shifting, changing governmental coalition interests lead at one time to an attempt to destroy the historical-moral significance of belonging to the Jewish Nation, and at other times to the cessation of such attempts; i.e. how religion becomes a card in the game of political interests. Were it not for the subservience of religion to the secular governmental authority, the problem would not exist: if Israel's de facto secularism were formally recognized de jure, the problem would never arise, for a secular state does not determine the "Jewishness" or "non-Jewishness" of its citizens. It only recognizes "citizens' and "non-citizens," and the concept "Jewish" would remain with its historical-traditional connotation."
  Today, twelve years later, the time has come for a fundamental examination of the slogan "national unity," without making it a sacred cow, and for a reasoned consideration of the danger of "splitting the Nation" which the religious cry out, and which those of the irreligious who oppose the separation of religion from the state, for fear of such a split, repeat after them. In the histories of all nations, of all societies and of all cultures, no object of value (in every sense of the word value) has ever been achieved through "national unity": every object of value has only been achieved through splits and internal struggles, which reached the proportions of bloody civil wars. "National unity" only exists against the background of a common desire to seek plunder and pillage; real values—as opposed to the Fascist value of the state per se—split nations. The greatest figure in English history was Oliver Cromwell, in American history—Abraham Lincoln; both of them leaders of civil wars. The history of the Jewish Nation is replete with internal struggles and splits, particularly against a religious backdrop; because of religion whole segments of the Nation left the Nation, or were removed from it. Today too, it would seem, we stand before a decision: a content of value or a governmental framework—which is preferable?
  Behind the smoke-screen of the pseudo-Judaism of the State of Israel there is an ongoing process of the eradication of the historical character of the Jewish Nation, i.e. a process of turning it into another nation: a son of this nation will no longer be identified by his Judaism, but by his identity card, signed by a clerk of the Ministry of the Interior of the State of Israel. Since there is no copyright on the use of the name "Jewish," it is quite possible that this nation, too, will be called "Jewish" (although it will probably prefer to be called "Israeli" or "Hebrew"). But it is clear that it will not be the continuation of the historical Jewish Nation, just as the Greek nation of our day is not the historical continuation of the ancient Greek nation.  Since a part (the minority) of the Jews will maintain the historical continuity, it is possible that we shall arrive perforce at a split into two nations, separated from each other not only by non-intermarriage, and going each its own way in history, with a feeling of deep mutual animosity.
  Among the portents of the approaching split:--the wave of hatred for Judaism and for the observant community, which is growing ever stronger in the secular community—hatred which is more emotional than rational, i.e. extremely deepseated. It is widespread among the youth who received a nationalist-secular education on the one hand, and among the intelligentsia and university-trained people on the other. The obstinate insistence of religious Judaism on continuing to exist annoys the irreligious inasmuch as it interferes with the formation of the non-Jewish "Israeli" nation; to this there is sometimes added—unconsciously –the psychological factor of a bad conscience. The annoyance which turns to hatred finds expression in public utterances, in public arguments, in the Knesset and in the press, and even in the formulation and reasoning of the decisions of courts in Israel.
  One of the absurd arguments in this debate is the contention made in the name of progress, of morality, of humanism and of the rights of man, which are crushed beneath the archaic, barbaric and enslaving Halakhah. The falsity—conscious or unconscious—in this contention stands out particularly when the contention is mouthed by those who raise the banner of the "nation" and the "state" as superhuman values. All morality or humanism involves viewing the individual human being as the supreme value, and recognizing his right to be master of himself, his life and his actions—to the extent that he does not infringe the same rights of his fellow-man. He who argues for the right of a superhuman entity, the "nation" or the "state," to force the individual to join the army and to be killed for this entity—how can he dare to speak in the name of morality or humanism? How great is the deception—deception of others or self-deception—in moral indignation at the Halakhah which limits the individual's freedom in sexual matters, when this indignation is accompanied by the recognition of the right of the "nation" or the "state" to widow a man's wife and orphan his children! In the socio-political reality of today, a man cannot be a moralist or a humanist unless he is an anarchist, a pacifist and a cosmopolite. A nationalist and a patriot is neither moral nor a humanist, inasmuch as he subjugates man the real, living, individual man  to an abstract authority. In this he is like one who subjugates man to religion, except that the religious limits and constricts the freedom and rights of the individual by the recognition of his duty towards the Torah, while the nationalist patriot—by the Fascist values of sovereignty and power.
  With regard to the opposition towards the Torah's marital prohibitions (an aguna [woman whose husband's whereabouts are unknown], a divorcee to a cohen, a woman requiring Yibum or Halitza [from her dead husband's brother], Mamzerim) it should be pointed out that this opposition is usually accompanied by recognition of other marital prohibitions those which are accepted, for some reason, among the Gentiles, such as marriage between brother and sister, marriage of a married woman, polygamy, and such like, even though these, too, represent a limitation on the freedom of the individual in the most intimate part of his life, without any rational or moral reasoning. It appears, therefore, that what is accepted among the non-Jews is good for the State of Israel too, and only that which is based solely on Judaism is wrong.
  It must be highly doubtful whether it is possible to maintain forever the unity of the nation which is split and divided from all these aspects.
  But the march of history along a particular path is not dictated by necessity, and certainly not dictated by logic; it is directed by the decisions and determinations of human beings in each generation. Therefore, we cannot know if this split is in fact decreed to be our lot in the future. At the moment, it is our duty to deal with ephemeral affairs—with the problems of our own generation, and to try to open the door to other possible courses of development more desirable to us.
  The separation of religion from the state would mean both clearing the air and preparing the ground for these possibilities to take root.
The separation of religion from the state would not entail pushing religion into a corner of the state and of society, or the truncation of Orthodox Judaism from political reality. On the contrary: the separation of religion from the state means the beginning of the great confrontation between Judaism and secularism within the Jewish Nation and within its state and the beginning of the struggle between them for the conquest of the nation. Religion, which serves today as one of the administrative functions of the secular state, has no say except in those sectors of public life which the secular authority permits it to deal with. A religion which was independent would be the fundamental opposition to the secular regime in the state, an opposition which demands a clear and explicit alternative—in all fields of life in the state and in its society.

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

In Different Spheres, By Dr. Meir Margalit

In different spheres.
Meir Margalit

Occasionally an insignificant detail conceals layers of illuminating information. It can also shed light on the inner world, symbols and beliefs that motivate the dramatis personae. It’s said that God is in the details, and the matter at hand has a large helping of divinity, although God might be dissatisfied with the use made of his Torah. The picture below is of an unimportant notice placed at the entrance to a building seized by settlers in the Moslem Quarter of the Old City.

It deals with the allocation of dates for cleaning the shared parts of the building, between the three families living there. What’s surprising is the way the dates allocated to each family is written. Instead of the usual way people write a notice, according to the Gregorian calendar, or the Jewish calendar - often the case in religious Jewish families - here, the dates are written according to the parasha – portion – for which each day is named in the bible. An explanation for those unfamiliar with Jewish traditions - it is an obligation to read every day a section from the bible, and each portion has a name, generally formed from the first words. The author of the notice who used the names of the Weekly Portion attests that by using a different calendar from the kind everyone else uses, he may also come from a planet other than that of normative people. Using the Weekly Portion proves the dominant weight of religion in his personality. He leads his life by different rules, distinct not only from those of his Muslim neighbours, but from much of the Jewish Israeli public as well. He also differs from most of religious Israeli Jews who use the Hebrew calendar, but would not consider using the Weekly Portion to set their daily agenda. Using the Weekly Portion to define whose turn it is to clean the steps and empty the garbage is delusional in religious terms. Taking into account that these are not extremist ultra-orthodox people, but people connected to modernity, we can understand that the use is largely ideological, and makes a statement that is not just religious but more political. These people live in different spheres, cut off from the world around them. And there are few prospects that this settler will conduct a dialogue with his Arab neighbours.

Sunday, April 18, 2010

The affair of Beit Yehonatan, by Dr. Meir Margalit

The affair of Beit Yehonatan, the seven-floor building that settlers constructed without a permit in the heart of Silwan, and that the Supreme Court ordered closed and sealed, is still in the headlines and will probably remain there for some time. The question on the agenda entails much more than the fate of one building. It involves far more principled issues - the relationship between law and government, the status of the courts, how much the legal establishment can be involved in the decisions of public figures and, more generally, the boundaries of judicial activism. This week the matter hit the headlines again when Interior Minister Eli Yishai in a rapid, dubious move, announced his intention to prepare the building for occupancy. It followed Jerusalem's mayor caving-in to pressure from Chief Prosecutor Moshe Lador and announcing that he would implement what the court has ordered him to do.

As a member of the Jerusalem City Council, for the Meretz faction, it’s tempting for me to support the demand to implement the ruling immediately. This time, though I'm not backing up the Attorney General. My position stems from the continuing erosion of my trust in the rule of law and the judicial system. In a state where dropping phosphorus bombs on civilians is a "lawful" act, I'm unwilling to sanctify the law. Here, though, because of the “package deal” the mayor has given us – Beit Yehonatan in exchange for 71 Palestinian homes to be built without permits on the same hill. When I ponder the option of saving 71 families from having their homes demolished in return for a building for settlers, I would make a humanistic choice, instead of a political one.

But beyond a benefit-based calculation, the Beit Yehonatan affair provides a good opportunity to analyze how the legal establishment relates to East Jerusalem in general, and toward the question of home demolitions particularly.

Two different – even contradictory – approaches can help the attorney general in examining illegal construction. One is purely professional. It adheres closely to the language of the law, in every jot and tittle, is faithful to professional regulations and the principles of dry administration, maintains that the law is cardinal, and all building violations are exactly that, whether committed in west or east Jerusalem, whether a building was constructed out of greed, or for providing a modest roof for a poor family. There is another approach, deriving from the understanding that the situation in East Jerusalem is far more complicated, and does not permit compliance with legal regulations in the very smallest details. It bears in mind that one cannot solve one problem by creating another, especially when it concerns irreversible damage and disproportionate suffering and, of course, when the violation results from a continuing national planning oversight.

The prevailing approach in the state attorney's office belongs to the first category. It adheres to the language and letter of the law, and is inflexible and uncompromising. It insists that there is no difference regarding the reason, and how much suffering is inflicted on a family. That approach holds that making concessions to illegal construction is like giving the offender a prize, and encourages future offences. In fact, the second approach completely disregards not only natural justice but also the spirit of Judaism inherent in the words of the Sages – “a compromise is more desirable than a verdict.” Moreover it has the potential for encouraging waves of hatred liable to break at any moment, and incite bloodshed. A child who sees his house demolished will always have an open wound in his heart, a powerful desire to avenge his family's humiliation. If giving in to illegal construction is a prize to offenders, demolishing an illegal home is a prize to extremists on both sides, seeking a good reason to escalate the dispute.

The legal system, which sees the law’s enforcement as the jewel in the crown of its role, works as though everything outside is functioning smoothly, and they are not surrounded by politics. In fact they are the pillar of right-wing policies that trample and strives to make the lives of Arabs in Jerusalem a misery, until they leave. The judicial system does not engage in politics, heaven forbid. It simply plays into politicians’ hands, and everything in a clean, elegant manner, under the aegis of the law. These jurists would be outstanding lawyers in a properly functioning government, unmarked by politics, without discrimination and racism. The problem is that Jerusalem is nothing like that. Anyone in Jerusalem who behaves if he was living in a properly functioning city is detached from reality, building castles in the air, and therefore causing harm. Jurists of this kind trample underfoot innocent people’s right to a home, when the state mechanism they represent prevents them from building legally. In fact they are doing exactly what the right-wing expects them to do, and what is needed for the occupation to thrive. Incessant efforts "to enforce the law in East Jerusalem" are in fact a whitewashed method of enforcing Israeli control over eastern Jerusalem.

Forty-two years of "unification" have not erased the divide between East and West and have not obscured the fact that two societies live alongside each other in Jerusalem: one that controls, and one that’s controlled. Jerusalem's Arabs live under occupation. For them, the state laws are the occupier’s laws. International law backs them up, and stipulates that Israeli rule in East Jerusalem is patently illegal. The relations between Arabs and Jews in Jerusalem are those of occupier – occupied, and every act of the government is aimed at intensifying control. There is not a moment in the life of an East Jerusalem Arab when this establishment fails to remind him of his position in the social order. His inferiority is obvious in all areas of life, and his consciousness is imbued with the experience of the occupation.

The conduct of the judicial system as mirrored in the positions of Mazuz – Lador – Havilio, is only one example of the technocrats who now dominate the civil service and particularly Jerusalem City Hall. The municipality’s disregard of the broader political circumstances makes them into collaborators with political trends, perpetuates the method, and boosts the occupation. This method is kept working by hundreds of managers and clerks who are just doing their professional work, unaware that they have become technocrats of the occupation, subcontractors of extremist right-wing settlers.

Dr. Meir Margalit, Member of the Jerusalem City Council for Meretz
meir@icahd.org

THE POLITICS OF URBAN PLANNING Jerusalem: whose very own and golden city?

THE POLITICS OF URBAN PLANNING
Jerusalem: whose very own and golden city?




Resource Wars
Iran Talking Points
Somalia
New Orleans & Palestine
Scapegoating Muslims



by Philippe Rekacewicz and Dominique Vidal
Le Monde diplomatique
February 19, 2007
On 8 February violence broke out at the Al-Aksa mosque, revealing underlying tensions. Jerusalem is the holy city ofthree religions, but Israeli government policy has always beento preserve its control over the city to prevent its division, so that East Jerusalem can never be the capital of a Palestinianstate.


THE main road from Tel Aviv runs fairly straight until past Ben Gurion airport. Then it starts to wind up towards Jerusalem, through hills captured by the Jewish forces in 1948 at the cost of much bloodshed. It enters the thrice-holy city from the west, at a height of over 700m above sea level. Israelis, like foreigners, have a wide choice of access routes. They can reach the city centre by many other roads to the north and south.

For Palestinians from the West Bank, access to the city is another matter. If they get through the internal checkpoints, they encounter the most brutal obstacle ever invented to control and restrict movement in the occupied territories: a 10m high wall that will soon completely surround the eastern part of the city, blotting out the landscape and blocking the traditional access roads. It cuts straight across historic highways from Jerusalem to Amman (Route 417) and from Jenin to Hebron (Route 60). For West Bank Palestinians, the monstrous concrete serpent is broken only at four points: Qalandiya in the north, Shuafat in the northeast, Ras Abu Sbeitan in the west and Gilo in the south. To reach these they have to make many detours, leave their cars and cross on foot. Palestinian vehicles, with green licence plates, are strictly forbidden in Jerusalem.

Colonel Danny Tirza, a settler from Kfar Adumim, was the Israeli defence ministry's man in charge of planning and erecting what is officially known as the security fence. The Palestinians call him the "second nakba" (1). Tirza promised his grandiose plan would include 11 Jerusalem checkpoints, rather like airport terminals. That was not our impression from a brief passage through Gilo checkpoint. Everywhere there were signs: "enter one at a time", "wait your turn", "leave this place clean", "take off your coat", "obey instructions". The corridors were enclosed by wire mesh on the sides and top, like tunnels through which animals enter a circus ring. No ringmaster, though.

The gate was fitted with a small light showing when to pass. A metallic voice instructed us to put luggage through a screening machine. A vague form could just be made out behind the tinted, reinforced glass panels. Finally, a human being: a slovenly soldier, with his feet on the table and an Uzi machine pistol across his lap, who checked identity cards, whispering or barking depending on their owners' faces. At the exit were signs in three languages reading "Welcome to Jerusalem" (still 4km away) and "Peace be with you".

A separate body

The 1947 United Nations partition plan declared Jerusalem a corpus separatum, a separate body, to be run under an international UN administration. That is still its only internationally recognised status. But after the 1948 war the city was divided between Jordan and Israel, which established its capital in West Jerusalem. In 1967 Israel conquered the eastern part of the city and subsequently annexed it. In 1980 a Basic Law proclaimed Jerusalem "complete and united", the capital of Israel. Since then, the policy pursued by all Israeli governments has been to preserve Jewish hegemony over the city and prevent its division, thereby preventing the birth of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.

Khalil Toufakji is head of the map and survey department of the Arab Studies Society and advised the Palestinian delegation during the Camp David negotiations. "Demography is the key," he said. "The Israelis' absolute priority has always been to impose a large Jewish majority. But Palestinians have grown from 20% of the population in 1967 to 35%, and they could be a majority by 2030" (2). The proportional increase is not just the result of differences in birth-rates. Many Jews have been forced out by unemployment, a housing shortage and an intolerant atmosphere created by pressure from the ultra-orthodox.

Now, a 60-year-old taboo has been breached. While the master plan for 2020 maintains the 70% to 30% population ratio, the planners envisage a more pragmatic ratio of 60% to 40% (3). Meron Benvenisti, who is a leading expert on Jerusalem (4), was indignant about this: "As if there could be a correct percentage. It's pure racism. We live in the only city in the world where an ethnic population ratio serves as a philosophy." Menachem Klein, an adviser at Camp David on the Israeli side, added more calmly: "The politicians fight and the pragmatists bow to reality. We are witnessing the greatest Israeli effort to annex Jerusalem since 1967."

Map of East Jerusalem by D.Vidal and P.Rekacewic zhttp://mondediplo.com/2007/02/IMG/pdf/jerusalem.pdf

The first tactic in this effort was the illegal extension of the city limits. Amos Gil, director of Ir Amim (City of Peoples), ran through the figures: "The Old City covers only 1 sq km. Together with the surrounding Arab quarters, it measured 6 sq km under Jordanian rule. In 1967 Israel incorporated 64 sq km of annexed West Bank territory, including 28 villages, increasing the area to 70 sq km. When the wall around East Jerusalem is finished, the enclosed area will measure approximately 164 sq km." The Safdie Plan for the development of West Jerusalem was strongly resisted on environmental grounds.

Meir Margalit, coordinator of the Israeli Committee against house demolitions (Icahd), said: "There's a colour here that exists nowhere else.Political green." He told us how the late Teddy Kollek, mayor of Jerusalem at the time, had responded to protests from Ornan Yekutieli, former leader of the leftwing party Meretz, at plans to build the Har Homa settlement on the site of a fine Palestinian forest. "It's only green for the Arabs," Kollek had retorted.

Ayala Ronel, an architect, explained how environmental apartheid worked. "Dusty yellow areas strewn with rubbish" were declared green zones in order to prevent Arabs building on them, but were open to Jewish settlement.

Settlement as strategy

The second tactic of Israeli strategy is settlement. Shmuel Groag, an architect on the board of Bimkom, which campaigns for full involvement of the public in the planning process, summarised the process: "The first ring consisted of seven large settlements: Gilo, Armon Hanaziv (East Talpiot), French Hill, Ramat Eshkol, Ramot, Ramot Shlomo and Neve Yaakov. The second added two more: Pisgat Zeev and Maale Adumim. Then came a third ring of nine settlements: Givon, Adam, Kochav Yaakov, Kfar Adumim, Keidar, Efrat, Betar Ilit, Har Homa and the Etzion Bloc. Together they contain half of the 500,000 settlers in the West Bank."

Michel Warschawski is the founder of the Alternative Information Centre and a major figure in the pacifist movement. He takes activists on tours to see the "underlying principle of settlement: the creation of Jewish territorial continuity at the expense of Arab territorial continuity". Waving a sheet of paper falling apart from constant handling, he quoted the former mayor of the Karnei Shomron settlement: "The aim is to ensure that the Jewish population of Yesha (5) does not live behind barbed wire, but in a continuous Jewish population belt. If we take the region between Jerusalem and Ofra and add an industrial zone at the entrance to the Adam settlement and a service station at the entrance to Psagot, we will have a continuous line of Israeli settlement."

The third tactic is total control of the lines of communication in order to fragment the Palestinian space, reduce the mobility of the population and destroy any possibility of development. Israel has not only seized, renovated and widened the existing major highways. It has also built new roads to enable settlers to reach Jerusalem as quickly as possible, and a tramline is planned for the same purpose (see Jerusalem's apartheid tramway, page 10). The result is an impressive network of four-lane highways, lit up at night, along which the trees have been cut down, "dangerous" houses destroyed and protective walls erected in the name of security.

These bypasses linking the settlements are prohibited to Palestinian vehicles, which have to use poor-quality secondary roads that are badly maintained, if at all, and are sealed off by many fixed or flying checkpoints.

The "container" roadblock outside Abu Dis controls, and often closes, the last Palestinian highway linking the northern and southern parts of the West Bank. The road deserves its name of Wadi Nar (Fire Valley). In places it is so narrow that two lorries can hardly pass, even assuming they could climb and descend its dangerous winding slopes. Not far away, settlers from the Etzion Bloc and Hebron speed along the expressway Yitzhak Rabin built for them, without encountering a single Arab. This "apartheid that dare not speak its name", as Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat calls it (6), was graphically illustrated by Colonel Tirza's fluid traffic project: where Jews and Arabs had to cross paths, bridges and tunnels would prevent them seeing each other.

Alon Cohen-Lifschitz, an architect from Bimkom, showed us an example: "To disenclave the Palestinian villages of Bir Nabala and Al Jib, the Israelis are building 2km of road 10m below ground level, closed in and covered with a wire grating, plus two tunnels and a bridge." There was worse to come in segregation: a military order was issued prohibiting, from 19 January 2007, any Israeli or Palestinian resident from carrying a non-Jewish resident of the West Bank in his car. It provoked such protests that its implementation has been frozen.

The `republic of Elad'

The fourth tactic is infiltration of the Old City and the Holy Basin: repossession of former Jewish property, confiscation under the law on absentees and purchases via collaborators are proceeding quickly. Meron Rappoport, a journalist on Haaretz, calls Jewish settlement in the historic centre the "republic of Elad" (7), from the name of the settlers' organisation to which the authorities have, unusually, delegated administration of the "city of David" (8). But the number of Arab houses flying Israeli flags, and armed bodyguards strolling in the streets, show that Silwan, al-Bustan (where 88 buildings are threatened with demolition), Ras al-Amud (Maale Zeitim) and Jabal Mukaber (Nof Zion) are also being taken over. The first two houses of Kidmat Zion defy the empty Palestinian parliament on the other side of the wall in Abu Dis. A look at the map confirms that these secondary growths form a continuous diagonal line of ethnic cleansing.

"Don't stop at the figures," said Fouad Hallak, adviser to the Palestine Liberation Organisation negotiating team. "The 17 settlement points in the Old City and its immediate vicinity contain barely 2,600 inhabitants out of 24,000, but they are part of a tenacious strategy of depalestinisation."

Judaicisation, the fifth tactic of the strategy, begins with symbols. A Palestinian friend pointed out the way that the decor of the Jewish city is being imposed on Arab Jerusalem. "From the most spectacular manifestations, like the memorials to Israeli war heroes and the public buildings erected in East Jerusalem, to the most trivial: paving stones, lampposts and litter bins. Not to mention the street names." (Israeli Defence Force Square, Paratroopers' Street, Central CommandStreet, Central Command Square. Another Haaret zjournalist, Danny Rubinstein, said "the names were given after the annexation of East Jerusalem in 1967, apparently so the Arabs would understand who won" (9).

People in Paris had warned us that the Old City was emptying, and in 30 years it had never seemed so dreary. "The Israelis want to settle most of it and leave a few picturesque Arab streets for the tourists, like in Jaffa," said Elias Sanbar, the new Palestinian ambassador to Unesco. He had thwarted an Israeli attempt in 2000 to get the Arab Old City listed as part of Israel's heritage.

Another tactic in the Judaicisation process is interference with the principle of free access to the holy places, which has been enshrined in all international agreements since the Treaty of Berlin (1878). "For years now West Bank Muslims and Christians have been denied access to the al-Aqsa Mosque and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre," said Adnan al-Husseini, director of the Waqf (10). "As for Jerusalem residents, they have to be at least 45 years old to pray there. Not to mention humiliations inflicted by 4,000 soldiers deployed during the main religious festivities." We asked about the Temple Mount excavations. "I dare not think what would happen," said al-Husseini, "if the madmen who dream of rebuilding the Temple were to damage our mosques."

Christian concerns

The patriarchs and heads of the Christian churches in Jerusalem are also worried. On 29 September 2006 they issued a statement reaffirming the need for a special status for Jerusalem guaranteeing, inter alia, "the human right of freedom of worship and of conscience for all, both as individuals and as religious communities; equality of all her inhabitants before the law in coordination with the international resolutions; free access to Jerusalem for all, citizens, residents or pilgrims". Insisting that "the rights of property ownership, custody and worship which the different churches have acquired throughout history should continue to be retained by the same communities", they called on the international community to guarantee respect for the "status quo of the holy places" (11).

Any occupier, Jewish, Christian or Muslim, is capable of extreme violence. Yet the bulldozing of a house as its inhabitants stand by is an unbearable sight (12). Since 2000 the municipal authorities and the ministry of the interior have bulldozed 529 houses, and imposed fines totalling $28.5m on owners (13). But the repression is not even-handed. According to B'Tselem, the Israeli information centre for human rights in the occupied territories, there were 5,653 building violations in West Jerusalem in 2005, resulting in 26 partial or total demolitions; the 1,529 violations recorded in East Jerusalem gave rise to 76 (14).

Margalit said the municipal authorities "live in constant dread of a threat to Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem. They are completely paranoid. For them, every house, every tree, every pot plant, is part of an international political conspiracy." Deputy mayor Yigal Amedi does not use such arguments but claims that "exceptional" demolitions are justified because they concern "structures built illegally". He is a member of the municipal planning and building committee but seemed unaware that municipal inspectors carry out demolitions in many cases in violation of a court order. He claimed: "The municipality is trying to put some order into the chaos."

The claim is risible: 40% of houses in East Jerusalem (15,000 out of 40,600) are illegal because municipal authorities grant few building permits to Palestinians: only 5,300 dwellings were built and 481 permits granted between 2000 and 2004. The cost of a permit is exorbitant, more than $25,000, plus months of administrative hassle, for a building of 200 sq m. Building land is fast disappearing. After 1967 West Jerusalem had an area of 54 sq km and East Jerusalem 70 sq km, 24 sq km of which was expropriated for settlements. Of the remaining 46 sq km, 21 sq km are not part of any planned development. Of the 25 sq km for which plans exist, 16 sq km have been set aside for green spaces, public buildings and roads. The 9 sq km of building land available to Palestinians is just 7.25% of the total area.

Efrat Cohen-Bar, an architect and Bimkom activist, brandished the heavy master plan: "Despite some progress, unequal treatment continues. From now to 2020, our planners allocate another 3 sq km of building land to the additional 158,000 Palestinians, whereas a further 110,000 Jews receive 9 sq km." Irène Salenson, a geographer, pointed to the "horizontal and vertical restrictions on Palestinian urban development". East Jerusalem will be able to build to an average height of four storeys (two at present), whereas six to eight storeys will be allowed in the western city (15).

`Drops in the ocean'

This unequal treatment is one aspect of a policy of discrimination, the tactic of Israeli hegemony. Only Jews (and 2.3% of Palestinians) are citizens. West Bank Palestinians with green identity cards have no rights, not even the right to enter the city without permission, which is granted ever more rarely. Permanent residents with blue identity cards enjoy social welfare benefits and can vote in local elections, but those rights are not transmitted automatically to their spouses or children. The European Union report, shockingly censored by the Council of Ministers of the 25 in 2005, highlighted another aspect of discrimination: "Between 1996-1999 Israel implemented a centre of life policy, meaning that those with blue ID found living or working outside East Jerusalem, for example in Ramallah, would lose their ID. A wave of blue ID cardholders quickly moved back to East Jerusalem" (16).

The city budget is no less discriminatory. East Jerusalem, with 33% of the population, gets just 8.48%. An average of $1,415 is spent on each Jew and $310 on each Arab. No wonder B'Tselem reports that 67% of Palestinian families live below the poverty line, compared with 29% of Israeli families (17). Deputy mayor Amedi, from a poor quarter of the city, did not deny that "the Arab and ultra-orthodox quarters lag behind in infrastructure and services". But he claimed that, when Ehud Olmert was mayor, the city "invested more money than ever to fill those gaps". Listing current projects, Amedi admitted they were "drops in the ocean. You have to start somewhere."

For now the most important matter is the construction of the separation wall, which will cost over $1m per km over a total length of 180km. Only 5km of wall runs along the Green Line, so the security argument seems hardly relevant. (The city was traumatised by suicide bombings, which claimed 171 victims in six years.) Most of the wall around Jerusalem does not separate Israelis and Palestinians but cuts off Palestinians from their schools, fields, olive groves, hospitals and cemeteries.

Menachem Klein said: "The wall is a tool the government uses to control Jerusalem, not to ensure the safety of Israelis." The wall epitomises all the tactics of domination. It more than doubles the area of East Jerusalem, creating a clover shape to include the new settlements and their development zones: Bet Horon, Givat Zeev, Givon Hadasha and the future Nabi Samuel park; Har Gilo, Betar Ilit and the Etzion Bloc; Maale Adumim.

The view from the terrace of Augusta Victoria Hospital gives a better idea of the threat to the future Palestinian state posed by the building at Maale Adumim. The settlement is 7 sq km. But the municipal plan for the Maale Adumim Bloc covers an area, still largely uninhabited, of 55 sq km -- more than Tel Aviv, with 51 sq km. It stretches almost to the Dead Sea, cutting the West Bank in two. To the north, the contested E1 area of 12 sq km (12 times the size of the Old City), is East Jerusalem's last possible expansion area. Yet even formal opposition from Washington did not stop the new West Bank police headquarters from being built there, pending the construction of homes, shopping centres and hotels. The Jahalin Beduin, expelled to make way for the development, have erected dwellings on the hill overlooking the rubbish dump.

A series of losses

As much Palestinian land as possible with the smallest possible number of Palestinians: that is the long-standing principle governing the route of the wall, which incorporates Jewish settlements and removes Arab districts to the West Bank: Kufr Aqab, alongside the Qalandiya refugee camp, half of Beit Hanina, most of Al-Ram, Dahiyat al-Bared, Hizma, the Shuafat refugee camp, Dahiyat al-Salam, Anata, Ram Khamzi and Walaja. For the first time, 60,000 of Jerusalem's 240,000 Palestinians have been expelled without even moving, resulting in a series of losses.

o Loss of time: "I used to be able to walk to university in 10 minutes," said a student from Ramallah studying medicine at Al Quds University: "Now it takes me 90 minutes by car."

o Loss of personnel: 33%-50% of doctors, nurses and teachers can no longer work in Jerusalem.

o Loss of income: shopkeepers on the "wrong" side of Al-Ram complain of a 30%-50% drop in turnover, a dentist was forced to close his surgery and the owner of an apartment block with an unimpeded view of the wall has lost all his tenants.

o Loss of resident status: anyone unable to prove he lives and works in Jerusalem when his blue identity card comes up for renewal will have it withdrawn.

o Most importantly, the loss of East Jerusalem's role as the Palestinian metropolis.

Menachem Klein said "everyone knows the next negotiations will start from the Clinton Parameters, which include partition of the city to make room for two capitals. That is what the wall is designed to prevent, by disconnecting Al Quds from its Palestinian economic, social and cultural hinterland and destroying it as a metropolitan centre. But Israel's leaders are shortsighted if they think they can profit from the weakness of the Palestinians. The younger generation will lift their heads. Then what will become of Sharon and Olmert's ambition to reliberate Jerusalem?"

Facts on the ground

Other people linked the Israeli escalation with the peace process. Ambassador Sanbar said: "Things speeded up from the moment Jerusalem was officially put on the negotiation agenda. The aim was to create facts on the ground so that nothing was left to negotiate."

For Wassim Khazmo, adviser to the Palestinian negotiating team, "Sharon took advantage of the international community's weakness to seize what George Bush had promised him in his letter of 14 April 2004: the settlement blocs." We were astonished to learn that Khalil Toufakji was prepared to renounce claims to those blocs in the name of realism. "Even Maale Adumim?" "Yes." "Even the E1 area?" "Yes." Hasib Nashashibi of the Coalition for Jerusalem pointed to the leadership crisis in the PLO: "The Israelis are exploiting our divisions and our mistakes." "It was the suicide attacks that were the main argument for the wall," said Amos Gil.

The situation of the Palestinians in the enclaves of Biddu (35,500 inhabitants), Bir Nabal (20,000) and Walaja (2,000) are Kafkaesque. They are trapped by the wall, which surrounds them. The Gharib family has been scapegoated. The Givon Hadasha settlers have built their houses, on private Palestinian land, around the Gharibs' house, so that it is now a mini-enclave linked by a path to its original village. The settler houses are enclosed by a wire fence, soon to be electrified, and monitored by a video camera. "I've got a gun," a settler neighbour shouted at us. "I'll shoot the lot of you!" An empty threat? They have already killed one of Gharib's sons. Yet the Gharibs have resisted for more than 20 years.

We remembered Meron Benvenisti's outburst of the previous day: "The wall? A monument to despair! Look at Bethlehem: on one side, the Church of the Nativity, on the other, the bunker around Rachel's Tomb. It's the arrogance of an occupier who feels free to define and redefine communities as he sees fit. As if the fence separated `good' Arabs, accepted in Jerusalem, from `bad' Arabs excluded from it. Those who dreamed-up this horror follow the same logic of 19th century colonialism as did the French when they hung on to Indochina and North Africa. It won't work this time either. TheJerusalem wall will go the same way as the Berlin wall."

Jerusalem Map by D.Vidal and P.Rekacewic z ________________________________________________________

* Philippe Rekacewicz is a geographer and cartographer for`Le Monde diplomatique' and the United Nations EnvironmentProgramme (UNEP/Grid-Arendal in Norway)

(1) Nakba (catastrophe) is the Palestinian term for theforced exodus of 800,000 inhabitants in 1948. Colonel Tirza'scontract was not renewed after he lied to the Supreme Court.

(2) In 2006 the population of Jerusalem was estimated ataround 700,000: 470,000 Jews and 230,000 Palestinians.

(3) Bulletin du Centre de recherche français de Jérusalem.

(4) All sourced at www.wikipedia.org

(5) Haaretz, Tel Aviv, 17 July 1996. Yesha is a contractionof Yehuda ve-Shomron, the settlers' name for the West Bank.

(6) Rene Backmann, Mur en Palestine, Fayard, Paris, 2006.

(7) Haaretz, 21 April 2006.

(8) King David established his capital circa 1000BC.

(9) Haaretz, 26 November 2006.

(10) Responsible for the management of religious property.

(11) http://www.holyland-lutherans

(12) http://blog.mondediplo.net

(13) "Discriminations in the Heart of the Holy City", IPCC,Jerusalem, 2006. The figures are from this source.

(14) B'Tselem, "A Wall in Jerusalem", Jerusalem, 2006.

(15) Bulletin du Centre de recherche français de Jérusalem.

(16) The social welfare services want the identity cards ofJerusalem residents living outside the city to be withdrawn,for financial reasons. The interior ministry and themunicipal authorities, anxious to reduce the number ofPalestinians living in Jerusalem, prefer them to keep theircards.

(17) "A Wall in Jerusalem", op cit.



Translated by Barry Smerin

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ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © 1997-2007 Le Monde diplomatique

It's time to talk about Jerusalem/Dr. Meir Margalit

It's time to talk about Jerusalem/Dr. Meir Margalit
20 july 2009

If Israeli media reports regarding America’s appeal to the Israeli government to immediately halt construction in East Jerusalem are true, than such a demand is a refreshing development and an important contribution, unlike any other, to working toward peace in the region.

For many years, Israel has been able to create the impression within the Western world that the issue of Jerusalem is non-negotiable. Israel’s consistent insistence that Jerusalem is a non-issue found prominence within world consciousness to the point where few were willing to raise the matter as a point of negotiation. Yet anyone who seeks to promote peace in the Middle East must insist on bringing the issue to the table. The issue of Jerusalem is, in fact, at the heart of the conflict, and peace will remain unattainable until the city is divided in a way that allows for East Jerusalem to be the capital of a Palestinian state.

Solutions to the question of Jerusalem are many and various. There are those who advocate for a territorial division, and others who are in favor of a functional division. Nonetheless, what remains certain is that the city will have to be divided, and that within its territorial expanse will rise two capital cities for two nations/peoples.

Looking toward division is, in fact, a reflection of the realities on the ground; the city is already divided and all our leaders vows of devotion and empty words of "the city that was reunified" are irrelevant. There is another reality that must not be overlooked; the city is divided by invisible walls stretching higher than those erected between Israel and Jordan in 1967. Jews don’t voyage into East Jerusalem and the municipality systematically discriminates against its Palestinian residents. Palestinian and Jewish residents of the city view one another with apprehension and lack of trust, and despite 42 years of Israeli jurisdiction it is nearly impossible to find instances of cooperation and coexistence between the two communities.

A divided Jerusalem is unavoidable; it is an indispensable reality if peace is to be realized, and anyways, the city is already politically divided. The Obama administration is correct in putting these issues on the negotiation table from the start. Today, Israel knows what the American government thinks, but the United States must act on its words in order to be taken seriously by the State of Israel. If the American government does not take concrete steps toward achieving its vision immediately, America’s image will weaken and Israel will think that America's policy is toothless. The new administration must act quickly and use its influence to apply heavy pressure so as to prevent Netanyahu’s government from creating facts on the ground that will severely cripple any possibility for a just resolution to the conflict. It is easy enough to create provocations in East Jerusalem, and there are too many pyromaniacs wondering our city streets waiting for any opportunity to set the city on fire. The settlers and their supporters in the government admit to the fact that time is not on their side, and are planning the next provocations to disrupt every American effort toward promoting peace in the region. There is no time to waste; America must take every necessary step to ensure Israel ends the occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem. This is no easy undertaking, but in the end, history will undoubtedly recognize such great efforts.

Dr. Meir Margalit is a member of the Jerusalem city council.

Salim Shawamreh and the issue of innocence By Meir Margalit

Salim Shawamreh and the issue of innocence
By Meir Margalit



The Supreme Court ruling that left intact the order to demolish Salim Shawamreh’s house in Anata is based on several legal grounds, of which the most central is the argument of “lack of good faith”. The rationale underlying that argument is that a person seeking recourse from the court must enter the courtroom in good faith – that is, with no hidden intentions and without having committed acts intended to put in place conclusive facts.

Salim Shawamreh has rebuilt his house four times since it was first demolished, and according to the court, there is lack of good faith in the very fact of rebuilding since he created facts on the ground before approaching the court. It’s reasonable to assume that had Salim Shawamreh appealed before rebuilding, the court would not have claimed lack of good faith. It would probably have dismissed Shawamreh’s appeal on other grounds. Indeed, each time he intended to start building, he made a point of returning to the Civil Administration and reapplying for a building permit, but each application was turned down on different grounds. However, since he built despite the rejections, it was easier for the court to dismiss his appeal on the ground of lack of good faith rather than to address his claims of discrimination.

The court’s ground is an interesting one because of what it implies. Under that doctrine, a person who builds a home for his family, time after time, and refuses to submit to the iniquities of the Occupation, acts with lack of good faith, yet the Civil Administration – which time after time rejects applications for building permits, is the embodiment of good faith. The Supreme Court justices who constantly declare they are "part of the people" apparently believe that the discretion exercised by the Civil Administration’s officials is in good faith, as pure as the driven snow. For their part, the procedures applied by the Civil Administration are totally legal, even if it is a matter of military law entrusted to the hands of officials who were raised in settlements and parachuted into key positions in the civil administration by right-wing political factors. In the opinion of Israeli judges, as long as the systematic oppression of the Palestinian population is anchored in the appropriate procedures, it is legal and valid. There is nothing new here, because we have already seen the same beliefs in discriminatory states that used the same methods to oppress entire peoples. In Israel, though, there has been a revolutionary addition that is cynical beyond compare; it assumes that oppression is "legal" if it is conducted in "good faith". That assumption is the twin sister of the statement that the IDF is the "most moral army in the world", which kills in Gaza out of morality and demolishes homes in the Occupied Territories buoyed up by good faith! The legal system assumes a priori that the security system’s claim that the applications which Salim Shawamreh filed were examined by "the supreme committee" and the “appeals committee” and a whole assortment of subcommittees that they themselves staff, were all handled in "good faith". The Civil Administration officials are capable of issuing demolition orders for Palestinian homes with one hand, and with the other to help construct illegal settlements. In the Supreme Court judges’ opinion, however, everything is legal and enshrined in good faith. Only Salim Shawamreh and people like him lack good faith because they insist on building homes for their family. Jeremiah the Prophet said "Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness" and it's not hard to guess what a contemporary Jeremiah would say about a state that creates legal procedures in order to thwart Palestinians, and who appear in the courts, rolling their eyes heavenwards, claiming they stand in the courtroom with clean hands.

There is no doubt that the courts constitute the last line of the struggle to keep alive Israeli democracy. Without the courts, the state would have long ago deteriorated into a murky and oppressive regime. But there can also be no doubt that the court authorises countless wrongdoings, and grants legitimacy to countless acts of oppression - as long as they are performed "lawfully". No judge can allow himself or herself to cast doubt on the Civil Administration’s policies, because the iron rule is that the court does not intervene in matters of security. In rulings concerning planning and building in the Occupied Territories we can seek fruitlessly for even a tiny hint that something in the entire Civil Administration system is unreasonable, unfair, and certainly lacking in good faith. Its officials can prevent a man from building a house on his own land for a thousand ludicrous reasons, and all of them will receive the seal of approval as long as a suitable clause can be found for them in the book of laws or in existing procedures. And if we're talking about good faith, who has a purer heart - someone who just wants to build a home for his family, or someone who makes cynical use of the language of the law to destroy homes - and perhaps at the same opportunity, to destroy an entire family? And what does this teach us about the good faith of the judges who are aware of the direction the state is leading, yet remain silent and help prepare the ground?

Legal ethics in Israel are brimming over with good intentions, but we must repeat that phrase which so aptly describes Israel’s legal system – the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Israeli judges, most of whom are enlightened proponents of human dignity and liberty, announced in a rational, professional ruling that the law alone guides their decisions, and they do not diverge from it to the right or the left. As a result, Aharon Barak, former President of the Supreme Court, could validate demolition orders but almost in the same breath state in a lecture that he "would be happy if the demolition orders were withdrawn from the book of laws of the State of Israel". Indeed the judges of Israel walk only the straight and narrow, without diverging to left or right, but what can one do when in Israeli reality the straight path leads only to the right, and the judges have become servants of right-wing politics. They would do well to recall events in recent years in South American countries – with the judges who served under military dictatorships, or the Spanish justices who presided over the courts throughout the Franco regime and who handed down judgments according to the books of laws legislated by various officers and dictators.

The principle of good faith is an admirable one, and happy is the state that operates according to it; however the interpretation given it is narrow and restricted. It would be better if the state looked deep into the procedures generated under the hand of the Civil Administration. It will transpire that everything is legal, proper and documented, but one certainly would not find good faith, let alone human dignity and liberty.

Meir Margalit, the angry prophet of Jerusalem City Hall, could no longer stay silent

Haaretz, 29 October 2009, by Nir Hasson

Meir Margalit, the angry prophet of Jerusalem City Hall, could no longer stay silent

The member for Meretz on Jerusalem’s City Council resigned from Nir Barkat’s coalition because of the intensifying demolition of houses in the city’s eastern section: I live in fear that a huge explosion will erupt in East Jerusalem

When Meir Margalit, a member of Jerusalem city council, announced his resignation yesterday from the coalition put together by Nir Barkat, he was on his way to be photographed in front of a demolished house in East Jerusalem’s Silwan neighbourhood. As he stood there, some Palestinian kids threw stones at him and the camera and one stone hit Margalit in the back. “It’s mischief by 6-7 year-olds, he said “but symptomatic of events in East Jerusalem. Today every Jew is considered hostile, and everyone from children to adults seeks a way of expressing their rage”. Margalit maintains that the prevailing anger is strongly connected to the municipality’s continuing policy of demolishing houses – a policy that impelled his resignation from the city coalition.

Margalit is an odd bird in local politics, and in politics altogether. Arnan Yekutieli, the doyen of secular politics in Jerusalem, described Margalit as devoting most of his time to “people who will never vote for him” – that is, Arab citizens of East Jerusalem. The latter, who constitute 35% of the entire population, are hardly represented in city politics, among others because of their choice not to vote in its elections. Instead, the inter-religious dispute fills out local politics. “The haredi-secular dispute is sexier, it’s easier to get voters to rally round its banner, but people make demagogic use of it”, Margalit points out, “it’s been blown out of proportion. Just open the ‘City Mouse’ culture and events guide and you’ll see that the situation of secular Jerusalemites is far better than described”.

Yesterday evening (October 28th) Margalit returned from a visit to Spain. At the airport, on hearing that the municipality had performed one of the largest house-demolitions of previous years – six buildings, where nine families lived – he decided to leave the coalition. In his letter to Barkat, Margalit described his disappointment with the mayor’s conduct: “I know today that in terms of the city’s eastern half, you’re no better than your predecessors who headed the city - and sometimes you outdo them. You have no interest in the city’s eastern half, and a third of Jerusalem’s citizens are simply a burden for you; not entitled to any city services apart from bulldozers”. And in a conversation he added “I would love to have to apologise to Barkat for my words…”

At Jerusalem city hall, the explanation is that there’s no new policy requiring more houses to be demolished – simply an accumulation of cases and the police’s assessment that the street is quiet enough to effect the demolitions. Yakir Segev – in charge of the East Jerusalem desk at city hall - says that in fact the intention is to examine a new policy of granting more building permits and even “pardoning” houses built without permits.

From right to left

Strangely enough, Margalit, 57, started out on the political right. He came to Israel from Argentina as member of a Betar movement core-group, and was among the founders of the Netzarim settlement in the Gaza Strip. His progression leftwards began, he says, after his injury during the Yom Kippur War, and ended on the left edge of the Meretz movement. The Jerusalem branch of Meretz and the faction’s two others members, do not appreciate Margalit’s step and have no intention of following him into the opposition. “I understand Meir”, said Yossef Allalo, deputy-mayor, “this is a very important issue for us, but with all due respect there are other important issues where we are alone in the struggle”. Yesterday the mayor threatened that if Margalit left the coalition, the position of deputy-mayor would be removed from Meretz and transferred to Shas. Following Barkat’s announcement, Margalit is considering resigning completely from the municipality.

In tandem with his position as city council member, Margalit is also a senior member of the Israeli Committee against House Demolitions. His critics on the right-wing accuse him of using his position in the municipality to leak information to left-wing organizations and – more seriously – to international organisations. “The time has come; he should have gone previously” remarked Elisha Pelleg, a Likud member of the council, adding that “he may have been part of the municipality, while working against it and its policies. It’s been said of him that he discredits the city’s name”. Pelleg also said that he respects Margalit’s step, in personal terms.

Margalit's resignation from the city’s management is not expected to endanger Nir Barkat’s coalition in any way, since it consists of 30 out of the 31 members of the council. However, Margalit feels that he had no alternative. “I live in fear that a huge explosion will erupt in East Jerusalem. Various processes are piling up – the separation fence, the confiscation of identity cards, the end to family unifications, the demolition of houses, and the economic recession. The explosion won’t start on the Temple Mount, but with something minor, a soldier who places his hand where he shouldn’t, or shoves someone needlessly. It will break out because of the anger that’s building up. There’s nothing new in what I’m saying, anyone who’s familiar with East Jerusalem is aware of it”.

The response from Nir Barkat’s office was: “The Mayor invited Councillor Margalit to a discussion and made it clear that the city’s policy is to advance solutions in the field of building permits, and the municipal effort to upgrade services provided to the city’s residents as a whole – in the west and the east, alike – alongside the city’s duty to implement court rulings and to help the municipality to perform them. The combination of promoting solutions and implementing court rulings will improve law and order – for the well-being of all citizens. It was agreed that Margalit will consider revoking his resignation and will announce his decision within 48 hours”.