50 years after his first visit, these are a recent oleh's thoughts on Israel - opinion

A half-century after my first visit to Israel, I have just obtained my Israeli ID and have become an Israeli citizen. It took a year to jump through the bureaucratic hoops to obtain the myriad double certified documents that the Interior Ministry requires. A lifelong objective has belatedly come to fruition. I moved to Jerusalem a year ago coincident with the beginning of the process to obtain my walking papers.

In the 50-year run-up, I visited well over 90 times, bought two apartments, expended thousands of hours and dollars in Zionist causes, including creating a Jewish day high school with one of its core tenets being Zionism and rising to a position with the National Council of AIPAC.

The hassle referred to above failed to dim my pride and excitement at the prospect of being an Israeli citizen and then arose the political crisis engendered by the so-called judicial reform. My emotions have expanded to include contradictory feelings of frustration, sober reflection, angst and anger.

As a son of two Auschwitz survivors, the necessity for a Jewish state prompts to mind the legal doctrine of res ipsa loquitur (the thing speaks for itself) – a concept whose merits are so obvious, it requires no explanation. And yet, here I sit in the Holy City, the capital of a reborn Jewish state after two millennia – proof that miracles still occur in our time – witnessing a self-inflicted threat to its cohesion and continuity on the very eve of its 75th anniversary.

And my primary visceral reaction is one of contempt and anger at the myopia, pettiness and self-absorption of what purports to pass for its political leadership. Particular opprobrium is warranted for the head of each party but there is plenty of blame to go around to each member of the Knesset.

Each seems to be completely oblivious to the prime directive: the protection of the Zionist entity and its defense from those who relentlessly wish to destroy it – actually destroy it, as in kill all of the Jews here and failing that, at least ongoingly attempt to delegitimize and isolate it from the international community (per apartheid and BDS, etc.).

There is a collective failure to ingest the duty to implement the vision of the Declaration of Independence; to forge a viable nation that is both a liberal democracy and Jewish, among a mosaic of disparate sociological, religious and cultural constituencies. Such an unprecedented task takes leadership that demonstrates a foundational spirit of and genuine belief in the axiom that all of Israel is responsible for one another.

Naive you say? Maybe so but the descent into factionalism to its present depths and retreat into tribal silos hurling epithets of demonization at political enemies is a true prescription for unraveling the very state which we prayed for against all odds for two millennia and which miraculously came into existence.

No segment of the body politic, even if in power by virtue of a slim victory in elections, should arrogate to itself the notion that it can impose its ideology and vision on other segments.

Is it too much to expect the leaders of parties to place the best interests of the entire body politic and the Zionist project as a priority over their own particular ideologies? Is it too much to ask to expect leaders to understand that their preferences, philosophies or ideologies don’t represent the majority of the electorate and while pursuing their objectives actually compromise the coin of the realm in a democracy? The opposition should be viewed as the loyal opposition, not as - God forbid - the enemy.

THIS FACT of democratic life should inform all policy disagreements but certainly arguments about foundational concepts of the very governance structures of the country. There must be buy-in from a consensus of the people of at least 60-70% for it to be viable.

As for the present reform issue, it is incontrovertible that there is an imbalance between the judiciary and legislative/executive foci of power in Israel that has emerged in the last 25 years. It needs remediating. Optimally, the present crisis should prompt the belated convening of a constitutional convention, which the Declaration of Independence required.

Government braches' powers

Setting forth the powers of the various branches of government, as well as the checks and balances that are necessary to protect the basic rights of each citizen against the overreach of governmental power is at the essence of liberal democracy. The lack of those fundamental principles set forth in a foundational document has left a vacuum from which this crisis has emanated.

Above all, it is a sine qua non of liberal democracy that the rule of law is respected by the body politic. This is what keeps the barbarians at the gates and precludes society from sliding into anarchy at one end or succumbing to dictatorial regimes on the other.

This fight has exposed fissures within the body politic that threaten the continued viability of this Zionist experiment. The deliberations necessary to successfully navigate a rethinking of the very governing structure of the nation will require statesmanship, wisdom and respect for those with whom you disagree.

This is in stark contradistinction to the hyperbolic, accusatory, sensationalist demonization of the “other” rhetoric being so facilely uttered. The only path forward is for the political leadership entrusted to safeguard the citizenry – all of its citizenry – to wake up to their most fundamental duty.

Israel is still vulnerable in the world. It has proven it can withstand attempts to destroy it by external forces against all odds. It should be crystal clear that it cannot prevail in a fight against itself. Abraham Lincoln was right about many things but none more accurate than his plea that “a house divided against itself cannot stand.”

As a new citizen and lifelong Zionist, I pray that on the eve of Israel’s 75th birthday, those who attend the negotiations under Herzog’s good offices do so with humility, wisdom and understanding that the fate of the Third Commonwealth is in their hands.

The writer, who has just received Israeli citizenship, held several Jewish communal leadership positions in the US, including a synagogue president, the founder and the president of Frankel Jewish Academy high school in West Bloomfield, MI and a member of the AIPAC National Council.