Professor of political science at the Open University of Israel in Ra’anana, Israel, writes Denis Charbit Israel and its paradoxes (Le Cavalier bleu, 2015) and has just published Israel, the impossible normal state (Calmann Lévy, 300 p., 19.90 euros).
His new book not only paints a critical portrait of a State without a Constitution, without citizenship and partly devoid of defined borders, but also specifies that none of these points, almost eighty years after the birth of Israel, is in the process of being resolved. . So that ?
Everyone can make this observation: the State of Israel does not function like a normal State. But, before examining what this anomaly is due to the conflict [israélo-palestinien] – a passionate and long-lasting conflict, taken today to extremes, including rhetoric (“pariah state”, “apartheid”) –, and instead of considering this conflict for the sole reason of this abnormality, I intend to examine what we, We Israelis have helped fulfill, for seventy-six years, our part of the responsibility. It is an attitude, let’s say scientific, that consists of examining what we have produced, precisely, in terms of Constitution, religious power and nationality/citizenship.
Do you anticipate criticism of the word “normality”?
In fact, it can have very strong connotations in French, as demonstrated by the meaning that the expression “normalization” has acquired throughout history. I say “normality” not in the sense of “normal”, but of “norms”. A democratic state is defined by certain norms that we deviate from in Israel, probably because of the conflict, but also because we have made certain decisions that we are not willing to change.
Along with this scientific hypothesis, instead of corroborating what we call, in our social science jargon, common sense – give us peace and we will comply with the rules –, I present a moral and ethical point of view. It’s about the personal dimension of this story, about how I define independence. It’s not “I do what I want”, it’s just that we owe ourselves the faults and mistakes we make. What we do includes the Nakba [l’exode des Palestiniens, en 1948, lors de la première guerre israélo-arabe, qui ont été ensuite interdits de rentrer dans le territoire devenu l’Etat hébreu]like the war as it is being fought today in Gaza.
Of course I leave the freedom to the reader, but the common thread of this book is that we should not combine the decisions we make with the luxury of saying that, in a way, we have been given what was imposed. I am too attached to individual freedom to think that it all comes down to the pressures placed on us. This is not a good way to get to the truth, which after all is the goal of all of us.
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