THREAD on Israel. @JeffreyGoldberg, a moderate, wrote one of the most incisive essays 8 years ago. It is more devastating every day that passes, because it is about the significance of the passage of time since 1967. It is especially devastating today.1/ theatlantic.com/international/…
2/"It's premature to talk about the end of Israel as a democratic state - b/c the West Bank is still undecided - but [it's] crossed my mind that one day Israelis will make the conscious, active decision to preserve the state's Jewish character instead of its democratic character"
3/ I spent two years in Israel during Oslo (1996-98) working on human rights issues. I knew that Israel was not fully democratic, because it formally fell short of the most basic definition of democracy. Millions of people living under its government had no vote for that govt...
4/ But we told ourselves that this situation was not Israel's fault, it was temporary, and Israel was moving slowly but courageously in the right direction. As long as Israel was moving towards democracy, these shortcomings were morally tolerable.
5/ Twenty years have passed since then. Eight more years have passed since @JeffreyGoldberg asked his tough questions. The 50th anniversary of the Six Day War came and went, a half-century of Occupation. Where is "the right direction" towards democracy?
6/ Yesterday, Bibi embraced Trump surrounded by their own anti-democratic oligarchs. Both remain in power despite glaring evidence of quid pro quo corruption. Meanwhile, Israelis killed dozens of Palestinians with seemingly and grossly disproportionate use of force.
7/ Today I wonder if Israel has gotten a big step closer to answering Goldberg's devastating question: "Jewish state? Or democracy?" It doesn't have to be an either/or. But maybe it's a neither/nor? Moving further from both democracy and Jewish values? END. Siamti. Shalom, y'all.
