How odd is it to demand a Jewish state among world democracies? The Vatican is a Catholic, and Saudi Arabia a Muslim, state. It is no less reasonable for Judaism to demand a state of its own. Religious traits are common not only in modern culture but also explicitly in politics. Europe is full of Christian Democratic parties, and Ireland split along religious lines. Scores of military conflicts in Europe have proceeded along the religious divide. Religion has a prominent place in American politics and cultural symbolism. Religious or ethnic communities can be perfectly democratic. In fact, only monocultural democracies can be stable.
The Greek democracies did not give political rights to descendants of immigrants. The Italian city-states of the Renaissance period banned dissent. The United States essentially disallows Communism. States are built around values. Territorial expansion or contraction is largely irrelevant, but significant ideological changes generally break states. When they don’t, the changes are really evolutionary. The French revolution looked radical, but it only readjusted the prevailing values of liberty and respect for property to fit modern circumstances.
Relations depend on a degree of trust, which is a matter of predictability. Only people with similar values are predictable. Others meet xenophobia, the natural suspicion of aliens. But aren’t modern liberal democracies multicultural? Emphatically not! The United States has successfully integrated scores of immigrants only through the melting pot policy. Americans may be right or left, Christian or Buddhist, but at the core they subscribe to a degree of economic and political freedom. If a state can be monocultural in the sense of accepting a single governing ideology, why cannot another state be monocultural in the sense of accepting a single religion and ethical system?
No American has a political or military claim upon any other American: Californians do not want revenge on Arizonians for taking their ancestors’ land. In Israel, Jews and Arabs have serious claims and grievances against each other. Unless injured groups are thoroughly suppressed, past injuries can break states down.
Multiculturalism runs against the Jewish state’s reason for existence. Israel is sufficiently small to remain monocultural without significantly injuring others. Relocating the Arabs fifty miles, less than many people in the West travel to work, will let both Jews and Arabs live comfortably in their own states of like-minded people.
