Biladi, Biladi - what's in a name?

Analyzing political conservatism as motivated social cognition integrates theories of personality (authoritarianism, dogmatism-intolerance of ambiguity), epistemic and existential needs (for closure, regulatory focus, terror management), and ideological rationalization (social dominance, system justification). The core ideology of conservatism stresses resistance to change and justification of inequality. From: Jost JT et al. Political conservatism as motivated social cognition. Psychological Bulletin 2003, Vol. 129, No. 3, 339–375.

Why a multitude of Moslem and Arab countries are allowed to call themselves Arab and have Moslems symbols on their flags or anthems (eg Turkey, Pakistan , Iran ,Tunisia, Algeria, Syria, etc) and ISRAEL IS NOT allowed to be Jewish although 80% of its population is Jewish? Why the same applys to Christian countries that have a Cross on their flags (e.g. Greece, Denmark, Norway, Island, UK, etc)?

What about Iran, Libya, etc., removing any mention of "Islamic" from the name of their states?

Even noted historian Rashid Khalidi cannot find any evidence of Palestinian Arabs referring to themselves as "Falastini" until the early 20th century. So why, in the 21st century, shouldn't Arabs from Israel -- who accept Israeli citizenship -- be called "Israeli"? No one's asking them to call themselves "Yahoodi"! If the children of Moroccan immigrants can call themselves "Norweigan" (a nation with a giant crucifix on its flag), why can't a sizeable ethnic Arab minority in Israel call themselves "Israeli"? On that note, couldn't a Jewish minority living in Hebron (or Ariel) become "Palestinian" in a future Palestinian state?

I met Isreali represenative ("shaliach") for the Rosh Hashana (Jewish New Year) dinner in one of Canadian cities and he said Herzl was wrong proposing equal rights to all citizens of his dreamed Jewish state. He had learned from Shlomo Avineri,

what you've outlined makes my heart sing, a secular, inclusive, and democratic Israel. And nation that serves ALL its citizens, not Jews and then 'the rest of them'. Sounds good to me. The only picture of a person that should hang in our public offices is that of whomever is President - otherwise we should add the Pope and Yasser Arafat.

That is the basis of her founding and her purpose. A Jewish Democracy in fact. That does not pose any threat to her non Jewish citizens. They are citizens with the same rights and obligations as Jewish citizens. Get over your self righteous debate and deal with it.

... but only Israel, of course, must become "post-ethnic". Here's an idea: right after you, Sweden and Finland. You go first, Ireland. And so forth.

Yes, do it, learn from Iran, become radical like them. Khomeni's thought lives on beyond the Ayatollahs

Israel/Falastin just another country. Zionism dead as any ideology that is based on acquiring land, and seperation of peoples should be in this modern age. Mr Avinery should take a look at his ID card. Where it says Nationality there is ********. This racist discrimination was abandoned quite a few years ago. Perhaps his is a very old one.

What would Israel be without the amazing Arab food, and the Arab architecture found in Jaffa, Jerusalem, Nazareth, etc. I'll tell you- bland overpriced dinners and unremarkable high rises and strip malls. The beach of course is great, but we must credit G-d with that.

So what? It is better to go on killing each other indefinitely? Anyway the article is entirely inconsistent. There is no reason why after all the changes enumerated the new state could not be called Israel.

Slomo ,are you having a laugh

its called athenian democracy,and certain people in a state have the right vote and lead the fortunes of their state.Note that in ancient athens have existed anti-liberal,anti-national or anti-immigrant sentiments and movements at various eras and sometimes prevailed,and secularism first flourished there.Certain Jews should stop promoting that nice flower-power and ADL speeches in America and EU,before they pay it with the same coin for their compatriots in Israel.

Why do you assume that Palestinians are as fearful and small-minded as you are? Take and breath and think about a land in which everyone will have equal civil rights.

They would always demand more and more. They want (as taught in their media and koran) Jews to be Dimis- second class, slave like citizens. Arabs want dominance. Even though Jews came in and turned their sand into cities and gave them all goods and the greatest rights in all the middle east, they still harbor hatred and jealousy becuase deep down they know Jews are beloved by G-D while G-D calls them "peri Adam" in the Bible.

the most serious poblem would arrise when ( in following this future telling excersie) Hogo Chavez or Ajmadinajeb decide to implement their own final solution to their Jewish problem and the new country of Falestin would, as all other countries decide that allowing the would be immigrants in was not in its interest... The ``Never Again" would be never again be serious.

I distinctly recall partisans of Israel taking pride in their creation of a 'new Jew.' This 'new Jew' had few positive characteristics -- primarily, his virtues were the absence of the traditional qualities of the 'old' Jew. More practically, secular Israelis view the ultra-orthodox with frank and open loathing and contempt. So the question becomes: have you ever wanted a Jewish state? Or has it all been some hopeless attempt to make yourselves into something other than Jews? And indeed: few Jews can find much to be proud of in today's Israel. You have succeeded: no real Jew would want to be Israeli.

...to justify real and present bigotry and discrimination *against* non-Jews in Israel by invoking the chimera of imagined future persecution *by* them. Wasn't there some guy in the Torah who was famous for this approach? Oh, yeah...Pharoah.

If Arabs and their Leftist allies don't like the Jewish character of Israel, then they're free to leave Israel. In fact, they should be given free tickets as well.

Since they apparently try to harm Israel, they have no right to live in it.

Requiring Israel to be called a Jewish state is insulting for anyone there who is non Jewish, or for Jews who do not want to be defined by Judaism but want to be Israel as an identity. It is like the Christians in the US and Europe who say their countries are Christian. What if they pushed it into law, what about the rest of us? Israel will never lose it's Jewish character, a name does not take that away, that's ridiculous, but it is building fear into Israelis of all kinds and is a dangerous game for an irresponsible government to be playing. They know that the Palestinians will not accept it, I would not accept Palestine being named an Islamic state, so the govt is again derailing meaningful change and forcing us to continue judicial corruption, military rule and constant stress of politicians creating crisis. Instead of continuing failed policies, let's try something new and actually meet the Palestinians half way. Our 'Jewish" identity is being changed and brutalized by our occupation and unwillingness to give others the rights and security we have.

A Haaretz/Islamist dream come true

It's the same old story...The arabs still plan to destroy the State of Israel and replace it with an arab-palestinian state. Now i ask you: Would this palestinian state really represent the interests of all of this citizens? Why is Siria an arab state? There are the kurdish people also there...Shame on you, arab politicians in Israel

Israel without a Jewish character is unthinkable. Is it, however, necessary to ram that character down the throats of all Israelis who are not Jewish? That is just as absurd as demanding changes in the nation's name and flag.

it will be never enough of concessions: it wouldn't bring desirable results for the giving side. Israel is a Jewish state no matter how hard others try to make it another faceless "democracy".

Most American Jews are Zionists and want Israel to retain its Jewish character (just as they want the USA to remain an English speaking society). The way to achieve this is to give the Palestinians their independence, and achieve two states for two peoples. If Shlomo was so sarcastic that that is NOT his point, it matters not. Its still true that a one state solution would be a disaster, like Iraq in 2006 or Lebanon during the civil war, or Bosnia. Taking down the picture of Herzl would the least of the problems.

It's bizarre to those of us who live in normal democracies to see sentiments such as this... the hysteria that Israeli Jews (some of them) feel about being equal to Palestinians is so deeply entrenched. God forbid Palestinians have a right to their own national symbols in a democratic state in the future! The horror, if Jews will need to sing hatikva only as a popular sentimental song and not the national anthem! What a tragedy, if this state does not privilege Jews over Arabs! How unreasonable of Palestinians to aspire to live in a country as equals to Jews! Get a grip, Israel. The world has moved on from ethnic nationalism! Do you want to be in the same category as Saudi Arabia, or would you want to be a country like those of Western Europe, the US, and most of the civilized world? The choice is indeed yours!!!

..and you have described the situation which actually exists on the ground in the US right now. We are self-destructing in the US trying to make every minority "feel good" about themselves while denigrating the concept of being "American". Our enemies within know that all they have to do is appeal to "bigotry" or "racism" (Islamists) and then file endless lawsuits to eliminate God from public discourse (Marxist Atheists). While the article is fictional, I believe that it may be more prescient than any of us want to admit.

i thought territory is of the essence of the definition of state.that means borders to specify the territory to define the state.the rest are incidentals,side-issues.

Many times I've argued on Talkback that the State of Israel signifies both the nationalistic (political/secular) and religious (Jewish statehood) connotation unlike many other democracies around the world who instill as a democracy the separation of religion and state affairs. But I would still argue that Israel sustain its secularism as well and religion not delve in all spheres . Israel is unique in that Judaism implies both a nationhood of a people with over a five thousand year history in the Middle East and the first to practice the monotheistic religion, of which both Christianity and Islam derive. We now understand that the presence of the Jewish State not only provides the homeland for the Jewish people after centuries of anti-Semitism, but that it's to be a nation where all citizenry should have equal rights and opportunities for livelihood. We haven't been accepted in the same footing as others because as I've previously mentioned once last year, for example, an orphaned Muslim Afghani-Canadian student was clueless of Israel's Jewish narrative and referred to it as "phalistin". But encouragingly, he announced that he was positively interested in learning about all the three monotheistic religions. Perhaps if a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians prevails in the near future, and following that, comprehensive peace agreements with the other neighbouring Muslim states becomes a reality, we'll continue the process of reconciliation which has been long required in the region.

All of this is very amusing. What is not amusing is the contemporary practice of using state power to enforce the dominant Jewish identity of the country to the determinant of both Israel as a nation state, and Jews all over the world.

is the similarity between the demands of the 'arab Israelis' and the novel by George orwell, 'The Animal Farm". "All animals are created equal, except arabs because they are more equal than other animals." Israel is for the Jews. In order to Israeli, one must be Jewish. All others should be considered resident aliens.

The responses here are exactly why this article needed to be written. How betrayed must the leftist diaspora readers of Ha'aretz must feel! Well done Shlomo. Let us never forget that Israel belongs to the Jews. Let the arabs have Palestine and their 15 other countries. I can't wait for the day that the 2 state solution is implemented and the Pals need to stop playing the poor victim and start acting responsibly.

Was Averni hired to write this article by Im Tirtzu?

Utopia allows to think reality and to develop a critical perspective. Professor Avineri's utopia should allow those who want an egalitarian status to see the consequences. This does'nt mean that the status should be inegalitarian, but it is essential to invent other ways to live together

Haaretz is truly becoming a very, very pathetic newspaper. They'll just publish anything nowadays.

Is this the best that can be offered in defence of the status quo? It's a very sad attempt from a formerly grand scholar to try to create a hypothetical 'existential crisis', based on no real information at all. It's a defence of what is failing miserably to gain the confidence of a substantial proportion of the population who have every right to exist in freedom as much as anyone else. It's a bit like hypothetical scare tactics against equal rights in the USA or Sth Africa. A good constitution, parliamentary system and independent judiciary will prevent such hypothezed abuse. It's a last gasp attempt.

A Haaretz dream come true

Maybe some Day real Jews will show up in sufficient numbers to resurrect this Jewish Character which is at thwe momnets in the hands of bigots/racists and oppressors.

Jordan was meant to be the homeland of the Palestinians - that was the deal. Safeguarding the Jewish character of the state serves its one major purpose since its creation as a defendable haven for all jews in the world. So you would actually have to give Jews priviliged status in order to serve that purpose. Sacrificing the jewish character would undermine the rationale for the creation of Israel and twist our entire history upside down. Making Israel a multi-ethnic state such as France or the US may somehow feel right in terms of main-stream Western ideology, but here is the catch: Idealogy does not in itself solve problems - it's common sense that does.

There is a formal separation between religion and state in Europe. But de-facto, there was never a separation between religion and people in Europe: they (virtually) all were Christians. Already now, the high standards of religious liberties and separation Europeans were bragging about, start to collapse. See Minarets law, see Burka law. Everybody knows the real reason Turkey is left out, is because of religion. It's very easy to say "we treat everybody in the same way, as long as everybody is of the same religion". Now we are beginning to see that the inner-separation caused by religious differences, start to be felt in the Western world too. Europe is very eager in criticizing Israel, but they already are worse than we are in some sense (Minaret, Burka). It doesn't solve the main problem however. Take for instance an Israeli Arab. On the one hand, we request from him loyalty, and on the other hand: how can he relate to the national hymn? But at least this shows us that Israel is no worse than other nations. Today's model of democracy cannot overcome religious differences between big portions of society - Europe can't and neither can we.

TOO: DEPENDS ON WHO ISRAEL WANTS to BE SURVIVING THIS WITH. MEANING: ISRAELIS too HAVE TO CHOOSE SIDES if it is not the SideS IT is Israel wishes to be CHOOSING after ALL THIS! AND THE TIME 2 CHOOSE IS: RIGHT NOW A N D RIGHT [{T}]HERE. TIME FORtBLABLABL[{ASS}] IS INDEED OVER, AND NOT ONLY JUST [{T}]HERE!

Sorry, but most American Jews will not relate to this article. We believe in racial and ethnic equality and the separation of church and state.

...who gave rather sober evaluation of Herzl and other Zionists of the time in his "Intellectual Origins of Zionism". The fable above bears no connection to reality. It doesn't belong to journalism but to the 'genre writing'. Just as Herzl shaped his Altneuland along the lines of the 'roman de gare' put in the genre of utopia, Avineri writes a piece of war-propaganda against 'fifth column' in the genre of anti-utopia. This entire piece simply wouldn't work if Avineri hadn't ruthlessly put the last sentence into the mouth of the Arab Israeli protagonist with a "broad smile". The famous Protocols wouldn't have a shadow of its political and literary effect if it didn't put its content into the mouth of "the Jews", in the first-person-plural mode. Anyone who doesn't recognize the glaring anti-Semitic handwriting beyond the last sentence of Avineri's article should try to contextualize this fable in other democracies where Jews fight against their exclusion and against public show of religious symbols. At the time when Avineri gets carried away in his phantasms, the political reality of the present-day State of Israel is the unbridled rumpus of the national-religious and secular nationalist parties à la Lieberman. Let me remind mr Avineri that these parties embody in flesh, and indeed outdo, the 'party of Geier' ("vulture", germ.) that Herzl depicted in his utopia, the Jewish ultra-nationalist religious leader that Herzl fashioned after the anti-Semitic Vienna mayor Karl Lueger. Let me remind mr Avineri that Herzl proposed no nationalist symbols in the flag of the new country, but seven stars representing the seven hours of work shift. Herzl surely wouldn't have minded his portrait in Knesset (and indeed described with pathos the future monuments erected for himself), but that because of his megalomania and not because of some 'Jewish character' in which he publicly took pride of disbelieving. Let me remind mr Avineri that Hebrew was not anywhere close to becoming a national language of Herzl's new country, and the "Israelite" or "Jewish" adjective was not anywhere near his picked name 'The New Society'. Let me remind the author that Herzl's Der Judenstaat project translates as "The State of Jews" and not as "Jewish State". Herzl didn't lack in flagrant prejudices against Arabs, but Avineri has great deal to catch up with Altneulandian liberal positions. Let remind mr Avineri that the ethnic/religious inscription in the passport, that still exist in countries like Russia and the 'national character' which Avineri cherry-picks in the constitutions of some Arab countries, would be met with a devastating reaction in the Western democracies, to the reader of which Avineri is trying to appeal. Congrats, mr Avineri! Now you know what it is like to be Rabbi Geyer's propaganda dept. writer.

The only reason Israel was created was to have a jewish state. Its like Pakistan the only reason for its creation was to create a muslim country. There would have been no good reason to divide mandate Palestine if we just wanted to have a single religion free state. We crated Israel to have a jewish state and if it was no longer jewish it would have no right to exist.

Right on the money Shlomo. Right on the money.

Then it is going to have to give up lots of land, water, cash and apologies for 1947 and everything that came after. If there is not a viable Palestine existing next to Israel within the next few years, then Israel will either become a secular (non-Jewish) state or the Arabs will forcibly take back all the land and Israel will cease to exist. These are the ONLY choices Israel has. The current situation is unstable and can NOT continue for more than a few more years. The IDF can NOT defeat the Arabs forever.

Since World War 2, horrified by the extremes created by ethnic nationalism, western Europe has gone on a long journey attempting to redefine national identitiy in such a way that it does not discriminate against minorities and immigrants. It has been a sometimes painful journey and the end destination and results are not yet clear, but one thing is clear, that a return to the days of simplistic blood and soil nationalism is never going to happen, not while memories of the holocaust still survive anyway. Israel, inevitably, drew very different lessons from the holocaust. Instead of turning away from ethnic nationalism, Jews, to create a strong, defendable home for themselves turned towards it, and that's how Israel was created. Today, it seems from what Haaretz that many Israeli Jews would just like to pretend that Israel's Arabs don't exist, but they do. And to pretend that a Jewish kid from New York who's never before been to Israel has a larger stake in the state than people whose families have lived there for centuries, just isn't acceptable. Soon Israel is going to have to go on the journey away from ethnic nationalism that Western Europe made after World War 2. The alternative is that Israel exeriences some of the extremes of ethnic nationalism that Europe underwent IN World War 2.

Or even of democracy itself, I'd venture. And equal rights is definitely OUT, isn't it? But there's a big problem with your whole line of thought...which is that once you create your little make-believe scenerio in your first paragraph...your subsequent comments - complaints you venture are to anticipated - are all based on the exact perspective your scenerio was to have abolished...which is that Israel is a Jewish state. You're living proof of how that concept has been so deeply ingrained, that Israel cannot even fathom abandoning it - not even for the sake of a make-believe scenerio. But then again, you've likely done this knowingly, hoping to appeal to its given nature among Israelis - fanning fears among them - in order to thwart any progressive moves towards secularism and equal rights.