This is my first post at Via Meadia and so, like Damir, I will take a sentence or two to introduce myself. My name is Jonathan Cristol and I am the director of Bard College’s Globalization and International Affairs Program and an assistant professor of international affairs. I specialize in international relations theory (classical realism in particular), diplomatic recognition, and Middle Eastern politics. I have posted a few pieces on other blogs but, thanks to my colleague Professor Mead, I will now be blogging more regularly. My aim is to write pieces that relate to current events and that shed light on what is going on in the world, but that are not solely driven by the 24-hour news cycle. I can also use this forum to write in a more casual style than my academic work allows, which is both difficult (as you will see by the rambling nature of this first post) and freeing.
This first piece has its origins in a question that an Indian Shi’a Muslim student (and my regular babysitter) asked in my advanced international relations theory class last semester. This particular class session was on the nature of democracy and, for our purposes, I used Bruce Russett and John ONeal’s
As part of our discussion the student asked me if I thought it possible for a state to be an “Islamic democracy.” I told her that it is most definitely possible, and that Israel provides an ideal model for how an Islamic democracy could function. There are over 50 states with majority Muslim populations. Some, like Indonesia, are relatively democratic but are also largely secular. Others, like Kuwait, hold free and fair elections for a parliament that has no real power. In fact, there are a wide variety of political systems across the Islamic world, but as of yet there are none that could truly be considered both Islamic and democratic. The Israeli system is a unique combination of the religious and the democratic and provides the best existing model for a functioning Islamic democracy (though I can see at least one other major modality).
Supreme Court of Israel (Wikimedia Commons)
Israel is a Jewish democracy, but it is not entirely a religious democracy. In the judicial system, religious authorities handle civil matters, and secular authorities handle criminal matters. Outside the judicial system there is no formal religious authority, but the nature of the population brings a Jewish character to everyday life, just as the nature of the American population brings a secular Judeo-Christian character to everyday life in the United States and the Irish population brings a Catholic character to everyday life in Ireland. Thus, Israel is a hybrid religious/secular state.
In Israel, the workweek runs Sunday through early Friday (though there has been talk of moving to a five day workweek, Sunday to Thursday), and, with some minor exceptions, public transit shuts down on the Sabbath. In the United Kingdom, in which the Queen is also the head of the Church of England, the country totally shuts down on Christmas (much more so than in the United States). In Israel, schools and government offices are closed on Jewish holidays. If you have ever been in Israel on a major Christian holiday it is a remarkable experience for an American—it’s no different than any other day. There simply aren’t many Christians around. This religious/secular hybrid system is not based in a constitution. Israel has none (nor does the United Kingdom for that matter), and in my opinion is unlikely to have one for the foreseeable future (perhaps I will take on that question in a future post). The relationship between synagogue and state has for decades been based on the status quo.
It does not take much digging to see that the synagogue/Jewish and the state/democracy are often in tension. In fact the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) has recently named 14 bills working their way through the Knesset that are “anti-Democratic” in some way. I do not necessarily agree with ACRI’s assessment of each bill, but the fact that there is occasionally a tension is clear (and is also a subject for a future post). Indeed the Israeli system has not fully settled on the proper balance between the religious and the secular, and the Orthodox domination of the Rabbinate and thus of all civil law is a source of contention both within Israel and between Israel and diaspora Jewry.
What does a Jewish democracy mean for its non-Jewish citizens? Technically, nothing. Muslims and Christians in Israel do not have to take civil matters to a rabbinic court. There are separate religious court systems to deal with civil matters, so minorities are not formally subject to Jewish law, only to the secular democratic laws governing criminal matters and matters pertaining to foreign affairs and to the military. The Muslim minority votes, and there are currently 11 members of the Knesset from Muslim or largely Muslim parties.
There is, of course, a certain level of formal, if practical, discrimination present in such a system. Jewish holidays are national holidays, but Muslim holidays are not. Of course, in no other state are Jewish holidays national holidays so everywhere Jews must make up work for missed school and work, but somehow they manage. The military is largely Jewish, but Druze and Bedouins typically serve in the military and the number of Israeli Arabs volunteering for service has trended upwards.
But there is also informal discrimination against the non-Jewish population. The Muslim population of Israel has a lower GDP per capita and quality of life than the Jewish population. That this situation is no different than the situation of Blacks in the United States, Arabs in France, Pakistanis in England, or Turks in Germany does not excuse it—but it is not unique to Israel. The Muslims in Israel certainly face some additional informal discrimination (as I imagine Jews would (again) in the United States if only a small fraction publicly cheered attacks on other American citizens as a small number of Arab Israelis cheer attacks on Israel), but by every objective measure they are better off, and better represented, than in almost every one of the 50+ majority Muslim states in the world.
The political analyst Dahlia Scheindlin tells me that, “this is an immoral comparison that has no political logic…. The status of citizens in a country should be compared to one thing only: other citizens of the country, preferably the majority.” I do not accept that argument. A major argument for universal healthcare in this country was that we are the only Western democracy not to provide universal healthcare. The well-being of one states’ citizens are often compared to other states’ citizens, one need only subscribe to Foreign Policy to see bountiful examples. Nevertheless, she is right that the status of minorities should also be compared to the status of the majority. However, I would argue that the non-Jewish minority in a Jewish state should accept that there will be a certain level of discrimination (i.e. national Jewish holidays, not Muslim holidays; things close on Saturday, not Friday) just as the non-Muslim minority in an Islamic democracy should accept the same level of discrimination against non-Muslims. If a minority does not like living in a Jewish democracy, they can move somewhere else (or, at least they could if any other state would take them in). Just as if a Jew does not like living as a minority in any other country on Earth they can move to Israel (I recognize that all of this movement is easier said than done).
In Israel, the state Rabbinic authorities interpret the Torah, Talmud, and other religious texts, just as in the United States our Supreme Court interprets and reinterprets the Constitution. I see no reason why it is not possible to base a similar system on the Quran, Sunna, and Hadith (or just the Quran and Sunna if you are a Wahhabist).
It does not take a genius to see that there are competing interpretations of the Quran, and it does not take much effort to see that interpretations have evolved over time (though those who wish it did not are far more violent than America’s “strict constructionists”). One can easily imagine a structure in which religious texts form the basis for interpretations of the law, and in which humans interpret the texts and make and strike down laws based on those interpretations. If you favored women’s rights and greater openness with the West, you would vote for a president or party who would appoint liberal imams to a supreme court. If you believed the opposite you would vote for a president or party who would appoint conservative justices… no different from how many voters vote in the United States. To surmount the obstacle of formally competing schools of Islamic thought (the major ones in Sunni Islam being: Hanbali, Shafi’i, Hanafi, and Maliki) spaces on the court could be reserved for each school, just as the ICJ and ICC reserve spaces for each of the world’s major judicial systems. The voters, however, could use the adherence of a candidate to a particular school of Islamic law as another criteria in deciding for whom to vote. One need not imagine such a system because it already exists as half of Israel’s hybrid system (though Israel’s domination by the Orthodox Rabbinate makes it somewhat less democratic within Jewish Israel).
I have just described two possibilities for an Islamic democracy, but let me clarify the distinction. The more liberal version would be based on Israel’s government and have a (largely) secular executive and legislative branch, and have a split judiciary. The more conservative version would use the Quran, Sunna, and Hadith in place of a constitution, with a judiciary that interprets those documents, but one that is appointed by leaders in free and fair elections consisting of two or more parties and in which most people can vote. There are clearly obstacles to this system, for example different schools of thought believe that different Hadith are more or less authentic, but these obstacles are not radically dissimilar from Rabbinic arguments over Jewish law in Israel, or arguments over which clause of the US Constitution wins out in a particular case.
I do not mean to argue that we are likely to see a truly democratic Islamic state anytime soon. Until the last Iranian election, I would have thought Iran would be the most likely place for this system to develop, as it had previously held free and fair elections (albeit with pre-approved candidates with limited power). Now, I would argue that the places most likely to see this system develop are Turkey (as it moves closer to Islam) and Iraq (as it moves closer to both democracy and Islam). It may or may not be desirable, but the Israeli model shows us that an Islamic democracy is certainly possible.
I thank my friend Professor David Gruber, and especially Dahlia Scheindlin for their exceedingly valuable comments on a draft of this post.
A major Christian holiday it is a remarkable experience for an American Jew, because it really IS no different than any other day, and so much less traffic!
I am surprised you fail to note the Jewish demographics of Israel, where half of the Jewish electorate are refugees or their descendants from Muslim majority countries (almost one million expelled after 1948), the former Soviet Union (with a diversity from Moscow and Kiev to Bukhara), and Ethiopia, none of which were democracies. It shapes the Israeli electorate today, where Likud is now the center. Dahlia Scheindlin and even ACRI seem to belong to those who just can not accept the reality of this significant demographic shift. Think of how the Cuban refugees changed Florida politics.
Turkey is an illusion of a democracy in that the Kemalist Turkification imbedded in their Constitution created an underclass of the Kurds, who can still be fired from their jobs for speaking in Kurdish, or sentenced to prison as terrorists for attending a rally.
Since most of the “50+ majority Muslim states in the world” continue to deny the existence of Israel as a Jewish State, with the seat of government in Jerusalem, it is unlikely any of them would even consider the Israeli model. The Sunni discriminate against the Shi’a, and the Sufis, and the Ahmadi are persecuted everywhere. The Alevi are discriminated against by Turkey’s current government which insists on Sunni religious instruction in public schools.
I do wish you had been able to ask Professor Donna Robinson Divine, Morningstar Family Professor of Jewish Studies and Professor of Government, Smith College, for her insights before posting this. You are just feeding the duelling narratives with too many words on a false comparison of judiciaries, and too much about the alleged discrimination. You should read Khaled Abu Toameh, start with:
http://www.hudson-ny.org/1433/arabs-and-muslims-run-to-israel
“…The absence of good government, transparency, accountability and democracy in these countries is driving Arabs and Muslims to seek work and a better life not only in North America and Europe, but even in places like Israel. …True, Israel is not 100% perfect. But an African Muslim or Christian still prefers Israel to countries like Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Iran. As a “refugee” from Darfour, Sudan, who now lives in Tel Aviv, explained: “I feel more secure in the Jewish state than in Sudan or any Arab or Islamic country.”…”
I am looking forward to nadine’s comment.
One facet of Israeli democracy that neither majority Muslim nations or anyone else should mimic is the particular system of proportional representation that the Israelis use. In a certain sense Israel suffers from hyper-democracy where minorities, especially Jewish minorities, exercise control that is far out of proportion with their numbers. This has the ironic effect of making democratic institutions far less efficient and far more vulnerable.
I listened in amazement after the recent British elections to recommendations from senior British political figures, including the current Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg that the British should adopt a system of proportional representation similar to what the Israelis use.
I think that the greatest threat to Israeli democracy is not its conflict with Palestinians or other Arabs but is the hyper-democratic electoral system that it has chosen to adopt.
There is a major error in the piece—Rabbinical courts in Israel have very limited jurisdiction, and are not in charge of civil matters. Most civil matters (such as torts) are handled by the ordinary secular courts.
The Rabbinical Court system (and the equivalent Muslim Sharia and Christian canon law courts) handle matters of personal status (marriage, divorce, and some inheritance cases). This is not an Israeli innovation — it is a vestige of the Ottoman Millet system, which gave each non-Muslim community autonomy to handle these matters. A similar dual court system exists in many Middle Eastern states as well as in India.
Mr. Cristol: Interesting article, but one of your basic facts is wrong. In Israel, civil matters are typically handled by civil (secular) courts, not, as you assert, religious courts. Rabbinical courts have jurisdictions over matters of personal status, such as marriages, divorce, conversion, etc. Religious people may also choose, if both parties agree, to have their disputes adjudicated by a Rabbinical court. Other than these two situations (personal status, or mutual consent), however, civil courts in Israel have juridiction over civil matters. There are also parallel systems for Moslem citizens who may refer similarly to their own religious courts.
Hey, what a fun idea. I really hope the Saudis and the Islamic Republic of Death To Everybody take you up on it. If they do, we can expect to see:
* Endless controversies over “Who Is a Muslim?”
* “Diaspora Muslims” feeling disrespected by those in the Homeland.
* Abstruse centuries-old commentaries over which group of fanatics is the most authentic. (Come to think of it, the Muslim world has this already).
I forgot to add that a similar dual court system (including Sharia courts) exists in Greece, within the framework of the EU. It would be interesting to see what would happen if a woman (who does not have full standing in the Sharia courts) appealed a ruling of such a court to the Strasbourg human rights tribunal.
But anyhow the system is hardly unique to Israel.
Um, your whole article is based on a premise that Islam is like Judaism, only with Muhammad. Only by denying the true nature of Islam and trying to bring it into Judeo-Christian paradigm you can produce such a laughable intellectual construct.
I must, however, support you against an idiotic assertion of Dahlia Scheindlin that “The status of citizens in a country should be compared to one thing only: other citizens of the country”. This can be true only if the whole citizens in question have no previous history at all. Israel consists not of unified Arab “minority” and the unitarian Jewish “majority”, but of very large number of subgroups, Jewish and Arab. Compare Arabs of Nazareth with Ethiopian new immigrants of Qiryat Gat. Compare Christian Arabs of Yaffo with Haredim in Bnei-Brak. Indeed, in such circumstances the only valid comparison isn’t between Arabs and the “idea” of “Jews” but between Arabs and Arabs – Israeli and Jordanian, Israeli and Syrian. The result is obvious, and that’s why Scheindlin is so leery of it.
Two commenters have already pointed out that Rabbinical courts handle only questions of personal status, primarily family law, and not civil law in general (except when both parties to a dispute agree to adjudication by the Rabbinical court). It should be pointed out that, in addition, Israel has a (minimal) body of secular family law that recognizes marriages and divorces performed abroad. Thus, for example, Israeli couples who cannot find a cleric to marry them, as is often the case with couples from different religious communities, simply fly to Cyprus to get married. The religious control over marriage and divorce is obnoxious but it does not actually prevent anyone from getting married or divorced or from having their marriage or divorce recognized by the state.
Your definition of democracy is useful for the purposes of your article, but it ignores many realities of life in Israel. For the purposes of argument, let us take Israel to be the territory which uses the sheckel, is subject to Israeli civilian or military law, and whose airspace, international borders and groundwater resources are subject to laws enacted by the Knesset, that is to say, Israel, the West Bank, and the Golan Heights. Gaza has been a slightly different case since 2005, in that Gaza residents are unlikely to be tried in Israeli courts, and they have some measure of autonomy over matters relating to water, but is otherwise a semi-detached region of Israel, containing the descendants of non-Jews from the Tel Aviv area.
Using these borders, we find that around half of the population, Jews living in Israel, Golan, and the West Bank, along with Arabs living in Israel, have full voting rights in the Knesset and are considered citizens. The Arab “residents” of Jerusalem are not citizens, but may vote in municipal elections, providing they do not travel outside Jerusalem for extended periods. “Residents” who lose their Jerusalem status come under the status of Palestinians, who are obliged to carry Israeli issued identity cards, but who have Jordanian or Palestinian passports, no right of abode in Israel (1967 borders plus Jerusalem) and no vote in the Knesset. Viewed in this way, Israel is a democracy for only half of its inhabitants, with the other half under military law. (Actually, many civil and personal status issues are not subject to military law, but rather like Israel to Ottoman usage with different divorce courts for Muslims, Druze and Christians. )
Elections may be free and fair as per Bruce Russett and John ONeal’s characteristics of a democracy, but that does not make the country a democracy for those who are unable to vote.
The answer to the question “can there be an Islamic democracy” clearly is “that depends on your definition of democracy”. Now it’s been almost two decades since my days as an undergrad as within the first two paragraphs of reading your post I was reaching for my old copy of On Liberty. One of the most enlightening intellectual discoveries I made in my first term studying PPE was the concept that democracy is not merely about voting. While I would accept that a layman, particularly in modern America, might choose to define democracy as merely dependent on the voting system I don’t think that I’d agree. The definition you choose to quote is from an international relations book. When you consider the Islamic democracy question that you would have to use a definition of democracy that includes concepts of equality and fairness. That’s why I reached for Mill (I don’t own a copy of Tocqueville).
Accepting your idea that democracy is a continuum unless there are no significant minorities any it’s hard to see how democracy based on religion could be near the most democratic end of the spectrum. Any political system with gives preference to one belief system will almost inevitably end up discriminating against minorities who don’t share that faith. Israel is an excellent example. I think you take a rather rose tinted view on the level of discrimination Israel’s minorities face.
[...] the greatest thing since the Resurrection. Similarly, if one looks around the world at Islam, what does one see? There are over 50 states with majority Muslim populations. Some, like Indonesia, are relatively [...]
There is no democracy in Israel as a state is illegitimate and illegal and not recognized
Evidence of this if anyone wanted to write a comment in the Israeli websites
Does not allow him or be there are many obstacles to prevent him from writing a comment The reasons for Arab-Israeli conflict is the occupation of Palestine in 1948.
Palestine Arab Islamic state like the rest of the Arab and Islamic states surrounding
Them. Means that there are Jews and Zionists in Palestine a big mistake, because this entity
Zionist is not consistent with the surrounding area (such as language, customs, traditions and religion)
The only solution to end the Arab-Israeli conflict is the expulsion of Jews from Palestine
All of Palestine. The Jewish people will not rest and will not feel comfortable and stability
But if it gets out of Palestine and the Middle East completely. If people continue to
Jews in Palestine and the Middle East, the death and destruction will continue.
Palestine Arab Islamic state and will remain
There is no state called Israel
State of thieves called Israel a
basis of the displacement
and killing of Innocent nation of thieves
basis bloodshed and war
And the arrest of people
for tens of years to
prevent him from claiming
The right to life .
basis steal the land of the
Palestinian people
And then people will steal
the land of the Arab-Muslim
The entire State of the
thieves do not know the law …..
Does not recognize the
law of the United Nations,
a state that considers itself above the
law . the law is the siege of Gaza
And the bloodshed and
destruction of houses and
killing innocent people
and occupying the country
This is a country named Israel thieves
That’s way more clever than I was epexictng. Thanks!