Words can hurt

A new survey shows that less than half of Jewish Israelis choose to preserve the right to criticize the government

By DAHILA SCHEINDLIN
survey (photo credit: courtesy)
survey
(photo credit: courtesy)
LIKE MANY SOCIETIES, ISRAEL FACES GAPS between ideals and reality. Ideally, Israel would enact gender equality yet, despite firm legislation, there is structural de facto chauvinism. In an ideal vision, Israel embraces peace yet it often finds itself the aggressor. Israel would like to see itself as promoting full equality worthy of a democracy, yet in reality there is endemic discrimination against various minorities.
In a democratic society, exposing these gaps is intended to help point reality toward the ideal. Israel traditionally views itself as cultivating the tools needed to do that – free speech, thought and expression. But of late, it is those very values that have come under pressure.
Israel used to cherish its self-image as a roiling society of argument, a melting pot, tossed salad, mosaic or an ingathering of ethnicities, cultures and nationalities. Up to 34 parties have competed in a single electoral campaign. Israelis bragged that the one thing everyone agreed on was to disagree.
But is this self-image reality or myth?
Despite its noisy quality, Israel is actually a conformist society. Perhaps this is a holdover from the long-gone emphasis on class equality. Israelis emphasize similarity, not difference; and unity, not dissension. Although this contention may be hard to prove, here are some observations: Consumer trends can sometimes sweep the entire country: cell phones have reached over 100% penetration; a few summers ago, it seemed that everyone was wearing Crocs; restaurants compete by offering almost identical menus. These aren’t just fads. This a close-knit and insular society; people can forget there are other ways to do things, or other ways to think.
So when the notion of “delegitimization” entered the Israeli discourse as an explanation for nasty criticism of Israel abroad, it was ripe for mass consumption. The idea was that global criticism of Israel seems to have taken on a new pitch of intensity and frequency, from new sectors. There have been many opportunities to criticize policy – from the occupation, to the Lebanon and Gaza wars, or the flotilla incident. But anger over policy often seems to blend with vitriolic attitudes toward the state itself – and maybe, some fear, of Jews qua Jews.
Groups such as the UN Human Rights Council have not helped, as they stoke the sense that the world is disproportionately focused on Israel; routine harassment of Israeli speakers, war crimes charges against Israeli military figures, all these have fed the Israeli fear that the world has delegitimized Israel’s very existence.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu now raises this specter regularly. In an October interview with the free daily newspaper Israel Today, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said: “the de-legitimization threat is no less serious than the threats of Hamas or Hizballah… It’s just a millimeter below the surface, the delegitimization of Israel.” The recent Jewish People Policy Institute conference devoted an entire workshop to “Delegitimization: Attitudes Toward Israel and the Jewish People.” Before the General Assembly of Jewish Federations in New Orleans could deal with the issue, hecklers hijacked the theme, screaming that Israeli policy, not its detractors, is the problem: “The occupation [or the loyalty oath] is delegitimizing Israel!”
Now the narrative is hardly questioned at all. In Israel’s conformist thinking – coffee shop conversation proves it – delegitimization of the country is taken as fact.
Israel has always been quick to respond militarily. But more recently, it seems that Israeli society is clamping down on ideas and thoughts.
Civil society groups, such as the Institute for Zionist Strategies and Im Tirzu, have called for academics to be fired or for their teaching content to be proscribed. Government ministers, including the minister of education, as well as the Council on Higher Education have legitimized the need to review university curricula for political bias. Legislators from centrist, mainstream parties, such as Kadima, have proposed legislation to limit the activities of civil society groups.
An April 2010 study conducted by political psychologist Daniel Bar-Tal of Tel-Aviv University showed that 50.1% of respondents (surveyed through an Internet sample) said Israel has too much freedom of expression. Although 98% claimed freedom of expression was important, 58% supported limiting the freedom of human rights organizations that expose Israel’s immoral acts. Thirty percent said that right-wing criticism against government policy that could strengthen critics abroad should not be published in the press; 38% said that similar left-wing critique should be squelched.
Alarmists, particularly on the left, have been quick to cry that Israel is infected with fascism. The right – and large swaths of the center – hits back that this is about self-preservation, Israel’s survival.
Our current survey for The Jerusalem Report seeks to understand just how much resistance there is to such freedoms in the name of staving off delegitimization. Our research question presented two positions regarding Israelis who critique the government at a time when delegitimization is growing. Respondents were asked to endorse either the statement “Israelis who criticize the state harshly damage Israel’s legitimacy and should be restrained, even by law” or the statement “Israelis who criticize the state harshly hurt our feelings, but their right to say these things should be preserved.”
More people chose to preserve the right to speak and criticize than those who chose to limit that right (48% to 38%, respectively). That’s less than half of the Jewish Israeli population.
More than one-quarter (27%) felt strongly about the need to protect free speech – but an equal number (26%) felt strongly about the need to curtail it.
Young people split almost evenly (42% would limit speech, 45% would preserve it). But among every religious group – masorti (traditional), religious and haredi – a plurality chose to limit free speech; only among seculars was there a strong majority that favored free speech (59% versus 29% who would limit free speech).
There was also some evidence, although less consistent, of a class gap. The highest educated respondents showed the highest support for freedom of speech. The highest earners clearly chose the free speech option, while middle-range earners sided with limiting critique by law.
The results do not show resounding support for the freedom of Israelis to critique policy. And Israel’s rapid embrace of the delegitimization narrative seems to erode that support. So how can internal Israeli policy criticism “disengage” from delegitimization?
There seem to be two main arguments for powerful internal critique: One, exposing Israel’s flaws can advance the debate about how to fix them; and two, such critique proves Israel’s democratic ideals to itself and the world. But neither of these arguments seems to have penetrated the public’s consciousness very strongly; or maybe the arguments haven’t been made forcefully enough. Maybe they are too highly politicized as “left,” although democratic ideals are supposed to be universal.
On the other hand, there seem to be two approaches to mitigating the feeling of delegitimization: One, for the critics to state clearly that policy can be wrong but the existence of the state is legitimate; and two, for the Israeli audience to boldly change policy that may indeed be flawed.
But to do that, Israel will have to break out of its tendency to thought-conformism and ask if it can really afford to delegitimize its critics from within.