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I'm not in the radical right By Shahar Ilan Tags: Ruth Gavison, Israel News Prof. Ruth Gavison is convinced that if we don't wake up Zionism from its coma, we could become the Crusaders of the modern age. "Then we'll have a few more governments and a few more election campaigns. But we won't be able to sustain this enterprise, because the ground it's built on is not stable enough. There will be no way we can be a high-tech country, and we intellectuals will constantly be visiting our friends in Princeton and Harvard, and staying on there in peace and quiet. Because there are enough people who don't want us here. Until we really convey the message that we're here for good, there will be no peace agreement." A member of the Winograd Committee that investigated the handling of the Second Lebanon War, Gavison now seeks to place on the public agenda a series of publications that she believes will rouse the dormant Zionist discourse across the political spectrum. The atmosphere of solidarity surrounding the Israeli offensive in Gaza makes the timing appropriate for such a discussion. As for the fighting in Gaza, "there was hardly any choice except to do something, and the public seems to agree," she says, adding, "but this operation is still taking shape and I don't think it's right to react in real time." Gavison insists that she stands behind the Winograd report, but allows that she is not at all certain that legal commissions of inquiry are the right forum for judging the fitness of leaders: It is up to the public to decide this. As for the situation in the south, she said in an interview two weeks ago that the State of Israel cannot permit itself to be so exposed to harm. Advertisement "Once it seemed that we were unbeatable," she explains. "Egypt made peace because it thought the price of defeating us was intolerable. Today it's clear that [Hezbollah leader Hassan] Nasrallah was able to convince the Palestinians [that it's possible to fight us]. We have a strategic weakness. Our professionalism is declining, our ability to be thorough is declining, our commitment is declining. Our neighbors consider shooting at Israeli civilians in the north and south a legitimate tool. So you can say that this is just a passing episode because we're an empire. But it's irrelevant that you have the strongest army in the Middle East if children in the south are wetting their beds. It is the state's duty to protect its citizens, but for months and years citizens are fired upon and the strongest army in the Middle East doesn't have a response? I think it's intolerable." Are we the new Crusaders? Gavison: "We're not the Crusaders because we have nowhere else. History will judge whether, like the Crusaders, we'll be a historic episode of military sovereignty in the region or not. I hope that when we grasp the difference between us and the Crusaders, we'll muster the strength to ensure that there will always be a Jewish political entity in the Land of Israel." We're burned out. "I agree that there's burnout because, like spoiled children, we'd like to have peace now. There is no peace now. Some of your neighbors want you to be like the Crusaders, they won't give you peace now. There is no real option to just concede enough to bring peace now. Anyone who thinks there is such an option is not reading reality correctly." Because there's no partner? "The question is, a partner for what? For accord and reconciliation, there is no partner. I agree, there isn't. There's no partner. There's no partner for a declaration that they're forgoing the claim that all of Palestine is their homeland and that we dispossessed them. But there may be a partner for a practical agreement." Israeli 'backbone' Since she served in the 1980s as chairwoman of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), Gavison, a highly esteemed professor of the philosophy of law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, has made several moves that the liberal left has perceived as crossing the line. About a decade ago, for example, she spearheaded opposition to the Supreme Court's judicial activism; in 2005, her candidacy for a seat on the Supreme Court stirred a bit of an uproar, when then-court president Aharon Barak denounced her "agenda." The Gavison-Meidan covenant between religious and secular that she co-authored in 2000 with Rabbi Yaakov Meidan, head of the Har Etzion yeshiva, also made waves: Among other things, the two proposed an arrangement for civil marriages, but only for heterosexual couples. Gavison is also one of the most prominent supporters of the Citizenship Law (which bars family unification involving Israeli and Palestinian spouses), and supported limiting the immigration of Jews from parts of the Third World to Israel. In 2005, she founded the Metzilah Center, which has survived its initial growing pains and is now ready to come out with a series of publications. These include a position paper on demography; a book about November 29, 1947 - the day the United Nations decided to partition Palestine; and a series of online debates between intellectuals. The position paper on demography (written by Dr. Uzi Rebhun and doctoral candidate Gilad Malach of the Hebrew University), touches on a point that leftists consider extremely politically incorrect, if not racist. "One of the main arguments in the paper is that the goal of achieving a stable Jewish majority is a legitimate goal for Israel and that Israel must seek to advance this goal," says Gavison. "Once this was taken for granted, but today it's not acceptable to say it. However, my guess is that a large portion of decision makers, including people from Meretz, wouldn't dare to say that a Jewish majority is not a legitimate interest of Israel." The question is, what are you prepared to do for the sake of a Jewish majority? "Only what human rights allow. I'm not prepared to expel the Arabs or to discriminate against them. But the State of Israel can say it is not interested in expanding the minority that is striving to undermine the justification of our existence. You could say that the only people who immigrate here are people who accept Israel as it is. I don't see any reason why Israel shouldn't demand an oath of loyalty from people who assume its citizenship. This is a standard immigration requirement." In 2006, the High Court of Justice approved the Citizenship Law by one vote. Then-president Barak and current court President Dorit Beinisch were among those who opposed the law, which is temporary, periodically renewed and currently under discussion by the High Court. "On the matter of the Citizenship Law, I have a disagreement with Barak and Beinisch," Gavison explains. "But with me are the justices of the majority - like [Mishael] Cheshin, [Miriam] Naor and [Asher] Grunis. It's an ideological rather than a legal debate, and it shouldn't be decided in court, but rather in the Knesset and in civil society. If the court is going to rule on this question in contrast to the political decision, I support the initiative by [Justice Minister Daniel Friedmann] not to give the court this power, and if this means that overriding is required, then so be it. "There is a deep ideological debate on these issues and the time has come to argue them. I think I speak for the large majority of the Israeli public that wants to maintain this country as a state that is both Jewish and democratic. A large majority, not a small majority. I'm not in the minority and I'm not the radical right. I'll fight any attempt to label me and my message as radical right. I reflect the backbone of the people in Israel." You haven't shifted rightward? "Ideologically, I haven't changed. I'm a social democrat and I'm in favor of two states for two peoples - two positions clearly identified with the left. So it's very hard for me to understand how I could be defined as a rightist. But something happened to me that some interpret as a shift from left to right. Fifteen years ago, I still took the success of Zionism and the Jewish state as givens, in the long run, and I saw my role as doing my utmost to ensure the country is as fair, just and moral as it can be. I did what the people who I'm now warning about are doing. Today, the picture of the Middle East without Israel seems realistic to a large portion of our enemies, and to some of our friends. There's been a growing attitude that the right thing to do is to give up on the dream of the Jewish state. This endangers the ability of the Zionist enterprise to survive. I'm motivated by a sense of great urgency and great importance and very great justice." Anti-Semitic element There is no question that Ruth Gavison, 63, is an outspoken, opinionated and intense person who doesn't shy away from battles. When she was a candidate for Supreme Court justice, her detractors argued that she lacked a judicial temperament. So much is known about Gavison and her views that people don't notice that she is actually a very private person who speaks very little about herself. In this interview, too, she resolved to stick to the facts and nothing but the facts - with the exception of the following surprising monologue: "I don't know how it happened that I turned out a little different," says Gavison, apparently referring to her colleagues in leftist circles. "Maybe it's because my family came from a fairly significant rabbinical heritage. I grew up in the old Sephardi Israeli community. I'm here for many generations, no less than my Arab colleagues. I have graves all over this country. There are graves of my family in Jerusalem inside and outside of the Old City walls, and in Tiberias and Hebron, but not in Safed, to my knowledge. I don't have the experience of family ties with Europe. I have no family from Europe and I don't remember any Holocaust stories. I have stories from the Old City and from the Jewish Quarter, and from moving outside the Old City walls and from Mishkenot Sha'ananim and Nahalat Shiva. "I grew up in a Sephardi rabbinical tradition that is more flexible and also Zionist. My maternal grandfather, Rabbi Yosef Mordechai Halevy, was the head of Jerusalem's Sephardi rabbinic court during my childhood before the founding of the state. There's a picture of him at the inauguration ceremony of the Hebrew University with Rabbi [Abraham Isaac] Kook and [Haim Nahman] Bialik. My uncle, Rabbi Eliahu Pardes, was the chief rabbi of Jerusalem when I was a teenager. I didn't have to wait to meet Rabbi Meidan to know that there are men who won't shake my hand; it doesn't mean that they hate me or disdain me. It's just another culture." The research activity of the Metzilah Center - which she established "to address the growing tendency among Israelis and Jews worldwide to question the legitimacy of Jewish nationalism and its compatibility with universal values" - is funded mostly by the Keshet Foundation, known for activities promoting reconciliation and coexistence in Israel. "Some people go into politics. I always thought I'd be more effective in an external body that assists the decision-makers," notes Gavison. In recent years, the advancement of Zionism has been identified with the right. "If being a Zionist means being a rightist, then I have no problem with it. I'm proud to be a rightist and ready to pay the price. But Metzilah is an organization that deals with Zionism and Judaism, and also with human rights. If that's what you call the extreme right, then I'm on the extreme right." I didn't say that being a Zionist means being identified with the right. I said that helping to promote Zionism has become identified with the right. "That's a much more interesting way to phrase it. So you can be a Zionist, but not act on it? Part of the reason I founded Metzilah is because I thought that I wasn't ready to leave Zionism to the rightists, just as I'm not ready to leave the Jewish state to the religious. Zionism is threatened now because so many Zionists are ashamed of it and not prepared to act on its behalf. If leftist Zionist society thinks that the rightists will continue to do the dirty work for it while they continue to be ashamed of them, it will be interesting. The goal is to compel the public in Israel, and the left especially, to grapple with its Zionism. Let's see what happens. Perhaps it will say that it's really not Zionist." And what about the question that must be asked: "What has the state given us after all?" "The state has given us a lot and this needs to be remembered. The state creates for the Jews the only place in which they do not have to subject themselves to the kindness of strangers, in which they are the majority, in which their culture is dominant. This is an extraordinary gift that I'm not prepared to give up. People take it for granted." Why carry the fate of the Jews here and not move to New Zealand? "Some have moved to New Zealand. But the fact is that emigration from here is not that massive. You might think that Israelis who had the means would leave the country. But the number of people leaving is not that high. One of the exciting things in Israel is the very great degree of connection between Israelis and their country, because of the quality of the human relations, the language, the family. This is a tremendous achievement." In recent years, Zionism has become identified with a regime of occupation and oppression. "I don't accept the claim that Zionism is inherently racism, or inherently based on dispossession or oppression. Just as an Arab can be a liberal and a humanist, a commitment to Zionism and Judaism can go hand in hand with liberalism and humanism. Why can't a Jew who wants to be a nationalist also be a liberal and a humanist? I don't understand this. It's like this was something invented just for the Jew. Why for the Jews does Zionism have to be racist? Sometimes, this double standard toward Israel is so blatant that it's hard not to think that there's some element of anti-Semitism involved, because the things that are so vehemently demanded of Israel are not demanded of any other group." The moral cost of the Zionist enterprise is not too high? "There are 5 million Jews here and a million-and-a-quarter Muslims. In the balance is not just the suffering and injustice caused to the Palestinians, but also the loss of the Jewish state that would oblige the Jews to be a minority everywhere and to be subject to the good will of the majority everywhere. Is the fact that the Arabs will continue to be a minority in Israel for the foreseeable future a price that's too high to pay for the existence of a Jewish state? The Arabs say yes. The Arabs' principal claim that there cannot be justice or morality unless the Jewish state stops being Jewish is incorrect. It's misleading, it's unfair and it does not express civic loyalty to the state in which they live." Civic loyalty? "The citizen's duty is to fight within the country and not to engage in delegitimization in the international arena. It's not smart on their part either. They maintain that there's been an increase in manifestations of racism and discrimination on the part of the right, but they ignore their own contribution to the fact that more and more people think they're not loyal to the state. The Arab minority wants everything that the establishment of the state made possible for it - comprehensive education, a health system equal to international standards, a level of welfare and political freedom that is among the highest in the Middle East. But it wants all this without the Jewish state. It doesn't work that way. It's a package deal." So why not make civilian service mandatory? "In principle, I'm in favor of mandatory civilian service. That doesn't necessarily mean a criminal offense and prison [for noncompliance]. I don't want the whole state to be full of prisons. You can use positive and negative incentives to determine a price tag for behavior. I'm also not in favor of this kind of service becoming mandatory right away, but I do insist that citizenship means being ready to share the burden. I wouldn't oppose a situation in which everyone was obligated to do service, and some did it in the army and some in other places, in their communities, for example." Are you disappointed with the Arab leadership? "I'm impressed with them. I've read the 'vision' papers and I'm thrilled by how much they've learned from us. They've learned the history of the Zionist enterprise a lot better than we have. They've seen which arguments worked for us and they're repeating them. They're enlisting the human rights discourse to their cause and doing impressive and clever work. I'm impressed by the leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah, and think they're doing a very effective job on the operational level, on the PR level and on the level of determination. I think we have a lot to learn from them. Once upon a time, we were like that, too, but the stronger we became, the more we forgot and were weakened. But I also think that they are mistaken and misleading. They're causing substantial damage to their people because they aren't properly gauging the strength and determination and ability of Israeli society. They're repeating the historic mistakes they made in the past." Provincial discourse Gavison does not want to discuss in depth the argument between Supreme Court President Beinisch and Minister Friedmann over the authority of the courts. "The fact that it has become a matter of personal delegitimization has become a problem in itself," she explains, referring to the standoff between the two. She herself has plenty of criticism for the Supreme Court. "Taking the stance that ... reexamining the authority of the Supreme Court or the attorney general can be seen as a threat to the rule of law seems dangerous to me," she says. "I've always thought that some of the problems Friedmann is bringing up are serious and worthy of public discussion. This importance existed before Friedmann's tenure and it will still be there after it. But it's important that changes of this sort be made in such a way that the cure doesn't turn out to be worse than the illness." What problems do you feel are especially urgent? "For example, the court frequently deals with subjects that in any other nation would be considered patently nonjusticiable. It's not in its authority and it doesn't matter if in the end it doesn't intervene, because that obliges the state to provide an explanation for things which don't require explanation. And it is often damaging as well, because there are cases that the High Court discusses and if it then rejects a petition, it looks as if the court is giving legal legitimacy to issues that are subject to political and ideological debate. Prisoner exchange deals, for example. "I also believe that the attorney general wields authority in too many areas, which sometimes conflict with each other. The existing situation makes it difficult for him to successfully carry out his duty to give the government suitable advice and representation, and at the same time to protect the public interest and preserve the independence required of someone who is serving as the chief prosecutor. This is particularly true when it comes to elected public officials." Many intellectuals feel that you've lost a lot of your legitimacy because of these positions. "You're mistaken about that. There is very strong support for my position among jurists, sociologists and political scientists. Some of them voice this support, others don't perhaps. My position is certainly not a minority position. The debate about the authority of the Supreme Court is going on in every country in the world. People with noncontroversial liberal commitments believe that judges should not be ruling on these questions. There's a provinciality of the legal discourse here that leads to the assumption that [judges] can and should be the arbiters in these matters. "But there's something else that has to be borne in mind: that the tendency here is to divide the political forces into the good guys and the bad guys, and the perception is that the Supreme Court is unequivocally on the side of the good guys. Criticism of the court, or any provision of ammunition to its adversaries, is therefore perceived as deserting the forces of good. This is a superficial and dangerous viewpoint." For a long time, you were then-justice minister Tzipi Livni's candidate for the Supreme Court. Have you abandoned that ambition? "Serving on the Supreme Court is certainly a summit for jurists to attain. I was pleased that some people thought I was suited for it and I was prepared to try for it. But my activity in Metzilah certainly ought not to be construed as giving up. Metzilah's vision is primarily not a legal one and I can contribute to its advancement much more by not being a justice." One part of her effort to create a united Zionist movement has been the Gavison-Meidan covenant. "The idea that two different population groups that wish to live together should make a covenant seemed like a wonderful idea to me. I don't feel any need to apologize for this document," she explains. "It can only improve things." In the name of the secular public, you gave up the right to shop on Shabbat. "I didn't give up anything because I don't represent anything. If the public doesn't want it, it won't adopt it. It's not the public that's pushing the matter of shopping on Shabbat, but interested parties who want the profits. I'd like there to be one day in which the experience of the entire state is different, a day that is more spiritual and less focused on consumption. A common day of rest seems to me like an incredible thing. Not only do I see no need to apologize for it. I'm all for it. I hope the next Knesset will adopt this law." You and Meidan proposed an arrangement for civil marriage that would apply only to heterosexual couples. Why should same-sex couples have to give up their right to marry in the framework of your compromise? "I think that human beings have a right to live their lives in the family frameworks that they choose, including same-sex frameworks. They want their right to be married in the State of Israel to be recognized. I don't know if they have such a right. The covenant did not take from them any right that they have." The question is whether this is a natural, given right. "I don't think that it's a natural right. I believe that a society is permitted to decide that it does not wish to recognize such marriages. In general, I'm against an 'inflation' of natural rights. If a natural right is supposed to be something that was always correct and recognized, then this certainly isn't a natural right. Is it a human right that is deserving of recognition in international documents on human rights? The answer is that it has so far not gained such recognition and the international documents all speak about a man and a woman. The Christian culture is certainly against it. The religious cultures look upon it as an abomination." But you proposed a new arrangement. Why should it discriminate against same-sex couples? "In Israel there is very extensive recognition of the economic and social rights of same-sex relationships. We didn't propose that these rights be infringed upon. We proposed an arrangement by consent, which abrogates the religious monopoly on marriage and divorce, which is a huge achievement. It's true that this agreement refers only to men and women. But on this matter we reflected the situation that exists in Israel and the world. We didn't take anything away from same-sex couples that they already have. Some people were angry and are still very angry at me over this proposal. I tried to explain, but I understand that someone who thinks he has a natural right won't accept my explanations." The anger derived to a great extent from the fact that it was you. It was totally personal. "Fine. I'm ready to accept that, too." She reached agreements with Rabbi Meidan, but the ultra-Orthodox public is another matter. "I wouldn't give any sector a monopoly on any social service, like kashrut and burial and things of that kind. I think its unhealthy and invites corruption," she says, adding, "coalition legislation of the type involving child allowances and exemptions from the core curriculum are among the worst legislative acts in the Knesset." Gavison warns against a return to a system of "child allowances like there was in the past, when large families were encouraged by allowances that increased along with the number of children." One conclusion of Metzilah's demography paper is that if Israel wants to continue being a developed nation it must improve the ultra-Orthodox and Arab populations' ability to break the cycle of poverty and join the labor market. "Child allowances are not the right way to achieve these goals," she explains. "It's impossible to overstate the importance of this issue for the welfare of all of Israel's sectors." Would you be prepared to clash with the ultra-Orthodox over the core curriculum? "I very much hope that it will be possible to reach an agreement among the large parties that will say that there are things in this country that are nonnegotiable. One of them is the core curriculum. Absolutely. I'm surprised that you're surprised." It will cause a severe social rift. "A more severe rift than the rift between left and right that we don't make any fuss over?" They'll view it as religious persecution. "Yes, I've seen the kind of statements they make. I don't want to force them, but I don't want to continue to finance them to such an extent. You want a separate kind of private education? Fine, just not at our expense. Not because I'm stingy, but because I want the state to develop a common citizenship for all its citizens and I want them to be a part of it. If they don't want it, I won't put anyone in jail, but I'm not obliged to finance an education system that isn't ready to include a core program. They can't hold the rope at both ends." W Bookmark to del.icio.us   Following Chavez Bolivia cuts ties with Israel, says it seeks war crimes charges. Who needs the Knesset? Arab parties: We'll establish an alternative Arab parliament.

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