Does the Law Of Return Deny the Jews the Status of a Nation?

* Inspired by a conversation with my friend Aziz Abu Sarah.

The effort to delegitimize Israel, which is ever growing, is now returning to examining first principles. Among these efforts involves casting doubt on whether the Jews makeup a real nation. This is an old obsession (dating back to the 18th century), but it has been given new life: If you can prove that the Jews do not constitute a nation, the argument goes, then you undermine the Jewish claim for national autonomy and self-determination within a political framework. So much for Israel being the nation-state of the Jewish people (also, if we are going to be logically consistent, so much for a bi-national state).

A recent article in Haaretz, for example, written by poet Salman Masalha (Druze citizen of Israel) argued that the phrase Jewish and democratic are irreconcilably in contradiction since religion and democracy don’t mix. In response to this article, Shlomo Avineri published a rebuttal stating:

“One of the problems that complicates attempts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is this very issue – the fact that the Arab side has difficulty recognizing that Jews in the state of Israel view themselves as a nation. Identity is a matter of self-definition, not external definition. Just as Jews are not the ones who will determine whether the Palestinians are a people or not (there are more than a few of us who have yet to be reconciled with the existence of the Palestinian people ), Salman Masalha cannot determine whether the Jews are a people or not. It is a question of self-determination.”

Professor Avineri is absolutely correct. It is the Jewish people themselves who are going to decide their own identity (though he is not correct in suggesting that self-identity is formed without external influence.) However, in his effort to dismiss Masalha’s assumption, Avineri ignores a glaring fact that complicates his argument: namely, according to the state of Israel, as articulated in the 1970 amendment to the Law of Return, if a Jew converts to a non-Jewish religion he is no longer a Jew. The amendment states: “For the purposes of this Law, “Jew” means a person who was born of a Jewish mother or has become converted to Judaism and who is not a member of another religion.”

On the surface, this clause suggests that by privileging religion as the only way to opt out of the Jewish people (as opposed, for example, an identification with another nationality) the Law of Return provides religious identification an overriding influence in determining “proper” Jewish identity (despite the paradoxical fact that it goes against Jewish law [i.e. matrilineal decent]). Does this mean, however, that according to the state of Israel Jews are not a nation? Or is such a conclusion derived from a conceptual confusion. Before we crack open this argument, some background is in order.

The New Zionist Realism: Should Israel Care About What the Goyim Think?

My Latest From Haaretz.

The New Zionist Realism: Should Israel Care About What the Goyim Think?

“First, let me tell you one thing: It’s not important what the world says about Israel. It’s not important what they say about us anywhere else. The only thing that’s important is that we can live here on the land of our ancestors. And if we don’t show the Arabs that they have to pay a high price for killing Jews, we won’t continue living.”

These words, spoken to a young Ariel Sharon by David Ben-Gurion, exemplify the realist strand that dominated and still dominates the thinking and discourse of many Israelis. However, these days, in the wake of the Goldstone report and international efforts to delegitimize Israel, it has become increasingly apparent that in order to “live here on the land of our ancestors” Israel must also pay heed to the opinion of the international community.

Netanyahu articulated Israel’s new realism in a December speech to the Knesset where he outlined the major challenges that Israel faces today: “The nuclear threat, the missile threat and what I call the Goldstone threat.” Regarding the latter, the prime minister said, “Goldstone has become code for a much broader phenomenon: the attempt to negate the legitimacy of our right to self-defense.”