Israel to Make Citizenship Conditional Upon Oath of Loyalty?

Israel's Israel Beitenu party, which is the second largest party in the govt after the Likud, ran on a platform of repealing Israeli citizenship from anyone

that doesn't make a pledge of loyalty to the State of Israel.

This week the Israeli cabinet voted to reject that proposal.

There was never much doubt that the offer would be thrown

out. The Likud party never supported it, in truth none of the practical parties

supported it. Israel Beitenu ran on a populist platform intended to stir up the

population, but any party that's use to being in power knows how deadly

of a step this measure would've been.

If the proposal were made into law it undoubtedly would

have sparked unprecedented unrest and backlash from

Israel's Arab citizens, who are Palestinians who stayed in Israel after the

war of 1948. While they are overwhelmingly law-abiding and cooperative with Israelis, their faithfulness is to

their Palestinian roots and Palestinian brethren living under occupation. Any attempt tp

disconnect them from their natural loyalty would have sparked

outrage.

in addition to making conflict and violence, the

suggestion would be completely at

percentages with Israel's claims of being a democracy. No democracy that I know

of legally requries its voters to pledge their fidelity.

Freedom of thought and liberty of expression are central to any democracy.

As much as it contradicts Israel's definition as a Jewish state and its laws that give

preference to Jews, Netanyahu often pays lip service to democracy and I

suspect he really believes in it ( though it requires a

back seat to Jewish patriotism ), so he knew the threat this

offer would pose to Israel's standing as a free country.

And thirdly, this suggestion was deadly to Israel because

the bulk of Israelis see hassidic Jews as disloyal to the state. Hassidic Jews may

accept Israel and live in Israel, but they're not Zionists and

their faithfulness is to God alone. For the most part they avoid

military service and state service, and many live off of

government support checks while not studying the Bible rather

than working. If an oath of faithfulness were needed

of Israeli Arabs, many Israelis would also demand such an oath from Hassidic Jews. This would

cause religious stress, in-fighting among

Jews, and an entire lot of headaches for Israeli executives

who are normally held hostage by ultraorthodox parties. The Israeli

regime wants to prevent this situation at all costs.

So that the proposal never actually had a chance of being accept by the cupboard. But nonetheless, the straightforward fact that a party making such an offer received an enormous number of votes is unsettling for Israeli Arabs and liberal Israeli Jews. Let's be optimistic the pragmatism and a wish to coexist will reign supreme over, rather than accelerating patriotism and mutual suspicion.

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