Israel Needs to be More Israeli

A couple of days ago, news broke that Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, tried to convince Nobel laureate, Elie Wiesel, to stand for election to the Israeli presidency as the term of the current president, Shimon Peres, winds down (see: PM 'wanted Elie Wiesel as president').  I am an Israeli citizen and even though I live in Canada, I am still very proud of my Israeli identity, so I have a big problem with giving high Israeli government posts to outsiders.  It's not that I don't like Elie Wiesel.  In fact, I think he would make a perfect statesman and he has done a lot for both Israel and the Jewish people.  But he is not an Israeli citizen, nor has he lived in Israel for any significant length of time, which is the reason I think he did the right thing and turned the Prime Minister down.

I had the same problem in 2005 when then Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon (blessed be his memory) and Netanyahu, who was the Minister of Finance at the time, decided to appoint American banker, Stanley Fisher to head the Bank of Israel.  Fisher did an amazing job in the position and his qualifications as a fiscal manager were never in doubt.  But like Mr. Wiesel, he was not an Israeli.  Neither was Albert Einstein, who was sought after to be the country's first president.  But of course, Israeli was in its infancy back then and few folks in the Zionist movement were born and raised in what became Israel, so back then I would have considered it okay to have outsiders in high-up government positions since almost everyone was an outsider.  However, Israel is now 66 years old and the overwhelming majority of the country's population was born and raised inside the country, so I think that Israel is mature enough to have Israelis govern it.

In fact, from a hypothetical standpoint, if I was offered a high-up position in the Israeli government, I would have to turn it down, otherwise I would be a hypocrite.  After all, even though I am an Israeli citizen, my citizenship is inherited from one of my parents, who was born and raised in Israel.  I have never lived in Israel for any significant length of time, nor have I paid taxes there, done military service or voted there, so I don't think I should be entitled to rule over Israelis who have done all of these things.

Some people will say to me that since Mr. Wiesel and Mr. Fisher are both Jewish, it's okay for them to hold key posts in the Israeli government.  But I think this argument is wrong because being Jewish shouldn't be enough to make you an Israeli.  As I said my previous blog, Israel's Citizenship Laws: It's Time for a Change, citizenship is something that needs to be earned.  It should not be an automatic entitlement just because someone happens to be Jewish.  The only exception to this rule is people like myself who inherit their citizenship from their parents.  This exception is generally made in countries throughout the world.  Nevertheless, I believe that I and people in my situation have a moral obligation not to accept senior Israeli government positions until having contributed in some way to the state, and I don't mean through donations like many Diaspora Jews already do.  I mean actually living in the country, paying taxes, working there and so forth.

In short, I believe that choosing our leaders is one case where Israel needs to be more Israeli.  There are other cases as well.  For example, Israel still maintains the old, pre-state Zionist organizations, such as the Jewish Agency and the Jewish National Fund.  The former deals mostly with Jewish immigration to Israel, while the latter deals with issues pertaining to land in Israel.  Non-Israelis are heavily involved in these organizations and their influence has the power to affect the lives of Israeli citizens.  This should stop immediately and the two organizations should be abolished or at least nationalized and put under the direct control of the Israeli government.  It is for Israelis and ONLY Israelis to make decisions and policies on immigration, land management and everything else that effects us.

Israel must also protect its distinct culture, most notably the Hebrew language.  When I'm in Israel, everywhere I go, I see signs that are exclusively in English or some other language, rather than Hebrew or Arabic.  There are folks who immigrate to the country and won't even make an effort to learn the language.  In fact, I remember a friend of my grandmother, who had been in the country for decades, but still couldn't speak fluent Hebrew.  As I said, I have never lived in Israel for a significant period of time, yet even I am almost fluent in the language, so unless a person immigrating to Israel has some sort of learning disability, there's no reason they shouldn't be learning Hebrew from the day they get off the plane.  Perhaps Israel should consider sign laws akin to those in Quebec (although I wouldn't be as extreme as the Quebecois are in enforcing such rules).  I also can't stand the fact that many Haredim refuse to use Hebrew as their vernacular in favour of Yiddish.  People, Yiddish is a language that belongs in the Diaspora.  If you want to speak Yiddish and live like you did in the shtetls of Europe, then go back there!  But just to clarify, I obviously don't care if people use languages other than Hebrew and Arabic in Israel.  If I did, I wouldn't be writing this in English.  My problem is that the Haredim suppress the use of one of Israel's two official languages so that they can go on living as they once did in the Diaspora, and this to me is wrong.

What I'm trying to say here is that whether it's choosing our leaders or protecting our culture, Israel has to be Israeli.  Being Jewish is not enough.