It's hard to say what will become of the proposed Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People. Perhaps one of the coalition parties will succeed in persuading the prime minister that it has to do with religion and state and he should thus veto it.
Or the proposed law could become a contentious issue, with proponents accusing all its objectors of post-Zionism, lack of patriotism and denial of their Judaism. All of us would become embroiled in a pointless, unnecessary battle.
The crux of the law is to differentiate between the Jewish character of the state and its democratic nature, with Judaism given pre-eminence. This is the explicit intention of the proponents, which, in my opinion, would cause nothing but damage.
But one of the secondary types of damage would be to Israel-Diaspora relations. The law's formulators tried to articulate, in writing, the relationship between ourselves and our Diaspora brethren. They did so with reckless irresponsibility and without understanding the special sensitivity involved in giving them status of law.
One of the most problematic issues in our relationship with the Diaspora has to do with Israel's responsibility for the fate of Jews around the world. After the establishment of the state this was a hot topic and the heart of a bitter dispute between then-prime minister David Ben-Gurion and the man who was considered to be the most powerful American Jew, Jacob Blaustein, then-chairman of the American Jewish Committee.
Ben-Gurion believed that the Jewish state should be responsible for the fate of Jews everywhere. Blaustein countered that if this is Israel's aspiration, it could forget about receiving funds from American Jewry because such a claim would increase anti-Semitism and bolster accusations of dual loyalty. He told Ben-Gurion that if his non-Jewish neighbors learned that a foreign country was responsible for his fate, they would demand that he move to Israel (claiming that if a foreign country is responsible for you, your first loyalty is to that country). Ben-Gurion understood, and was forced to accept Blaustein's position and be careful with his choice of words.
More than 60 years have passed since then. A lot of things have changed in Israel-Diaspora relations. But the sensitivity remains. Israel is definitely involved in the lives of world Jewry, even sometimes helping, defending and saving Jews in distress. But to incorporate something like this into law is embarrassing, absolving others of responsibility and generating expectations that we cannot meet. One sentence that appears in the proposed law says, "The state will work to provide aid to members of the Jewish people in distress and captivity due to their Jewishness." No more and no less.
For instance, imagine the terrible instance of American Jewish journalist Daniel Pearl, who was executed by terrorists in Pakistan. There is no doubt that he was treated so cruelly because he was Jewish. Would the proposed law have obligated Israel to operate within Pakistan? Would it have absolved the U.S. administration of responsibility to try and rescue their own citizen? These are issues that must not be addressed by a law. It's neither wise nor responsible -- just like the law as a whole.
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