Smooha, S. (2002) ‘The model of ethnic democracy: Israel as a Jewish and democratic state’

Smooha, S. (2002) ‘The model of ethnic democracy: Israel as a Jewish and democratic state’, Nations and Nationalism 8 (4), 475-503.

1. Liberal nation-state in decline in West: shift towards multicultural civic democracy.
2. Outside west, other countries are consolidating non-civic form of democracy subservient to a single ethnic nation: ethnic democracy or ‘ethnocracy’. Ex: Israel.
3. Two main forms of democracy prevalent that are civic in nature – ie. centrality of citizenship, equality of individual rights, denial of collective rights:
   1. Liberal democracy;
   2. Consociational democracy.
4. Multiculturalism softens the boundaries between these two: multicultural democracy decouples state and nation, recognizes cultural rights of minorities.
5. Ethnocracy: distinct but ‘diminished’ type of democracy.
6. ‘Mini-model’ features:
   1. Ideology: ethnic nationalism;
   2. Institutionalization: appropriation of a state in which it exercises self-determination;
   3. Political principle: ethnic nation, not citizenry, shapes its symbols, laws and policies for the benefit of the nation;
   4. Membership: Nation includes members domiciled in the homeland and those living in the diaspora; Citizenship is separate from nationality; non-ethnic members are perceived as both non-desirable and a threat to national integrity.
   5. Political system: democratic. All permanent residents are citizens, but do not possess equal civic, political, legal rights: ‘defensive democracy’ (478).
   6. “Ethnic democracy meets the minimal and procedural definition of democracy, but it falls short of the major Western civic… democracies. It is a diminished type of democracy because it takes the ethnic nation, not the citizenry, as the cornerstone of the state and does not extend equality of rights to all. Ethnic democracy suffers from an inherent contradiction between ethnic ascendance and civic equality” (478).
   7. Factors conducive to emergence:
      1. Pre-existence of ethnic nationalism and of an ethnic nation;
      2. Existence of a (real or perceived) threat to the nation requiring majority mobilization;
      3. Majority’s commitment to democracy;
      4. Manageable minority size.
   8. Conditions for stability:
      1. Clear, continued numerical superiority of the ethnic nation;
      2. Majority’s continued sense of threat;
      3. Non-interference on the part of the minority’s kin-state (external homeland);
      4. Non-intervention against the ethnocracy by the international community.
   9. Three subtypes along dynamic continuum from consociational democracy to non-democracy
      1. ‘Hardline’ subtype: Strict control over the minority;
      2. ‘Standard’ subtype: in the middle;
      3. ‘Improved’ subtype: mild elements of conscociationalism.
   10. Four controversial issues:
       1. Conceptual adequacy: critics claim it is virtually indistinguishable from ‘Herrenvolk’ (settler) democracy because they share hegemonic control and tyranny of the majority and differ in tactics only. However, ethnic democracy meets minimal procedural definition of democracy, which requires extension of citizenship rights but not full and equal rights (481).
       2. Stability: critics claim it is unstable because of fundamental self-contradictions and apparent illegitimacy. However, it can be stable for a long time and transform over time to another type.
       3. Effectiveness: it is blamed for ineffective conflict management and for freezing internal conflicts. But it can moderate deep cleavages and is superior to other means of difference elimination (genocide, ethnic cleansing etc).
       4. Legitimacy: critics claim it misrepresents a non-democracy as a democracy, “thereby legitimating the illegitimate” (481) and serving as wrong normative model for democratizing states, as well as tool for justifying injustices perpetrated by non-democratic states and majorities. In fact, its legitimacy draws from both nation-state and democracy and attempts to balance them.
       5. Four normative ways towards legitimation – 2 pragmatic and 2 ideological:
          1. Ethnic democracy as lesser evil (Pragmatic 1): mode of conflict management superior to violence, domination etc.
          2. Ethnic democracy as temporary necessity (Pragmatic 2): could and should change later into a more acceptable type;                     
          3. Ethnic democracy is compatible with universal minority tights (Ideological 1): grants both civic and collective group rights and is compatible with extension of legal protection, affirmative action, cultural autonomy, even powersharing.                                                          
          4. Partial superiority over liberal democracy (Ideological 2): no truly ‘neutral’ liberal-democratic state truly exists. In ‘republican liberal democracy’ state is partial and imposes national language and culture of dominant group, assimilates immigrants.
7. Israel as an ethnic democracy
   1.  History
      1. 1984: 2 million persons in Palestine, one-third Jewish.
      2. By mid-1949, only 186,000 of the 900,000 Palestinians living in Israel still remained there (al-Naqba: the Disaster).
      3. Rise of PLO and struggle for peace and equality: first (1987 -93) and second (2000) Intifadas.
   2.   Features
      1. A Jewish and democratic state; homeland of all Jewish people, 61% of whom live in diaspora.
      2. Zionism is de facto state ideology.
      3. Religion plays a central role: determines who is and is not a Jew.
      4. Membership in Jewish nation is kept separate from state citizenship.   
      5. Law of Return: allows all Jews world-wide free admission and settlement; but no Right of Return for Palestinian refugees and their descendants;
      6. Virtually no immigration and naturalization for non-Jews.
      7. Hebrew is official language.
      8. Jews rule the land regime: Arab share of land is 3.5%; their municipal control of land is 2.5%.
      9. State symbols are strictly Jewish.
   3. Three major perceived threats:
      1. Physical and political survival of Israel in the Middle East;
      2. Palestinian citizens of Israel: a security and demographic hazard; loyalty issue: affiliation to the Palestinian people and a future Palestinian state;
      3. Menace to continued survival of the Jewish diaspora: vital for Israel’s survival.
   4. Diminished democracy:
      1. Arab rights are incomplete and not properly protected;
      2. Israel recognizes Arabs as a cultural minority but denies them the status of a national Palestinian-Arab minority and does not recognize their national leadership.
      3. Arab right to representation, protest and struggle is highly respected by the state.
      4. “Arabs are regarded as potentially disloyal to the state and placed under security and political control” -especially security surveillance (489); they are exempted from compulsory military service and excluded from other security forces.
      5. “The [Jewish” state operates in a permanent state of emergency with unlimited powers to suspend civil rights in order to detect and prevent security infractions. It denies Arabs cultural autonomy lest they misuse it for organizing against the state, building an independent power based, conducting illegal struggles and forming a secessionist movement” (489).
   5. Factors conducive to emergence of ethnic democracy in Israel:
      1. Emergence of Zionism in Eastern Europe;
      2. Commitment of Zionism and Jewish founders of the state to democratic values and Western orientation:
         1. Indispensable mode of conflict management between rival Jewish groups;
         1. Adherence to democratic procedures;
         1. Strong ideological and pragmatic considerations.
      3. Affordability: Arabs constituted a small and manageable minority after 1948 exodus.
   6. Conditions of stability
      1. Need to keep Jews as permanent majority in Israel;
      2. Ongoing sense of threat to survival of Jewish ethnic nation in Israel and abroad;
      3. Continued inability of Arab world and Palestinian people to intercede on behalf of the Arab minority in Israel;
      4. Lack of intervention by the international community on behalf of the Arab minority.
   7. Signs of erosion of stability conditions:
      1. Number on non-Jews in Israeli population is increasing;
      2. Rising involvement of international community in Israel’s minority affairs;
   8. Shift from a hardline to a standard type
      1. Over past five decades, Israeli democracy has improved and bettered its treatment of Arab citizens;
      2. Democratization has liberalized Israel and its minority policies;
      3. Jewish distrust of Arabs has declined to some extent;
      4. Rabin’s assassination in November 1995 was a big setback for Arab-Jewish relations;
      5. Process of deterioration in relations was accelerated by October 2000 Intifada;
      6. Rise of subversive and terrorist acts perpetrated by Israeli Arab citizens further distances Jews from Arabs;
      7. Israeli Knesset decided in May 2002 to suspend family reunions with Palestinians and to seek legal ways to curb them;
      8. However, there is no return to the hardline subtype of ethnic democracy.
8. Challenges by critics of classification of Israel as an ethnic democracy:
   1. Israel Supreme Court: Israel is a constitutional democracy: majority rule and human rights.
   2. Sheffer: Israel is almost a ‘private liberal democracy’;
   3. Kineret Declaration, October 2001: “there is no contradiction between Israel being a Jewish state and being a democratic state” (495);
   4. Avineri: Israel is a ‘republican liberal democracy’;
   5. Fallacy of conceptual stretching: concept of liberal democracy is distorted and stretched to fit Israel: “Yet Israel is not a liberal democracy because of the fundamental contradiction between its egalitarian universalistic-democratic character and its inegalitarian Jewish-Zionist character” (495).
   6. Other critics say Israel is an ethnic non-democracy: ‘Herrenvolk democracy’ (Benvenisti); ‘Ethnocracy’ (Yiftachel); fails 3 out of 4 conditions of democracy (Kimmerling);
   7. This disqualification of Israel as a democracy is not justified: Israel is a viable democracy meeting minimal and procedural definition of democracy.
   8. Occupation of West Bank and Gaza is controversial exactly because its contradicts the Jewish and democratic nature of the state;
   9. Israeli Arabs value democracy in Israel because it enables them to struggle for equality and full participation.
   10. Complex reality of Israel in Middle East: Israel is a democracy, albeit not a ‘first rate Western democracy’: rights are extended to all, but not equally; contradiction between ethnos (Jewish nation) and demos (democratic state).