Israel at 75: Qualified Optimism

Most of the analysis surrounding Israel’s 75th birthday have fallen into one of two categories: either earnestly hopeful tributes to the Jewish state’s history and principles, or anguished worry over its path forward in the midst of its current domestic political turmoil. You can mark me down as a qualified optimist, but that outlook comes not from vague dreams for the future or Torah lessons from the distant past, but from the example of another once-fledgling and still-struggling democracy. Ours.

When the United States celebrated its 75th birthday in 1851, the country was severely divided between two factions with opposing beliefs on a fundamental moral issue of that time. But the fairly new nation was also riven over deep religious discord between Protestants and Catholics of the era, which manifested themselves in an endless series of policy arguments. The country appeared to be hopelessly and irreconcilably split on religious, cultural and political matters – its very survival seemed to be in question.

Does this sound familiar?

It should. Israel today is similarly divided, but there’s no reason their differences can’t be resolved in a much less violent manner. The argument over slavery was so bitter and divisive that our country ultimately fought a civil war over the issue. That war was fought over a fundamental policy disagreement for which there was no possible middle ground, because an aggrieved and motivated minority was unwilling to try to find a workable solution. But principled debate and negotiation over judicial reform is much more likely to result in reasonable compromise.

The underlying religious and cultural conflicts that separated the North and the South were not solved by either the defeat of the Confederacy or the Emancipation Proclamation. They continue to roil the United States to this day. Even after the fighting had ended and the slaves had been freed, the country still remained divided  —  through Reconstruction, through the civil rights movement and up to and including today’s fractious politics.

But for all of our hyper-partisanship and polarization, the United States still survives. This democratic experiment, more than 170 years later, is admittedly imperfect and deeply flawed in many ways. However, despite the recurring threats that our system of government periodically faces, we have managed to find a way to keep this fragile exercise in democratic self-governance intact. Even after the post-election riots of January 6, 2021, both the symbol of our democracy, the U.S. Capital, and the democracy itself were badly damaged. But both remained standing, and while both are still in need of systemic repairs, there is no reason that both can not be fully restored.

Our intermittent periods of unity tend to occur when we face a dire external threat – either a war or a severe economic downturn – that forces opposing factions to put aside their differences and come together to face a common foe. Like the U.S. in the 1850’s, the Jewish state no longer faces as obvious an existential danger of the type that both countries overcame in their earlier years. This level of relative security allows for the luxury of internal divisions to manifest that would be unthinkable when facing basic threats to survival.

Referring to the politics in either of our countries as a mature democracy may be overly aspirational, but even a democracy in its adolescence must learn to navigate the less obvious challenges of internal discord. Democracy does not mean unanimity: it requires that strong and principled disagreements are resolved through conversation and negotiation rather than violence. Sometimes the outcome takes months or years, sometimes it requires decades or generations. Sometimes that common ground is never reached, but we settle for uneasy and temporary truces that allow us to coexist with those who hold different opinions than ours. In America, in Israel, in all democracies.

The rallies and protests that have upended Israeli politics do not reflect a weakness of their system but a strength.

This messiness is not a bug in the democratic process but rather a feature of it. The rallies and protests that have upended Israeli politics do not reflect a weakness of their system but a strength. As 75-year-old developing democracies go, maybe this one isn’t doing so bad.

Dan Schnur is a Professor at the University of California – Berkeley, USC and Pepperdine. Join Dan for his weekly webinar “Politics in the Time of Coronavirus” (www.lawac.org) on Tuesdays at 5 PM.