Democracy and hypocrisy

Op-ed: Israel a solid democracy, no need to keep scrutinizing it using dubious tools

Reuters | Published: 12.06.10, 18:21

The Israel Democracy Institute is located in a charming Jerusalem location, the Talbiya neighborhood, two minutes away from the Presidential Residence. Given the real estate prices in the area, the institute does not have too many Arab, haredi, Ethiopian or foreign neighbors. They cannot afford to live there.

Yet if they could afford a home there, we can assume that the institute would move to another neighborhood. The fact is that it chose to set up its offices in Talbiya and not in Mea Shearim, Neve Yaakov, or Sheikh Jarrah.

The institute’s members require academic tranquility. They are not racists, heaven forbid, yet embarrassingly enough they do not adhere to the moral standards they drafted.

Last week, the institute highlighted the high number of Israelis who also choose not to live near Arabs, haredim, immigrants from Ethiopia, or foreign workers. The institute’s democracy index to summarize 2010 granted a low grade to the tolerance of Israeli citizens towards neighbors from other sectors.

The institute’s managers bemoaned this state of affairs that argued that this served as further proof of the failure to internalize democratic values around here. Does this mean the institute itself failed to internalize them as well?

What else can we ask for?

As it turns out, the problem is not the internalization, but the index used to measure democracy. Or more accurately, the ongoing and nagging scrutiny of our democratic values.

Israel is a rather solid democracy; possibly too much so. There is no need to measure it day and night using all sorts of dubious tools. We have elections here every two or three years, impressive freedom of expression, an independent judiciary, and a military that consistently follows the political leadership’s instructions. What else can we ask for?

So indeed, Jews do not like to live next to Arabs, and Arabs do not like to live next to Jews, yet this has nothing to do with democracy or tolerance, only with the human tendency to live in a familial environment. As long as we all meet at the polling stations in impressive frequency, it’s a sign that democracy around here is healthy as an ox.