Media coverage of the new Israeli government initiative to define itself as both a Jewish and democratic state has not touched upon why this seemingly surprising legislative initiative was introduced at this time by the government of Israel.

The hidden context of this legislation is growing power and influence of the 2007 Haifa Declaration,http://www.mada-research.org/UserFiles/file/haifaenglish.pdf, which represents the position of more than thirty leading Israeli Arab organizations who have coordinated a systematic effort to undermine the Jewish nature of the state of Israel as a Jewish state.

The Haifa Declaration signees such as Ittijah, I’lam, Mossawa and Adalah have openly stated that its goal is to replace Zionism as the basis of the state of Israel, with the implementation of the “right of return” for Palestinian Arab refugees and their descendants who now wallow in the indignity of teeming UNRWA refugee camps who would be encouraged to reclaim lands lost in the 1948 war.

Ms. Hanin Zoabi, currently a member of the Israeli Knesset with the Israeli Arab “Balad” party, the former director of I’lam, the Israeli Arab media center, often repeats thr mantra that she is not loyal to Israel and says, that as the director of I’lam, she enthusiastically signed and embraced the Haifa Declaration which a call for Israel to cease a Jewish identity and to abandon “its destructive role towards the peoples of the Region.”

Currently, Israel non profit organization law states that ‘A non profit organization shall not be registered if any of its objectives negates the existence of the democratic character of the state of Israel.’”

If the amendment to Israel’s basic law would change, Israel non profit organization law would declare that ‘A non profit organization shall not be registered if any of its objectives negates the existence of the democratic AND JEWISH character of the state of Israel.”

In other words, this proposed legislation could potentially block the flow of funds from the New Israel Fund and the European Union to Israeli Arab organizations that signed on to the Haifa Declaration, a document which amounts to nothing less than an insurrection against the raison d’etre of the state of Israel.

2 COMMENTS

  1. The Haifa decleration exemplifies the paradox where those Arabs who benefit most from the existence of jewish democratic israel do their utmost to destroy it.
    The underlying explation for this apparent paradox lies in Islam. The Jewish status in Islam was set 1300 years ago at "low" subservient, poll-tax paying to the superior dominating Muslim in exchange for toleration to live. The Jewish State upended this those ancient injunctions revealing a new reality: The jew as the master, the Arab as an inferior, relegated to manual labor. Now when Muslims achieve high qualifications and parity in the jewish State, they aspire to superiority and domination as in olden days, their aspirations greatly augmented by Jewish apparent timidity and love they neighbor. Thus the more educated and achieving the Arab, the more likely to be active in the destruction of the jewish State

  2. It is absurd to stand on both democratic and Jewish ideals as one.
    There is an inherent conflict between the two ideals of government.
    One cannot uphold Jewish law as given by our traditiion and also follow strictly democratic principles. Which is supreme? Who will say so? A majority decides democratic laws and rules, but no majority can nullify divine law. Trying to satisfy non-believers by a simplistic statement accepting the dual and conflicting views of democracy and Judaism is a sham. Israel is a Jewish state, period.

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David Bedein
David Bedein
David Bedein is an MSW community organizer and an investigative journalist.   In 1987, Bedein established the Israel Resource News Agency at Beit Agron to accompany foreign journalists in their coverage of Israel, to balance the media lobbies established by the PLO and their allies.   Mr. Bedein has reported for news outlets such as CNN Radio, Makor Rishon, Philadelphia Inquirer, Los Angeles Times, BBC and The Jerusalem Post, For four years, Mr. Bedein acted as the Middle East correspondent for The Philadelphia Bulletin, writing 1,062 articles until the newspaper ceased operation in 2010. Bedein has covered breaking Middle East negotiations in Oslo, Ottawa, Shepherdstown, The Wye Plantation, Annapolis, Geneva, Nicosia, Washington, D.C., London, Bonn, and Vienna. Bedein has overseen investigative studies of the Palestinian Authority, the Expulsion Process from Gush Katif and Samaria, The Peres Center for Peace, Peace Now, The International Center for Economic Cooperation of Yossi Beilin, the ISM, Adalah, and the New Israel Fund.   Since 2005, Bedein has also served as Director of the Center for Near East Policy Research.   A focus of the center's investigations is The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). In that context, Bedein authored Roadblock to Peace: How the UN Perpetuates the Arab-Israeli Conflict - UNRWA Policies Reconsidered, which caps Bedein's 28 years of investigations of UNRWA. The Center for Near East Policy Research has been instrumental in reaching elected officials, decision makers and journalists, commissioning studies, reports, news stories and films. In 2009, the center began decided to produce short movies, in addition to monographs, to film every aspect of UNRWA education in a clear and cogent fashion.   The center has so far produced seven short documentary pieces n UNRWA which have received international acclaim and recognition, showing how which UNRWA promotes anti-Semitism and incitement to violence in their education'   In sum, Bedein has pioneered The UNRWA Reform Initiative, a strategy which calls for donor nations to insist on reasonable reforms of UNRWA. Bedein and his team of experts provide timely briefings to members to legislative bodies world wide, bringing the results of his investigations to donor nations, while demanding reforms based on transparency, refugee resettlement and the demand that terrorists be removed from the UNRWA schools and UNRWA payroll.   Bedein's work can be found at: www.IsraelBehindTheNews.com and www.cfnepr.com. A new site,unrwa-monitor.com, will be launched very soon.

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