Banning for democracy

In a move that The Guardian (UK) called "a sign of growing confrontation with the country's Arab minority," Israel's Central Elections Committee has banned two Arab parties - the United Arab List and Balad - from running in parliamentary elections scheduled for February 10.

The move was met with almost complete silence in the US media. But that's okay, according to some pro-Israel bloggers, who insisted that this really doesn't say anything about Israel's status as a true democracy and doesn't deserve any attention.

Matt Yglesias, who imagines there has been "relatively cordial relations between the country’s Jewish majority and the 'Israeli Arab' minority" dismisses it as simply "a poorly timed PR move" because, after all, Arabs can still vote for other parties.

Jonathan Singer, while allowing as how "this isn't to say that the move doesn't come off poorly, or that it is particularly wise," insists "this isn't the end of the story" because the parties are appealing to the Supreme Court, which could overturn the decision. Thus, "the country does not yet appear to have crossed the threshold many believe it to have already crossed with regards to the disenfranchisement of Israeli Arab political parties."

And James Kirchick, writing at The New Republic, compares the ban to the banning of Rabbi Meir Kahane's Kach party "for its racist and undemocratic platform," saying the Arab parties are being banned "for the same reason." What's more, he insists, "the standards for operating a legal political party in Israel are hardly unreasonable," and besides, echoing Yglesias, he says Arabs can always vote for someone else.

In the United States, if the Ku Klux Klan were to form a political party, advocating the dissolution of the American government and inciting violence from within and without, it would be banned, and rightly so,

he declared.

So, y'know, it doesn't mean anything, it's no reflection on democracy or anything like that, it's entirely just and reasonable and the US would do exactly the same, and stuff, and after all, the Israeli Supreme Court is likely to overturn the ban, just like it did a few years ago when the same thing was tried, so what's the big deal? But we're all three against it because, well, because it's bad PR.

What that is, is bad bullshit, a classic case of trying to have it both ways: A way to say you're against the decision without having to criticize it in any substantive way.

Of course it's a reflection on Israel's status as a democracy when it bans political parties. Saying "well, you can still vote for other parties" demonstrates an abysmal grasp of basic democratic principles. What kind of "democracy" is it when only officially-approved parties can participate? One is the old Soviet kind, where you could vote for anyone, provided they were a designated candidate of the Communist Party. Another is the Iranian kind, where the Guardian Council, composed of six clerics and six Islamic jurists, must approve candidates. I doubt Israel would like either of those comparisons (even though Iran actually does manage to maintain something within shouting distance of a democracy).

And yes, of course Israel has crossed a threshold. It did it when the idea of banning parties was instituted. It crossed another when these same parties were first banned. It has crossed a third by trying again to ban them despite having been shot down by the Supreme Court last time. And it is crossing a fourth by doing it despite the fact that, as Haaretz (Israel) reported,

[m]embers of the CEC conceded yesterday that the chance of the Supreme Court's upholding the ban on both parties was slim.

That is, it has undertaken an anti-democratic action in the expectation that someone else will undo what it has done.

But oh, comes the answer, there's still the example of the Kach party. This is just the same!

Except it's not. Kirchick himself says "the case for banning these two Arab parties may not be as strong as it was for the outlawing of the Kahane movement" and, tellingly, refers in the case of Kach to the party's platform but refers in the case of the Arab parties to statements by the party heads, not the parties' platforms. (He also calls the leader of Balad "disgraced" based apparently and solely on the fact that he's living in exile because Israeli officials were talking about filing charges of espionage against him - but never did.)

Still, maybe there's a case to be made that their platforms ran afoul of Israel's "hardly unreasonable" standards for being a legal party. According to Kirchick,

[t]he four offenses that could lead to possible banning are:

- Any rejection (in the party's goals or activities) of the existence of the State of Israel as a Jewish, democratic state.
- Any incitement to racism.
- Any support of the armed struggle of an enemy state or terrorist organization against the State of Israel.
- Any hint of a cover for illegal activity.

Since various Israeli leaders of major parties have referred to Palestinians as "beasts" and "two-legged animals" along with more colorful epithets, and there have been repeated questions raised about corruption, it would seem that on the second and fourth points, at least Labor and Likud could be tossed off the list of parties allowed to campaign. But leave that aside and consider the first and third.

So if you say you want Israel to become a multi-ethnic state, as Balad does, you can't be a legal party. If you opposed the invasion of Lebanon, if you now oppose the assault on Gaza, it could easily be argued that you are "supporting the armed struggle of an enemy," just as those here who opposed the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were labeled "objectively pro-terrorist." So you can't be a legal party.

If your leaders even go to Lebanon or Syria - illegal without permission and one of Kirchick's charges against the head of the United Arab List - you are "supporting an enemy state" and can't be a legal party.

So is there a case to be made that the two parties violated the "hardly unreasonable" restrictions? Yes, there is - and that case is valid precisely to the same extent that Israel is not a democracy. If Israel is a democracy, if it is to be and to continue as a democracy, then the case against them is not valid - which is why the Supreme Court is likely to knock the ban down (again) and why it never should have been passed and why having passed it is an anti-democracy act.

Oh, one last thing: The US doesn't have a KKK Party, but there is an American Nazi Party, a neo-Nazi party called the National Socialist Movement, and the Christian Falangist Party of America - all legal, none banned.