Call for Participation in Art Project “People of the Other Side”

The Love Letter Building was an art project by HA Schult in summer 2001 in Berlin. While the old Postfuhramt (a building at Oranienburger Strasse) was reconstructed the whole scaffolding was covered with a canvas-cover that was printed all over with handwritten love letters by normal people like students who were asked by their art teachers to participate in the project.

 

While drawing today on my Israel canvas something made me remember this project. My thoughts didn’t stop with the memory but my brain worked on. And so I want to invite you to participate in something similar – if only on a smaller scale as I have no scaffolding to cover but not less important.

 

I believe from my own experiences and from the bottom of my heart that it is less easy to lump people and project hate on a generalized group if you can put names, stories, faces to the group you may at the extreme want to dislodge or even erase.  This is what my story ‘One King’s Children’ is about. And hence I want to do exactly this in an art project. With little notes and letters about yourself, little pictures, photos, knitting etc. that you think, might represent the one thing you are most, best, I want to create a “Wall of People of the Other Side”.

 

Foremost I aim of course, seeing my background, at Israelis and Palestinians, Jews and Arabs. Yet, as the lines of one camp vs. another are not limited to one tiny spot on the planet (sic!) I don’t want to limit the project. If you want to participate to give your group/ people a face you are cordially invited.

 

What do I ask you to send me?: All I ask for is one small, nice handwritten message in English (as I and everyone who will see the wall must be able to know what it says and (bad) English is the language spoken by most in the world) about one thing you think you are. At the end of ‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button’ they say something along the lines: some people are born to be mothers, some people are born to know everything about buttons, some people are born to create clocks… So, what are you born to be? What represents you best?

 

I want only small things you can send me by normal mail as I hope for many people to participate. So if you read this and like the idea, send the message out to your friends inviting them to take part as well. And don’t forget to drop me a line (either here or via the Email address on my frontpage) so that I can give you further instructions as where to send your letter.

Israel (WIP) and a Call for Participation in an Art Project

Israel (acrylic and sand on canvas 100×120 cm, still WIP)

For the call for participation in an art project aimed at a better understanding please scroll down to the end of this post. Thank you.

This is what I am working on right now (if a very bad sore throat hadn’t sent me to bed early today). I am sorry that the picture is a bit fussy. Yet, you can still see that I colored the sky already and the sand with the shadow of the beach chair. And you can see the pencil outline of what will soon be the beach chair image. All in all, the new pic is about the image of Israel I have in my mind.

 

Do you know this kind of beach chairs that were invited at the beaches of the Baltic Sea? They are quite sturdy and protect you against all kinds of influences – rain and sun, heavy winds, sandy feet and curious eyes. They are comfortable in their own way, invite for a pause and offer room for storage. But they are as well pretty inflexible and too heavy to move around all the time to adjust them to the fast changing circumstances.

 

The image of such a beach chair I drew is slightly adjusted to the Mediterranean climate. It’s made of wood and not of reed and the fabric will be of lighter colors. But you can still see where the original idea came from.

 

The chair is situated in a beautiful surrounding. The bright, sunny sky and the white sand bring along an air of peace and eternity. The image of the palm tree in the chair as a symbol of a tree of life add to the feel of eternity. Leaves of the palm tree have been chopped of during past time. But this made the trunk only more sturdy. From the heart of the trunk new green grows and the leaves fill every angle of the Israeli world past and present.   

 

But the chair, meant to be a protection by itself, needs to be heavily protected by walls and barbwire. Even these measures can’t prevent the constant pinpricks of Qassam rockets, attacking the nerves of the inhabitants, their property, their health and their lives. If you add the cruelty of suicide bombs and bombs you might have found the reason for the preponderance of military, aggressive thoughts that throw dark shadows onto the paradise. But these shadows are, what the world looks at first as they become darker.

 

OK, this rounds up some of my ideas that brought me to draw this picture exactly as I do. While I do the manual work of giving my thoughts a shape my brain is already working on the next ideas for pictures to ‘One King’s Children’. In my last post I already published the text ‘Dear Mr. PM-To-Be’ I will use for another canvas that will feature as a background the cover of my Israeli passport. For the exhibition/ public reading I will also add a self portrait of me/ Lea.

 

Yet, for what I plan now to be the main piece I want to invite you all to help me. ‘One King’s Children’ has many messages one should think about. But one of the main messages is that it is much harder to live aggressive, inhuman, xenophobic ideas if you can put a normal, perhaps even lovely, loving face to the people on the other side. You think twice if you can lump together and generalize if you have some kind of connection to those affected by the lumping together.

 

Hence, with the Love Letter Building we once had here in Berlin in mind, I want to create a wall of “people you used to hate until you got around to know them” featuring handwritten letters and/ or small artwork (pictures, photos, knitting etc.) giving the common Israeli, Palestinian, Jew or Arab in particular but if you want to the English, American, German, French or whatever you are in general a face and a meaning.

 

All I ask for is a small handwritten message in English (as I and everyone who will see it must be able to know what it says and (bad) English is the language spoken by most in the world) about one thing you think you are. At the end of ‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button’ they say something along the lines: some people are born to be mothers, some people are born to know everything about buttons, some people are born to create clocks… So, what are you born to be? What represents you best?

 

I want only small things you can send me by normal mail as I hope for many people to participate. So if you read this and like the idea, send the message out to your friends inviting them to take part as well. And don’t forget to drop me a line so that I can give you further instructions as where to send your letter.

Dear Mr. PM-To-Be

Dear Mr. PM-to-be, come take a walk with me.

Let’s pretend, we are just two people and

you’ve got the national interest in mind only.

I’d like to ask you some questions, if we can speak honestly.

What do you feel when you see all those torn by worries and conflict?

Who do you want to impress with all the power you strive for?

What are your innermost principles, you wouldn’t sell?

Do you have pride?

 

How do you sleep when the rest of us cry?

How do you dream when mothers and their children die?

How do you walk with your head held high?

Can you even look me in the eye, and tell me why?

Dear Mr. PM-to-be, were you a lonely boy? Did you need to buy you friends?

 

How can you think of war again as they say you are?

We’re not dumb and we’re not blind.

They’re covering the nation and its nerves with rockets like pinpricks

While I verse their tirades and bombs rob sleep and lives.

But what kind of moral would we call our own if we kneel down to their level?

And what kind of nation would we be behaving in action like the devil?

I can only imagine what the world has to say…

We’re come a long way from enlightenment and democracy!

 

How do you sleep when the rest of us cry?

How do you dream when mothers and their children die?

How do you walk with your head held high?

Can you even look me in the eye, and tell me why?

Dear Mr. PM-to-be, were you a lonely boy? Did you need to buy you friends?

 

Let me tell you ‘bout democracy

It’s ‘bout playing by the rules though no referee will check and see

Let me tell you ‘bout peace

Look at the world through the other people’s eyes without cease

Let me tell you ’bout humanity

Dignity of man – to protect it shall be the duty of all public authority.

Let me tell you ‘bout democracy, peace, humanity.

You should your rule be governed by democracy, peace, humanity.

 

How do you sleep at night?

How do you walk with your head held high?

Dear Mr. PM-to-be, you’d never take a walk with me.

Hmmm, would you?

 

 

 

 

I attended Pink’s concert last Wednesday (it was awesome by the way). And between working on the next picture for my story of ‘One King’s Children’ and following the news, her songs wove through my thoughts. The above is the result of this explosive chaos which I plan to copy on some canvas. Well, art is to awake and to spark discussion, isn’t it?

A Not Just Two Dimensional View on the Gaza War, Some IDF Soldiers Testimony and Morality

I don’t even want to start to count how many times I read on WordPress/ tag Israel and other places lately an outcry ‘Testimony of IDF soldiers who fought in Gaza: ‘Cold blooded murder’’ or something along the same lines. Ehud Barak responded that Israel had the most moral army on the planet. Welcome to the world in black and white! Sorry, but I refuse to reduce my vision to two dimensions.

 

OK then, let’s talk about everything but sex. Let’s talk about armies, combatants, rebels, terrorists and morality, about International Law, the UN Charter and the bellum iustum theory, and about some soldiers’ testimony. But beware, even though I try to use my advantage of an outside perspective to give credit to all sides, I am not unbiased as I am what I am – I am Israeli.

 

I once heard somebody say that in case German territory was attacked the Germans would defend themselves by throwing bed-pans and gauze bandages at the attackers. It’s of course only a joke. Germany has an army (from Monday to Friday at least). The joke finds its true core in the fact that many of those who get drafted by the German army – and out of budgetary reasons those who get drafted are by far not all young male capable of recruiting – become ‘conscientious objectors’. The term is used rather lax. Nobody even checks if these boys have a conscience at all. But that is another story.

 

Fact is Germany as well as many other Middle and Western European states would be in a very comfortable position when it comes to questions of army, conscience and morality if it were not for their engagement in battles abroad. Rather today than tomorrow common Germans would like to step out of this responsibility too as they have not really a clue what German soldiers are doing at the Hindu Kush.

 

God give that Israel will reach this peaceful, comfortable and lovely position one day too. Today, it is almost a joke of history that the Germans, once known and feared for their aggression and warmongering, are now more feared by their partners in NATO etc. for their peaceableness; while the homeland of the Jews, who once let themselves be led to their own slaughtering like calves, is now watched with Argus’ eyes for their battle tested and combat ready army.

 

It might be because Israel is a child of the Untied Nations – its only child so far as its twin Palestine is still struggling in the birth canal – that the plethora of parents watches so closely and checks Israel’s acts and deeds on the highest moral standards only. You can complain it, think it unfair. You can argue that any other sovereign state would have reacted much earlier on a constant bombardment of its territory irrespective of the damage done by the weapons. You can point out that terrorist organizations are fought with all severity by many other states and that Hamas has been deemed a terrorist organization by several other states than just Israel. Etc. pp. Irrespective of what you might mention, because Israel’s coming to existence was based on moral issues, the question will never be if it acted like others would have done but if its acts were morally perfect.

 

So, what is morality? Morality refers to an ideal code of conduct. Kant put it like this in his Categorical Imperative: Act only upon that maxim that you can will at the same that everyone act upon. In other words, if you are going to allow yourself to act out of a particular intent then you must be willing that the whole world does so as well.

 

It would be a good idea to check the UN Charta for a guideline on morality in international relations. As a charter, it is a constituent treaty, and all members are bound by its articles. Israel is a full member and therefore bound. Yet, as only sovereign states can become members the Palestinian territories are still a non-member entity.

 

Does it mean that any party in the territories can get away unpunished with any violation of the main purpose of the UN to maintain peace and security in general and the violation of the ostracism of wars of aggression in particular? It would limit Israel’s rights as a sovereign state and especially its in Article 51 guaranteed right to self-defense. Other than that one could make a case for the Charta like the Human Rights Declaration having become international customary law (and I did start such a discussion with my International Law prof during my state examination. I knew my prof was more conservative and therefore of different opinion. I did it anyway what might tell you why I am quite content that it never came to an experimental set up: me and the army). So no and this should be plain for anyone with common sense, they are not allowed to do whatever they want or they too need to live with the consequences.

 

Well, the ongoing bombardment establishes a case of self-defense according to Article 51 UN Charta. But apparently this is not enough for those denouncing Israel. Much obfuscation might be due to the intermixture of ius ad bellum (When is a state allowed to use means of war?) and ius in bello (What measures can a state take in war?). Just to make this round let’s stick a bit longer with the first question and let’s come back to some moral issues.

 

I cited Kant earlier already: if you are going to allow yourself to act out of a particular intent then you must be willing that the whole world does so as well. So, here I should perhaps point back to the 1930’s and 1940’s, the time before Israel was founded. With Hagana, Irgun and Lechi Jews gathered in paramilitary and even terroristic organizations to path a way to statehood. Hence, the politics of the Palestinians though not right or justifiable should not be that alien to us Jews.

 

But, and this is a big but for the Palestinians, history has shown that the state was not gained through terroristic acts. You don’t gain any sympathies with the use of aggression, bombings, suicide bombings, hate tirades or the like. In the 60+ years since you were offered a state just like the Jews were offered a state an all-or-nothing-policy hasn’t taken you anywhere. It was not without reason that already Lord Passfield said early on that the whole Israeli-Palestinian conflict was unfair because “the Jews have Dr. Weizmann, and the Arabs do not.” Weizmann was a man of diplomacy and focused to his cause. He would never have allowed others to objectify his people to its disadvantage other than Hamas that rather sells its cause and fights a proxy war for Iran and its axis than to do what would be best for its people. Less violence and more diplomacy would take you further.

 

More brain and less testosterone would suit Israel as well of course. We have a right to self-defense, ok. The citizens need to be protected, ok. But the Gaza war never promised any chance of success. Gaza is such a highly populated area, home for so many children. Whatever you do, you can only lose reputation. On the other hand Israel is number two worldwide in the high technology branch. Aren’t there any ideas how to prevent the smuggling of weapons into the territories by technical means? If we speak about morality this would have been the better solution.

 

To wrap up this part about the right to use war measures I repeat: Yes, Israel had a right to self-defense but one has not to act on any right one has.

 

What is left to discuss is now the question of ius in bello, that means how combatants have to act in war. Just war conduct should be governed by the principles of distinction, proportionality and military necessity/ minimum force. Distinction: Acts of war should be directed towards enemy combatants, not towards non-combatants caught in circumstances they did not create. Proportionality: An attack cannot be launched on a military objective in the knowledge that the incidental civilian injuries would be clearly excessive in relation to the anticipated military advantage. Minimum force: An attack or action must be intended to help in the military defeat of the enemy, it must be an attack on a military objective, and the harm caused to civilians or civilian property must be proportional and not excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated.

 

I will not beat around the bush. The death toll and the results don’t imply that a strict compliance to the rules of just war. While one can argue that it is hard to fight terrorists hiding between non-combatants, especially children according to the rules of just war, one must not lower its own moral standards to that of the enemy, in particular not if one wants to be the most moral army in the world. The war cannot be undone. But one has to investigate the facts, check what went wrong and learn the lessons taught so that it not happens again and again.

 

I said this in the assumption that the death toll under non-combatants was never meant to happen this way by the leaders. The testimonies of some soldiers that became public during last week imply something different. Here again, I don’t want to sugarcoat anything. If the leaders allowed or even encouraged the shooting of non-combatants, it would be a shame and everyone could call out Cold Blooded Murder and I joined.

 

Yet, the testimonies have to been put in relation. They are few and they report of hearsay but never of own deeds. There could be many reasons these stories came to be. For one thing, the young ones who collected their first combat experience might have become afraid of the person they met in the field and they now see every day in the mirror. What they might could have done or felt like doing could have become a reality to them they needed to talk about. Then, there are those who were never happy with the ongoing politics and use the publicity of the war for their cause.

 

And finally and unfortunately, there are those who really lack any human sense and humanity and shot at civilians just because they were in their way or because they were always of the opinion that these Palestinians have earned the bullets. Jews in general and Israelis in particular are no better people. There are good and bad as with any people. It is crucial however, to single those soldiers out and to lead them to their just punishment as murder is a crime in wartimes and in peace. Here the circle closes as this would make IDF to a moral army. And it is this kind of morality the UN gathered parents can expect of their only child.

I Am Not Limited to Words

One King's Children - Acrylic on Canvas

It’s Friday night in Europe and I can report: it’s done. The painting process didn’t took me as long as writing the story of ‘One King’s Children’, of course. But it took me quite a couple of hours to get the politics in the window right or at least right for what I feel.

When I did the ‘Aviva Bear’ as the official Buddy Bear for the Jerusalem tour and later was asked to use the same design for the Israel Bear in the circle of United Buddy Bears Minis the design had to be approved by the Buddy Bear Society and Israel. They asked me to do a Jerusalem motif. Yet, the reason for the bears coming to existance asked for a careful use of symbolism of any kind other than the peace dove.

Don’t get me wrong, I still love the design (and so do the many tourists who still buy it) and wouldn’t do it any different today. But, One King’s Children is a political thriller touching many aspects of the Israel – Palestine/ Hamas conflict on a more personal level. Lea realizes that despite her living her life so far in Germany, she has to take a stand and get her priorities straight as she is already far more involved in the conflict than she has ever admitted to herself. 

And so is it, as I now return with my art to Jerusalem, the motif became more political than that of the bear. My facit: I am satisfied and off to the next picture concerning my/ Lea’s view of her motherland Israel.

Politics and Art – My Way

Work in Progress - One King's Children

What did I do at this weekend? Well, I watched Hertha BSC’s next victory on their way to a possible Bundesliga Championship. I went to the movies with some friends and finished the night with some drinks at Josty’s.

One of my friends has taken things in her hands now when it comes to my art and writing. She is organizing the creation of a good art presentation map of my things. And she is already developing ideas how to promote ‘Eines Koenigs Kinder‘/ “One King’s Children‘.

Once I have realized all ideas connected with the story around the German/ Israeli Lea and Aram with his Hamas background, she plans on a joint exhibition and open reading here in Berlin. She is already at the guest lists – but she doesn’t want to put any pressure on me – nooooo way . Seriously, I am happy she is taking care of me in that way now. Hence, I have to work on the art.

Work in Progress 2 - One King's Children

And that I did mostly this weekend. I transfered the sketch to canvas and started with the colors (arylic, as always). I took two pictures at different times so you can see the progress I did since noon today.

While working on the picture I try to keep up to date of the latest news from the coalition negotiation in Israel and the Hamas/ Fatah negotiation in Egypt. It makes the experience of working on this picture even more emotional, fascinating and unique.

Lea, Aram and David are not ready to settle with easy explanations and solutions in their Middle Eastern problems. Somehow, I have the feeling that we will see their triangle just in a bigger version soon in real politics. I would think it a good thing for them to speak and listen to each other.

And here we go again – my art and my views intermingle. But that’s the way how it should be for me, I guess.

Why I Join the Choir of Those Opposing the Idea of Liebermann for Foreign Minister of Israel for the Sake of Democracy

As long as we had to fight for our freedom, we knew our common aim. Now that we live in freedom we don’t know anymore what we really want. Václav Havel

 

Vaclav Havel is a Czech writer and politician. During the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia he was one of the leading critics of the system. He became heavily involved in the Velvet Revolution in 1989. His readiness to go to jail for his convictions and his engagement in the revolution made him ‘trustable’ for the majority of people in Czechoslovakia and after the separation for the majority of Czech as well. They elected him to be their last mutual and first separated president. Hence, he knows what he is talking of in the quote above.

 

The main subject in Havel’s work is the alienation of today’s people from the so-called Lifeworld (Lebenswelt). The alienation had been provoked by the adoption of science as the supreme authority in an enlightened society; a position once reserved for an unknown higher something. Havel thinks the alienation the root of all problems of today’s humankind. Further, for him life in the former communistic dictatorships displayed the most extreme form of alienation. According to his opinion their on lies build societies in which words lost their meaning gave evidence of that.

 

So, why do I start yet another post on democracy and Israel with a lecture on Havel and his philosophies?

 

Well, because for one thing I believe that the said quote is true for Jews, Israel, freedom and democracy as well. Since the days when Hess, Lilienblum, Smolenski and Pinsker, Herzl, Weizmann and Ben Gurion came to the conclusion that modern day anti-semitism detached from the Christian idea of collective guilt of the Jews and Christian moral limits (by Nietzsche) presented a fundamental threat for the whole people of Jews and formulated the common aim of creation of a state of Israel, the Jews were most feared and redlined for the representation and the advancement of liberal, democratic, enlightened ideas. (They were the ones who also experienced the most advantages from the implementation of these ideas in Europe of the 19^th century.)

 

These ideas were reflected still in the Israeli Declaration of Independence from May 14, 1948:

 

THE STATE OF ISRAEL will be open for Jewish immigration and for the Ingathering of the Exiles; it will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure 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; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.

 

But, since we Jews realized the aim to create a state of our own where we could live according to our principles, where we could be able to set a positive example of how to implement the teachings of the past for a better future of all inhabitants, we lost track of what we really wanted. How else could a party like Yisrael Beiteinu with a slogan like “No loyalty, no citizenship”, that implies a deep rooted racism of the Israeli Arab minority, collect one out of every eight voters?

 

Yisrael Beiteinu’ success in the elections and Liebermann’s demand for full sovereignty in the job as Foreign Minister for himself in the coalition negotiations with Likud bring me to my second reason to open this post with Havel. Yisrael Beiteinu and their leader Liebermann became known as the party of immigrants from the former Soviet Union. One million immigrants entered the country only in the 1990’s, making up 1/6^th of the whole population. They have like Havel a past in a communist dictatorship.

 

Havel said that words lost their meaning to the peoples in communist/ socialist dictatorships. One such word was peace that was used on any apt and inapt occasion, meaning in this special circumstance only the conservation of a status quo and the maintenance of the regime. Another such empty word-jacket represents the word democracy. Even though the citizens in all the Eastern bloc states were called to the ballot boxes regularly to do their democratic obligation (and yes, voting was a duty), they had no real choice, no real influence on the voting results and participated only in a huge charade to give the regime a apparent validation.

 

Liebermann’s demands for autonomy in a minister job and for loyalty tests for certain citizens expresses that his understanding of democracy is likewise screwed up. And perhaps we can soon even add his legal philosophy (laws are a nice thing but not for me) to the list of things screwed up as he might face prosecution in the case of money laundering surrounding his daughter. I really don’t think a man like him should become the face representing Israel to the world.

 

Yet, while Liebermann might find his ‘excuse’ in his undemocratic experiences of the past, Likud leader Netanyahu has been raised in the US. Still, he is said to have prevented a success of Livni’s coalition negotiation efforts last year by offering one of his ‘natural allies’ a minister post and money. Well, the Israeli people as a whole might not know what it really wants right now. Netanyahu definitely knows what he wants – power for himself by any, perhaps even undemocratic means.

 

Well, this post might not be as rounded up as the posts before, not to say a bit of raging rambling. However, this is only because I really don’t like where the oldest stable democracy in the Middle East is heading for. I hope that the undemocratic tendencies will fade and we return to the liberal, democratic and enlightened ideas the Jews were once feared for.

Art Attack

Sketch to 'Economy in Ruins'

I said sometimes before that the final idea for the book ‘One King’s Children’ came to me when I worked on a picture. Well, on the left side you can see what the picture will look like. It’s still work in progress and up to now it only exists in my sketchbook. As the name says it is my way to look at the ongoing economic crisis. Stock markets have managed to take economy apart and leave it in ruins. The mechanisms are rather intransparent, the resulting chaos is apparent – just as in the picture. It will take me some time to transfer it onto canvas. This is not just because I have so many other things going on as well – I realized just today that I have to rewrite some part of my book which are closely tied to the new information I read up lately and which I want to cover in some more articles on Israel and the Middle East. I also have another pic in mind I want to realize first.

Sketch to 'One King's Children'

The picture is called just like the book (you can find the link to it on my Front Page) ‘One King’s Children’. It was inspired by a quote of Olmert I read the other day – The peace dove sat already on the windowsill. Well, in my pic it is rather a gargoyle, waiting for some more mischief it can do, sitting on the windowsill. But my window is even though a bit battered already, open for any dove to fly in. In my mind it looks great aready.

OK, that’s all for now. I just thought I should let you know that I am working on some new arty stuff as well and have not lost myself in Middle Eastern and Israel politics completely.

Democracy, Low Turn Out of the 2009 Israel Parliament Elections and Kedima’s Decision to Sit in the Opposition

“Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”

Winston Churchill

 

The word democracy is derived from the Greek ‘democratia’. It translates “popular government”. It’s good to know the fact but it doesn’t help much as political and social circumstances have changed a lot since Antiquity. What was once understood as ‘people’ is today only a fraction of the whole population. And the territories which need to be governed are multi-fold as large as they were during the days of Antiquity. Hence, today the word is used as a more general term for all forms of government in which the authority emanates from the people and is executed directly or indirectly by it.

 

On the one hand democracy is therefore concerned with government of a people. On the other hand it is concerned with the freedom of every single citizen belonging to the people governed. The freedom is limited by the commitment to the collectivity (state or society) and its laws and orders. Yet, only the system of laws and orders enables every single citizen’s freedoms to evolve. Democracy requires therefore constantly to reach consensus on the degree of freedoms of the single possible and limits to freedoms necessary.

 

“A democrat doesn’t need to believe that the majority will always reach a wise decision. What he should believe in is in the necessity that a majority decision – if wise or not – needs to be respected until the majority reaches another decision.”

Bertrand Russell

 

In a democracy consensus is reached according to the principle of majority, while the rights of the minority needs to be protected. However, modern day territorial states are simply too large and too populated for direct participation of all citizens in all decisions. Furthermore, many decisions if not all today need specific knowledge of the topics at hand which not all people have time to gather in time for a decision. Just like in economy a specialization takes place.

 

Modern democracy is therefore not self-government of the people. It can be realized only as a government of representatives of the people which emerged victorious from general, free, equal and secret elections and which run the affairs of state according to the wish of the respective majority of all citizens. The citizens hold them to account for their work in recurrent elections which can lead to a peaceful change of government if the former minority became the majority meanwhile.

 

“Elections are the concern of the people. The decision is in their hands. If they turn their back to the fire und hence burn their butt, they need to sit on their blisters.”

Abraham Lincoln

 

Hence, a free formation of opinions on political and social questions and on the work of the representatives and elections are fundamental elements of every democracy – yes, democracy, even in its indirect form, is laborious for citizens. Every citizen who does not vote renounces his right to decide on the own future. He must accept the decisions of whose citizens who voted. Thereby he declares himself immature.

 

So, the least thing every citizen should do is to make up his mind and vote. The more fundamental the decisions are, which the future government is expected to decide on in the next legislative period, the more important it becomes to make use of the right to vote. Thus one should think that the constituency of a country like Israel where the government will need to decide on questions of peace and war, on questions of enhancements of electoral law, on questions of involvement or reduction of the influence of religious law (to name just a few) would flock to the ballot boxes at the election day.

 

How is it then that the turn out of the 2009 parliamentary election in Israel was only 65.2%? Even in Germany where life is compared to Israel rather easy, where the political and democratic situation is rather settled and stable and where citizens are called disenchanted with politics the lowest ever turn out was registered in 2005 with 77.7%.

 

There isn’t just one simple answer to this question. I think a couple of reasons accrue which allow Israel’s democracy to become/ stay vulnerable (the list is not meant to be exclusive):

 

Let’s begin by mentioning the endurance test for any democracy where the diversification of the society is far advanced. That’s the case in any immigration nation as well as in many modern societies in general. Integration mustn’t mean that the immigrants/ sub-group forget their linguistic, cultural, religious, regional, social or ethnic origin. Their otherness will at the best enrich the nation and promote it. However, wherever a sub-group sets itself apart from the majority and thumps the acknowledgement of its dissimilarity in political institutions, democracy comes heavily under pressure. A politics directed at the protection of particulate, individual identities collides with the necessity of negotiation and compromise in a democratic decision making process and the principle of the rule of the majority over the minority.

 

Israel is home of the few Arab Israelis who chose to stay and give the new Jewish nation a try. One third of the Jewish population is member of the first generation of Israel. The majority of citizens are immigrants or children of immigrants. Israel has absorbed over the 60+ years of existence hundreds of thousands of people who came from all corners of the world. After the breakup of the Soviet Union alone 1 million immigrants entered the country what means that they make up one sixth of the whole population.

 

It is true that the conflict between Ashkenazim and Sephardim, religious and secular was always smoldering. Yet, the work of developing a new nation, the awareness of a common threat, similar menaces in the countries of origin and a brace in a common language everyone had to learn were helpful in creating a sense of connection and solidarity. One shouldn’t underestimate the importance especially of a common language for the creation of a feeling of affiliation to a nation as a language transports much more than just information. And while I have to confess that my Hebrew is rather rudimentary developed (because I lack the opportunities to use it really) what is really a shame for a citizen of Israel, I think it dangerous that a mainly Russian speaking sub-culture develops which almost appears like an own parallel nation in the nation.

 

The partly missing integration of immigrants becomes even more precarious as many of the immigrants concerned did not come from countries with a lived democratic tradition. Democracy is something what needs to be learnt. If no moves are taken to educate the population in these matters they might either not participate in the political, democratic processes or they might misunderstand them and try to exploit them for their ends. One of the perils of democracy is that it can be overcome by evitable democratic means.

 

Further on I want to address the issue of acceptance of democratic institutions. The shipwreck of the Weimar Republic made clear how important it is that the citizens acknowledge democracy, trust its institutions, accept its methods of peaceful conflict resolution and of political negotiations for compromises and respect the decisions. The more the citizens are ready to give, the more stable a democracy becomes, the easier it can overcome crises of its institutions or economic problems without permanent damage.

 

The article I read in Haaretz about the acceptance of the Knesset and the government was unfortunately taken down before I could save the numbers on my computer. But it stated that the trust in these institutions was as low as it can get. Israelis rather trust in the IDF and the media than in their own parliament and government. It is sad as the citizens have no influence on the military or the press. And it is a bit schizophrenic as the parliament and the government represents the people. Low trust in the parliament means either I don’t trust myself or I haven’t understood democracy.

 

I think the missing trust is partly a reflection of the lack of any (written or unwritten) constitution ensuring the rights and duties of citizens, the system of checks and balances of all political institutions and the principle of a well-fortified democracy.

 

The missing trust finds its reasons in the fragmented multi-party parliaments which give rise to instable multi-party coalitions. The coalitions become depended on the junior partners as small as they might be. Thereby the minority rules over the majority through the backdoor.

 

Furthermore and this is closely connected to the point I made just before, the programmatic profile of the parties becomes ever paler. Election campaigns lack real information. Topics are reduced to catch words. In many ways parties differ from each other only in accents so that voters distinguish them through highlighted personalities. If parties then conduct office patronage and aim only at assurance or gaining of power they become volatile and insubstantial for the voter. Disenchantment of parties and politics is the result which will be boosted through bribe scandals and office haggling.

 

This leads me directly to my last point I planned to mention. I can only expect people to rush to the ballot boxes if I offer them real, distinguishable alternatives to vote from which will stick to their principles and main programmatic points even after the election. This can mean that even larger parties end up in the opposition.

 

In this light a call for a “unity government” or a “national responsibility government” that puts pressure especially on Kadima and its leader Tzipi Livni is questionable. Even though compromise is one of the keywords of democracy I used quite often in this article, a “unity government” of the kind which includes Kedima, Likud and perhaps even Labor is a rotten compromise. It dilutes the differences between the party lines even more and leads in the best case to another period of stagnation until the parties involved fall out again and call for new elections.

 

“Democracy lives on argument, on discussions about the right path to chose. Therefore, the respect of the opinion of the other belongs to it.”

Richard von Weizaecker

 

The existence of an opposition forestalls that the governing coalition identifies itself with the state and declares its interpretation of the public good absolute and solitary valid. Only in permanent struggle of opinions and interests the abundance of arguments will come up which will help to tackle upcoming problems. Hence, a strong opposition only as a counterpart to the governing coalition is able to exercise control, to keep the lust for power of the government at bay and to offer a real alternative to the government program in place. It acts in the hope the constituency will like the alternative better and rewards the stability to the own principles so that the opposition prevails in the next election.

 

Therefore it is to conclude that a decision of Kedima to go into the opposition does not only help the party to find and establish its place in the political system of Israel, to shape its face so to say. It teaches the country a lot about lived democracy and strengthens the political system. It perhaps even helps to improve the level of trust in the political institutions so that the turn out of the next elections will be significantly higher.

 

“Democracy never runs, but it will reach its goals reliable and for sure.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

 

Personally, I rather want a strong, democratically chosen leader Tzipi Livni in the long run who knows herself backed by strong support in the public for her two-state-peace policy than to live now with a government incapable of action, in its lead unwilling to compromise for peace and bound to its natural allies on the far right wing not just in any religious question.