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Israeli citizenship law -- the "Jewish state" isn't as Jewish as they say it is
Originally published at the Volokh Conspiracy.by David E. Bernstein, Wall Street Journal A reader, sympathetic to Israel but troubled by its existence as "Jewish state," asks: "Can you point me to any case in any example where you would say '[Country A] has the right to exist as a [Race B] or [Religion C] state?' I can think of numerous claims like this by societies in the past, which are now widely condemned." Actually, many, many countries have an official religion, including not only "backward" countries such as Iran and Saudi Arabia that enforce religious law, but "progressive" liberal bastions such as Norway, Denmark, and Iceland (all Lutheran). By contrast, Judaism is not the official religion of Israel. Jewish holidays are government holidays, but that's like Christmas in the U.S. (Family law is controlled by religious bodies, but that's true for Muslims, Christians, et al., as well as Jews, and is an artifact of Ottoman and British rule. My understanding is that most Jews in Israel are against the religious monopoly on family law, but it survives because the religious parties have disproportionate power. The Arab community, which is far more traditional in its religious practices than is the Jewish community, almost certainly is more supportive of this arrangement than the Jews are, so this has really nothing to do with Israel being a "Jewish state," as such.) As for the question of "race," the problem can't be "self-determination" of a group, because the propriety of that principle seems rather well-accepted. "Jewishness" is not a racial identity, but complaints about Israel being a "Jewish state" are often put in terms of the Law of Return being "racist." The Law of Return is based on ethnic (not racial) heritage and grants anyone with a Jewish grandparent automatic citizenship (the Israeli Supreme Court has held that one is not eligible for the Law of Return if one has adopted the Christian religion, because in the complex area of Jewish identity, Jews who become Christians have left the Jewish people). Non-Jewish immigrants with no ethnic Jewish background can become citizens, with some difficulty, as can, automatically, non-Jewish immigrants closely related to Jews (e.g., spouses), many of whom have recently arrived from the former Soviet Union. Arabs who lived in Israel during the War of Independence (and thus presumptively accepted the existence of Israel and were not engaged in warfare against Israel) and their descendants have full citizenship rights, but they are relieved of one of the major obligations of Israeli citizenship, military or other national service . . . . Hit the link and read the rest of it; there's a lot of information on comparative immigration law, and proof that a lot of things everybody "knows" are wrong. Posted by: Mike 2006-08-24 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=163916 |