75 years of Israel: A 'Jewish state' to a full theocracy?

Israel recently marked the 75th anniversary of its founding. Although according to the Gregorian calendar the state was founded on 14 May 1948, because of the Jewish calendar, the day was celebrated on 25 April this year.

The date conundrum suits a state which was founded for the people following a specific religion: Jews.

The idea of a homeland for the Jewish people goes back to the late 19th century when the likes of Theodor Herzl espoused it. Herzl wrote and published a pamphlet titled 'Der Judenstaat' — meaning 'The Jewish State' in German — in 1896 to give the idea a more profound foundation.

The ensuing Zionist Movement propagated the idea of founding the Jewish state in Palestine, and the newer waves of antisemitism in the West served as a fuel for the popularisation of the movement among the Jews.

The city of Tel Aviv had existed since 1909. Through the Balfour Declaration in 1917, the British promised to support a "national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine. Large waves of immigration to Palestine followed, often as a result of antisemitic persecutions in Europe.

The Holocaust, when millions of European Jews were exterminated in an attempt of ethnic cleansing in German camps run by the Nazis between 1941 and 1945, contributed further to the influx.

Violence between the Jews and the Arabs had begun in Palestine as early as the 1920s as the both peoples had a claim to the same land, a claim justified by history for both of them.

The declaration of the founding of Israel only resulted in escalation of the clashes, and then full-scale war in 1948. Arab forces from Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon occupied the Palestinian areas not given to the Jews by a UN partition resolution passed a year ago.

In 1949, separate armistice agreements were signed between Israel and each of the Arab states, and a temporary frontier was fixed between the warring parties. Israelis remember the war as the War of Independence, while the Arabs called it Nkbah or catastrophe due to the large number of refugees and displaced persons resulting from the war.

Until 2006, Israel had engaged in at least six all-out wars with individual Arab nations or combined Arab armies, and numerous skirmishes with Palestinian armed groups. The conflict goes on till today. At the same time, it expanded its territories far beyond the UN partition plan of Palestine, chalked out in the United Nations Resolution 181. And all that happened with the direct military, financial and political support of the West: particularly the US and its allies.

That Israel was a "Jewish state" was made clear in its declaration of independence in 1948.

Yet, many have argued that Israel is not a theocracy, because the country has no official religion.

Things, however, have begun changing lately, after the 37th government of Israel was formed in December 2022. The coalition government — led by Benjamin Netanyahu, who became the Prime Minister of Israel for the sixth time — consists of six parties: Likud, United Torah Judaism, Shas, Religious Zionist Party, Otzma Yehudit, and Noam.

For the first time in the country's history, the government has been made up primarily of religious parties. More than half of the seats in the coalition are actually occupied by  far-right parties.

The current government has been dubbed the most theocratic in the country's history.

The reactionary nature of the coalition was felt on election night itself, with the absolute predominance of male members of some celebrating parties. Israeli feminist groups expressed concerns that anti-women policies were in the offing.

Changes came fast.

The newly appointed Justice Minister Yariv Levin, On 4 January 2023,  announced that a number of major changes were to be made in the judicial system.

Within a week, he went on to publish a draft of the proposed changes, which included significant alterations to the judiciary, executive, and legislative processes and functions. 

In a Times of Israel story, Rabbi Seth Farber, the head of the Orthodox religious rights group Itim, articulated what these changes would mean to religious freedom in Israel.

"One of the things that have kept issues of religion and state — complicated as they are — in check was the power of the courts. But now there is a potential fear that the power of the courts is going to be reduced. That is a cause for concern," Farber said.

Historically, Israel's court system has prevented legislation facilitating religious coercion and allowed for more liberal interpretations of existing laws. 

In 2020, the Supreme Court struck down a law that had legalised homes built by settlers on land owned by Palestinians. Such rulings are feared to become almost impossible if the proposed changes are implemented. 

The country has no written constitution, and the only house of parliament is controlled by majority coalitions. Weakening of the court would mean there would be no one to stop the government from doing whatever it wanted to.

And what do the far-right members of the ruling coalition want to do?

They believe that Israel cannot and should not be both Jewish and democratic. They also believe that they have the exclusive right over all of historic Palestine; and Israel should beware of the ways of the liberal West!

Therefore, the new government's formation is seen as extremely detrimental for the country's non-Jewish populations, let alone the palestinians.

According to reports, the far-right government has vowed to prioritise the expansion of settlements and legalise illegally built outposts. 

As the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) recently voted to approve a resolution requesting that the International Court of Justice (ICJ) intervene and render an opinion on the legality of Israeli policies in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem, the new Israeli government was quick to approve a series of retaliatory steps against Palestinian leadership.

The plan to further expand Jewish settlements will displace more Palestinians. Currently, at least five million Palestinian refugees live in different Arab countries.

Things are going to get tougher also for the Arabs living within Israel. Arabs comprise just over 20% of Israel's population. The vast majority of them are citizens, while those in Jerusalem are considered "permanent residents."

Although Arab citizens have been granted the same legal rights as Jewish Israelis, in reality, they are not treated the same way.  Due to structural discrimination, they tend to live in poorer cities, have less formal education, and face other challenges. Arab political parties have long struggled to gain representation in Israel's government, and the latest developments regarding the new government will most certainly strangle their hopes in the future.

However, the good thing is that the proposed reform has sparked protests across Israel. Opposition leaders, former civil servants, economists, activists, jurists have harshly criticised the move, arguing that they will undermine judicial independence and tip the balance of power in favour of the government.

As one of the protesters, a former commando Itzhak Aviram, told Reuters, "This country is changing from being democratic, liberal to a very religious country. As we fought once for Israel, we are still fighting for democratic Israel," he added.

As of writing this piece, Israel's Independence Day celebrations were marred by protests, marking the  deepest divide in the state since the foundation of the country 75 years ago.