“We declare the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz Israel, to be known as the State of Israel,” declared the People’s Council that convened in May 1948, and then written in the Declaration of Independence. The nature of the State of Israel, its principles, and the nature of its regime was supposed to be determined by the “Constituent Assembly” through adoption of a constitution no later than October 1, 1948. This promise to the United Nations, however, was never fulfilled, and instead the Constituent Assembly which was elected in January 1949, enacted the “Transition Law,” which stated that it had become a “Knesset” (The Israeli parliament). The Constituent Assembly failed its duty.

In the absence of a constitution defining their rights, citizens had to settle for the same brief line that became the constitutional basis of Israel. It promised to maintain “complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture.” The word democracy, today proclaimed by everyone, was not even mentioned in the declaration of independence.

Today, 75 years since that historic announcement, the word constitution is on everyone’s lips. The constitutional crisis that split Israeli society in two has given rise to a new recognition among those, whose freedom and way of life this constitutional coup threatens, that their democracy is extremely fragile and must be safeguarded through a constitution that will guarantee the foundations of Israel’s democratic regime. So far, the place of the constitution has been filled by a series of basic laws enacted in the late 1990s, headed by the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty. Relying on this law, Judge Aharon Barak drafted numerous constitutional rulings in what is dubbed the “constitutional revolution,” which angered the ultra-orthodox parties, religious Zionism and the right in Israel due to their liberal approach.

The Declaration of Independence did not clearly establish the relationship between religion and state in Israel. The multitude of Shabbat laws that directly impinge on individual freedom and express religious coercion exerted on the secular public, are based on the status quo letter written by David Ben-Gurion to the ultra-orthodox “Agudat Israel” political party, which establishes Shabbat as the official day of rest. David Ben-Gurion announced the establishment of the state, but left a black constitutional hole that swallows up the entirety of Israeli society. As Aaron Barak’s constitutional revolution expanded, so did democracy at the expense of religion. It is not only about Basic Law Freedom of Occupation that anchors the opening of supermarkets and public transportation on Shabbat, equality in the burden of serving in the army for ultra-Orthodox youth, laws that allow combat service for women and recognize same-sex married couples. It is also about opening the doors of the Supreme Court to the Arab public in a series of issues concerning their status in the country.

All of these were an attempt to adapt Israel to the twenty-first century, and to normalize it among the family of nations as a democratic state. However, the more the Supreme Court expanded the space of democracy, the more its position was criticized among a growing segment of citizens who were brainwashed by national and right-wing religious demagoguery. In their eyes, and through relentless propaganda, the judiciary came to be seen as the chief obstacle to governance. The more the status of the Supreme Court was undermined, so did the internal division within Israeli society, which today has reached the boiling point. It turns out that the attempt to expand and interpret the Declaration of Independence only deepened the gap between liberals and conservatives. The conservatives strove with all their might to turn Israel into a Jewish state, as stipulated in the Declaration of Independence, while minimizing its democratic character. According to the right-wing view, democracy is reduced to rights of the Jewish citizens only. Any decision of a constitutional or political nature that does not receive the support of a Jewish majority becomes illegitimate.

The assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was considered the opening shot for creating a new Israeli consensus. The Oslo Accords did not win a Jewish majority in the Knesset and since the majority was achieved with the support of Arab MKs, the accords were illegitimate in the eyes of the right and religious Zionists and the road to political assassination was extremely short. From that historical moment, the Israeli right pushed the liberal opposition into a corner. The demonization of the Knesset’s Arab factions rendered it illegitimate to rely on them to form a ruling coalition. The Naftali Bennett-led Government of Change, which was established in June 2021 with the Islamic movement and disintegrated a year later, was completely boycotted by Netanyahu and his partners. Three members of Bennett’s own right wing faction abandoned him, unable to justify their alliance with an Arab party. Their crossing over to Netanyahu, led to the government’s ultimate collapse.

This consensus is so entrenched that Yair Lapid, the candidate to replace Netanyahu should the latter’s government fall, promises he will not rely on votes of the Islamic movement to obtain a majority, and will allow it into a future coalition only after securing a majority from among the Jewish factions. The protest movement against the right-wing coup also operates by this same principle. The struggle is “inter-Jewish” and there is no place in the protest for Arab citizens, lest the protest be perceived as illegitimate and unpatriotic in the eyes of the general public.

To emphasize the Jewish nature of the country, over its democratic character, the right-wing had to reiterate 70 years after the declaration of independence that “the State of Israel is the nation state of the Jewish people.” In the Nation-State law approved by the Knesset on July 19, 2018, by a majority of 62, 55 against and 2 abstentions, there is no mention of Israel as a democratic state that grants equality to all its citizens. The Arab citizens were thus denied any part in determining the fate of the country. They are allowed to vote, but not to influence its course.

The coup d’état of Religious Zionism (party of Betzalel Smotrich) goes one step further, acting to disqualify the Arab lists from participating in Knesset elections at all. Its rage is lashed at the Supreme Court, which overturned the Central Election Commission’s decision to disqualify one of the three Arab parties” the National Democratic Assembly (Balad) faction. According to all polls, and despite an increase in support for the Yesh Atid party, Yair Lapid cannot obtain a majority to form a government without including the Arab parties. His promise not to rely on the Arabs to form the government is based on the hope that, after Netanyahu’s departure from the political arena, he will succeed in forming a centre-right government with the remnants of the Likud party. Without a change in the paradigm stated in the Nation-State law, the result will be: neither a constitution nor democracy for all, but the preservation of the oxymoron, defining Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. The relationship between religion and state and the relationship between the state and its Arab citizens will remain in limbo.

Therefore, it is quite possible that Yair Lapid’s hopes will be dashed. The liberal current of Israeli society is currently going through such a deep transformation that it might push its leaders to determine that the democratic foundations are the basis for the state’s existence and future.

Added to all this is the fateful question of what will be the place of the Palestinians under Israeli control. Religious Zionism and the entire right strive to impose the Israeli law to what has become in the eyes of the Israeli public “Judea and Samaria.” The first step in this direction was made with the transfer of the Military “Civil Administration’s” powers to Minister Bezalel Smotrich, thus forgoing the Israeli claim that the territories are held by Israel until a solution is found in the future.

As the two-state solution is no longer relevant, today all opponents to the occupation have come out with the slogan, “Democracy for all from the Jordan to the Sea.” This is indeed a correct and legitimate demand, but its realization is only possible in one state, where a liberal and democratic Israeli and Palestinian majority can realize it. This could be  based on the establishment of that forgotten Constituent Assembly which never convened, but this time not to establish a theocratic Jewish state but a democratic state that includes all the people living between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. Relying  on religious and nationalists to ensure a Jewish majority brought us to today’s constitutional crisis, as well as the recognition of the fact that without democracy for the Palestinians, there will be no democracy for the Jews.

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The first to take to the streets against the rising tide of anti-democratic legislation was the LGBT community on July 22, 2018. They protested the government’s surrogacy law that discriminates against gay men, raising the banner of equality and drawing support from both the private sector and liberal circles. This was undoubtedly an opening shot that ignited new protests, this time against the nation-state law, which prioritizes Israel’s Jewish sector. On August 4, the Druze, waving their five-colored flags, filled Rabin Square. They received a warm embrace from the security establishment, led by former Shin Bet Director Yuval Diskin, who delivered a scathing speech against the law. This Saturday, the Israeli Arab Monitoring Committee will try to fill the square to protest what they see as an emerging apartheid regime. However, there is a split within the opposition camps: the LGBT, Druze, and Palestinians will always march separately.

While sectoral flags are being raised, one flag is absent – the flag of democracy. Fifty-five Knesset members (MKs) voted against the nation-state law – 14 were from the largely Arab Joint List. The remaining 41 failed to organize a rally that would unite all forces opposing the national law, in order to demonstrate their power against the right wing, fractious government that is tearing Israeli society apart.

MKs and activists from the Left attend various demonstrations: they support the LGBT community on Saturday night, return a week later to show solidarity with the Druze, and some will also appear on August 11 as a sign of solidarity with the Arab sector. They hide behind the downtrodden but refuse to stand in the forefront of the struggle against a racist law that tramples the principle of equality.

Why? What prevents the heads of the opposition, the Labor Party, aka Zionist Camp, and Yesh Atid from calling for mass protests against the nation-state law that they opposed in parliament? Both parties are in lockstep with key sections of Israeli society that are fed up with the behavior of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his ministers. This group attempts to secure its electoral future by inciting against the Supreme Court, the New Israel Fund, Ashkenazi elites, the press, writers, and artists, and especially against the Arabs. Why are the opposition MKs hiding behind the LGBT and Druze instead of storming the barricades themselves? After all, the nation-state law was not intended to harm the Arab or Druze population. The real target is the Supreme Court and the liberal character of Israeli society as expressed in the Declaration of Independence.

Signed and proclaimed in 1948, the Declaration of Independence reflected a broad consensus that included Communists and Revisionists, the National Religious and Herut. It promised “full and equal citizenship” for all of Israel’s citizens, “irrespective of religion, race or gender.” This statement did not prevent the enactment of discriminatory laws against the Arab population that favored the Jewish majority: the Law of Return, the Absentees’ Law, zoning and building laws, and tax and budgetary policies that have discriminated against the Arab population for 70 years.

What led to the enactment of the nation-state law are the rulings of the Supreme Court of Israel, such as decisions that prevented the expulsion of asylum seekers from Africa, that allowed Arabs to purchase land in Jewish towns, that evacuated illegal outposts in occupied territory, and other decisions that impeded the Right’s attempt to change the face of Israeli society. In the wings is the “Basic Law on Legislation,” which will define the limits of judicial review for years to come. In other words, the Arabs are the excuse, but the goal is to change the liberal lifestyle and the fruits of democracy enjoyed by the Jewish majority. It was not necessary to pass a nation-state law. Discrimination thrives without it.

The government openly admits that the Left is the target; the Left is the internal enemy and it must be defeated. “If we look at the hysteria that has gripped the Left in the face of this law, I think it is excellent,” Minister Yariv Levin said in an interview with Haaretz on August 6. What is of great importance to Levin is the hysteria of the Left and not the panic gripping the Arabs. The factor that threatens the peace and security of the coalition is undoubtedly the Zionist leftist opposition, not the Arab-dominated Joint List.

The purpose of the nation-state law is to ensure that the right-wing government continues to rule for as long as possible. When Standard & Poor’s upgrades Israel’s credit rating, and Trump continues, with Putin’s help, to drive the US and the world crazy, the nation-state law is just a sideshow, a global footnote that helps Netanyahu mobilize his base and neutralize the opposition.

How can the Zionist Left dare oppose a law that says that the State of Israel belongs only to the Jewish people? How can Avi Gabbay, head of the Labor Party (a.k.a. the Zionist Camp) support the protesters in the square when he himself has declared that the Left “has forgotten what it means to be Jews,” adding, “We are Jews, living in a Jewish state. I think one of the Labor Party’s problems is that it has distanced itself from that”? After all, it is clear that Netanyahu has the upper hand in the ‘who is more Jewish’ competition. The nation-state law aims to pull the rug out from under Labor’s Gabbay, and it gives Netanyahu the competitive edge over Yesh Atid’s strongman, Yair Lapid, who is trying to out-bibi Bibi.

Nevertheless, the Left is content to see the LGBT and the Druze rallying at Rabin Square, since they aren’t necessarily leftists. Both groups represent a broader spread: MKs Itzik Shmuli (Labor) and Amir Ohana (Likud) are gay, while Ayoub Kara is a Druze Likud minister, and Salah Saad is of Labor. If they were leftists, Netanyahu would have no trouble dismissing them. But because they represent a wider circle in public opinion and enjoy public support, he is in danger of having to pay a political price.

Despite the above, Tzipi Livni (recently appointed as leader of the opposition) is still trying to spearhead the struggle, and promises, if elected, to override the nation-state law with the Declaration of Independence. However,the Declaration of Independence does not have the power to build a truly democratic and egalitarian society. Moreover, it even prepared the ground upon which the nation-state law is built. Discrimination against the Arab population and the division between Jews and Arabs are the fertile soil from which the Israeli Right arose. Since 1948, and despite the Declaration of Independence, Israel conquered the West Bank and Gaza and established an occupation that has lasted 50 out of its 70 years of existence.The marriage between the revisionist and messianic Right, together with the Ashkenazi and Mizrahi ultraorthodox, forms a stable coalition that can lead a counter-constitutional revolution and set up a benighted nationalist-religious regime.

In order to block the right-wing revolution, the Left must adopt a comprehensive program that will be a clear and unambiguous answer to the Right. Confronting the Jewish State, we must advocate for a truly democratic state, a state of all its citizens. Confronting the Occupation and the separate laws for settlers and Palestinians, we must present a far-reaching solution based on a single democratic state with equality and majority rule. Ironically, the Declaration of Independence states that Israel will “ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or gender. It will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education,and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions, and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations…and will take steps to bring about the economic union of the whole of Eretz-Israel.”

Economic unity already exists. It is based on the single Customs Envelope for Israel and the Palestinian Authority, one currency, and almost complete economic integration, but without equality or political rights. The Left has lost its vision; it has no political path and no socioeconomic alternative, and therefore it remains weak and doomed. The vision of a single state, a shared economy,and one constitution can defeat the Israeli Right and ensure peace and democracy. This is conditioned, of course, on Israelis and Palestinians finding a way of joining forces for the creation of a new reality.

*Translated from the Hebrew by Robert Goldman

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