It sounds like an invented story. And indeed it is.
In this tale, an American politician gets up and declares: The United States is an Anglo-Saxon Protestant state. The United States is also a democratic state. Therefore, people with another background — such as Native Americans, Africans, Latinos, Asians and Jews — enjoy full equality. But they must know that the United States is an Anglo-Saxon nation-state, while they belong to other nation-states.
No American politician would dream of uttering such a statement, even if he might feel it in his heart. Here in Israel one can say such a thing, and nobody gets excited.
This week Tzipi did just that. Speaking to high-school pupils, Tzipi disclosed her inner convictions.
Israel, she said, is a Jewish and democratic state. The Arab citizens enjoy full civil rights. But they must know that this is the Jewish nation-state, while they belong to another nation, and their nation-state will be the putative Palestinian state.
This statement did not arouse a storm, not on the spot and not in the media. It does not contradict the convictions of most Israelis. The public accepts the view that Israel is a Jewish state, and that its Arab citizens are, at most, a tolerated minority.
What is special about Tzipi is her emphasis on the two words “nation state”. She has made them into her trademark and repeats them at every opportunity.
In historical terms, the nation-state is a relatively recent phenomenon. Actually, the national idea crystallized only in the 18th century.
That was the heyday of the classical nation-state: A national state, homogenous as far as possible, which at most tolerated its minorities or persecuted them outright, that demanded national conformism within and made little pretense of morality in its dealing with other nation-states.
It seems that Tzipi takes such a nation-state as her ideal. But developments have long since left that stage behind. The nation-state has not died, but it has changed almost beyond recognition. The United States, too, is a nation-state. But that nation is very different from the one Tzipi is dreaming about.
The American nation is composed of all the citizens of the United States. Lithuanians, Argentinians and Vietnamese become members of the American nation the moment they receive their citizenship. The ultimate confirmation of the success of this system has been given by the election of Barack Obama, the grandson of a Muslim from Kenya.
Demographic experts predict that in not so many years, the Whites of European origin will be a minority in the American nation-state. But it seems that this piece of news did not arouse a storm of alarm and anger.
Everybody understands that the future and robustness of the US-American nation do not depend on the religion and race of the American people. Therefore, there is no “demographic problem” in America. As in several other areas, the United States is a model for the rest of the world in this respect, too.
The European nations are changing too. They are opening up to the world. The idea of a homogenous nation, based on a common origin, is fading. Slowly, perhaps too slowly, tolerance toward “the stranger in our midst” is growing, and citizenship is granted to inhabitants with a different ethnic origin and religion, like Turks in Germany and Africans in France.
Angela Merkel will not tell her Turkish citizens: “You can enjoy equality here, but you belong to the Turkish nation-state”. One can hardly imagine Gordon Brown telling the British citizens of Pakistani extraction: “Your nation-state is Pakistan.”
The Arab citizens of Israel can be compared to the Swedish citizens of Finland. These constitute about six percent of the population, but they play an important role in the economy and other spheres of life. All signs in Finland are bilingual. Finland belongs to all its citizens. Ariel Sharon’s advisor, Dov Weisglas, once said that “peace will come only when the Palestinians become Finns”. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that peace will come only when we ourselves “become Finns”. The Israeli Arab citizens in Kafr Kassem and Um-al-Fahm, near the Green Line, can be compared to the Alsatians in France, who have been living there for untold generations. I know, all these examples do not apply to us. We Jews are special. Fact is, God chose us.
But I must tell the Kadima candidate: “Madam, what you are saying is already a little obsolete.” Since Vladimir Jabotinsky was born 128 years ago into the Jewish minority in Odessa, much water has flown down the Dniester River, and I am not sure that even he would have signed Tzipi’s statement. When he wrote that in our future state “the son of the Arab, the son of Nazareth and my son” would live happily together, did he mean that the Jewish state he was dreaming about would not be the state of its Arab citizens, too?
I believe that nation-states will continue to exist for a long time to come. But it will not be a narrow, closed nation-state, compulsively homogenous, based on nationalist-religious-linguistic conformity, hostile to its neighbors. The new nation-state will be open and cosmopolitan, respectful of minorities, a state of all its citizens, integrated in a regional partnership, a part of the global economy, a partner in the joint struggle for the preservation of this little planet.
That may be the future. And when does the future begin if not today?
