Unity Through Dissent

Richard Crossman, a member of Britain’s House of Commons at the time of Israel’s establishment, said: “Nations new to freedom are usually excited by it and talk about how thankful they are for what they have gained. The Israelis are not grateful for their liberties. They grumble all the time, revealing how rooted their nation is in the idea of freedom.”  

As the holiday of Pesach comes to close, the next day of festivities to which we look forward in Israel is Yom Ha’atzmaut, Independence Day, which is reliably a time of ecstatic pride in our nation and its survival. This will be my first Yom Ha’atzmaut as an Israeli citizen, having made Aliyah only eight months ago, and therefore one would expect, as I originally did, that I’d be looking forward to the commemoration, to the new feelings of belonging amidst the celebrations. Yet as the spring season in Israel promises new problems, and as political turmoil intensifies, polarizing not only the country but my own group of friends, my thoughts have become more complicated. 

Feeling especially anxious this past week, I wrote on social media that Yom Ha’atzmaut this year will feel, for me, somewhat akin to the Fourth of July in the United States during the Trump era, when my sense of national pride was contingent upon rejecting the competing visions of other Americans. This, at the time, made sense to me. I began to write an opinion piece about how this upcoming Independence Day, I planned to wave the Israeli flag and sing Hatikvah as a statement of my own Zionism, defined in contrast to the Zionisms of other Jews.  

The response was swift. One comment under my tweet read: “Honestly this bothered me so much … people came here and gave up everything, their lives, you show up at 30 (sic) and want to reclaim something from people who suffered to give you your right to be here.” Another read: “Sorry, I like a lot of what you write but you’re too divisive here. Many Israelis on all sides of the political spectrum have given their lives to be a part of Israel. Who love it. This ‘we’ talk doesn’t help. Even with differences, we ALL own the flag.” Yet another commenter said: “Hey Blake. We are one country. Cut the us versus them crap. You should have left that in the US.”  

I’d be lying if I said that I was unprepared for this criticism. Since arriving in Israel, I have not been able to stay silent about Israel’s political strife, and my opinions very clearly align with one camp. As a consequence, a routine accusation from many who once vocally agreed with me has been that I am failing to recognize the perspectives of other Israelis, living in parts of the country other than Tel Aviv, with differing religious practices and life experiences that have shaped their beliefs.  This is probably true, and I certainly have a lot to learn in my brand new country, and yet still, I have not yet found a way to pretend that nothing of interest is happening outside my Hebrew classes. While thinking deeply about this dilemma one afternoon, the Richard Crossman quote with which I opened this piece flashed across my computer screen, and some revelations have since come to light.  

Crossman first nods to the truism that for societies all around the world that are new to the experience of self-determination, whatever fractures may exist between them do indeed fall by the wayside before the almost religious experience of freedom. Eastern European nations like Poland, only recently freed from foreign occupation, often display notably jingoistic unity to the rest of the world. Arab and African states that no longer serve imperialist demands crack down on formation during independence days, broadcasting military parades and promises of fealty to leaders and soldiers.

It is not a coincidence that countries with shorter histories of home-rule are more likely to descend into illiberal regimes. When cohesion is prioritized over diversity, justified with the warning that “our enemies want us divided” (however true this may be), there is little room for healthy dissent.

Israel has not faced disaster since its inception, while the same cannot be said to gasps of national sovereignty around the world that have risen and fallen since Israel’s establishment. 

The Israeli people, though sovereignty is still new to us, and though we know more than most the consequences of not having sovereignty, nevertheless do not follow this model. For two thousand years the Jewish people have defined themselves by the rifts in our ranks, the petty squabbles that characterized life in the shtetl, the disputes of the first Zionist Congresses, and the constant tug of war between ideas in Israel that leaves many unhappy regardless of whether things go their way. We are a hyper-educated people, acutely aware, due to our history, of which way the winds of politics are blowing, and subsequently acutely critical when things feel unjust. We are not, and have never been, a nation obedient to authority. At the time of Israel’s establishment, it was unconscionable to install a government that would not give everyone a voice and a vote. Unlike other nations that can be threatened more easily into subservience, Ben-Gurion understood this to be a plan for disaster for the Jews. Israel has not faced disaster since its inception, while the same cannot be said to gasps of national sovereignty around the world that have risen and fallen since Israel’s establishment. 

Since reading Crossman’s observation that Israelis are “always grumbling,” because the concept of freedom of expression is something well-established and valued, I have begun to understand the comments on my social media posts differently. Now I wonder: Is there anything more Israeli than holding grievances against other Israelis for not having the same vision of the Jewish state as you? Is there anything more Jewish than complaining about other Jews, with whom you bicker over how to be Jewish in the modern world? These divisions, given how the upcoming Independence Day will be the 75th without interruptions, appear to define and strengthen us far more than they threaten to break us apart.

Israelis will recognize the fault lines in our impossible country, call them what they are, but use them to find sturdier footing.

However, I will concede that there has been a small deviation from my initial expectations for Yom Ha’atzmaut. If at first I anticipated that Israelis would run into their corners for the celebration, taking pride in the flag and in the anthem as an expression of their specific interpretation of Zionism, and if I then wondered if I was wrong, if the day was truly a nonpartisan, nonpolitical display of unity, I now realize that both realities are in fact incorrect. Israelis will not jettison their convictions about how the state should operate when it comes time to remember its birth. However, neither will Israelis use resentment and division as fuel to promote any exclusive version of independence, as I did while living in the United States. Instead, extraordinarily, Israelis will recognize the fault lines in our impossible country, call them what they are, but use them to find sturdier footing.

Blake Flayton is the New Media Director and Columnist for the Jewish Journal.