Edmonton Journal Op-ed: Israel’s Stubborn Democracy

Here’s an op-ed from the January 3 Edmonton Journal:

Israel’s stubborn democracy serves friends and foes alike
High court rules to allow Palestinians to use forbidden highway
By Lorne Gunter, Edmonton Journal

Israel gets an undeservedly rough ride from Western governments, media and non-governmental organizations, or NGOs. It is called a baby killer, an occupying power and an enforcer of apartheid against the Palestinians.

The 900-kilometre barrier it has constructed between itself and the Palestinian-controlled West Bank is routinely referred to as a wall even though for over 90 per cent of its course it is only a fence, That’s a deliberate word choice by those who use it; “wall” sounds more ominous. A wall conjures up images of a prison state with West Bank inhabitants as inmates. And it summons notions of the oppressive Berlin Wall built by the Communists to impose hardship on those trapped behind its reinforced concrete.

Yet, the barrier’s main purpose is not to enslave the Palestinians. It is not even to prevent the nearly 700 annual terror attempts launched against innocent Israelis from the West Bank. Rather it is designed to delay would-be terrorists from crossing into Israel by 10 to 15 minutes so security forces have a little extra time to identify, locate and disarm them.

Even Operation Cast Lead, the Israeli invasion of Gaza this time last year, came only after thousands of Palestinian rocket attacks on Israeli civilians over an eight-year period. The Palestinians claimed their main irritant was the presence of around 7,000 Jewish settlers on land the Palestinians insisted was theirs.

Yet even after the Israeli government attempted to soothe the irritation in 2005 by using its army to remove forcibly the Jewish farmers from Gaza, the rocket attacks continued.

Finally, Israel could take no more and it invaded.

Now last Tuesday the Israeli Supreme Court decided that West Bank Palestinians could no longer be barred from driving on Highway 443, a major commuter road around the northern and eastern outskirts of Jerusalem.

There will undoubtedly be many anti-Israeli commentators who see this win for the Palestinians as proof of Israel’s callous behaviour and discrimination. Already I have received e-mails from pro-Palestinian readers gloating that this shows Israel cannot get away with its efforts to “repress the Palestinians.”

But consider this: This was a case brought by an Israeli human rights group, in an Israeli court, argued by Israeli lawyers paid for by donations from Israelis and decided by Israeli judges. And even though they undoubtedly disagree with the ruling, it will be carried out by the Israeli cabinet and military as part of their commitment to the rule of law.

Rather than a sign of how atrociously Israel behaves towards Palestinians, the ruling instead shows how vigorously Israeli democracy works to get the balance right between internal security and Palestinian rights.

If Jews inside Palestinian territories had a similar complaint against the Palestinian Authority (PA) there would be no rights groups to take up their cause and no PA courts with a similar commitment to unbiased jurisprudence to which to plead their case. And even if there were, and even if those courts sided with the Jews against the PA, neither the PA administration nor its security forces would enforce the ruling.

I have ridden on the 443. It reminded me a lot of Whitemud Drive, except that it runs through an infinitely more complex landscape.

Like the Whitemud it dips down into valleys and rises up hills. There are long, straight stretches and Highway 443 also makes a big, 90-degree turn midway along. On either side are subdivisions and neighbourhoods.

The big difference is that the subdivisions along the Jerusalem commuter highway — that also connects the Israeli capital with the country’s only major international airport — often are home to people who hate the residents on the other side of the freeway. It’s as if the homeowners of Brookside despised the ratepayers of Riverbend and both wanted the other dead.

So not surprisingly, during the second intifada in 2002, Highway 443 became a battleground.

During a little more than a month, Palestinian snipers killed five Israeli motorists in separate incidents along its route. The Israeli military responded by barring Palestinians from the West Bank from driving on the highway. They also erected walls or rolled boulders along the outside of the ditches in several locations to prevent Palestinian riflemen from shooting motorists.

Palestinians who live inside Israel itself were never barred. They carry Israeli indentification and have Israeli licence plates. Just their West Bank cousins were restricted.

But last week the Israeli Supreme Court said even that was too much. The main cause for the ban — the intifada – has ended and the land the highway runs through was largely expropriated from Palestinians three decades ago.

So the Israeli government can no longer forbid them from driving on it.

Not even the fact that the Israeli government has spent nearly $3 billion building Palestinians their own separate, parallel, checkpoint-free highway system was enough to dissuade the Israeli court.

Israel is not perfect. No state is. But it is the only fully functioning, integrated democracy in the region, and it has far more respect for the rights of its neighbours than they have for Israel’s.

Possibly related posts:

• Canada-Israel Committee Hosts “Democracy in Action: Crisis in Iran” in Ottawa/Gatineau, October 27, 2009
• The Obama Administration and Implications for Freedom and Democracy in the Middle East
• Michael Oren on the West Bank Success Story
• Recommended Reading by CIC’s David Weinberg
• Middle East News Distorted, Says Arab Journalist: Interview with Khaled Abu Toameh