IsraCampus.Org.il

Yiftachel has developed the theory of Israeli ethnocracy in his own setting. He published a book in 2006 entitled Ethnocracy: Land and Identity in Israel/Palestine. A mundane description of the book notes that “the notion of ethnocracy suggests a political regime that facilitates expansion and control by a dominant ethnicity in contested lands. It is neither democratic nor authoritarian, with rights and capabilities depending primarily on ethnic origin and geographic location.”

In Middle East Report Yiftachel wrote that the development of Israel was based on “the ‘return’ of Jews to their ancestors’ mythical land” and notes that “I argue that the Israeli polity is governed not by a democratic regime, but rather by an ‘ethnocracy.’”'

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=170036

An ethnocracy or multiethnic democracy?

By SETH J. FRANTZMAN
02/03/2010

One of the newest code words for condemning Israel is describing the state as an “ethnocracy.”

One of the newest code words for condemning Israel is describing the state as an “ethnocracy” or “ethnocratic settler state.” According to a widespread definition, an ethnocracy is “a form of government where representatives of a particular ethnic group hold a number of government posts disproportionately large to the percentage of the total... and use them to advance the position of their particular ethnic group(s) to the detriment of others.”

Israel, according to those who accuse the state of fitting this description, joins apartheid South Africa, Uganda under Idi Amin, Sudan, Rwanda, Estonia, Latvia, Serbia and Malaysia. It also joins former “settler regimes” such as Canada, New Zealand, Australia and French Algeria. Unsurprisingly Israel is set alongside regimes that ceased to exist, apartheid South Africa being one example, but Australia during the period of the “white Australia policy” (when preferred immigrants were confined to Europeans) being another.

Those who speak of Israel as an ethnocracy therefore insinuate that the current manifestation of the Jewish state will soon be abolished or destroyed, like French Algeria, or repent for its racist sins like South Africa.

THE NEW ethnocratic slander appears to have its origins, sadly, in grants given by the Israel Academy of Sciences. In 2002 Alexander (Sandy) Kedar of the University of Haifa received a grant from the Israeli Science Foundation which was founded by the Israel Academy of Sciences. His proposal was for research into “The Rise of a New Land Regime: Changes in Israeli Legal Geography 1992-2002” and he received the grant for four years with Prof. Oren Yiftachel of Ben-Gurion University. In the same year he received a grant from the French Embassy’s Center for Cultural Cooperation for research comparing Israel to the French regime in Algeria.

In 2003 Kedar published some of his initial research, titled “On the legal geography of ethnocratic settler states: notes towards a research agenda,” in a journal called Current Legal Issues. Kedar focused his research initially on the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. He writes of the Jews forming an “ethno-class” stratification and the Arabs being an “indigenous” group akin to Native Americans.

He perverts historical fact by claiming that Israel committed “Judaization” of the land whereby Jews came to control 93 percent of the land of Israel. This relies on the unreasonable claim that only 13.5% of the land of Israel was publicly owned in 1948; in fact the actual percentage was closer to 50%. Because Kedar sees the Jews and the state as one and the same, he falsely believes that all of the land of Israel in the hands of the state is open to all the Jews, while the Arabs supposedly only retain 7%, ignoring the fact that such public lands as national parks are open to all.

In Middle East Report Yiftachel wrote that the development of Israel was based on “the