Loyalty oaths

I think I have a way to calm everybody down.

The latest ruckus to rile the Jewish world is the Loyalty Oath, put forward by Foreign Minister

Avigdor Lieberman, supported by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and passed into law by the Knesset on Oct. 10.

The law first required every non-Jew wishing to become a citizen of Israel to pledge loyalty to “the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state.” After a firestorm of criticism, the backers of the law, including Netanyahu, proposed a change in the wording so that all new citizens, including Jewish ones, would have to take the oath.

That hardly quieted critics, who still see the law as a not-so-subtle effort to marginalize Arabs, who make up 20 percent of Israel’s population, and to root out Arab Israeli members of the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, who are among the state’s most vociferous critics.

The left has been up in arms over the loyalty law, but so, too, have many center and right voices as well.

“Israel’s image as a democratic country is of vital importance to it,” wrote Yehuda Ben Meir, a member of the right-wing National Religious Party. “An amendment to the Basic Law on the Knesset that keeps the Arabs out will be very harmful to this image and will do unimaginable damage to the state. It is to be hoped the prime minister will come to his senses before it is too late.”

Some of us would argue that the law would not just damage the image of the state, but the state itself. Loyalty oaths undermine democracy by marginalizing or, in effect, outlawing dissent. Plus, they don’t work. A study of President Harry S. Truman’s loyalty oath program in 1947 found that — surprise! — people lie.

So, not surprisingly, American Jews have been the most vociferous opponents of loyalty oaths, which they see as an attack on minority rights and free speech.

But — here’s my suggestion — maybe it’s time that, on this one issue, we American Jews should bend our own rules. I say, don’t make Israeli Arabs take the Loyalty Oath, make American Jews take it.

That’s right: Every American Jew and especially every American Jewish organization should pledge their support to Israel as a democratic and Jewish state.

Here’s a sample oath I worked up: “I pledge to do everything in my power to help the State of Israel achieve its stated ideal of being a democratic state of the Jewish people.”

What would happen were we to take that oath, and actually live by it? As I see it, there would be five immediate, beneficial changes to the looping rhetoric that passes for debate in the Jewish community:

1. American Jewish groups couldn’t stand by in obsequious acceptance as Israel follows policies that could make a peaceful solution to the Palestinian conflict less and less likely.

“The outline of the possible solution is clear,” Dov Weisglass, the hawkish former adviser to Ariel Sharon wrote in an August op-ed for Yedioth Ahronoth, Israel’s largest-circulation newspaper, “the establishment of a Palestinian state, the evacuation of most of Judea and Samaria with some territorial swaps, devising a joint control arrangement in Jerusalem based on demographic principles, and the resettling of the Palestinian refugees within the borders of the Palestinian state. The present government, like any other government, will be unsuccessful in substantially altering this outline. The sooner it makes the painful decisions necessary for its implementation, the sooner Palestinian suspicions will evaporate and chances will grow for a successful outcome to talks.”

2. American Jews who consistently oppose efforts to negotiate a two-state solution would have to put forward their own realistic alternative to avoid the demographic certainty of an Arab majority should Israel retain control of the West Bank.

3. American Jews would not get away by answering No. 2 with, “Who knows, we’ll figure that out when the time comes.”

4. Liberal American Jews would be forced to really think through and come to grips with the idea that Israel can indeed be both Jewish and democratic. Underlying the American left’s unease with Israel is a gut-level rejection of this idea, and it is time those of us from the left, right and center who believe and understand it engage the doubters in an honest and open dialogue.

5. American Jews who support the law now would have to actually confront Israeli governments when their policies collided with the preservation of Israel as a democracy. Gone would be the excuse, “It’s not ours to criticize.” Gone would be the hiding behind willful ignorance; gone would be the inclination to either romanticize or demonize. The oath would demand American Jews speak out and act to defend the ideals upon which Israel was founded, and upon which its future depends.