To the Editors:

Assaf Sagiv’s editorial (“The Sabra’s Lawless Legacy,” Azure 33, Spring 2008) attributes the recent corruption exhibited by Israeli political leaders and other public figures, and the breakdown of social norms—ranging from bribery to sexual harassment—to the anti-legalistic tradition handed down by the Zionist pioneering ethos. The “unruly, irresponsible, and lawless behavior that runs rampant in the Jewish state today,” he writes, “is not a sudden detour from the path laid out by the Zionist pioneers. On the contrary, in certain respects it constitutes a natural, almost inevitable outcome of the ethos they created.” Sagiv views this negative development as a result of two components. The first is the tendency to disrespect the law—a feature that, according to him, resulted from Israel’s “founding fathers’” decision to abandon their own fathers’ tradition (“the rejection of halacha as the legal framework of national existence created a normative vacuum in the lives of the first Jewish settlers”). The other is the effort to fashion a “new Jew,” a sabra who is distinguished by positive traits such as courage and decisiveness, yet also inclined toward “mischief and lawbreaking.” This combined tradition, which has perpetuated a certain kind of “Israeliness,” is what Sagiv believes accounts for Israeli culture’s refusal to “follow the rules” and, eventually, for widespread corruption and the moral contamination of the public sphere.  

To be sure, attacks on the “new Jew” and on the sabra have become bon ton in the media in the past few years. With Sagiv’s essay, one can now add “vicarious liability” to the list of the sabra’s faults. It is not my intention to defend the sabra, but I wish to propose an alternative genealogy for the corruption that has taken root in Israel.

Prior to the modern age, Jews observed halacha. But even then, there were Jews who chose to break the rules. If such behavior had not existed, after all, there would have been no need for excommunication or delayed prayers, among other regulations. Indeed, even in a society marked by a definitive constitutional framework, there is no assurance that transgressions of the law will not occur. Furthermore, although Jews obeyed the halacha (some stringently and some leniently), they also viewed themselves as exempt from the laws of the countries in which they resided. The Jews of Eastern Europe provide an excellent example of this attitude toward legalism. Indeed, they viewed the German Jews, who were meticulous adherents to the rule of law and who founded the Israeli legal system, with contempt bordering on pity. The Eastern European Jews had always seen themselves as entitled to dupe the authorities—and they did not grow up on the ethos of the new Jew or the sabra, but came to Israel as adults.

When the Jewish state was founded, these norms that permitted bypassing the law were replicated on a large scale. Though there were no non-Jews in Israel to dupe, a state is still a state, even if it is a Jewish one. Thus, disrespect for the rule of law—to one extent or another—was in no way limited to the adherents of the sabra ethos. It is possible to argue that this attitude trickled down into other groups in the Yishuv, including the Israeli right, which rejected the worldview (and behavior) of the Palmah and preferred Menachem Begin’s legalism. Yet how can we explain the fact that even ultra-Orthodox Jews, who observe every aspect of halacha—which, as stated, was abandoned by the founding fathers of the pioneering ethos—are not immune to acts of corruption, sexual harassment, and other moral perversions in the public sphere?

Sagiv seems to imply that if Israel had a constitutional framework, things would be different. But the truth is that in every country, and even in the most civilized of states, sin lurks near: People search for legal loopholes, and if they believe that they will not get caught, they will break the law. The United States, the most legalistic of all countries, which prides itself on a constitution rooted in a centuries-old tradition and boasts a high proportion of lawyers per capita, is also not immune to corruption. Let us recall that an American president was forced to step down due to the Watergate affair, and his vice president was sentenced to prison for corruption charges. Human beings are simply human beings—and sometimes not even that. In times of rising hedonism, when material gains are the measure of success, corruption always rears its ugly head.

Furthermore, countries of immigrants, where different ethnic groups maintain different traditions and behavioral norms, are more vulnerable to phenomena of unruliness and lawlessness. In a socially and culturally homogenous state, by contrast, it is more likely that the laws will be obeyed. This is why the Scandinavian countries always receive positive
ratings in the International Corruption Index. Thus, even though I share Sagiv’s opinion that David Ben-Gurion’s resistance to the establishment of a constitution was a tragic mistake; I do not accept his claim that legalism is the solution that will save us from corruption.

When speaking of lawless behavior as a typical characteristic of Israeli society, one cannot refrain from mentioning an area where it occurs daily, and even enjoys public support. I am of course talking about the Jewish settlements: Since the very beginning of this endeavor, it was accompanied by violation of the law, disregard for army and police orders, and an attempt to present realities on the ground as faits accomplis to the authorities. Are the fanatical settler youth who regularly confront IDF soldiers the modern-day heirs of the ethos of the new Jew? Or perhaps they embody an extreme Jewish heritage joined to the disdain for representatives of the law—that is, the view that precisely because it is the law of the Jews, it may therefore, paradoxically, be dismissed.

Israelis live in a culture that is the result of a merger of various traditions: the anti-governmental Jewish tradition, the Russian-Jewish tradition that sought to deceive the authorities in any possible way, and the Israeli tradition that sanctified the ability to “get by,” which is expressed in creativity and the ability to improvise, but also in the incessant search for boundaries to be crossed. The sabra, however, had one feature that stood in contrast to the corrupting influence of those traditions: straightforwardness. There was a degree of toughness in speaking the truth as it is, but in this bluntness there was also sincerity and integrity. The mischievousness of youth does not necessarily lead to corruption in middle age, just as a naughty schoolboy does not usually become a violent thief in adulthood.

There is no reason to accuse the founding fathers of the Zionist state of their grandchildren’s sins. Too many factors have been woven into Israeli tradition to draw a direct link between stealing livestock from farms to stealing millions from the public treasury. It is true that, as Sagiv puts it, the sabra has served his purpose, and Israel’s fields are now in need of plowing, in the sense of instilling more appropriate norms in Israeli society. However, the remedy for impaired Israeli morals will not be found by exorcising the sabra “demon.”

Anita Shapira
Tel Aviv University

 

To the Editors:

Assaf Sagiv’s article raises many issues that require a great deal of further analysis. By claiming that corruption in our society is largely due to the historical and intellectual origins of the Zionist leadership, he ignores the fact that severe corruption within the Israeli leadership did not emerge until the late 1990s. The earlier Zion-ist leadership under Ben-Gurion, Sharett, Eshkol, Meir, Begin, Shamir, Rabin, and Netanyahu, despite their occasional lapses, cannot be compared to the severely corrupted culture that surrounded Sharon and Olmert.

In my opinion, however, the “historical approach” to this problem only tells one side of the story. There are other, more important and immediate factors to be taken into account.

First, the Israeli electoral system inherently breeds corruption. The 100- percent proportional voting system by which the Knesset is elected leads to the creation of elite political cliques based upon the old Leninist creed of “who knows whom,” rather than on any responsibility to the electorate at large. This elite cannot be removed without a truly massive shift in public opinion, far beyond what would be required in any parliamentary system based upon direct representation, or a mix of the direct and proportional systems. As a result, proportionally elected elites are forced to negotiate coalition governments whose policies are often unrecognizable to voters. This system also exacerbates the feelings of helplessness, apathy, desensitization, and disinterest in public affairs mentioned by Sagiv.

Second, there is the growth of anti-Zionist sectors in our population that have no real connection with, or any desire to become part of, the State of Israel.

The Haredi population, for example, is a law unto itself. It has no obligation to the general society other than extracting maximum funding for its internal systems of education and welfare. Its political representatives in the Knesset—Shas and the Lithuanian religious parties—have made it clear that they exist solely to blackmail the government into granting them “gifts” that would never be contemplated in a normal political system. Their outright refusal to allow their sons to be drafted into the army is, in itself, a flagrant demonstration of “we will do what we like—the law be damned.” No government today is prepared to defy them. They prefer instead to “twist,” or corrupt, existing law in order to accommodate them.

Then there is the Arab sector, which has increasingly engaged in openly supporting, at least rhetorically, the enemies of this country with absolute impunity. Its Knesset representatives behave as if the State of Israel were a purely transitory phenomenon, and are simply waiting for the day when it is destroyed by war or collapses from within. This is an intolerable situation for any democracy.

Third, the Hebrew media in Israel is often so biased in its support for existing corrupt elites that what little objective reporting is done tends to be buried under the weight of editorial policy. I disagree with Sagiv’s admiration for the media’s enthusiastic exposures of institutional corruption. A study of the current situation would show that the press has actively responded only in the most extreme cases, and only after public opinion has been sufficiently aroused to demand some form of action. Even then, it is done on a very selective basis in keeping with overall editorial policy. Recent op-ed articles in Haaretz praising MK Tzahi Hanegbi are a prime example.