It sounds like Israel's "de jure secular state, but de facto struggling with secularism" problem is very similar to what we struggle with in USA with the "Religious Right" trying to legislate their taboos on everyone else. I do appreciate very much, though, that Israel is supposed to be secular rather than theocratic; that immensely tempers my concern about what a "Jewish State" is.
In some ways, I think a good model for Judaism in Israel would be like Church of England today in Britain, except far more pluralistic and without the hierarchy: an "official state" religion to which many citizens do not belong, and for which there is no "mandatory" membership with citizenship, and no social penalty for not belonging.
Right now the big issue with Jewish religion in Israel is that the instutions of marriage and divorce, and a few other items of ritual interest, are legally the domain of the Chief Rabbinate, which has always been controlled by the Orthodox, and is today dominated by the Haredim (ultra-Orthodox), to the deep detriment of non-Orthodox Jews. The recent legal victories of Women of the Wall (a trans-denominational group of Jewish feminists whose agenda involves loosening the current restrictions on egalitarian prayer at the Western Wall) and various public opinion polls seem to indicate that some progress on this front may be occurring. I am one of many non-Orthodox Jews (and not a few Modern Orthodox Jews) who feel that the Chief Rabbinate should be dissolved as a government office.
In the end, a secular government that supports all Jewish movements and communities equally, and tolerates non-Jewish religions without prejudice, is, to my mind the only way to ensure that Israel is truly a Jewish state-- representative of all the multifaceted and various aspects of the Jewish People.
I think the difference between the Native Americans, Tibetans, French, Poles, even arguably Americans and so on is that those titles aren't also used to describe religions: for instance, (not to pick on you Mormons, this is just a hypothetical) it would be silly to say there should be a "Mormon State," and I think people get confused by the possibly religious (as opposed to ethnic) connotations of the term "Jewish State."
I sometimes think we have done ourselves a great disservice. I think the confusion you mention stems from Jewish progressive social movements in the early nineteenth century which, in the wake of the political emancipation of the Jewry of Western Europe which was brought on by the Enlightenment, sought to allay the xenophobia of Christian Europe (then in the full fervor of nationalism) about suddenly making full citizens of the Jews by claiming that they (the Jews) were citizens of their respective nation-states first, and Jewish second-- essentially trying to re-brand Judaism as just another religion, like Christianity. That claim was often untrue, and certainly had no historical precedent in Jewish tradition upon which to base it; but it was seen as a way of promoting acceptance of Jews into civil society, and a pre-emptive way to combat anti-Semitism, which was, of course, still deeply virulent in European society. I understand why they did it, but given how typical the kind of confusion you describe is today, I often wish they had not done so.
However, I am not 100% comfortable with the notion of states built around ethnicities/cultural identities. It's less offensive to me than states built around religions, and it really depends on how they are implemented (whether or not they are oppressive to minorities), but it's something I need to think on more about its justness. I can understand wanting to maintain the cohesiveness of a culture under a flag, so it seems as long as that culture includes protecting minorities from the majority, I may not have a problem with it at all.
I get the idea behind what you're saying. I appreciate the spirit of egalitarianism that such humanistic notions are founded in, but I think that they are all too often founded in an idealism that simply doesn't take the realities of the world into account.
Cultures are like languages: they can be acquired by dedicated learning, even sometimes in isolation by autodidacticism, if the learner is brilliant enough. But true, natural fluency usually only comes with immersion. When people try to export their cultures into expatriated life as a minority in another culture, assimilation takes a hideous toll, decimating the preservation of the culture, unless the people are singularly insular and closed off from the larger society around them-- which tends to foster other, undesirable attitudes. Staving off this cultural death by homogenization is a constant battle for minorities, and one that is easy to lose. The majority of the populace of the United States are excellent examples of this: with the exceptions of Native Americans, their ancestors all came from other places, with rich cultural heritages, a dizzying array of languages, family histories, philosophies, artistic styles, and so forth. And now, for the most part, nearly nothing is left but the bland uniformity of the melting pot. And Jews in America are losing their cultural heritage to assimilation at horrifying rates.
If there were no Israel, the process would surely have already grown far worse, since so many of us connect or reconnect to our identities by visiting our ancestral homeland, seeing a nation of Jews living Jewish lives, hearing the Jewish language spoken not only in synagogues and lifecycle rituals but casually on the street, on the television, by people from across the world who they realize are just like them, with the same heritage, the same ancestry.
I am a great lover of cultures-- not only my own, but other cultures also. I think without the rich variety of ideas, worldviews, languages, belief systems, arts, aesthetics, and so forth that are generated by differing cultures, human existence would be infinitely the less. And if that means that every culture deserves a homeland of its own, where it is the majority, and life there is the life of that culture-- to my mind, there is no question that is a cheap price to pay, which I gladly support.
"Jewish state". Made up of people who can barely trace their lineage to the actual land outside of religious symbols that Christians and Muslims can claim as well.
Ridiculous. Any basic history of the Jewish People can tell you otherwise. And the few religious symbols that Christians and Muslims genuinely can "claim as well," they can do so because they took them from us. The fact that both Christianity and Islam are descendant religions from Judaism is hardly a novel discovery: any historian of Western religion from the past couple of hundred years could tell you that.
The notion that Jews are somehow not connected to the Land of Israel, when it is not the result of mere ignorance, is just propaganda put out by anti-Semitic hate groups.
. They belong in Jordan if you wish to talk about territory. But Filistinians just want a Shariah controlled state and a removal of Jews and access tot he lands they deem holy. Filistinians want a ethnically divided territory which is a first in history. Filistinians have a right to live in israel yes but it is not "their" land the same way America is not the land of the white invaders technically. There was nothing peaceful or fair about the previous borders.
