Wanted: Constructive talk

Wanted: Constructive talk

Leaders must make sure threats of violence do not materialize

By Gil Troy
Ynetnews
July 26, 2005

Critics of the Gaza disengagement are bemoaning the end of Israeli democracy, accusing Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of becoming a dictator.

While these complaints are not as offensive as the absurd comparisons between Israel's disengagement strategy and Nazism's evil, too many people seem to be ignoring just how democracies function - and just how oppressive true dictatorships are.

Wherever people stand on the difficult question of disengaging, the good news is that the cries for democracy demonstrate a common love for democracy; the bad news is that these distortions themselves undermine democracy.

In the era of the nation-state, true democracies do not exist.

No checks and balances

The informal, ongoing plebiscites of the Greek city-state, the New England town meeting, the kibbutz asefa, cannot work for countries with 6 million citizens like Israel, let alone a quarter of a billion citizens like the United States.

Most modern democracies are democratic hybrids, often-democratic republics or parliamentary democracies. These governments derive power and legitimacy from what the American revolutionaries called the "consent of the governed," but they function by granting leaders temporary power to make national decisions.

Political scientists love to debate whether representatives should be deputies empowered by the voters to roam freely or delegates reflecting exactly what the voters feel.

In fact, effective leaders oscillate between the two, knowing it is impossible to mirror the majority's feelings consistently, but it is untenable to ignore public sentiment completely, especially in the age of public opinion polls.

Franklin D. Roosevelt warned: "A good leader can't get too far ahead of his followers," but a good leader is one step ahead, not simply in step with the people.

To those of us who judge democracies using the American system as the standard, remember that parliamentary democracies such as Israel, Canada, and Great Britain, lack the checks and balances Americans take for granted.

With power centralized, not fragmented, Israeli prime ministers enjoy tremendous latitude as long as the parliamentary majority supports them. When I first moved from the United States to Canada to teach at McGill University, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney was trying to impose the GST, a VAT-style goods and services tax. Canadians fought it fiercely.

Sharon not a Bolshevik

As a naive American underestimating the power of a prime minister blessed with a parliamentary majority and party discipline, I assumed Mulroney would fail. His motion carried despite the opposition of most people in polls, the leading editorials, and many politicians.

Like him or hate him, Ariel Sharon is governing in a heavy-handed but legitimately democratic manner. The charge that he violated democracy by not bringing the disengagement plan to referendum is disingenuous - democratic presidents and prime ministers make many life and death decisions without referenda, including going to war, because the people have authorized them to decide.

The complaint that Sharon is acting like a Bolshevik by purging critics ignores the many leaders demanding loyal subordinates from George W. Bush to David Ben-Gurion.

The cry that Sharon betrayed supporters by first promising to oppose territorial concessions speaks to his morality as a man, not his legitimacy as a leader.

In fact, Sharon and Gaza may be remembered as a historic reversal, such as the anti-Communist Richard Nixon going to China, and the hardliner Menachem Begin making peace with Egypt.

If Sharon succeeds, historians will say, that like Abraham Lincoln, he grew in office; if the disengagement is a debacle, historians will deem him a failure who betrayed his mandate.

Disengagement opponents oppose the disengagement because of the substance of Ariel Sharon's decision; the procedural questions are sideshows. In this hostile world, patriotic critics should learn how to criticize Israeli decisions without adding to the garbage heap of anti-Zionist libels the Palestinians and their supporters do a fine job of generating all by themselves.

Soldiers must respect protesters

Upholding the social contract requires a broad-based, mutual effort. Just as critics should avoid tearing the delicate fabric of trust democracies need to function by avoiding exaggeration, and demonization, let alone violent confrontation, the government must reciprocate by selling its policy more effectively and tolerating protests by those who remain unconvinced.

There can be no thought crimes or political pre-crimes in a democracy. Preemptive detention should only be used in the cases of terrorist-like "ticking time bombs." Bus drivers should not have their licenses confiscated because they are transporting citizens whose protests might be illegal or even violent.

Military areas can be declared off-limits but soldiers and policemen must handle protesters with the respect due fellow citizens - which is one of the central rationales behind having a citizen's army and police officers who should not forget they are civil servants.

Israeli democracy is once again being tested. Responsible leaders must make sure that the threats of violence, which extremists angrily utter and reporters gleefully broadcast, do not become self-fulfilling prophecies.

Civilized clashes

Protesters and government leaders need to think about the day after this crisis passes: How do we pick up the pieces and go forward as a united nation, a functioning society, one people?

Israel has an opportunity to write a golden chapter in the history of democracy and the annals of the Jewish people. Throughout its short, sometimes traumatic life, Israeli democracy has kept functioning, trusting ballots not bullets, holding elections amid the shadow of war, and preserving liberties while maintaining security.

Israelis now have to show themselves and the world, how civilized people in a Western democracy, left and right, protestors and police officers, clash over a volatile issue without degenerating into vituperation and violence.

Let's hope the history of the next few weeks will be written by those who negotiate agreements between police and protesters to eschew weapons and avoid bloodshed.

Let them become the heroes of this moment and the symbols of Israeli democracy. We need a constructive engagement about the disengagement - and it's everyone's responsibility to fulfill that prophecy.

Gil Troy is professor of history at McGill University. He is author of "Why I am a Zionist: Israel, Jewish Identity and the Challenges of Today," and "Morning in America: How Ronald Reagan Invented the 1980s"