The recent “Nazi” incidents in Israel carried out by Jewish Israeli youths have launched a hot debate over whether the Law of Return in Israel should be amended to ensure that those who immigrate to the “land of milk and honey” are actually Jews.
The debate over whether to amend the law starts with the explosive question of “Who is a Jew?” and the quest for a straightforward answer is as complex as it gets because whichever way an advocate of keeping the law tries to answer it, Israel faces issues of practicality and morality.
Not many Israelis are calling for the abolishment of the law.
The concept behind Israel as a “Jewish State” is based on the principle that Jews are a race. Therefore the current law demands that a person who wants to immigrate to Israel under the Law of Return must prove that one of his/her grandparents is a Jew, even if the person has never subscribed to Judaism or identified him/herself as a Jew in the past. Obviously a non-Israeli who subscribes to Judaism and identifies him/herself as a Jew but cannot produce such proof, is not entitled to immigrate; therefore Israel in the opinion of some is not a home for all Jews as it claims to be!
Moreover, many subscribe in their arguments to the religious dictate that a person can only be a Jew if his mother is a Jew. This does not sit well with Israel’s need for Jewish immigrants to protect its “Jewish ethnicity;” since such ethnicity is threatened by changing demographics and to limit the Right of Return to those who have Jewish mothers would considerably cut down the number of potential immigrants.
Meanwhile, under the current law if an applicant is accepted to immigrate he or she must then convert to the Orthodox Judaism religion, which does not guarantee that such person will practice Judaism or, as in the case of the ridiculous events, not subscribe to a neo-Nazi group of thugs that call for the annihilation of Jews.
On a lighter note, the Orthodox Christian Church in Jafa became packed with new faithful after the immigration of one million “Russian Jews” to Israel who had been converted to Orthodox Judaism upon their arrival! The conversion itself is a controversial issue for Reform and Conservative Jews who do not see anything wrong with their faith, yet have to officially dump it if they were to become Israeli citizens.
There are those secular Israelis who are not sticklers on religion yet are ardent Zionists who want to protect the “Jewish Identity” of Israel and therefore are arguing that if a person is Jewish enough and there is enough proof he/she identify themselves as Jews, then they should be accepted as Israeli citizens even if their grandparents are not. The secular promoters of this proposal say this hoping that such Jewishness is not ultra-Orthodox; otherwise they would lose ground to those who want Israel modelled after life at the times of Prophet Moses.
The problem Israel faces today, most argue, lies in how the Jewish Agency is carrying out its business of bringing more immigrants to Israel: they are aggressively proactive. Instead of waiting for a person to come over declaring they want to immigrate to Israel with proof of a Jewish grandparent, the Agency is finding people of Jewish grandparents and then working to convince them that if they do immigrate to Israel their economic situation would be better. The opponents of pro-activity argue that this is attracting criminals looking for an opportunity elsewhere, therefore the rise in crime in Israel. It is also an opportunity for those who do not and will not subscribe to Judaism to become Israeli citizens through lying.
Some of those who want to see the law changed have a brilliant idea! They are calling on science to interfere to determine who is a Jew or not based on the concept that Jews carry a certain gene that proves they are all members of a one Semitic nation.
Again, this route is not a Kosher Zionist solution since a genetic test is likely to show that tens of millions of Arabs who are Semites carry that gene, unlike many Jews who have been given Israeli citizenship and who may not. As a matter of fact, going that route would be a perfect solution to the question of Right of Return of those dispossessed out of their homeland occupied in 1948 when it became the State of Israel.
If the Palestinian refugees are deemed Semitic through a genetic test, then they can become Israeli citizens and return to their homes! It is difficult to believe that many Palestinian refugees have skipped that Semitic gene and are purely Cretans or Canaanites after thousands of years of intermarriage, extra-marital relations, religious conversion and rape!
The debate in Israel today is going on while Palestinian refugees who lost their homes there are not allowed to return.There is no question that there is a problem with Israel’s Law of Return: if you consider Jews to be a race then it is a racist law. If you insist that Judaism is a religion then the Law is all about religious persecution.
Interestingly, those who argue why such a law must exist, state that as a result of the Holocaust, a national home for Jews where that can be protected was badly needed. The Nazis and their allies have been over and done with since the Second World War and they have no opportunity of return. Jews worldwide are no longer in danger. Israel’s right to exist has been accepted by all Arab States and it has become very difficult to swallow the empty stories of how Israel is in danger when it is proving that its politics and conduct constitute the danger that threatens world peace.
The Law of Return is the basis for why Israel today is the last remaining state of apartheid. Even if peace negotiations produce two states living side by side in peace, Israel will not live in peace with itself for as long as its foundation and legitimacy is based on racism and religious persecution.