Page 18 - Issue 8

Our Movement’s Role in Safeguarding Democracy
Sarah Michaels Levy, October 2008

Thirteen years ago, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was brutally assassinated by a citizen of the country that
democratically elected him, in an attempt to violently halt Rabin’s unprecedented progress in peace
negotiations with Israel’s Arab neighbors. Last week, an assassination attempt on Israeli Professor Ze’ev
Sternhell brought to mind the events surrounding the Rabin assassination. Below is a recent article detailing
the Sternhell event, which I think movement educators should address this year when commemorating
Yitzhak Rabin.

Although Israel has been increasingly plagued by apathy and indifference, hopes for sustained peace have
recently been raised slightly with the negotiations taking place between former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert
and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. As it sinks in among the general population once again that
returning land and dismantling settlements is an inevitability for achieving any chance of a lasting peace,
violent elements in Israeli society are reacting with all means at their disposal to terrorize the rest of the
Israeli public and coerce them into continuing to tacitly allow ourselves to be occupiers of another people.

When Prof. Sternhell, a prominent left-wing political scientist, was awarded the Israel Prize this year, the
committee that awarded it to him stated “Prof. Sternhell is an intellectual who engages in the public
discourse in Israel and the world, and the things he says, even when their tone is critical, are said out of a
deep commitment to the country and society in Israel.”
Arutz Sheva, the right-wing Israeli news outlet, ran the following provocative headline regarding his award:
“Israel Prize to go to Pro-Terror, Pro-Civil War Prof.,” and attempted to repeal the committee’s decision
about the prize.

When we approach education about Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination this year, and in particular the comparisons
between the right-wing settlers of the early 1990’s and today, it’s important that the conversation not be
framed as a debate between religious and secular viewpoints. Rather, once again we are facing serious
questions of democracy. A responsible member of a democratic state must be empowered to speak out about
his or her beliefs without fear that their physical safety (or life) is in danger. Living in a democratic state
demands trust in one’s fellow human being – trust that all members of society agree on a few basic principles,
such as life, liberty, and equality – and that members of the society will not act to violate that trust.

On Sept 28, 2008, Haaretz reported the following:

“After security forces evacuated the illegal outpost of Yad Yair earlier this month, West Bank
settlers responded by torching fields belonging to Palestinian villagers and puncturing tires of Israel
Defense Forces vehicles. Right-wing elements in Israeli society appear to be increasingly turning
against the rule of the law, determined to take their ultra-nationalist cause into their own hands,
employing violence against anyone they perceive as enemies, be they soldiers or civilians, Israelis or
Palestinians. Intelligence and security sources fear that violence will escalate into something much
more dramatic than scorched fields and punctured tires.”

There is a limit to a society’s ability to absorb this type of blatant disregard for democratic principles and
agreement among its members. After that point, the society ceases to be a democracy, and is in actuality run
by the violent non-democratic actions of the groups that have disregarded the common trust (this can
happen, and perhaps has already started happening, here in Israel, even though the state’s leaders are
democratically elected).

As responsible movement members and educators, and above all as responsible members of democratic
societies around the world, it is on us to find ways to educate about what it means to voice one’s views while
still operating within the rules that allow democracy to continue to exist – sanctity of life being
primary among them. We cannot allow elements in society to make change through violent means