Israel's Covenant with Statehood

The Jewish Covenant with Statehood

Throughout history every nation or state has had an explicit or at least implicit relationship with the dominant clergy of the day. In its most extreme form the government is a theocracy where government officials are believed to possess divine guidance and govern at the behest of the clergy. In its most benign form the government is influenced by the will of the clerics. Regardless of the government's relationship with the dominant clergy, religious freedom is a rarity. Each one of the American colonies, with the exception of William Penn's Holy Experiment in Pennsylvania, outlawed religious freedom. Thomas Jefferson was an adamant proponent of the separation of church and state. He understood that if the government had any relationship, be it ever so tangential, with the clergy then there's no way you'd be a free person living in an open society.

The First Amendment in the Bill of Rights of the United States Constitution states "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ..." The First Amendment is a variant of the Virginia Statue of Religious Freedom written by Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson, when he was President of the United States, further articulated this ideal in his letter to the Danbury Baptist Association in which he stipulated there must be a "wall of separation" between church and state. This wall of separation is one of the principals that has made the United States a successful and freedom loving nation. Without a secular state you will never have a pluralistic and egalitarian society.

The U.S. Constitution implemented a secular state through the separation of church and state in 1787. France separated church and state in 1905 after the infamous Dreyfus Affair when it was revealed the French Army and Catholic hierarchy were collaborating in the anti-Semitic persecution of Captain Alfred Dreyfus. Italy removed the religious designation from their post-war constitution in 1945. Spain is not officially described as a Catholic country but the separation of church and state is still pretty nebulous. Greece is still officially an Orthodox country, but the Greek government, under pressure from the European Union, recently removed the bearer's religious affiliation from Greek passports. Britain recognizes the Anglican Church as the country's official religion, and the British monarch is the head of the church. Today Pope John Paul II is lobbying the European governments to officially recognize the European Union's Christian roots. Pakistan is an Islamic theocracy created in 1947 with abhorrence for a secular, pluralistic, and multi-ethnic society. Pakistan has implemented the Sharia laws (religious-criminal law or crimes against Islam) in its governmental functions. Fundamentalist Muslims want to govern themselves and anyone else unfortunate enough to live in their midst by these Islamic laws. It's obvious that a secular state is still a recent innovation in this world and it is always under attack.

In the United States the separation of church and state is under attack via the Christian conservatives' faith-based initiatives. The insidiousness of these initiatives was evident when the Bush administration rewrote the regulations preventing the government from funding religious charities after the United States Congress failed to pass faith-based initiative legislation. Religious charities that receive federal funds are not barred from proselytizing or practicing discrimination in hiring. The ill-advised “war on drugs” is being financed with taxpayer dollars to religious charities that replace professional counselors with prayer, Bible study, and not to subtle “encouragement” for addicts to convert to Christianity. The director of Teen Challenge www.teenchallenge.com, a drug education and rehabilitation program, says, “Christianity is a big part of our therapy.” Most child adoption agencies, that are also faith-based, demand you sign a pledge denouncing abortion before you will be considered for adoption.

The historical record indicates that the framers wanted the First Amendment to ban not only establishment of a single church but also "multiple establishments," that is, a system by which the government funds many religions on an equal basis. This assertion by the founding fathers is obviously at odds with faith-based initiatives. What the Christian conservatives are attempting to implement via the faith-based initiatives is a nation that is based on the revealed word of their Christian God.

Revelation, or revealed religion, is defined as "Any religion founded on the revelations of God to humankind." This begs the question: To whom is God being revealed to? For in the absence of God revealing him or her self to each of one us we have to accept someone else's word for the revelation. You are accepting some else's word for the revelation when you profess your faith in Christianity, Judaism or Islam. All monotheistic religions profess to have the "revealed word of God." What makes this assertion so dangerous is it's corollary that the revealed word of God must be incorporated into the civil government. In the United States Christian conservatives want to implement a Christian state that mirrors the laws of the Bible. This is a scary thought when you consider that the Old Testament, which is also the five books of the Torah, portrays in the words of Joseph Campbell "A God who is full of rules and has no mercy." The Koran is the "revealed word of God" for Islam and the Islamic Fundamentalists' goal is to implement Islamic states. In Israel the Haredi community and the Gush Emunim (the Bloc of the Faithful) political movement seek to implement the Jewish state.

Israel was founded as a Jewish homeland yet the Proclamation of Independence of the State of Israel vows to respect individual equality, regardless of religion, gender or race. The Proclamation of Independence states the Constituent Assembly shall prepare a constitution. However for over fifty-five years the Israeli Parliament, the Knesset, hasn't even attempted to produce an Israeli Constitution. A constitution is a system of fundamental laws and principles that prescribes the nature, functions, and limits of the government. If Israel were to write a constitution then they'd have to address the issue of church and state, and that they're loath to do. The Jewish ultra-orthodox political parties in the Knesset join coalition governments and thereby obtain funds for their own religious education system and get Jewish religious laws passed into law that are not only oppressive to Arab-Israelis but are oppressive to secular and atheistic Jews as well. For example Jewish religion lessons are mandatory in all Israeli schools.

Theodor Herzl, the first advocate of Jewish sovereignty in the land of Israel, envisioned a model social state that would be neutral, peace seeking, and of a secular nature. Contrary to popular fiction Herzl was a proponent of a state for Jews rather than a Jewish state. However by every conventional criterion, the state of Israel is a theocracy. Civil marriage is not permitted under Israeli law and the same applies to divorce. Under Israeli law religious courts and the religious judiciary are paid by the state. The Jewish National Fund forbids the sale of land under its control (80% of Israel's population now lives on land that belonged to the Jewish National Fund) to non-Jews. Constraints are also imposed on non-Jewish access to water for agriculture and eligibility for government financial assistance. When it comes to naturalization, Israel utilizes blood or ethnicity as the defining elements. Thus, automatic Israeli citizenship is granted to Jews but not to non-Jews. Jews have demanded equal rights in every country in which they've lived with the exception of Israel.

Israelis will have to transcend the religious-secular-atheistic divide or the debate over land for peace will grind on with no expected terminus. The Israeli Judaic fundamentalist political parties are opposed to any movement towards a Palestinian state. These Judaic fundamentalist policies have been incorporated into the religious education and a land-centered nationalism is presented as the highest form of religious virtue. The Judaic fundamentalists intertwine the histories of Zionism and the State of Israel, and portray the settlement of the newly claimed territory as a religious duty and a means of hastening messianic redemption. The Judaic fundamentalist political parties perceive supporters of concession as secularists or worst who minimize the importance of land to the Jewish religion.

If the nation of Israel is ever to live in peace it will have to move towards and ultimately establish a secular government. The road to peace in the modern world is secular because it incorporates pluralism - equal respect for other ethnic, religious, and cultural traditions - into the peace process. The challenge for Jewish-Israelis is to preserve their Jewish identity within a secular society and merge that identity into a flourishing democracy. Anti-Semitic literature in the 1930s speaks derogatorily of how Jews were socialists, internationalists, and pacifists. Jews made their covenant with statehood and in the process lost sight of the idealistic dream on which their nation was founded. That dream was of a Jewish state that would be pluralistic, egalitarian, multi-racial, and secular. As it stands today what is there for the Arab-Israelis and Palestinians to like in the Jewish state of Israel? Aharon Barnea writes “… the character of the state of Israel which wishes to be democratic on the one hand, and on the other hand to be the state of the Jewish people ... gives rise to a contradiction which can only end in calamity.” The initiative for a peace movement is on the Israeli's because they have the most to lose.