Is Israel a Democratic or Ethnocracy?

Introduction

Many countries all over the world are committed to embracing democracy as a core element of their governance. The citizens are offered an opportunity to elect leaders of their choice by voting. Democracy entails exercising the power of the majority via representation but under the limitation of the constitution, which offers protection to the minority groups so that everyone enjoys equal rights. Israel is among the countries that provide its citizens an opportunity to exercise individual rights and participate in national functions, electing their leaders. However, the nation is facing a variety of challenges in the form of practices and laws in its quest to embrace democracy (White and Zoabi 24). For instance, the law tends to favor the Jews over the Palestinians in the state. It takes a long process for a Palestinian to become a citizen of the country and still never benefit from the voting rights. The fact that Israel’s politics is majorly based on religion, dominant race, and tribes is a clear indication of how its practices violate human rights, making Israel more of an ethnocracy state as opposed to a democratic one. Literature Review

Extensive research has been carried out about the democracy of Israel as a nation. To begin with, Roznai asserts that the recent events in the country are compromising liberal democracy. The nation is experiencing a counter-revolution that is driving the state into an anti-democratic regime. Moreover, the author identifies the increased attempts to shift the balance between Jewish interests and Democratic values in favor of the former as a major agent of counter-revolution. Notably, the move to reverse judicialization procedures in the sense that they characterize Israel public domain also raises many queries on the country’s democracy. Roznai argues that Israel is currently undergoing a process of constitutional capture. Despite the nation’s efforts to implement democracy, various processes are signaling about an anti-democratic state. Some groups are much concerned in introducing authoritarian policies that highly compromises democracy in Israel. Roznai’s study is helpful in understanding the constitutional progress in Israel and its impacts on democracy.

Moreover, Dowty supports Roznai’s arguments by noting that Israel is rapidly departing from democracy. The author considers Israel to be characterized as ethnic democracy, whereby the country’s top political positions are dominated by the Jews (Dowty 4). Many democracy inconsistencies are becoming a norm in the country. For instance, the minority groups are treated as second-class citizens, as described by various discrimination practices. Dowty confirms that minority groups are always controlled by the majority, and they are not allowed to hold senior leadership positions. Consequently, they never enjoy equal citizenship and voting rights with their majority counterparts, which is a clear indication that Israel is experiencing discrimination on the basis of one’s religion and race, a behavior that is totally undermining democracy. Additionally, the discrimination cases have contributed to animosity in the nation, especially between the majority and the minority groups. Such experiences are anti-democratic as the minority rights that are supposed to be protected by the constitution are instead being violated.

In another study, Amitay argues that Israel’s liberal democracy is in the recent times under attack. According to the author, the prolonged security threats in the country have gradually transformed Israel into an ethnocratic state. The authorities felt that hostile neighbors were surrounding Israel and often prioritized the nations’ interests as opposed to individual ones. In this regard, the minority groups, particularly the Israel Arab citizens that makeup around 20% of the entire population have been subjected to harsh treatment by the security forces (Amitay 35). The treatment of such groups has highly limited their rights as citizens of Israel. Consequently, many people in the country believe that Arabs are terrorists, a factor that is further undermining the aspect of equality and eventually democracy. Such experiences have propelled Arabs to be considered as second-class citizens with minimal opportunities in contributing to the governance of the state. The discrimination cases are undermining democratic policies while promoting ethnocracy.

Smooha also contributes to the topic by exploring the state of governance in Israel. According to the author, democracy in highly diverse nations takes three forms: majoritarian, consociational and ethnocracy. Ethnic democracy entails a combination of viable democracy policies with ethnic dominance. In his article, Smooha described the situation in Israel as racial democracy, whereby the Arab minority is harshly treated by the Jewish majority. Despite the fact that the article was published in the last century, it is valuable for this study since it contains the minority demands that Israel, as a Jewish democratic state, has failed to honor for many years. Particularly, the nation is yet to be non-Jewish, the Arabs have no collective rights, Palestinians are not allowed citizenship, equal individual rights, and Arabs are not integrated in the country’s national power structure. Such issues continue derailing Israel from embracing democratic principles, especially as the constitution offers no protection to the minority rights (Smooha 391). The study concludes that without such essential changes, Israel will remain under ethnocracy regime, with little efforts to embrace democracy.

Additionally, Mchenry and Mady conducted a quantitative analysis of the degree of democracy in Israel based on the contradiction between the Polity IV and the Freedom House democracy measures. According to the former, Israel is a high level democracy. Mchenry and Mady established that Israel is not fully embracing democratic principles due to various issues such as the dominance of the majority group and ignorance of the rights of the Arab minority (262). The study found that the measures used to conclude that Israel is a democratic state were imperfect and therefore offered the wrong result. The country would rather be described under the concept of ethnic democracy, whereby the Jewish majority group controls everything and violates the rights of the Arab minority group.

Finally, Yonah’s study also provides great insights concerning Israel’s democracy state. The author examines the challenges the nation is incurring in its quest to embrace multicultural democracy. The study identifies ethnical divide among the key factors limiting democracy in Israel. Yonah notes that the Jewish/Palestinian divide is challenging democracy in the nation (96). While Israel is committed to maintaining its Jewish character, it should not violate other groups’ rights. The study suggests that Israel need to recognize Palestinians’ cultural autonomy right.

Research Question

The literature review clearly indicates that there are conflicting opinions regarding the state of democracy in Israel. In this regard, the study’s research question is to determine whether Israel is a democratic or ethnocratic state. The study will examine various variables in its quest to answer this question. They include the laws of the country as the independent variable, and rights and national governance as dependent variables.

Hypothesis

The study hypothesizes that Israel is an ethnocracy as opposed to a democracy. The country is profoundly divided on ethnic grounds, which hinders the implementation of democratic policies.

Analysis

Many practices in Israel are indicating that the country is operating under an ethnocratic regime.

Based on ethnic divide, there is a high level of human rights violation, especially concerning the minority groups. Furthermore, incidences of discrimination on racial and religious grounds are inhibiting the application of democratic policies in the nation, driving deeper into ethnocracy. Consequently, the aspect of unequal rights in Israel is highly affecting the elements of governance. Citizens enjoy rights on an ethnic basis: those from the majority groups exercise unlimited rights, while the minorities are suppressed.

The country’s laws are promoting ethnic differences by favoring the majority groups and not protecting the rights of the minorities. According to Smooha, the law considers the Israel Palestinians as second-class citizens (391). The minority group is not even assured equal rights by the law. The law denies Palestinian inhabitants the political and civil rights, which are the major pillars of democracy. The Palestinians are required to undergo a longer process to attain citizenship of the country, which is not the case for the Jews. Palestinians are subjected to an extra verification process before being recognized as citizens. For instance, in accordance with the Law of Return, anybody who is classified as a non-Israel Jew or have a close relationship with a non-Israel Jew is readily granted citizenship. However, for Palestinian refugees who moved out of Israel during the 1948 war are denied the chance of regaining their citizenship and reclaiming their property, especially land (Hamze). This approach profoundly undermines democracy policies in Israel as all people are supposed to be treated equally irrespective of their ethnic backgrounds. The segregation indicates that the constitution fails to protect the rights of the minorities, but rather favors the majority on the basis of ethnicity.

Notably, Palestinians never enjoy equal voting rights as the Jews. In a democratic setup, all people should have the right to vote for the leaders of their choice. However, the government in Israel intends to regulate the voting trends among the Palestinians. Even though each citizen is entitled to express his or her political voice through elections, the leaders often deny Palestinians citizenship so that they are not involved in the exercise. In this regard, the many Palestinians who live within the country but have not yet been granted citizenship can only participate in municipal elections. Such groups cannot vote in the national referendums. These practices further affirm the presence of ethnocracy in Israel.

The law further promotes discrimination by limiting Palestinians from participating in the country’s top leadership positions. They are only allowed to hold the lower ranking posts, implying that they have less influence in making decisions in the nation, which further raises issues of inequality on a racial basis. The Jews are considering themselves superior over the minority groups by controlling every element of the economy. By occupying the senior positions, the Jews prioritize their interests while undermining those of the minorities. Such a trend is promoting enmity between the majority and minorities, which leads the state far from being democratic.

The minority groups are further are segregated in terms of the right to residency. The government has the authority of revoking permanent residency rights of various groups. For instance, the state provokes the residence privilege of Palestinians who are permanent residents of Jerusalem. Since 1967, the government, through the Interior Ministry has revoked more than 14 000 Palestinians from Jerusalem (“Five Ways Israeli Law Discriminates Against Palestinians”). The agencies claim that such individuals fail to provide a proof that Jerusalem is truly their permanent residence place. Moreover, whenever the Palestinians are away from Israel for a prolonged period, they often lose their right of residency. This clearly indicates that the system of governance propels many Palestinians to leave Jerusalem, which is their home city. Such a move amounts to forcible transfer of people, which highly violates the International Law. Consequently, early this year, Israel imposed a law allowing the Interior Ministry to revoke Palestinian’s residency rights in case they are disloyal to Israel (“Five Ways Israeli Law Discriminates Against Palestinians”). This is not the case for the Jews, who are the majority ethnic group. Such discrimination on ethnic grounds keeps derailing the nation’s efforts to become a democratic state.

Besides, authorities in Israel are biased on ethnic grounds while performing their duties. Public officers, who are mostly the Jews, tend to favor individuals from their tribe while harassing those from other ethnicities (Rosen-Zvi 12). For instance, security agents associate Israel Arabs with terror, creating a tense relationship between the two parties. Instead of protecting the citizens, the police emerged as a threat to a part of them. The tendency of associating this group of citizens to terror highly limits their rights of attaining equal treatment from government departments. Such treatment undermines the principles of democracy, particularly as the majorities violate the rights of the minorities.

The government also never embraces democratic policies in its key initiatives. For example, Arab students in Israel are discriminated in terms of funding. They receive less that half of the funding their Jewish counterparts receive. According to Hasson, pupils in municipal high schools located at East Jerusalem receive less than half of what students at the same types of schools at the western part of Jerusalem. This is because East part of the city is dominated by Arabs while the western part is widely occupied by the Jews. The inequality in supporting educational programs among various tribes further affirms the fact that Israel is an ethnocratic state.

Finally, Israel demonstrates inequality in its land ownership laws. For instance, the Israel Lands Basic Law (1960) highlights that land in the country should be controlled by the State, the Development Authority, and the Jewish National Fund (JNF). Additionally, land ownership can only be transferred between the three bodies. Often, the JNF leases such land to the Jews for personal use of such a valuable resource. However, the Palestinians and other minority groups are barred from leasing and using around 80% of land under the control of the state (“Five Ways Israeli Law Discriminates Against Palestinians”). This further affirms the fact that ethnocracy is widely practiced in Israel. This is among the many forms of ethnocracy that are commonly practiced in the country.

Conclusion

Israel’s practices and laws clearly indicate that the state is discriminative on racial grounds. Most laws are biased against the minority groups, particularly Israel Arabs and Palestinians. The latter are not enjoying equal rights as their majority counterparts. For instance, the Jews are favored in voting rights, citizenship, national power positions, land ownership, and government services. Such a divide is increasingly worsening unity in the country. Democratic policies are no longer in action, as the constitution is not protecting the rights of the minorities. Instead, the constitution enhances segregation on ethnic grounds, whereby it recognizes the minority groups as inferiors to the Jews. The dominance of the Jews in the country’s national power structure further complicates the situation, as they are only concerned about their own interests. Such practices and laws are behind the endless ethnic conflicts in Israel. The minorities feel unrepresented. Without a change of Israeli governance practices and laws, ethnic disputes will persist. The state needs to fully embrace democratic policies and amend the constitution to protect the minorities for peaceful coexistence.

Works Cited

“Five Ways Israeli Law Discriminates Against Palestinians”. Aljazeera, 9 July 2018, www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/07/ways-israeli-law-discriminates-palestinians-180719120357886.html. Accessed 29 November 2018.

Amitay, Yossi. “Israel: Democracy at Risk”. The Federalist Debate, vol. 1, 2017, pp. 35-36.

Dowty, Alan. “Is Israel Democratic? Substance and Semantics in the “Ethnic Democracy” Debate.” Israel Studies, vol. 4, no. 2, 1999, pp. 1-15.

Hamze, Adam. “10 Things Palestinians Can’T Do Because Of The Israeli Occupation”. HuffPost UK, 29 December 2016, www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/things-palestinians-cant-do_us_586554d4e4b0eb58648895bc. Accessed 29 November 2018.

Hasson, Nir. “Arab Students in Jerusalem Get Less Than Half the Funding of Jewish Counterparts”. Haaretz, 23 August 2016, www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-arab-students-in-jerusalem-get-less-than-half-the-funding-of-jews-1.5427909. Accessed 2 December 2018.

Mchenry Jr, Dean, and Abdel-Fattah Mady. “A critique of quantitative measures of the degree of democracy in Israel.” Democratization, vol. 13, no. 02, 2006, pp. 257-282.

Rosen-Zvi, Issachar. Taking Space Seriously: Law, Space and Society in Contemporary Israel. Routledge, 2017.

Roznai, Yaniv. “Israel a Crisis of Liberal Democracy?” SSRN Electronic Journal, 2018.

Smooha, Sammy. “Minority Status in an Ethnic Democracy: The Status of the Arab Minority in Israel.” Ethnic and Racial Studies, vol. 13, no. 3, 1990, pp. 389-413.

White, Ben, and Haneen Zoabi. Palestinians in Israel: Segregation, Discrimination and Democracy. London: Pluto Press, 2012.

Yonah, Yossi. “Israel as a Multicultural Democracy: Challenges and Obstacles”. Israel Affairs, vol. 11, no. 1, 2005, pp. 95-116.

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