Security and Defensive Democracy in Israel: A Critical Approach to Political Discourse [Hardcover ed.] 1138823805, 9781138823808

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Security and Defensive Democracy in Israel

This book explores how political actors in the Israeli parliament (the Knesset) have articulated the security–democracy nexus in their discourses. Since the establishment of the Israeli state in 1948, Israel has been in a state of quasi-constant conflict and, as a result, has been employing security measures considered in conflict with democratic values. The tension between security and democracy, and the ability of political actors to manage this tension, is not a new question. Yet, in spite of the abundant literature on the issue, the manner in which political actors conceptualise and frame this tension has been rarely explored. Even less has been said on the effects of this discursive articulation on the democratic regime. Through an analysis of the political actors’ discourses, this work demonstrates that two main narratives have constantly competed in Israel: on the one hand a minority narrative anchored in basic rights, and on the other a defensive democracy narrative. The book shows how the dominance of the defensive democracy narrative has had a fundamental impact in reshaping the polity and the identity of Israel’s democratic regime. The analysis ultimately opens the possibility to rethink the conventional approach to the security–democracy dilemma and to reflect on processes in other states defining themselves as democracies during security crises. This book will be of much interest to students of critical security studies, Israeli politics, democracy studies, political theory and international relations (IR) in general. Sharon Weinblum is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Oxford and Associate Researcher at the Université libre de Bruxelles. She co-edited New Nation States and National Minorities (ECPR Press, 2013).

Routledge Studies in Liberty and Security Series editors: Didier Bigo, Elspeth Guild and R.B.J. Walker

This book series will establish connections between critical security studies and international relations, surveillance studies, criminology, law and human rights, political sociology and political theory. To analyse the boundaries of the concepts of liberty and security, the practices which are enacted in their name (often the same practices) will be at the heart of the series. These investigations address contemporary questions informed by history, political theory and a sense of what constitutes the contemporary international order. Terror, Insecurity and Liberty Illiberal practices of liberal regimes after 9/11 Edited by Didier Bigo and Anastassia Tsoukala Exceptionalism and the Politics of Counter-Terrorism Liberty, security and the war on terror Andrew W. Neal Muslims in the West after 9/11 Religion, politics and law Edited by Jocelyne Cesari Mapping Transatlantic Security Relations The EU, Canada and the war on terror Edited by Mark Salter Conflict, Security and the Reshaping of Society The civilisation of war Edited by Alessandro Dal Lago and Salvatore Palidda

Security, Law and Borders At the limits of liberties Tugba Basaran Justice and Security in the 21st Century Risks, rights and the rule of law Synnøve Ugelvik and Barbara Hudson Transnational Power Elites The new professionals of governance, law and security Edited by Niilo Kauppi and Mikael Rask Madsen Security and Defensive Democracy in Israel A critical approach to political discourse Sharon Weinblum

Security and Defensive Democracy in Israel A critical approach to political discourse

Sharon Weinblum

First published 2015 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2015 Sharon Weinblum The right of Sharon Weinblum to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Weinblum, Sharon, author. Security and defensive democracy in Israel : a critical approach to political discourse / Sharon Weinblum. pages cm (Routledge studies in liberty and security) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978 1 138 82380 8 (hardback) ISBN 978 1 315 74188 8 (ebook) 1. Israel Politics and government 1993 2. National security Law and legislation Israel. 3. Arab Israeli conflict 1993 Influence. 4. Rule of law Israel. 5. Israel. Keneset Influence. I. Title. JQ1830.A71W44 2015 320.95694 dc23 2014033644 ISBN: 978 1 138 82380 8 (hbk) ISBN: 978 1 315 74188 8 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman By Wearset Ltd, Boldon, Tyne and Wear

Contents

Acknowledgements List of abbreviations List of Hebrew and Arabic words List of cited political parties

vi viii ix x

Introduction

1

1

Beyond the security–democracy opposition

9

2

The discourse of insecurity in Israel and its institutions

23

3

Freedom of expression as a threat and the defence of democracy

39

4

Defining the enemy and the borders of loyalty

66

5

The security–immigration nexus: between terrorist and demographic threat

97

6

Narrating insecurity, reshaping democracy

119

Bibliography Index

133 149

Acknowledgements

This book is the result of eight years of research which started in Brussels, continued in Boston and received its final touch in Oxford. All over the years, I have been supported and surrounded by colleagues, family and friends to whom I am greatly indebted. Among the people who have accompanied me all the way through, I am very grateful to those who supervised my work as a PhD candidate at the Université libre de Bruxelles: Barbara Delcourt, Michel Hastings, Paul Magnette, Christian Olsson, Jean-Benoit Pilet and Shaul Shenhav. I am particularly thankful to Christian Olsson who has continued devoting time to this work long after my graduation. Writing this work would have been much more challenging without the precious encouragement, comments and proofreading from my colleagues and friends at different stages of the enterprise: Nathalie Brack, Blagovesta Cholova, Ramona Coman, Amandine Crespy, Julien Danero Iglesias, Marwan Hobeika, Valentina Morselli, Sharmila Murthy, Muriel Sacco, Fanny Sbaraglia, Emilie van Haute, Nicolas Verschueren, and the “CMES gang” – Feriel Bouhafa, Alex Henley, Maaike Voorhoeve and Pegah Zohouri. Tugba Basaran and Yoav Mehozay also deserve my deepest gratitude for their invaluable insights, encouragement and constructive critiques on parts of this book. Thanks also to Maayan Roitfarb, Erik de Visser and Eric Shorey for their help with translations and proofreading. Charlie Clements and the fellows of the Carr Center have my deepest gratefulness for their precious insights on my work and for their enthusiasm. Many thanks also to Susan Kahn and the Center for Middle Eastern Studies. I am extremely thankful to Derek Penslar, who offered me the incredible opportunity to finalise this book in the greatest environment imaginable. I wish to thank Avi Shlaim as well, for his kindness and for the stimulating exchanges during the past years. The research that led to this book would not have been possible without all those who offered their help during my fieldworks in Israel: Ilana Kaufman, Gideon Rahat, Mario Sznajder, Simone Susskind, Ilan Tojerow, Yudit, Kobi, Dan, Tamar and Hagai. I salute the generosity and dedication of the institutions that sponsored this research along the way: the Fulbright Foundation, the Belgian American Educational Foundation, the Israel Institute and the Wiener–Anspach Foundation.

Acknowledgements vii I am very thankful to the series editors, Didier Bigo, Elspeth Guild and Rob Walker, for their confidence in my project and to the editors of Routledge for their excellent work. In addition to all these people, I would like to thank all the friends who have always been there for me. A special thanks to Catherine, Charline, Laura, Louise, Muriel, Steve, Marion and Sharuz for their never-failing friendship. Last but not least, an enormous thanks goes to my family for their unswerving affection, and to Josué, who helped me with this project and supported me with his love all along.

Abbreviations

CEC CEIL GSS HCJ IDF MK PLO UN

Central Elections Committee Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law General Security Services The Supreme Court sitting as the High Court of Justice Israel Defence Forces Member of the Knesset Palestinian Liberation Organisation United Nations

Hebrew and Arabic words

aliyah bitachon demokratia mitgonenet ein breira halacha ha matzav intifada (Arabic) nakba (Arabic)

“ascent” (immigration of Jews from the diaspora to Israel security (self-)defensive democracy no alternative the collection of Jewish religious laws the situation uprising (literally “shaking off”) catastrophe

Cited political parties

Ahdut Ha’avoda Alignment Agudat Israel (AI) Balad (Arab Democratic Party) Habayt Hayehudi (The Jewish home) Hadash Israel Beiteinu (IB) Kach Kadima (Forward) Labour party Likud (the Consolidation) Mapai Mapam (Unified party of the Workers) Meretz National Religious Party (NRP) National Union (NU) Poalei Agudat Israel Progressive List for Peace (PLP) Ra’am (United Arab List) Movement for Civil Rights and Peace (Ratz) Shas Shinui Shinui (the secular movement) Socialist List (1965) Ta’al (Arab Movement for Renewal) Tehiya (Revival) United Torah Judaism (UTJ)

centre left party (1919 1968) alliance including Mapai and Ahdut Ha’avoda (1965 1968) and later the Labour Party and Mapam (1969 1991) ultra orthodox party founded in 1912 Palestinian party founded in 1995 national religious party founded in 2008 communist Jewish Palestinian party founded in 1977 ultra nationalist party founded in 1999 ultra nationalist political party (1971 1994) centre party founded in 2005 centre left party founded in 1968 after a union between Ahdut Ha’avoda, Mapai and Rafi centre right party founded in 1973 centre left party (1930 1968) left wing party (1948 1997) left wing party founded in 1992 after the union between Mapai, Ratz and Shinui Zionist religious party (1956 2008) ultra nationalist party (1999 2013) ultra orthodox workers’ party (1922 1981) left wing Jewish Palestinian party (1984 1996) Palestinian party founded in 1996 left wing party (1973 1997) Ultra Orthodox Sephardic party founded in 1984 left wing party (1977 1996) secular party founded in 1997 Palestinian socialist list Palestinian party founded in 2006 ultra nationalist party (1981 1992) ultra orthodox party formed in 1992 after an alliance between AI and Degel HaTorah (another ultra orthodox party)

Introduction

In a democratic country, a long war inevitably poses a great danger to liberty [. . . .] If it does not lead immediately to despotism by way of violence, it gently pulls in that direction by way of habit. (de Tocqueville, 2004 [1840], Book III, Chapter XXII, 766)

How should political leaders respond to security threats? To what extent does the need to create a secure environment for citizens legitimise the infringement of rights and principles that are otherwise considered the core of democratic regimes? Is it possible to strike a proper balance between security and basic rights? Whether caused by wars, rebellions or the “global war on terror”, times of emergency have repeatedly confronted leaders of states that define themselves as democracies with these questions. In Israel, where insecurity is a constant concern and the state of emergency is permanent, these issues have been part of the public debate and political discourse since the foundation of the state in 1948. At the same time as security devices ruling the lives of Israeli citizens are regularly painted as unavoidable consequences of the “situation” or as the manifestation of the “right of democracy to defend itself ”, they have remained the object of constant interrogation or criticism. This was particularly the case during the second intifada (Palestinian uprising), a period during which “[f]ear, specifically ‘fear of terror’ (pahad mi terror), was spoken about as a social force that propelled government action and shaped everyday behaviour” (Ochs 2011, 9). The complex relationship between the quest for security and the preservation of democracy in Israel is the focus of this book. The possible tension between security and democracy is not a new question and is in no way unique to Israel. From Locke (2003 [1690]) and Rousseau (1998 [1762]), to Lasswell (1941 and 1950) and Dahl (2000), it has been at the centre of political theory and political discourse for a long time. Scholars from different disciplines – constitutional law, political theory, sociology, political science – have addressed this fundamental matter, examining, discussing and criticising the effects of emergency measures on democratic regimes (Rossiter 2002; Lasswell 1950; Chalk 1998; Ignatieff 2004; Donohue 2008). These scholars have documented, in detail, the impact of such measures and questioned

2

Introduction

their legitimacy or efficiency. And yet they have often neglected to interrogate the very premise of their work: the idea of an intricate tension between security on the one hand, and democratic principles and rights on the other. This book seeks to problematise this assumption. It argues that this classical and dominant interpretation of the security–democracy nexus is a construct open to contestation. It also claims that this construction has deep effects on the shape and meaning of democracy and that its reproduction in public discourse is in no way anodyne. Consequently, instead of asking how security measures can match democratic principles or how a balance can be struck between security and democratic principles in Israel, this book seeks to unpack categories that are usually taken for granted in the literature and the public discourse on emergency measures: the “tension” or “dilemma” between security and democracy; the opposition between normality and exceptionality; and the idea of a possible “balance” to strike between these elements. More specifically, the study that follows explores the way political actors struggling to justify or disqualify security measures that limit rights have constructed these categories and imbedded them into distinct and competing narratives. On the basis of parliamentary debates on these measures held in the Israeli parliament during the second intifada (2000–2005) and after the Palestinian uprising (2006–2013), the study shows that a dominant narrative bound around the notion of defensive democracy and underpinned by the classical security–democracy dichotomy has structured and imposed itself against other narratives. It displays how this narrative has not only permitted the legitimisation of “abnormal” limitations of rights in the name of security, but has also more substantially led to the reconstruction of the democratic regime.

Studying the security–democracy nexus in parliamentary debates This book starts from the premise that the security–democracy tension commonly invoked when discussing “exceptional” security measures is a contingent and contestable notion. More precisely, informed by critical security studies and discourse theory, the book argues that security, democracy and the “tension” between them are social constructs conferred meaning through discourses. It has already been demonstrated elsewhere that “security” and “threat” do not make sense per se but are, instead, the product of discursive articulations formed by those who enounce them (Wæver et al. 1993; Buzan et al. 1998). Likewise it can be claimed that, due to evolution in discursive practices surrounding the political regime, what the term “democracy” conveys today would have been unrecognisable 100 years ago. From such a perspective, the way these categories are constructed and interconnected in discourse is of significant importance: it not only influences how we see reality but also forms “a set of capabilities” (Weldes and Sacco 1996, 372) constraining and enabling our decisions and creating the space for legitimate actions and measures. Understood as such, discourse is not the reflection of ideas that language would permit to vehicle. Discourse may or may

Introduction

3

not reflect what social actors think or believe, but this is not what is of interest for the study. What matters, rather, is the meaning that discursive practices confer to “security”, “threat”, “enemy” or “democracy”, and how this affects the way the democratic regime is conceived and shaped. Rooted in these premises, this study does not start from a priori definitions of (in)security or democracy. Nor does it ask how political leaders can best manage the alleged tension between both. Instead, this book is geared towards several intertwined objectives: tracing how security measures have been legitimised and contested in Israel during and after the second intifada; how common understandings of such important categories as emergency, security, rights and democracy have been formed and interact with one another; and how this has affected the shape of the democratic regime in Israel. In terms of specific objectives, the book examines the way security, democracy and threats have been narrated by political actors in the Israeli parliament. Political debates taking place in the parliament – rather than in the government or in the media – were chosen for three main reasons. First, as the sovereign legislative body, the Knesset is “the main stage for public deliberation” (Chazan 2005)1 and is thus a particularly relevant locus to grasp the evolution of political discourses. This is all the more true because the Knesset has continuously been debating the definition of the Israeli regime, partly due to its role as a quasi-permanent constitutional chamber2 entitled to legislate Basic Laws. Second, because of the highly proportional system in place in Israel3, focusing on the Knesset enables to grasp the narrative of most political streams and segments in Israeli society: Zionist and anti-Zionist; religious and secular; Ashkenazi and Sephardi; Jews and Palestinians. Furthermore, the choice for parliamentary debates is linked to the direct role of the legislative production in shaping the polity. By institutionalising the definition of what is right and wrong, of what is legitimate and illegitimate, the law indeed “constructs borders, produces identities, regulates these, marks legal spaces, criminalizes and grants rights” (Basaran 2008, 341) and therefore directly touches upon the form of the political regime. Consequently, even though the Knesset is not the prime legitimate institution in the production of a discourse on security per se (see Chapter 2), it is a helpful locus to grasp the way (in)security is discursively connected with the notion of democracy.4 Within the large number of discussions that have taken place in the Knesset on the subject of the management of insecurity since the outbreak of the second intifada, this research examines a series of debates held in the plenum over five laws and one parliamentary decision. These debates were selected for two reasons: first, they were introduced by MKs or ministers of the government, claiming that the measures would respond to a defined security threat; second, the actors supporting the measures, as well as those opposing them, acknowledged that they would hurt some dimensions of the democratic regime. In order to trace the first structuration of the security–democracy nexus, two sets of parliamentary discussions that took place in the mid-1980s were added to the post-second-intifada debates. In total, more than 1000 pages of debates

4

Introduction

transcribed in Hebrew in the “Knesset protocols”, in addition to a series of Supreme Court rulings, are studied in this book. At the methodological level, the analysis of this corpus of texts is pursued through an original interpretative and inductive narrative analysis, which is presented in Chapter 1. The investigation of debates taking place in the Knesset presents and unpacks a series of narratives deployed by different groups in competition. On the one hand, the analysis shows that a dominant group of parliamentary actors has constantly developed a narrative that reproduces the classical opposition between normality/survival and democratic rights/security. These oppositions have been intertwined with the construction of “the threat” as existential, the depiction of democratic principles as a source of danger, and the rationale that “democracy has the right to defend itself ”. Against it, concurrent narratives have offered alternative conceptions of the relation between insecurity, rights and democracy. The most stable of these narratives, present in the Knesset since the first debates under study in this book (dating from 1985), has systematically rejected security measures in the name of democracy, equality and rights that democracy should protect. The book delves into the narrative competition and explores the effects of these narratives on the shape of the democratic regime.

Israel: a (too) unique case? Israel has long been presented as an exceptional case, both in political and academic discussions (Penslar 2007, 66). Israel is indeed atypical in many ways. This is first the case with respect to its security situation. One day after the proclamation of Israeli independence, the new-born country was attacked by seven armies and “Israel was thus born in the midst of a war” (Shlaim 2000, 34). The 1948 war was followed by a series of large- and small-scale conflicts with neighbouring states and armed movements, as well as a succession of terror attacks. Institutionally, this “situation” (ha matzav) has been translated into an endless prolongation of the state of emergency and by the incorporation of the Defence (Emergency) Regulations inherited from the British mandate,5 which grant the Israeli executive authorities a series of significant powers within the Green Line and in the Occupied Territories. Aside from the legal hurdles that complicate the possibility of its repeal,6 the preservation of the state of emergency and the Defence (Emergency) Regulations since 1948 also reflects and embodies the acute and prolonged sense of exposure to “imminent threats, both closer and more distant but all very concrete” that has reigned in Israel (interview with Minister Begin, 28 July 2010). Moreover, the definition of the Israeli political regime also makes Israel distinct in the study of the security–democracy nexus. Indeed, the Israeli state was created out of the dominant secular Zionists leaders’ desire to establish a state for the Jewish people that would, at the same time, embody democratic values. The Israeli declaration of independence proclaimed by Ben-Gurion in 1948 reflects this double gesture as it declares Israel to be:

Introduction

5

a Jewish state in Eretz Israel, to be known as the state of Israel [. . .] open for Jewish immigration and for the in-gathering of the exiles; [. . .] [which] will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; [and] will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture. (Declaration of Establishment of the State of Israel, 1948) After the 1980s, several laws including Basic Laws referred to Israel as “the state of the Jewish people” and a democratic state (Basic Law: The Knesset 1985) and have later mentioned the “values of the state of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state” (Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty 1992, Article 1). Yet until today the identity of Israel, or the “essence dilemma” (Peleg 2004), remains the subject of heated debates in the political and academic spheres (Peleg and Waxman 2011), where Israel has been depicted as an imperfect democracy (Neuberger 1998), an ethnic democracy (Smooha 1989; Smooha 1997), an exclusive ethnic state (Rouhana 1997), and an ethnocracy (Yiftachel 2006). These particular conceptions of the identity of the regime obviously have had a major influence on the shape of the regime. They have also had a strong effect on the discursive construction of security, threats and insecurity, as will be argued in the coming chapters. For these reasons, Israel might seem too exceptional to inform the general debate around security–democracy relations. However, its particularities aside, Israel is in fact an edifying laboratory for the study of what is taking place when insecurity is dealt with in states that define themselves as democracies. If the perception of a permanent threat weighing on Israel puts it at the apex of the security–democracy tension, the results of this tension are nevertheless far from unique. The literature on war, emergency and democracy in other states and the abundant literature on counter-terrorism after 11 September 2001 reveal striking parallels between the management of security crises in Israel and other states (see Chapter 1). Besides the legal instruments employed (emergency regulations, state of emergency, laws limiting rights and the habeas corpus), studies focused on the political discourses surrounding the passing of security measures also expose points of convergence in terms of discursive practices (Huysmans and Buonfino 2008; Tsoukala 2006; Neal 2012). Whereas these practices and discourses may have preceded those of other states, they do not dramatically differ from those in other countries. As such, studying the political narratives that are deployed to legitimise or contest security measures in Israel leads not only to the unpacking of the Israeli hegemonic discourse. By exploring the articulation of security, necessity and democracy, and the effects this articulation has on the shape of the regime in Israel, this book also allows for reflection on the processes at play in other countries where the delicate relationship between security and democracy is at stake.

6

Introduction

Outline of the book This book examines the construction of the (in)security–democracy nexus in Israeli political discourse during and after the second intifada. The purpose of this analysis is to identify how political actors in the Knesset discursively link those notions and how these links influence the conception of the regime. In order to assess these developments, the book is structured both chronologically and thematically. Chapter 1 presents the theoretical foundation of the book. It offers a critical review of the traditional way that the security–democracy relation has been approached, namely the “emergency”, “exception” and “balance” paradigms. It argues that the approach most commonly used to study the security–democracy relation has deeply impacted the way democracy itself is studied and conceived of. In contrast with this approach, I call for the use of a perspective inspired by critical security studies and discourse theory, and offer an original narrative analysis to study the security–democracy nexus. I argue that this approach and method permit the deconstruction of discourses surrounding the passing of security laws, thus enabling a better understanding of what is at stake in the formulation of these measures. Chapter 2 presents the discursive and institutional context in which the competing security–democracy nexus articulated in the Knesset emerge. More precisely, this chapter describes how discursive practices on the question of insecurity circulate through, are structured in and are institutionalised by different institutional actors in Israel: the executive branch, the Supreme Court and, most importantly for this study, the Knesset. The chapter displays how the Supreme Court and later the Knesset have imposed their voices in security matters, despite the predominant role of the executive branch in the framing of security practices, discourses and policies. Chapter 3 delves into the discursive competition over security measures after the beginning of the second intifada, between 2001 and 2002. It explores the discursive competition at play during the debates over two laws passed with the aim of curbing “support to terrorism”. The first law was passed in 2002 in order to criminalise support of violence and terrorism. The second law, also passed in 2002, amended the Basic Law: The Knesset so as to prohibit a party from supporting terrorism. The chapter exposes how the notion of defensive democracy imposed itself during the debates to justify laws that were framed as extraordinary but necessary to face threats painted as existential. It also displays the significant effects this narrative has had on the meaning and boundaries of the democratic regime. Conversely, the chapter also discusses the counter-narratives opposing these laws. So as to trace the origin of the “defensive democracy” notion, the chapter additionally examines the debates on the 1985 amendment of the Basic Law: The Knesset, which permitted the disqualification of a party that negates the Jewish or democratic nature of the state of Israel. Chapter 4 focuses on the structuration of a democracy–enemy nexus deployed during three different debates that took place after the end of the second intifada:7

Introduction

7

the debates on the amendment of the Citizenship Law, allowing the Minister of Interior to revoke citizenship of an Israeli citizen in the case of breach of trust (2008); the discussions over the amendment of the Basic Law: The Knesset banning candidates from participating in the elections if they have visited an enemy state without authorisation (2008); and finally the deliberations on the 2010 decision to withdraw MK Zoabi’s privileges for having participated in the “Gaza flotilla” in May 2010. Similar to Chapter 3, this chapter goes back in time in order to investigate the development of the enemy–democracy articulation. Therefore it studies the parliamentary discussions on the 1986 amendment of the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance in force until 1993, which made contact with members of terrorist organisations a criminal offence. The chapter sheds light on the construction of the enemy, on the relation between external enemy and internal enemy, and on the connection between this enemy and democracy in competing discourses developed during the different debates. It shows that the discursive articulation of the enemy with democracy in the competing narratives has further reshaped the boundaries and meaning of the Israeli democratic regime. Chapter 5 focuses on the nexus between immigration, security and democracy that was structured during the series of debates on the Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law (Temporary Order) 2003. This law, which was first passed as a temporary law to prevent suicide bomb attacks on the territory and which has been prolonged repeatedly since then, put an end to the granting of residence permits to certain populations labelled as potential terrorists: Palestinians from the Occupied Territories and, later on, populations from “enemy states” including the Gaza Strip. The chapter analyses the parliamentary debates that took place on this law and its prolongation between 2003 and 2012, and shows that a narrative bound around the notion of defensive democracy has once again been the dominant justification of the law, a narrative contested by several supporters of and by opponents to the law. Despite similarities with the previous dominant defensive democracy narratives, the chapter argues that the articulation of the security–immigration nexus has rested upon a reconstruction of both “threat” (as demographic) and “enemy”, which has once more affected the boundaries and shape of the Israeli democratic regime. Chapter 6 reflects on the specific and general implications of the discourse of necessity articulated under the label of “defensive democracy” in Israel during and after the second intifada. In this chapter, I come back to the importance of the category of “existential threat” and “enemy” and their role in constructing “necessity”. I then discuss the role that the categories of “rights” and “democracy” have played in the dominant and counter narratives. The chapter argues that security policies are not mere strategic tools used to respond to objective threats, but the result of a particular narration which alters the meaning of the democratic regime and redraws the boundaries of the polity. Put in other words, I claim in line with other post-structuralist studies of security and foreign policies (Campbell 1992; Hansen 2006; Waxman 2006; Noxolo and Huysmans 2009; Hudson and Ugelvik 2012; Huysmans 2014) that the debates on security policies are more than discussions over the legitimacy of security measures or

8

Introduction

the identification of threats: they are a locus where the shape of democracy and the identity of the regime are negotiated and remodelled. Overall, the analysis of the debates over security instruments helps to enlighten the way insecurity, threats and “enemies” are spoken about in Israel, and permits disentangling the Israeli defensive democracy discourse which has enabled and constrained the passing of security measures. By doing so, the book more broadly deconstructs the dominant interpretation of security as opposed to democracy, challenges “the doxa we unquestioningly dwell in” (Epstein 2008) and reminds us of the weight of these discourses on the way democracy is shaped.

Notes 1 On the place of the Knesset in the institutional landscape, see also Kretzmer (1996) and Ottolenghi (2001). 2 As Ottolenghi put it, the failure to enact a constitution in the 1950s makes the Israeli parliament “both a constitutional assembly in permanent session and an ordinary par liament empowered to make laws” (Ottolenghi 2001, 107). 3 The Knesset is elected through a proportional electoral system with a very low thresh old: from 1 per cent between 1948 1991, 1.5 per cent from 1991 1996 and 2 per cent after 2003. The electoral threshold was raised to 3.25 per cent in Match 2014. For more on several reforms of the electoral system, see Doron and Harris (2000) and Rahat (2001). 4 The discourse of the Knesset has been strikingly understudied, in contrast with the Supreme Court which is often seen as the main locus where security measures are dis cussed in light of democratic values (Scharia 2012). See also Hofnung (1996a), Dotan (1999), Kretzmer (2002). 5 On this basis, the executive branch is allowed to alter a large array of rights such as freedom of expression, freedom of association, freedom of the press or the habeas corpus. Originally used to manage the Palestinian citizens of the state of Israel during the first two decades of the state, it is today the legal framework within which daily aspects of the Occupied Territories are dealt. They are also used to implement press censorship or administrative detention within the Green Line. The state of emergency has also been used to regulate matters a priori not linked with security, such as labour tensions or the price of sugar and oil (Hofnung 1996a). 6 See Chapter 2. 7 The end of the second intifada was officially declared by the Chairman of the Palestin ian Authority, Mahmud Abbas, during the Sharm el Sheikh summit on 8 February 2005.

1

Beyond the security–democracy opposition

The management of “violence in a democratic way” (Sabbagh 2002) has been a recurrent subject of research and questioning. This chapter offers a theoretical discussion of the way this issue has been most commonly discussed and how it is approached in this book. It makes the argument that the dominant paradigm according to which there would be a contradiction between the guarantee of security and democratic principles is problematic on three accounts: it reifies the notions of “security” and “democracy”; it legitimises the limitation of democratic principles; and it imposes a very particular understanding of the democratic regime. For this reason, this chapter develops an alternative approach, informed by critical security studies and discourse theory, in which neither security nor democracy are taken as given realities but are rather understood as discursive constructs. Therefore, this chapter (and this book) does not start from any pre-given definition of democracy or security, but rather examines how these notions are constructed in relation with other discursive categories, and how both are interconnected when discussing security crises and emergency. In the first section of this chapter, I present the way security crises have been addressed in classical political thought and unravel the underlying postulates of this approach. In the second section, I highlight the permanence in contemporary discourse of these classical premises and their consequences for our understanding of the regime. The third section details why opposing “emergency” to democracy can be seen as a facile understanding of the (in)security–democracy dynamic. It argues that emergency (measures) is not necessarily opposed to the so-called normal democratic functioning of the regime and claims that the opposition of “normal democracy” against security is a discursive construction. In the fourth section, I give an account of the way linguistic securitisation theory informs the analytical framework of this book and explicate to what extent this study departs from it. Lastly, this chapter presents the specificities of the discourse approach and of the methods adopted in this book. It develops a conceptual framework and methodological tools inspired by narrative analysis, which permit unpacking and complicate the notion of a tension between security and democracy.

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Beyond the security–democracy opposition

The security–democracy opposition in classical political thought The question of insecurity has long been consubstantial of theoretical reflection on the political regime (Robin 2004). Political philosophers, including Machiavelli and Hobbes, made insecurity and fear core elements of their political thought, or even for Hobbes the philosophical justification of the political regime (Machiavelli 1996 [1531]; Hobbes 1996 [1651]). With the development of Enlightenment thought, political philosophers have been increasingly interested in the dynamic between (in)security and the regime. Faced with apparently incompatible stakes, they have attempted to answer the following questions: how should a regime react in times of security crises? Are existing institutions apt to respond to security threats? And if not, can a regime curb its own values and principles in order to preserve security? Locke was one of the first thinkers to investigate these issues in an articulate way. In his Second Treatise of Government, he conceptualised the response of the regime to security crises in the following way. Examining the possibility of grave security perils threatening the community, Locke made the claim that in times of danger the “moderate” regime, based on separation of powers, sovereignty and liberty of the people, was unable to “foresee, and provide by laws, for all that can be useful to the community” (Locke 2003 [1690], 344). According to the author, complexity and slowness of action rendered the moderate regime incapable to face extraordinary unplanned circumstances. Therefore, while acknowledging that the legislative branch should normally have supremacy, Locke nevertheless estimated that the people should sometimes accept the renunciation of their sovereignty and pass the prerogative to the executive branch, i.e. “the power to act according to discretion, for the public good, without the prescription of the law, and sometimes even against it” (Locke 2003 [1690], 344). Even in cases in which basic rights and liberty were to be curtailed by the executor of the law, the prerogative was still justified by Locke on the grounds that “the fundamental law of nature and government, viz. that, as much as may be, all the members of the society are to be preserved” (Locke 2003 [1690], 344). By favouring the preservation of the community over people’s sovereignty and liberty, Locke thus paradoxically drew on: a range of strategies from a decidedly non-liberal tradition: reason of state [which] holds that besides moral reason there is another reason – reason of state – [. . .] according to which power [. . .] should be exercised according to whatever is needed to maintain the state. (Neocleous 2007, 136) By doing so, the father of classical liberalism not only introduced mechanisms in apparent contradiction to the basic tenets of his ideal government, he also implied that security (of the society and its members), rather than the liberty and sovereignty of the people, is the underlying norm of the regime. In fact, it is its precondition.

Beyond the security–democracy opposition 11 Locke is not the only political philosopher who introduced what might appear to be a twist in his model when addressing the question of (in)security. For Rousseau, the non-liberal designer of the volonté générale and of the indivisible power, the quest for security also generated a clash with the basic principles of his république. In his reflection on Roman dictatorship, Rousseau claimed that although the ideal regime was one in which the people directly govern through laws, “the inflexibility of the laws, which prevents them from being adapted to emergencies may in certain cases render them pernicious and thereby cause the ruin of the state in times of crisis” (Rousseau 1998 [1762], 124). Due to the inability of the people’s general will to react properly and efficiently to the situation, Rousseau argued that the people should temporarily delegate their power to another authority entitled to “silence all the laws and suspend, for a moment the sovereign authority” (Rousseau 1998 [1762], 124). In similar reasoning as Locke’s, such suspension of the people’s sovereign power was not in contradiction with his model for “the general will is not doubtful and it is clear that the primary intention of the people is that the state should not perish” (Rousseau 1998 [1762], 124). As in Locke’s reflection, this step, despite being in contradiction with many principles of the republic, was in line with another overarching value of the regime and, in fact, its real raison d’être: the demand of the people that the state survives. By developing this reasoning, Rousseau thus embraced even more explicitly the premises of reason of state than Locke. It is not in order for the “members of the society” to be preserved but in the name of the state itself that core principles of the political regime can be truncated. Despite considerable divergences in their ideal models of government, Locke and Rousseau thus deployed strikingly analogous analyses when discussing the political management of (in)security. First, both of them acknowledged the existence of a tension between the normal functioning and the basic principles of the regime on the one hand, and the guarantee of survival on the other hand. Second, and consequently, while promoting a regime in which liberty, rights and/or sovereignty of the people are the backbones, the authors both agreed that when security is at stake the regular regime should leave room for another form of government, one where the sovereignty of the law is suspended and replaced by a sovereign executive branch or by a temporary dictator. For the sake of survival of the people or of the state, fundamental features of the regime could, as an exception, be curtailed and compromised.

Reproducing the security versus democracy opposition in contemporary discourse Despite the considerable evolution of the political regime, even centuries after Locke and Rousseau’s writings, the premises of classical thought continue to pervade contemporary reflection and public discourse in at least three ways. First, contemporary reasoning maintains the notion of a tension between security needs and the normal functioning of the (democratic) regime. It assumes that the latter is an obstacle to the former and therefore acknowledges that, “The

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Beyond the security–democracy opposition

constitution [should not be] in its application in all respects the same, in cases of Rebellion or invasion, involving the public Safety, as it is in times of profound peace and public security” (Lincoln 1863). Scholars have disagreed on whether this extraordinary form of government should be seen as a temporary outgrowth of the regular regime (Kelsen 1988; Hickman 2005), as “an extra-constitutional recourse to harsh policies, necessary but not legal” (Schlesinger in Finn 1991), or as the only real and radical manifestation of the sovereign regime (Schmitt 1985 [1922]). Yet most legal, political and academic discourses have been underpinned by the notion of an opposition between regular regime acting under normal circumstances through regular techniques, and the emergency situation in which the system of government is “temporarily altered to whatever degree is necessary to overcome the peril and restore normal conditions” (Rossiter 2002, 5; Gross 2003; Le Coustumier 2008; Saint-Bonnet 2001; Pasquino 2003). At the legal level, this has been translated by the inclusion in constitutions of provisions allowing the establishment of special emergency governments that are allegedly better equipped to face wars, internal crises, rebellions, insurrections or states of siege. In France, the existence of “a serious and immediate threat to the institutions of the Republic”, for instance, allows the granting of almost absolute powers to the President of the Republic (French constitution, Article 16), and an état de siege permits giving intensified powers to the police and military forces (French constitution, Article 36). In Israel, the state of emergency declared during the 1948 war and never repealed similarly confers extraordinary powers to the executive branch in a series of arenas. Second, in continuity with classical thought, principles said to form the basis of our regimes have also been framed as an obstacle to security. Serious security circumstances have therefore recurrently justified the curtailment of principles otherwise defined as the core of democracy, such as the habeas corpus, freedom of expression, freedom of movement or the right to privacy (Lasswell 1950; Chalk 1998; Donohue 2008). The curtailment of these principles has in fact often been anchored in the very documents originally conceived to protect them. The Constitution of the United States, for instance, provides that, “The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it” (US constitution, Article 1, Section 9, Clause 2). The European Convention on Human Rights allows for the limitation of several human rights guaranteed by the charter if these “are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety” (European Convention on Human Rights, Section 2 of Articles 8, 10 and 11). In addition to the temporary suspension of democratic principles, many states have adopted permanent pieces of legislation that allow the government and the courts to restrain rights that are usually granted to residents in order to face particular types of threats. Confronted with terrorist separatist movements, Spain has for instance put in place special courts for persons suspected of terrorist crimes. Similarly, after the establishment of direct rule in Northern Ireland, the British authorities promulgated regulations that allowed derogating the habeas corpus for persons suspected of direct or indirect participation in acts of terrorism (Northern

Beyond the security–democracy opposition 13 Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act 1973), an act updated periodically until it was integrated into the Terrorism Act of 2000 (Neal 2012). More recently, the Patriot Act passed by the United States a month after the terrorist attacks of September 2001 allowed the quasi-indefinite detention of aliens suspected of terrorist acts (USA Patriot Act, Section 412) and greatly facilitated the access of security services to private information on individuals by different means, including property searches and wiretappings (USA Patriot Act, Title II). In Israel, too, a series of laws and regulations dependent or independent on the state of emergency enable resort to special procedures, such as the establishment of military courts or administrative detention in order to deal with terrorism or in the interest of state and public security (among others the Defence Emergency Regulations 1945, the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance 1948 and the Emergency Powers (Detention) Law 1979). Finally, and relatedly, the claim that democratic principles would be opposed to security has gone hand in hand with the idea that, in times of danger, a balance between security and liberty or rights should be struck (Tsoukala 2006; Neocleous 2007). Judicial institutions in many states have been central in spreading the discourse of the quest for a fair “democratic balance” between the protection of rights guaranteed by democracy and the preservation of security (Hofnung 1996a; Rehnquist 1998; Kretzmer 2002; Porat and Cohen-Eliya 2008). The European Court of Human Rights has, in this respect, explicitly and repeatedly emphasised that its role should be to determine a “fair balance [. . .] between the demands of the general interest of the community and the requirements of the protection of the individual’s fundamental rights” (European Court of Human Rights, Sporrong and Lönnroth v. Sweden 1982). Alongside with courts, political actors too have mobilised the balance metaphor when addressing security measures. As Tsoukala mentioned in her study of the political discourse on the fight against terrorism: In the immediate aftermath of September 11th, the idea of a balance to be struck between liberty and security is shared by all major political actors. It is widely admitted that [. . .] “anti-terrorist legislation has to be balanced against domestic civil rights”. (Tsoukala 2006, 614) This book will show how in Israel, as well, the image of a balance has been used by parliamentary actors to legitimise the limitation of rights in the context of the fight against terrorism. Besides legal and political discourses, academic works have also contributed in reproducing the balance metaphor (Segal 1994; Waldron 2003). Many studies, especially after 11 September 2001, have endeavoured to define the proper democratic equilibrium between security and liberty, or assessed the balance allegedly struck by political actors and courts (Chalk 1998; Haubrich 2003; Cole 2004). These studies have gone on to describe how, in the context of the fight against terrorism in Western states and in Israel, a proper balance could be reached in the context of the fight against terrorism, including

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when privacy, liberty, the use of torture or administrative detentions were at stake (Dershowitz 2002, 2004; Ignatieff 2004; Gil et al. 2010). Overall, the three elements enmeshed in the analysis of emergency (the opposition between normality and security, the opposition between democratic principles and survival, and the security–rights balance metaphor) have severe consequences on the way we comprehend the question of security, democracy and the relationship between the two. First, the notion of a tension between the regular democratic regime and survival contributes to the reification of categories such as democracy, rights, normality, threats or security, which are apprehended as fixed entities. This approach leads to overlooking the possible nuances, grey zones and different degrees that exist in between the supposed dualities at play (Garapon 2006, 126). Second, framing an opposition, a tension or a balance between normal democratic norms and security permits legitimising so-called exceptional suspension of principles, however defined as the basis of democracy (rule of law, protection of rights etc.). Finally, this dichotomy reinforces the assumption according to which the ultimate norm of democracy would not be the protection of rights and liberty, but rather the safety of the state or the community (Pannick 2002; Waldron 2003; Tsoukala 2006; Shafir and Brysk 2007). The next section of this chapter argues that the opposition between democratic normality and emergency should be deconstructed and that democracy, security and exceptionality should rather be seen as a discourse.

Challenging the security–democracy opposition: necessity practices as “democratic normality” The postulate according to which security and democratic normality act in contradiction to one another has generated the assumption that, in order to survive, an “abnormal” government temporarily and exceptionally acting against the norm would be an inevitable necessity. In contrast, I make the argument that a so-called government of emergency and measures of exception should not a priori be opposed to democracy and normality. I argue that such an opposition is only one way of conceiving the management of insecurity in democratic states, a specific type of discourse that is potentially contestable. That so-called exceptional practices and democratic normality should not be opposed has been asserted elsewhere, increasingly in the aftermath of 11 September 2001. One of the first to make such a claim was Agamben, who argued in his State of Exception (2007) that, in the framework of democracies, loci of exception subsist, i.e. spaces where the law is suspended and the sovereign is free to dispose of human beings as he pleases (an example he used is Guantanamo Bay). Starting from the observation that exceptional practices always coexist with “the norm” in democratic governments, Agamben claimed that the structure of the traditional distinction between democracy and absolutism has disappeared: the state of exception and the normal state of the regime would be one single entity (Agamben 2007, 12). Without necessarily adhering to Agamben’s conclusions and interpretations of the regime of exception, other authors have

Beyond the security–democracy opposition 15 highlighted the blurred lines between normality and emergency, showing, for instance, that “emergency rules are introduced to cope with exceptional circumstances but are gradually transformed into permanent elements of domestic legal frameworks” (Tsoukala 2006, 607; Bigo and Guittet 2011). The indistinctness between exception and normality is obviously all the more true in the case of Israel where: The existence of a permanent state of emergency means that exceptional conditions continuously prevail, necessitating the resort to means which differ from those employed as a rule, under ordinary conditions. A difficult question [is thus] whether or not one can speak of a “normal situation”. (Hofnung 1996a) Besides this difficulty in tracing the limits of the state of emergency, many studies have shown that so-called exceptional measures are, in fact, far from exceptional. They have demonstrated that, “Exceptions are not only the limit moment of liberal democracy, which make it verge onto a different mode of politics. Exceptional moments are inbuilt in the functioning of democracy and liberal law when they govern the social” (Aradau 2008, 69). Drawing on Foucault’s interest in the techniques of liberalism and their impact on individuals’ liberties and conduct (Foucault 1975), studies adopting the “sociological view on securitization” (Balzacq 2011, 1) have shown how security practices sometimes called exceptional are very often deployed in the very framework of the liberal regime. Through a precise account of techniques (such as the use of biometric identity cards, video-surveillance, border controls or wiretapping of phones), these studies have described the impacts of governmentality on the “practical conduct of freedom” (Huysmans 2006, 91) and revealed that these instruments are in no way limited to times of emergency or to the management of security matters (Bigo 2004; Ceyhan 2004, 2006; Piazza 2006; Bigo et al. 2008; Bigo and Guittet 2011). They have shown that these “exceptional” practices are very often common techniques embedded in the democratic regime and the rule of law, and are used to deal with issues not only including the fight against terrorism but also criminal activities, illegal migration or petty delinquency (Foessel and Garapon 2006; c.a.s.e. collective 2006; Neocleous 2006; Basaran 2008, 2010). As such, the frequent use of the label of “exception” to describe security policies in the context of the fight against terrorism can be seen as a rhetorical device used to justify these measures, rather than as a heuristic category. In his analysis of anti-terrorism laws passed in the United Kingdom after 11 September 2001, Neal for instance showed that: Although the notion of exceptionality is certainly present in the discourses surrounding the introduction, scrutiny, and application of counterterrorism laws, they do not involve a sovereign suspension of the law or the constitution. Their purported “exceptionality” is reflected in special police and executive powers, an expedited legislative process, a discourse of exceptionality,

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Beyond the security–democracy opposition and in special scrutiny and oversight mechanisms such as sunset clauses and annual reviews. But in constitutional terms, they are normal pieces of legislation. (Neal 2012, 262 – emphasis added)

The same can be said of the Israeli experience during and after the second inti fada. Although the formulation and use of security tools have been accompanied by a language of necessity and emergency, only some of the security instruments were in fact emergency regulations. Concomitant with emergency regulations enacted on the ground of the state of emergency, many security measures have been anchored in ordinary laws, either through the institutionalisation of emergency regulations in laws (Mehozay 2012a, 2012b) or through the amendment of regular laws. In this book, so-called exceptionality or abnormality is therefore apprehended as a discursive construction of which production and imposition should be accounted for and deconstructed.

Insecurity, threat and exception as discursive constructs The categories of exception, insecurity and threat are, I argue, the product of a discourse open to contestation and critique. In this respect, this study partly prolongs the reflection of securitisation studies, which have developed during the last two decades after the seminal works of the School of Copenhagen (Wæver et al. 1993; Buzan et al. 1998). Following Austin’s speech act theory (Austin 1975 [1962]), the theory of securitisation is based on the assumption that “security is not of interest as a sign that refers to something more real”, and that threats, insecurity and security should rather be conceived as the products of a speech act (Wæver 1995, 55). The authors of securitisation theory further argued that, by “speaking security”, “a state-representative moves a particular development into a specific area, and thereby claims a special right to use whatever means are necessary to block it”, including the imposition of exceptional measures (Wæver 1995, 55; Buzan et al. 1998). After Wæver and Buzan, many scholars have worked in this direction. Some have examined how the use of labels such as “terror”, “threat” and “exception” could frame as security problems specific issues like societal identity (Wæver 1995), environment (Buzan and Wæver 2009; Floyd 2010), political conflict (Jackson 2007), immigration (Huysmans 2000), or minorities’ demands (Roe 2004). They have displayed “the plasticity of the word ‘terrorism’ ” (Crelinsten 1998, 389), flexibility of words like “threat” and “security”, and exposed how these could be used by political actors to give legitimacy to their security policies. Others have focused in contrast on the way an issue could be de-securitised, i.e. moved out of the security sphere (Wæver 1995; Tsoukala 2006; Coskun 2011; Kamel and Huber 2012). By its discursive approach of security, this book is obviously inspired by this research agenda. In line with securitisation theory, I argue that instead of studying alleged “security problems” and their consequences, a fruitful venue is

Beyond the security–democracy opposition 17 to focus our attention on how the categories of (in)security and threat emerge in language. This book nevertheless diverges from securitisation studies in three ways. First, this book departs from the strict emphasis put on authorised speakers or dominant voices commonly found in securitisation studies. Aside from Wæver, most works addressing the making of security from a critical perspective have tended to focus on dominant actors only. Although the rationale for doing so is, to some extent, justifiable – dominant actors are those who produce the policies which regulate our lives – I argue that only by accounting for marginal voices can the unpacking of the emergency discourse be complete. As this book will show, and as is also emphasised by critiques of securitisation theory, marginalised and subjugated actors indeed have a role in the articulation of a discourse on security and threat (McDonald 2008). Thus, instead of focusing on alleged authorised speakers, the analysis pursued in this book takes into account both the dominant discourse and the multiple resistances to it. Second, drawing on the argument made above that exception and the antagonism between security and democracy are discursive constructions, this book challenges the a priori opposition between normality and exceptionality implied in the definition of securitisation as “the move that takes politics beyond the established rules of the game and frames the issue either as a special kind of politics or as above politics” (Buzan et al. 1998, 22–23). This book demonstrates that, just like insecurity and threat, the notions of normality, democracy and exception are also products of discourses. Therefore, instead of establishing an opposition between exception and normality, this book precisely explores how discursive categories such as (in)security, exception, normality, democracy and the links between them are discursively articulated. Third, this book moves away from the focus on the security speech acts which are at the centre of securitisation studies (Balzacq 2005, 2011; McDonald 2008). Although I maintain the focus on discourse as language, I suggest that the structuration of a discourse of (in)security can only be understood by taking into account the overall pre-existing discursive structure in which it is embedded. For instance, it would not be meaningful for an Israeli actor to claim that a particular action is equal to supporting terrorism or aiding the enemy if these two notions themselves did not convey a series of pre-existing images and discursive categories. Moreover, the articulation of a discourse legitimising “exceptional” measures can only be grasped through the analysis of all the categories intertwined in the discourse. While these categories include security, threat and survival, this book will show that the categories of rights and democracy also play a significant role in this discourse.

From speech act theory to security and democracy as discourses Drawing on discourse theory, this book adopts a specific perspective on discourse. Accordingly, discourse is not conceived of as a kind of speech act, nor as

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Beyond the security–democracy opposition

“a set of signs (of signifying elements reflecting contents or representation)”, but as discursive articulations that form the objects that are talked about (Foucault 1969, 71). The underlying premise is that words are naturally empty (Saussure 1995 [1916]) and conferred meaning through the articulation of signifiers (the word – the “sound-image”) with a signified (the image linked to the word – the “concept”) in chains of equivalence and opposition (Saussure 2002). The specific discursive articulations that impose themselves at moment x in an arena y is of significance for the way we envisage the world. It can be said to form a regime of truth, that is “the type of discourse which [a society] accepts and makes function as true” (Foucault 1994 [1977], 158) and defines what/whom is and is not considered as legitimate and/or authorised to speak (Milliken 1999; Epstein 2008). Because of the multiplicity and flexibility of chains of equivalence and oppositions at play, the dominant discursive frame is always unstable and moving. It is always open to contestation with different actors attempting, consciously or unconsciously,1 to confer alternative meaning to discursive categories. The meaning of a specific event, as the broader discursive framework that predominates, therefore changes over time, across arenas and across groups of speakers. Depending on the period of time, the specific arena and the “particular signification of social relations” (Huysmans 1998, 228), “security” has for instance meant the attainment of peace, the construction of a powerful state or the suppression of fear. Similarly, the signifier “democracy” was articulated differently in the communist and anti-communist arenas during the Cold War and meant very different things in both of them. It was, as such, a floating signifier joined in an unstable fashion to alternative signifiers and whose meaning each arena attempted to fix (Laclau 1989, 70). In the creation and contestation of meaning, narratives play a significant role in our daily lives. Defined as spoken exchanges knitting phenomena into a plot with a beginning, middle and end (Kaplan 1993; Roe 1994; Fischer 2003; Shenhav 2006), narratives select and exclude certain discursive categories and introduce connections between them, hence offering a “coherent interpretation on the whirl of events and actions that surround us” (Fischer 2003, 163; Kaplan 1993). To give an example that will be addressed in one of the following chapters, a Palestinian resident requesting a residence permit within the Green Line may be entangled in a narrative of labour, work and economy, in a narrative of family, rights and humanity, or in a story of danger, terrorism and insecurity. Making a Palestinian resident a threat rather than a legitimate member of an Israeli family may lead – as was the case in Israel – to the legitimisation of measures curtailing his or her right to family unification. Besides the specific interpretation that it confers to an event, a narrative, like any ensemble of discursive articulations, also affects the meaning of specific signifiers. As this book will show, by connecting democracy to the category of existential threat and abnormality, the dominant2 narrative in Israel has fixed the meaning of democracy in a very particular way, which other discourse coalitions3 have systematically attempted to contest in their narratives. In order to grasp and explore the competing narratives on the security– democracy nexus, this study focuses on parliamentary debates about security

Beyond the security–democracy opposition 19 measures passed during and after the second intifada, which have provoked discussions concerning their impact on democracy.4 Overall, five post-second inti fada security laws and one parliamentary decision revolving around three main themes were selected.5 The first theme (addressed in Chapter 3) relates to the limitation of freedom of speech constructed as a potential threat to security. It includes the debates on two important laws passed in the midst of the second intifada: one amending the penal law to prohibit incitement to violence and terrorism (2002) and one turning incitement to terrorism in a criterion of disqualification for a list to participate in the elections (2002). One series of discussions that occurred prior to the first intifada (1987–1993) on the question of political party disqualification (1985) is analysed as well, so as to trace an important momentum in the structuration of the dominant narrative. A second set of debates (analysed in Chapter 4) pertains to the notion of “enemy” and its articulation within the democratic regime. Here, three measures passed after the second intifada are analysed: the amendment adding unauthorised visits to enemy states as a new criterion to disqualify a candidate from elections (2008), the Citizenship Law allowing the cancellation of citizenship of a person committing an act of breach of trust (2008), and finally the decision to withdraw MK Zoabi’s parliamentary privileges due to her involvement in the Gaza flotilla in May 2010 (2010). In addition to these discussions, I have included the debates that took place on the 1986 amendment of the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance, whose aim was to prohibit contacts between Israeli citizens and members of terrorist organisations. A last series of debates (examined in Chapter 5) connects the fight against terrorism and the right of Palestinian residents to reside in the country. These debates took place in the Knesset after 2003 on the occasion of the passing and prolongation of the Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law (Temporary Order) 2003, which put an end to the granting of residence permits to “enemy nationals”. At a methodological level, the narrative analysis is guided by the following questions. How do the speakers enmesh the security measures at stake in a given narrative? How are (in)security and democracy narrated by competing speakers when debating the security measures? Besides security and democracy, what other discursive categories appear in the narratives of the speakers to legitimise or contest the measures? In order to answer these questions, the first task of this analysis consists of reading the entirety of the texts under scrutiny in order to have a broad idea of the discussion.6 The second step involves detecting and “coding”7 the main topics present in the debates. On this basis, the third step seeks “to show the affinities and differences between representations, in order to demonstrate whether they belong to the same discourse” (Neumann 2008, 62). Put in other words, it aims at identifying each of the competing narratives and discourse coalitions.8 From a practical standpoint, the competing narratives are identified on the basis of the following elements: the topics employed (first element)9 and their sequencing (second element). The last step of the analysis is the “internal analysis” of the different narratives per se, namely the investigation of the articulation of equivalences and

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oppositions between signifiers in each narrative. For this specific part of the analysis, I examine how signifiers are articulated in opposition to and equation with other signifiers. In addition, I draw upon some of the categories of lexical units, syntactic devices and discursive strategies mobilised by Wodak and her coauthors in their critical discourse analysis of national identity: the constructive strategy (which is a form of subject construction), the transformation form (which challenges the borders of the objects and subjects’ identity constructed by others) and the dismantling form (which is a form of destruction of the existing categories without replacing it by others) (Wodak et al. 2009 [1999], 31–45). This narrative analysis permits to show how competing discourse coalitions have entangled security measures in specific narratives articulating alternative security–democracy nexus and allows exploring the impact of these narratives on the shape of the regime. Examining the competition between divergent narratives (instead of, for instance, focusing on the speech acts of authorised speakers) has several benefits. First, it allows grasping the entire discursive context and the discursive categories with which security and democracy are linked to one another. This also permits grasping the deep effects of these articulations on the shape of the democratic regime. Second, the discursive approach permits unpacking the discourse that functions as a regime of truth in Israel when discussing security policies, i.e. the defensive democracy narrative. It shows that the categories mobilised to structure the dominant discourse of necessity can all be deconstructed and are themselves underpinned by specific discursive connections. Finally, by analysing the competing narratives, the analysis displays alternative narrations about the security measures that exist, thereby demonstrating that the security–democracy opposition is indeed a “socio-historical construction that is open to contestation, and thus to change” (Squire 2009, 29).

Conclusion Security measures have typically been studied through a binary lens where democracy, rights and normality would be in conflict with survival and security. In times of insecurity, our governments would accordingly be pushed to suspend some democratic principles in order to protect the citizens, the community and the state. This reasoning has played an important role in the way we conceive and study the relation between these elements. It has imposed a common understanding, repeatedly witnessed after 11 September 2001, following which the solution to a security crisis would be to strike a new “balance” between democratic principles and security. At an analytical level, this has produced a very static conception of security, threat, exception and democracy, which are very often studied as given and fixed realities. At a political level, this frame of interpretation has legitimised time and again the “exceptional” limitation of democratic principles presented as an obstacle to survival. Finally, at a broader level, this book argues that such interpretation has created a very specific meaning of democracy according to which security would be the ultimate aim, before democratic principles. This book seeks

Beyond the security–democracy opposition 21 to challenge this conception. It argues that this dominant interpretation of the management of insecurity in democracy is only one way of conceiving the issue. Instead of reifying and opposing the notions of security and threat to democracy, normality or rights, this book therefore delves into the discursive construction of these categories by political actors in Israel. It explores how security measures said to limit rights have been narrated in the Israeli parliamentary arena, how a dominant conception of the security–democracy nexus has been imposed over time, and the consequence of the dominant narrative on the conception of the regime. This critical perspective on security does not imply the denial of the real and concrete threats that Israel is facing. This book’s objective is not to refute the security troubles that impact on the lives of the citizens and residents of Israel. Rather, the book’s theoretical outlook suggests that security measures emerge in a discursive frame where (in)security and threats, but also rights, democracy and normality, are mediated and constructed by discourse and produced through different discursive practices that give them sense. Instead of assessing institutional mechanisms at play, analysing the impact of emergency laws on rights or attempting to determine the “right” balance to strike between democratic values and security, this research thus asks: how do political actors construct the notion of “threat”? How do they make sense of it in a narrative that links (in)security to the democratic regime? And how does this discursive relation affect the overall meaning of democracy? By its epistemological posture and conceptual framework, this book is thus complementary to critical studies of security. However, the approach I have adopted is neither the direct prolongation of linguistic critical security studies formulated by the School of Copenhagen, nor in the continuity of sociological securitisation studies mostly developed by the School of Paris. Indeed, in contrast to the latter, my analysis does not focus on technologies that remodel the liberties of the individual but unpacks the way that competing linguistic practices of insecurity reshape the very conception of liberty, of rights and of the regime. In comparison with the former, my work also distances itself by developing a divergent approach of discourse. The narrative analysis that is offered in this book indeed not only assesses the construction of objects as objects of security and insecurity, but also addresses the way in which security and democracy are entangled in specific competing narratives and how this affects the meaning of the democratic regime.

Notes 1 Since actors are entangled in pre existing discursive frameworks, this struggle is not necessarily conscious and/or strategically oriented. As Foucault put it, “there are not on the one hand inert discourses [. . .] and on the other hand, an all powerful subject which manipulates them, overturns them, renews them” (Foucault 1991, 58). 2 Drawing on Hajer’s understanding of dominant discourse (Hajer 1995, 61), the dominant narrative is understood as the one on which the majority of a law’s supporters draw to articulate their own story. It is the narrative that presents the law as “logically

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Beyond the security–democracy opposition

or naturally” good and necessary, thus enabling the legitimisation of security measures. This narrative consequently seems a priori and most often is the one developed by the speaker introducing the measure, although, in theory, there might exist cases where the narrative of the bill promoter and the dominant narrative differ. The notion of “discourse coalition” is borrowed from Hajer and is defined as a group of speakers whose narratives are bound by a unique storyline, i.e. “a condensed statement summarising complex narratives, used by people as ‘short hand’ in discussions” (Hajer 1995, 2006). Because it is interested in the construction of the democratic regime, this analysis excludes discussions on policies considered as external and not directly touching upon the rights of citizens and residents of the state. For example, not discussed are debates on military interventions or territorial compromises. All the Knesset debates used in this work are from the Knesset Protocols (the parlia ment minutes), accessible by topics or by date on the Knesset website (in Hebrew): www.knesset.gov.il/divrey/DivreyMenu.htm. All MKs’ quotes referred to as “MK x, party y, debate on z, date” are from these protocols, unless specified otherwise. The analysis of this important number of texts (more than 900 pages in Hebrew) demanded systematisation as well as technological support. In order to help me with this, I opted for the software NVivo, in which I entered and classified all my texts (in chronological and thematic order). Once entered in NVivo, the texts were read and the relevant passages were coded, mostly leaving out technical debates. As NVivo does not read Hebrew, I translated the texts into English. Conscious of the bias, I decided to go back and forth to the original version in order to neutralise this bias as much as possible. The coding consists in attributing a node or name to a specific passage of text. The nods in my research were of three types. The first type of node related to the topics in presence (security, democracy, war etc.); the second type of node was linked to the political group to which the speaker belongs (centre left, centre right, religious Zionist political group etc.); the third type of node was linked to the discursive strategies, e.g. constructive strategy, transformation strategy, dismantling strategy. As mentioned in the previous note, each passage was coded in relation with the topic and on the basis of the political group of the speaker talking. The tools of NVivo allowed me to visualise the mobilisation of topic in each political group and to compare the groups with each other. When groups had the same topic mobilisation and the same sequencing of topics, I regrouped the speakers in the same discourse coalition. The topics correspond to a theme discussed in a passage of the text by a speaker. One passage can be attributed several topics. For instance, a sentence on democracy and freedom of speech might be coded “democracy” and/or “liberty” and/or “political regime” and so forth. Consistency in the attribution of name is nevertheless necessary. The topics were defined both a priori and inductively. While security and democracy were looked for, other topics such as the topic of nation or racism emerged during the reading. The main topics coded were: democracy, security, threat, rights, nation, racism, regime identity, defensive democracy, balance.

2

The discourse of insecurity in Israel and its institutions

If you’re not ready to use your rifle, the fact that you are carrying it won’t help you. So, security is not only the rifle in the hand, but the mind of everyone, the state of the individual to remember our situation and to be ready to defend ourselves. (Interview with MK Arieh Eldad 2010)

The study of the competing narratives shaping the security–democracy nexus in the Israeli parliament cannot be undertaken without considering the discursive frames in which they appear. Narratives on the management of insecurity do not emerge out of nowhere. They develop in the framework of pre-existing sets of discursive practices that enable and constrain the speakers who tell them. Only within a specific structure will certain objects be constructed as dangerous, categories of subjects be equated with the enemy, and others be framed as referent objects of threat. Only in a particular discursive context are certain actors seen as authorised speakers while the voices of others are excluded and de-legitimised. The narratives that were structured and institutionalised in the parliament after the eruption of the second intifada must be examined in this larger discursive context, which this chapter intends to present. Therefore, this chapter displays the dominant discourse on (in)security since the establishment of the state and describes the role of key Israeli institutions in shaping, diffusing or contesting this discourse of (in)security. The chapter sheds light in particular on the role of the parliament and parliamentary actors in the reproduction and alteration of this discourse. In the first section, this chapter traces the core discursive practices of (in)security that have been at play prior to, during and after the second intifada in the political arena and in the public at large. The chapter then elaborates on how this discourse has enabled and constrained the role of different institutions in the elaboration of security policies in the country. The chapter shows that the existing discursive framework has made the executive branch and security institutions the first authorised speakers in framing security issues (second section), while the Supreme Court (third section) and the Knesset (fourth section) have progressively imposed themselves as alternative speakers and formulated alternative voices. In the last section, I focus on the way political groups represented

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The discourse of insecurity

in the Israeli parliament have positioned themselves towards the dominant discourse of (in)security.

A “people apart”1: insecurity as religion To portray the presence and intensity of security concerns in Israeli society, several scholars have relied on the analogy of religion, claiming that: Just as a child is born into a certain religion, so too, the Israeli is born into a very difficult geopolitical world with its attendant dilemmas. Just as a child accepts unquestioningly the religion he was born into and some basic answers he receives [. . .] so too the Israeli child absorbs at a very early age the basics of the core-belief of national security. (Arian et al. 1988, 83) This religion of insecurity is underpinned by a very particular narration of the Jewish people’s history, conceived “as a unique struggle for survival in a hostile environment” (Inbar 2008a, 56). According to the narrative, this battle started in antic Palestine (with the events at Masada as the paramount symbol of this drama2), continued in the diaspora (with pogroms, persecutions and the Holocaust) and in the Yishuv3, and perseveres today in the state of Israel. The drama of the Holocaust plays a particularly considerable role in this narration of the self, by representing the apex of the Jewish people’s suffering and epitomising the constant threats jeopardising the Jewish people. The declaration of independence itself not only emphasised the historical right of the Jews to come back to their land but referred to this dramatic past in these words: The Nazi Holocaust, which engulfed millions of Jews in Europe, proved anew the urgency of the re-establishment of the Jewish state, which would solve the problem of Jewish homelessness by opening the gates to all Jews and lifting the Jewish people to equality in the family of nations. (Declaration of Establishment of the State of Israel 1948) Long after the establishment of the state, the Holocaust continues to be present in political discourse and discussions4 and some have gone as far as to argue that, “The most fateful decisions in Israeli history, other than the founding of the state itself – the mass immigration of the 1950s, the Six-Day War and Israel nuclear project – were all conceived in the shadow of the Holocaust” (Segev 2000, 11; Zertal 2005). Although the state of Israel was conceived as an answer to a “demand for safety and security for the Jewish people through national self-determination after centuries of European persecution, vulnerability and humiliation” (Konopinski 2009, 6), the creation of the Jewish state did not put an end to the feeling of extreme vulnerability. The very first days of the state were marked by attacks from neighbouring armies, leading to a war depicted in the public dis-

The discourse of insecurity 25 course as a combat between a “Jewish David and an Arab Goliath” (Shlaim 2000, 34–35). The years that followed were tainted by new wars with neighbouring states, reprisals and border skirmishes, a situation once depicted by Yitzchak Rabin as a “dormant war” ready to wake at any moment (Inbar 1999, 14). The consecutive armed conflicts5 in which Israel has been involved since 1948, and the series of terrorist attacks perpetrated by different armed groups calling for the annihilation of the state of Israel,6 have further fuelled Israel’s feeling of vulnerability and a sense of exposure to enemies seeking to destroy the state, its citizens and the Jewish people. The second intifada rooted this fear with particular acuteness into Israeli society. As Ochs puts it in her anthropological study of insecurity during this period, during the second intifada people “spoke about living in constant fear, and newspapers reported on the large percentages of Israelis who were afraid for their own lives and for the existence of the State of Israel” (Ochs 2011, 9 – emphasis added). Although terrorist attacks declined after the end of the second intifada,7 the increase in mortar shell and rocket attacks8 in the south and north of the country after 2005 have contributed to maintaining the discourse of insecurity – and led to several military interventions in Lebanon (2006) and Gaza (especially in 2008, 2012 and 2014). Concurrently, the development of nuclear facilities in Iran added to the range of existential threats, as illustrated by Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech in which he equated the inaction of the world towards Iran with the position of world powers before the Second World War9 (Netanyahu speech 2012).10 In spite of the dramatic changes that the country has known since 1948 and the conclusion of separate peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan: For [more than] 60 years, and in the pre-state days as well, Israeli national security policy has [thus] been predicated on a broad dominant discourse, which holds that Israel faces a realistic threat of genocide, or at a minimum, of politicide. (Freilich 2006, 636) In this context, Israel’s enemies have been presented as no sheer foes contesting the state but as permanent and multifaceted “tyrants who have sought our destruction” (Netanyahu speech 2012). As one Knesset Member put it during a debate that will be studied in this book, “Those who want to kill us are terrorist organisations, and can be terrorist groups of Arabs, and tomorrow they can be terrorist groups of Germans, and can be terrorist groups of Bin Laden and others” (MK Yahalom, debate on Penal Law (amendment 63), 25 June 2001). Although the figure of the enemy has been primarily applied to states and terrorist movements of the region, the Palestinian citizens of Israel11 (making up 20 per cent of the Israeli population today) have also been associated with the notion of threat. Because “they are part of the Arab world and the Palestinian people who remain inimical to Israel”, the Palestinian minority of Israel has indeed often been framed in the public discourses as “potentially hostile” (Smooha 2010, 7). The depiction of

26

The discourse of insecurity

Israeli Palestinians as internal enemies was manifested most clearly during the military administration imposed over them between 1948 and the mid-1960s.12 Long after the military rule has been lifted, and especially since the second inti fada, these citizens nevertheless continue to be perceived as potentially disloyal13 and as a possible source of threat to the state’s security. The image of external and internal enemies wishing to terminate the country has brought in other essential elements in Israeli discourse: the “no choice” notion (ein breira) intertwined with the need for constant vigilance and selfdefence. At the oration of a farmer murdered by Arabs in 1956, Chief of Staff Moshe Dayan formulated this idea in the following words: The only choice we have is to be prepared and armed, strong, and resolute, or else our sword will slip from our hand and the thread of our lives will be severed. (quoted in Shlaim 2000, 101) This notion of no choice, reinforced by the prevalent assumption according to which Israel would be able to count only on “oneself, on the military strength of Israel, on the Jewish people and on God” (Yaniv 1993, 163; Arian 1995; Dieckhoff 1989; Peri 1983), has been a strong repertoire of justification in many policy areas. First, with the exception of the 1982 war in Lebanon, all wars and military interventions have been presented through the lens of self-defence14 and no choice, as a necessary reaction to the enemy’s belligerent action (Inbar 2008a, 2008b; Barzilai 1996; Shlaim 2000). In matters of counter-terrorism, too, Israeli policies have been presented as a reaction to a situation imposed on the country. In the midst of the second intifada, Prime Minister Sharon for instance declared: Israel does not start wars. This war of terror, as in the past, has been forced upon us. We know who has forced it upon us. We know who is guilty. We know who is responsible. Arafat is responsible for everything that happens here. (Sharon speech 2001) The “no choice” framework of interpretation can also be seen as the rationale for the prolongation of the state of emergency after 1948 or for the maintenance of the Defence (Emergency) Regulations 1945. Although both have been decried on many occasions by the public and the political leadership for infringing democratic values15 (Schmidt 2001, 320; Mehozay 2012a, 2012b), they have never been abrogated by the Knesset, partly due to the complexity of the task at a technical level16 but also because “if we had not been alerted, and if we hadn’t built ourselves a power as a state which can protect itself, we would really be extinguished a long time ago” (interview with MK Sheetrit 2010). The need for self-defence, even at the price of compromising other principles of the regime, is supported by a large part the public as well (Arian 1989, 1995; Merari 2005). During the first intifada, 47 per cent of the population considered security as one

The discourse of insecurity 27 of the two main priorities, against 8 per cent who chose the rule of law (Arian et al. 1992), whereas 36 per cent still favoured security over the rule of law after the end of the intifada (Arian 1993). At the peak of the second intifada, as much as 80 per cent of the population believed that security should prevail when security and the rule of law were in conflict (Arian et al. 2003). In 2012, one year after social protests that pleaded for a higher budget in education and housing, 65.4 per cent of the Jewish population were of the opinion that the government should spend more money on “strengthening the army and improving security” (Hermann et al. 2012, 136).

Security institutions: prime authorised speakers in security matters If the religion of security has a dogma (existential threat, constant enemies and necessary self-defence), it also has its clerics. Among them, the military comes first. As Peri put it, the Israeli public, “whose level of confidence in its leaders is not high, prefers the assessments of professional officers to politicians in security-related matters” (Peri 2006, 70). Due to its explicit representation as “the main guarantee to preserving and defending our lives on this land” (Olmert speech 2006),17 the army benefits from a high level of confidence (more so than the Supreme Court, and well ahead of the government and the parliament18) and can be seen as the prime authorised speaker in matters of wars and security.19 Alongside the military, the cabinet, the Intelligence Services and the General Security Services (GSS) also play a central role in defining the security policies of the country. Together, they can be said to constitute “a small group that ‘knows the secret’ [while] the vast majority [. . .] both accepts the ‘security-language’ to be comprised of self-evident yet recondite and unknown ‘truths’, or is totally alienated from the discourse” (Kimmerling 1993, 204). Indeed, one fundamental characteristic of the discussions on strategic and security matters in Israel is that they are most often discussed behind closed doors, with the media, the population and their representatives being left aside. In matters of war and peace, for instance, the “committee of five”, the “kitchen cabinet” and (since the 1980s) the Ministerial Committee on Defence have always led the way (Freilich 2006, 640; Peri 2006, 69; Cohen 2010). Since the 1992 amendment of the Basic Law: The Government, the latter is supposed to notify the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Security committee of the decision to go to war as soon as possible. However, in practice the Knesset has served as a room of ratification more than anything else. Even when security issues are discussed in the Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee reserved to the members of the coalition, secrecy continues to be observed (Hazan 2001). Likewise, the maintenance of the state of emergency and the incorporation into Israeli law of the Defence (Emergency) Regulations have allowed the government and the military to take a series of significant measures while ignoring public deliberation and scrutiny. On the basis of the Defence (Emergency) Regulations, the military or the competent minister for instance have the power to

28

The discourse of insecurity

establish military courts, issue orders to demolish houses, impose curfews, and investigate, arrest, detain and deport people. These regulations are used within the Green Line mostly in matters of land expropriation, suspect detention and censorship,20 and since 1967 they form the legal framework of the military commander’s activities in the Occupied Territories. Furthermore, by virtue of the state of emergency, the government can promulgate emergency regulations (or orders) which “may alter any law, temporarily suspend its effect or introduce conditions” (Basic Law: The Government 2001, Article 39c) if it is considered necessary “for the defence of the state, the public security and the maintenance of supplies and essential services” (Basic Law: The Government 2001, Article 39a). These emergency regulations are not subject to a priori parliamentary supervision. Although the law says that “the force of emergency regulations shall expire three months after the day of their enactment unless their force is extended by the Knesset by law” (Basic Law: The Government, Article 39f ), in reality the government usually chooses to endlessly reissue emergency regulations at the time of their expiration, thus overriding the control of the Knesset (Mehozay 2012a, 148). Besides the fact that it has excluded the public from most of the security discussions, the prevalence of the security network in the formulation of security policies has had another significant effect. By acquiring and keeping the role of primary speaker and actor in security matters, the “security network” and in particular the cabinet and the military have in turn reproduced (or created) many of the patterns of insecurity discourse discussed above: the framing of security in terms of threats to Israel’s survival, the predominance of “national survival as the central aim of both military strategy and diplomacy [drawing on the idea] of dormant war even when no active hostilities exist” (Horowitz and Lissak 1989, 11), the emphasis on secure or “defensible borders”,22 and the use of the no choice motto time and again. In spite of the predominance of this discourse, other speakers have nevertheless been able to impose legitimate alternative views and voices in security politics. Among them, the Supreme Court was the first to do so.

Security in the light of the rule of law: the imposition of the Supreme Court’s voice In 2004, the Supreme Court was asked by a series of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to rule on the situation of civilians living in Rafah (the Gaza Strip), where a military operation was taking place. The NGOs asked that the military allow the passing of ambulances that would evacuate injured civilians. In response, the military commander in the Gaza Strip asked that the petition be denied on the grounds that “this court should exercise caution in its judicial review of the actions of the security authorities. These actions lie at the outer limits of the reach of the judiciary” (High Court of Justice 4764/04). This declaration exemplifies the role that the judiciary has long played in security matters. With the exception of the landmark ruling Kol Ha’am (see Chapter 3), the

The discourse of insecurity 29 attitude of the Supreme Court during the first years of the state was characterised by its distance towards security decisions. Whereas the government believed that security matters should remain in the realm of the executive branch, the judges of the Israel Supreme Court likewise agreed that military, security and foreign affairs were not part of the matters that should be decided by the judiciary (High Court of Justice 7/48). Therefore, when examining cases involving security decisions, the Supreme Court mostly treated them from a formal, rather than substantial perspective. In practice, this meant that the actions concerning the domain of public order and security were approved as long as the minister or the commander could testify that they had respected two conditions: that they acted in the framework of their functions, and that they acted in good faith (Shetreet 1994, 460). However, drawing on its status as guardian of the rule of law, the Supreme Court has progressively imposed a more articulate voice in this domain and introduced an alternative discourse on the issue of the management of insecurity in democracy. The court’s attitude started to shift at the end of the 1970s. In 1979, the court decided that it would examine not only the procedure but also the content of security measures taken by the executive branch, both in Israel and in the Occupied Territories22 (High Court of Justice 606/78 and 390/79). This willingness to review security decisions on the substance was even more significantly affirmed during the 1980s, a period marked by a growing degree of legitimacy of the court (Barzilai 1999) and the official recognition of the court’s independence by the 1984 Basic Law: The Judiciary (Article 2). In a landmark ruling in 1988, the court symbolically declared: The security purpose [. . .] has limited judicial review in the past. It was then founded on the fact that because the judges do not belong to the military, they should refrain from interfering in security considerations [. . . .] However, the principle of separation of powers requires [the judges] to control the legality of administrative decisions. Similarly, security considerations do not enjoy a special status. (High Court of Justice 680/88) After this ruling, the court usually examined security-related cases by following a three-part assessment. Besides the assessment of the sheer principle of legality, the court also examined the necessity argument, i.e. the presence of a real and present danger, and finally evaluated the proportionality of the rights’ curtailment, i.e. the “balance” between security needs and the protection of democratic principles (Benvenisti 1993; Barak 2002). After the so-called “constitutional revolution” (Hofnung 1996b) that followed the enactment of the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty and the Basic Law: Freedom of Occupation in 1992, the court made another step in reviewing security matters on the substance. After this, the court frequently invoked the new basic laws along with human rights conventions and international law to rule on a series of measures. This was especially the case during the years of the second intifada and the fight against

30

The discourse of insecurity

terrorism pursued by the Israeli government, during which the court examined cases of house demolition, deportation, torture or administrative detention on this basis (Hofnung 1996a; Barak 2005). As the president of the court explained at the time, such an active stance in security matters was justified by the need to safeguard the democratic character of the state of Israel: The judges in modern democracies, are responsible for protecting democracy both from terrorism and from the means the state wants to use to fight terrorism [. . . .] Admittedly, the struggle against terrorism turns our democracy into a “defensive democracy” or a “fighting democracy”. Nonetheless, this defense and this fight must not deprive our regime of its democratic character. Defensive democracy: yes; uncontrolled democracy: no. (Barak 2005, 10–11) Although, practically, the government’s decisions in the area of security have rarely been overturned by the Supreme Court (Dotan 1999, 2002; Kretzmer 2002), by imposing its scrutiny on security decisions the judicial institution has progressively imposed itself as a key speaker in the formulation of the security discourse. It has offered an alternative vision of security, conceived not only in terms of strategies and threats but assessed through the prism of the rule of law, basic rights and democracy. The next chapters will more closely explore the Supreme Court’s discourse on the management of insecurity in Israel and will underline the significant effects that the court’s discourse has had in structuring the security–democracy nexus in the parliament.

The Knesset speaking security In 1956, in the framework of the Suez Campaign, Prime Minister Ben-Gurion declared: Constitutionally, although we don’t have a written constitution – but it should be self-evident – the government cannot go to war without the consent of the Knesset. However, the circumstances in this case did not permit us to bring the matter to the Knesset, nor even to the Foreign Affairs and Security Committee. (Ben-Gurion quoted in Goldberg 2003, 80) Echoing the no choice argument, this declaration also exposes the trivial consideration that the executive branch has long given to the legislative when wars (or, more broadly, security matters) are at stake. Especially during the first decades of the state, the parliament was a very marginal speaker in discussions of national security as the dominance of the executive branch over national security legislation was almost total. The Knesset, if consulted, only served as a locus of endorsement for the government when the latter, for instance, decided to turn an emergency regulation into a permanent law23 (Cohen and Cohen 2012,

The discourse of insecurity 31 61–62). However, in a way similar to the Supreme Court, due to its central role in the institutional design and legislative system of Israel, the parliamentary arena also gradually expanded its voice in security matters. The first move towards increased involvement of the Knesset occurred as of the 1970s, thus after the repeal of the military administration imposed on Arab regions (1966). This was translated by the elaboration of laws pertaining to the institutional design on the one hand, and to national security on the other. In the first domain, the Knesset passed a basic law that sought to regulate the relationship between the government and the military. More specifically, the law, which was created in the aftermath of the 1973 war and the Agranat Commission24 attempted to close an on-going discussion on the topic of the civil–military relations by proclaiming the supremacy of civil authority over the army (via Basic Law: The Military which was passed in 1976).25 Moreover, in a context marked by a wave of attacks by Palestinian armed groups on Israeli civilians and by the increased popularity of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation in the Palestinian-Israeli public (Schmidt 2001, 257), the Knesset directly participated in the institutionalisation of security tools aimed at fighting terrorism. Among the most important of these legal instruments was the Penal Law (1977), which defines among others the terms “terrorist organisation” and “assistance to the enemy”. Another of these laws was the amendment of the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance which made supporting terrorism a criminal act (1980) and later forbade Israeli residents from contacting “a terrorist organisation, or [. . .] a representative of such organisation” (Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance 1986, Article 7) (see Chapter 4).26 The Basic Law: The Knesset, which sought to limit the participation in election of parties having real or ideological connections with the PLO, was another of these laws (see Chapter 3). The intervention of the Knesset in security matters accelerated at the beginning of the 1990s, a period characterised by growing criticism and scrutiny over the military and the GSS (Cohen and Cohen 2012), and a general aspiration to post-modern values and normalisation (Peri 2006, 40). In this context, the Knesset mainly worked towards strengthening its control on the security network. The most significant piece of legislation in this context certainly was the amendment of the Basic Law: The Government passed in 1992. The law generated a notable change in the state of emergency at two levels. First, it introduced a theoretical time limit (one year) to the state of emergency. Second, it granted the Knesset the formal authority to vote on the prolongation of the state of emergency (Basic Law: The Government 1992, Article 49),27 which the Knesset has done every year since without much discussion. The last phase of the Knesset imposition started in the mid-1990s, after two events of dramatic intensity. The first was the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in November 1995 by Ygal Amir, a fanatic religious Jew who opposed the launching of the Oslo peace process. The assassination, which had followed a series of ferocious demonstrations against the prime minister (who was portrayed as a traitor, assassin and Nazi), put into question the existing tools made to face political extremism and violence (Buchhandler-Raphael 2007;

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The discourse of insecurity

Pedahzur 2002). The second dramatic development was the eruption of suicide bomb attacks,28 which culminated during the second intifada and during which the relations between the Jewish and Palestinian segments of Israeli society deteriorated. Against this backdrop, the Knesset passed two sorts of laws. First, it passed an “institutional” law, which imposed both executive and legislative supervision on the GSS (General Security Services Law 2002).29 Second, it passed a series of governmental and non-governmental sponsored bills with the aim of curbing political violence and terrorism. Among these we can cite the 2002 amendment of the Penal Law, prohibiting incitement to violence and terrorism (Penal Law, Article 144 D2 – see Chapter 3), the 2002 amendment of the Basic Law: The Knesset prohibiting incitement to terrorism (see Chapter 3), and the 2003 Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law, putting an end to the granting of permits of residence to Palestinians, passed as a temporary emergency law (see Chapter 5). The involvement of the Knesset in security matters through private bills and discussions in the plenum continued after the second intifada with the formulation and passing of a series of laws including the amendment of the Basic Law: The Knesset in 2008, which forbids visits to enemy states (see Chapter 4), and the amendment of the Citizenship Law in 2008 and in 2011 which permits cancelling citizenship on the grounds of breach of trust (see Chapter 4). In spite of the dominant security discourse, which has generated a much higher level of confidence in security institutions and legitimised the centralisation of security affairs in their hands, the Knesset has been able to take part in the elaboration of security policies. This has led to the emergence, structuration and institutionalisation of discourses of (in)security, and this has also generated discursive competition on the articulation of a security–democracy nexus within the Knesset. This competition is at the core of this book.

Speaking security in the Knesset While the Knesset has progressively imposed itself as a security speaker in the public arena, different discourses of insecurity have continuously been in competition within the parliament itself. Since the precise exploration of this discursive competition is the subject of the next chapters, the intention in this section is not to explore in detail the conflicting positions voiced in the Knesset on security issues. Rather, the objective is to offer a schematic overview of the different stances towards the discourse of insecurity, and of their weight in the parliament. The section first presents the group of parliamentary actors whose position has been the closest to the (in)security discourse, and ends with those who are furthest away from the dominant discourse of insecurity. Parliamentary actors from the centre parties that have led the Israeli consecutive governments since 1948 (Mapai/Alignment/Labour, Likud and Kadima) are the closest to the discourse of insecurity. Most of them have indeed articulated, relayed, drawn upon and reproduced the central elements of the discourse of insecurity. Among this group, two positions can be distinguished. The first one

The discourse of insecurity 33 is what Kimmerling once called the “securitist orientation” (Kimmerling 2001), mostly expressed by centre-left MKs (which hold 42 of the 120 seats in the Knesset today). This orientation entails a construction of state relations as anarchic and power driven, in which Israel needs to constantly defend itself against attacks and enemies. Power, military strength and protecting borders are seen as interconnected elements of the security of the state and of its relations with other groups (Kimmerling 2001, 220). In this perspective, the general means promoted to attain security are the preservation of defensible borders, the absorption of immigrants to counter-balance the demographic asymmetry that Israel would face against the Arab world, an army of citizens and a strong involvement of the army in foreign and defence policies (Horowitz 1993). The resolution of conflict with neighbouring countries is an issue that is looked at through the prism of strategy and diplomacy: peace negotiation and territorial compromises are presented as mid-term objectives conditioned to the fact that the security of the “Jewish and democratic state” is guaranteed (Horowitz 1993). As Rabin declared in 1992 when discussing the question of peace negotiations, “In security matters we will not concede a thing. From our standpoint, security even takes precedence over peace” (Rabin speech 1992). The second way in which the discourse of insecurity has been diffused into the parliament is through the “conflict orientation” mainly promoted by centreright and ultra-nationalist parties (the 31 MKs of the Likud and Israel Beiteinu represent this stance today). This position similarly draws upon the dominant conception of a “purely Hobbesian self-help system” (Adamsky 2010, 115) according to which the state of Israel and the Jewish people are left on their own in the struggle for survival against a larger Arab population. This orientation takes for granted that “war is inescapable, because without this, the life of the individual has no purpose and the nation has no chance of survival” (Shamir 199230 quoted in Shindler 2001, 280). This vision of the inevitable conflict is coupled with a more-or-less secularised reading of the Bible and of the Jewish people’s relation to its land, according to which “we have a right and a claim of sovereignty to these areas of the land of Israel. This is our country, and it belongs by right to the Jewish people” (Prime Minister Begin 1978 quoted in Navon 2004, 11). From this standpoint, wars are not only unavoidable but also sometimes necessary in order to expand the Jewish presence in Eretz Israel (Kimmerling 2001, 221; Shlaim 2000). Besides centre-left and centre-right parties, Zionist religious MKs (12 seats) and, more recently, ultra-orthodox political actors (18 seats) have also reproduced the notions of existential weakness, isolation and self-help. Similar to ideas pertaining to the conflict orientation, these groups have presented conflicts between ethnic groups or civilisations as inescapable. Their vision of security, the state and the land is, however, much more deeply rooted in the biblical narrative of the Jewish people than the former orientation. Besides asking for the establishment of a religious state based on the halacha, these parties indeed claim that the Torah is “Israel’s kushan [certificate of registration] on his homeland” (Minister Orlev, National Religious Party, parliamentary debates on the

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The discourse of insecurity

disengagement from Gaza 2004) and that “Eretz Israel was given to the people of Israel by God the creator” (MK Porush, United Torah Judaism (UTJ), parliamentary debates on the disengagement from Gaza, 2004).31 Expanding the Jewish presence in the land of Israel and refusing territorial compromises is, in this perspective, seen as a moral and sacred responsibility even more so than a question of security. At the other side of the political spectrum, Palestinian parliamentary actors have promoted a radically different vision of security and insecurity. Instead of the dominant discourse depicting Israel as isolated, vulnerable and in need of protection against permanent enemies, the occupation of the Palestinian population is framed by these MKs as the real cause of “other threats like Hezbollah, confrontation, wars” (interview with MK Swaid, Hadash, 2010). Members of Palestinian parties have asked the state to withdraw from the Occupied Territories and have advocated the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. These solutions are not only seen as strategic necessities but as moral obligations of the state of Israel, whose establishment is depicted as a catastrophe (nakba), the source of the Palestinian people’s misfortunes, and a historical mistake. This discourse is intertwined with a conception of the regime that differs from the dominant narration. Instead of the “Jewish and democratic” state anchored in the basic laws of the state, Palestinian parties call for the formation of a “state of all its citizens” where Jews and non-Jews would have equal rights and the Palestinian minority would have a role in the construction of the polity. Due to the military administration which seriously curtailed the freedoms of the Palestinian minority during almost two decades (Harris 1994), this position has long been voiced solely by the historically Jewish-Palestinian communist party.32 Only after the total lifting of military rule and with the growing “palestinisation” (Rouhana 1989) of Israeli-Palestinian citizens have Palestinian political parties been represented in the Knesset (Kaufman 1997). Today this position is voiced by four political parties: the National Democratic Assembly (Balad), the United Arab List (Ra’am), the Arab Movement for Renewal (Ta’al) and the communist party (Hadash) which together have 11 seats in the Knesset.33 Close to this position, yet adhering to the Zionist narrative, MKs of the Zionist left (represented mainly by Meretz) also promote the attainment of security through a resolution of conflict based on the creation of a Palestinian state. More specifically, this group of MKs claims that the survival of Israel as a Jewish democracy depends upon making peace with its neighbours, finding a solution to the Palestinian question, and normalising the existence of the country as a democracy. While they support the Zionist ethos and the Law of Return (allowing any Jew to settle in the state of Israel), these MKs nevertheless also add to the “Jewish and democratic” definition of the state, the notion of “a state of all its citizens” (interviews with MK Oron 2008, MK Beilin 2008 and MK Galon 2010). The weight of this position has fluctuated in the Knesset over time. Today, this position is represented by six parliamentary members of the Meretz. Political actors and their positions vis-à-vis the dominant discourse of insecurity in Israel have been moving and unstable ever since the establishment of the

The discourse of insecurity 35 state of Israel, even inside a given party. Some MKs who are quoted in this book have belonged to several parties across the periods of time that are studied, and new political parties have been formed along the years. The discourses articulated by these actors are also much more nuanced and fluctuant than what is suggested in this section. Nevertheless, having the positions of the main political streams in mind permits understanding of two elements of central importance for the analysis that will follow: the proximity of actors to the dominant political conception of the Israeli political regime and of its security environment, and the discursive framework in which the elaboration of competing security–democracy nexus takes place.

Conclusion Insecurity in Israel has been characterised by two main discursive elements. First is the construction of Israel as vulnerable and in a constant struggle for survival against permanent enemies. Second, and related, is the articulation of the selfhelp and self-defence argument, which has legitimised wars and emergency practices. The discourse of constant exposure and the need for defence has enabled the executive branch (including the government, the military, the intelligence services and the GSS) to hold the primary legitimate position in speaking security. This, in turn, has largely reinforced the main elements of the dominant discourse. In spite of this, the Supreme Court has progressively asserted its role of guardianship of the rule of law and democratic principles, reviewing executive acts taken in the name of security. By doing so, it has expressed its own framework of interpretation on security issues, one based on the rule of law, the need for proportionality, and the quest for the right balance between security needs and the respect of democratic values. Parallel to the Supreme Court, the Knesset has also progressively imposed itself as a political speaker in the security debate. Since the mid-1990s in particular, the Knesset has participated in the elaboration of security policies and instruments. It has first done so by discussing and voting on security laws introduced by the government, and later by directly initiating very important pieces of legislation passed in order to counter terrorism. These security measures, the debates that have developed over them and the narratives that have emerged from these debates are studied in the next chapters of this book.

Notes 1 Arian (1989). 2 At the end of the First Jewish Roman War (first century CE), the siege by Roman troops of Masada (a fortified palace located at the Dead Sea) led to the mass suicide of the Jewish rebels. On this event, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Israel says, [I]t is also the site of one of the most dramatic episodes in history. Nineteen centu ries ago on this gaunt plateau, a group of freedom fighters against the might of ancient Rome decided to kill themselves rather than submit to the oppressor’s yoke. (Ministry of Foreign Affairs 1999)

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3 The Yishuv (settlement) refers to the body of Jewish immigrants living in Palestine before the establishment of the state of Israel and to their institutions. 4 After the 1967 war, Foreign Minister Abba Eban for instance declared that the geo strategic situation prior to the war was reminiscent of Auschwitz (Der Spiegel 1969). Reference to “Auschwitz borders” was recently remobilised by Minister Landau (Landau 2011; Somfalvi 2013). 5 The seven wars are the 1948 “independence” war, the 1956 Campaign of Suez, the 1967 “Six Day War”, the War of Attrition (1960 1970), the 1973 “Yom Kippur War”, the 1982 Lebanon War, and the 2006 Second Lebanon War. We can also add to this several operations which took place after the Israeli unilateral disengagement from the Gaza Strip, including the Operation Cast Lead from December 2008 January 2009 and Operation Protective Edge (July August 2014). In addition, the Israeli Defence Force (IDF ) has been involved in a series of lower scale military operations especially in Lebanon, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. 6 The Palestinian Liberation Organisation Charter of 1968, for instance, included a call for the retrieval of Palestine “and its liberation through armed struggle” (Article 8) and “the elimination of Zionism in Palestine” (Article 15), and claimed that “the lib eration of Palestine will destroy the Zionist and imperialist presence” (Article 22). These articles were declared void in 1993 by Yasser Arafat and in 1996 by the Pales tinian National Council. The Hamas 1988 Charter similarly calls for the uprooting of the Zionist state and its replacement by a Palestinian state, although more recent docu ments written by Hamas refer to the 1967 borders, hence suggesting the recognition of the state of Israel (see Hroub 2006). 7 From the start of the second intifada until 2002, the number of fatalities has been about 300, with 70 per cent of them being civilian deaths (Merari 2005, 227). The Israel Security Agency indicates that the number of people killed fell to 30 in 2006 40 per cent of them in suicide attacks (Israel Security Agency website 2012). 8 The launching of mortar shells started during the second intifada with a peak in 2004 and later in 2008. Rocket launching started in 2002 but increased as of 2006. Between 2007 and 2012, most casualties of “Palestinian terrorism” 17 according to the Security Agency were victims of rocket and mortar shell launchings (Israel Security Agency website 2012). 9 Talking of the need to draw red lines, he stated that, “If the Western powers had drawn clear red lines during the 1930s, I believe they would have stopped Nazi aggression and World War Two might have been avoided” (Netanyahu speech 2012). 10 On the references to the Holocaust in relation with Iran, see Nili (2011) and Aronson (2009). 11 There is no consensus on the denomination of the 1,300,000 Palestinians who enjoy Israeli citizenship. The “Israeli Arab” or “Arab Israeli” denomination long employed by the Israeli government was contested for conveying a specific image of the minority, as separated from the Palestinian people. In this book, I have chosen to refer to the minority as the “Palestinian citizens” or “Palestinian minority” of Israel, phrases which are increasingly used by the minority itself, although the notion of “Arabs of Israel” is also used by the Palestinians including in the Knesset debates. 12 The regions put under military administration were the Galilee, Wadi Ara, the triangle and the Negev, which included approximately 75 per cent of the Palestinian minority of the country. 13 Therefore, the majority of Palestinian citizens are still not subject to compulsory military service (Smooha 1993). 14 In The Iron Wall, Avi Shlaim describes very precisely how leaders from Ben Gurion to Alon or Dayan had, in small committees, promoted military plans and bellicose acts that were in fact also “of choice” (Shlaim 2000). 15 During the first years of the state, the opposition of MK Begin, for instance, criticised the Defence (Emergency) Regulations, arguing that “the law that [the government]

The discourse of insecurity 37

16 17

18

19

20

21 22 23

24

25

used is Nazi, it is tyrannical, it is immoral: and an immoral law is also an illegal law” (quoted by Gross and N’i Aol’ain 2006, 229). While acting as Minister of Justice in 1988 1992 and 1999 2001, Yossi Beilin sought to put an end to the state of emergency but eventually renounced this in great part due to technical constraints (interview with MK Beilin 2008). This high level of trust is reinforced by the fact that the Israeli army is compulsory for every Jewish person in Israel, from the ages 18 to 50. After the war of 1948, it was decided that the army would be based on a system of active reserves after an initial compulsory military service of 36 months for men and 22 months for women. Most citizens are called every year for 30 35 days of service until the age of 50 (Klein 1999, 37). The army was given a 94.2 per cent rate of trust by the public in 2012, against 72.5 per cent for the Supreme Court and 52.9 per cent for the Knesset (Hermann, et al. 2012, 42). Such a level of confidence explains why experience in the military is still used as an asset in political career (Peri 2006; Goldberg 2006). A lot has been written on the role of the military in policy making and on the interre lation between the civil and military spheres. Some scholars from what Sheffer and Barak call the “traditionalist” approach have emphasised the strict cultural and institu tional separation between military and civil spheres (Horowitz 1993; Horowitz and Lissak 1989). Others have shown that the relation between both spheres is, in fact, much more dynamic and complex, with clear interconnections between civilian and military authorities (Peri 1983). More recent works have questioned the existence of a civil sphere in Israel altogether, due to the intrusion of the military in most political fields outside the purely military and strategic domains (Ben Eliezer 1995). See Sheffer and Barak for more on these approaches (2007). According to the Defence (Emergency) Regulations 1945, the district commissioner (for which read “the Minister of Interior”) may refuse a licence for a newspaper without providing any explanations. Moreover, the Press Ordinance 1933, inherited from the British mandate, empowers the competent authority to suspend the publica tion of articles “if any matter appearing in a newspaper is, in the opinion of the High Commissioner in Council [i.e. the Minister of Interior], likely to endanger the public peace” (Press Ordinance 1933, Section 19(2)). On the notion of defensible borders, see Alon (1976) and Inbar (1996). The court has been able to review petitions introduced by Palestinian residents of the Occupied Territories against the Israeli military since 1969 (Cohen and Cohen 2012, 102). Turning emergency regulations into regular laws has occurred on numerous occasions. Among them is the Emergency Regulation (Absentees’ Property) passed in 1949 as an emergency regulation and turned into a regular law two years later. This law served as a tool to expropriate Palestinians living in Israel from their land (Yiftachel 2006; Mehozay 2012b, 25). Another of these laws is the Emergency Powers (Detention) Law of 1979, allowing the Minister of Defence to detain a person for a (renewable) period of six months if there is a reasonable reason to believe that the person presents a security risk (Emergency Powers (Detention) Law 1979, Article 2). Following the 1973 war, the Agranat Commission of inquiry was charged to investi gate the conduct of the army and of the intelligence services before and during the war. The commission report recommended the dismissal of several military officers, along with officers in military intelligence. The final report also emphasised the lack of a clear definition regarding the relationship between the civil and military institutions. The law states that the government is the supreme commander and that the army’s role is to carry out the government’s policies. In effect, the law has not been able to put an end to the complex and vague relationships of authority between the cabinet and the military. See Bar Or (2006) for more on this law and its impact.

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26 This article was repealed from the law after the launching of the Oslo peace process (Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance (Amendment 3) 1993). 27 Before 1992, the Knesset was able to put an end to the state of emergency on its own demand but was not systematically consulted in the prolongation of the state of emergency. 28 The first suicide attack took place during the first intifada in 1989 but the number of attacks grew after the mid 1990s. 29 The GSS had been under critique as a consequence of the Landau commission of investigation into the “Bus 300 Scandal” (in which the GSS was accused of torturing to death two Palestinians who had hijacked a bus), the ruling of the Supreme Court on the use of torture by the GSS (High Court of Justice 5100/94) and its failure to prevent Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination. See Kremnitzer (1989) for more on the Landau Com mission. See Cohen and Cohen (2012) for more on the GSS Law. 30 The speech of Prime Minister Shamir was issued on the occasion of a meeting in memoriam of the Stern Gang in 1992. The Stern Gang, or the Lehi (Fighters for the Freedom of Israel), was a Zionist armed group founded in 1940 whose aim was to evict the British authorities from Palestine, including by resorting to force and ter rorist activities. It was formally disbanded after the establishment of the state of Israel. Ytzhak Shamir had been among the leaders of the organisation. For more on the Stern Gang’s ideology and politics, see Heller (1995). 31 Until 1967, ultra orthodox parties mostly focused on state religion questions rather than on diplomatic issues. After the occupation of the West Bank, they started devel oping a public narrative and specific policies in relation to the land and diplomacy (Hazan 1999). 32 During the first five decades of the state, more than 40 per cent of the Palestinian population gave its voice to “minorities’ lists” affiliated with Mapai (the dominant socialist party preceding the Labour Party) and around 15 per cent of it voted for the communist party (Lustick 1980). 33 Since 2006, Ra’am and Ta’al have an electoral alliance and take part in the elections as a single list.

3

Freedom of expression as a threat and the defence of democracy

Israel is the democracy the most seriously challenged and attacked. Israel has been the most beleaguered democracy, among all democracies, continuously, for decades and I think it is quite significant and we should pay attention to the fact that it has remained a democracy, a very vibrant one, with freedom of speech, freedom of elections . . . (Interview with Minister Benny Begin 2010)

Freedom of expression has long been conceived of as a consubstantial principle of liberal democracy. The degree of protection of this freedom in a society is often viewed as an indicator of the tolerance, liberty and responsiveness of the regime towards its citizens. Simultaneously, however, freedom of speech has been limited time and again within the very framework of democracy. In the name of security, several political parties have been banned in Spain, Turkey or Germany,1 while the fight against terrorism has justified the proscription of certain words or speeches in European countries, Australia or the United States.2 Be it in the name of individuals’ reputation or privacy, in order to prevent words of hatred and violence, in order to defend acknowledged historical facts, or on behalf of the public’s security, the boundaries of this fundamental freedom have been repeatedly redrawn. In this respect, Israel is no exception. Although freedom of expression was in the first years of the state defined by the Supreme Court as a core principle of the Israeli democracy, security interests have justified the limitation of this freedom, including through press censorship and the disqualification of political groups seen as a menace to the regime. The wave of terror attacks on the Israeli territory after the beginning of the second intifada in 2000 and the expression of solidarity with the Palestinian uprising by some Israeli citizens intensified the discussions on the relation between freedom of speech and insecurity. It is in this framework that several laws were passed in 2002, the aim of which was to limit the expression of support to terrorism. Among them were the amendment of the Penal Law prohibiting incitement to terrorism and the amendment of the Basic Law: The Knesset to permit exclusion of political parties from elections if they support terrorism. This chapter focuses on the competing discursive articulations of the

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Freedom of expression as a threat

freedom of speech–security nexus in the Israeli parliament during the debates on these two laws. It explores the way political actors have made sense of the delicate interconnection between freedom of speech, democracy and security, and scrutinises the manner in which this competition has shaped the limits of freedom of expression. The analysis displays that a narrative centred on the notion of “defensive democracy” and on the classical opposition between democracy and security has imposed itself in the parliamentary arena over other narratives supporting or opposing the amendments. It also highlights how these conflicting narratives have affected the shape and boundaries of the political regime. While the main focus of this chapter is the period of the second intifada, the first two sections of the chapter account for the emergence and structuration of the freedom of speech–security nexus in Israel prior to the uprising. More precisely, in the first section I show how the relation between freedom of speech, democracy and security was originally envisaged by the Israel Supreme Court in two landmark decisions: the Kol Ha’am ruling (1953) and the Yeredor ruling (1965). This section is followed by an examination of the competing security– freedom of speech nexus that emerged during the debates on the 1985 amendment of the Basic Law: The Knesset, which enabled the exclusion from elections of political parties promoting specified objectives. The third section of this chapter is devoted to the analysis of the competing parliamentary narratives at the beginning of the second intifada on the question of incitement to terrorism in the public arena. It highlights how the notion of “defensive democracy” and the “balance” metaphor first introduced by the Supreme Court have been remobilised by political actors to make sense of the freedom of speech–security nexus. The fourth section analyses the competing narratives over the 2002 amendment of the Basic Law: The Knesset, which provides for the disqualification of political parties for supporting armed struggle and terrorism. The chapter shows how the notion of “defensive democracy”, first introduced by the Supreme Court in the 1960s, has been repeatedly mobilised in the Israeli parliament to make sense of the freedom of speech–security nexus. It argues that the articulation of defensive democracy by political actors had two intertwined effects on democracy: it enabled the “democratic” limitation of freedom of expression, and it redefined democracy into a regime close to a nation-state in which security and survival are the primary raisons d’être.

Freedom of speech in the light of security: defending democracy in the Supreme Court Despite the fact that freedom of speech is commonly presented as a basic and core principle of Israeli democracy, it has not been anchored in any piece of legislation thus far. It is, in fact, from the Supreme Court that the protection of this freedom has emanated. The Kol Ha’am case of 1953 is certainly the most important ruling of the Israeli Supreme Court in this matter. It is not only in this ruling that freedom of speech was defined for the first time by the court, but it is

Freedom of expression as a threat 41 also the first time that the court directly connected freedom of speech to security issues. The Kol Ha’am ruling pertained to press censorship and, more precisely, to the suspension of two communist newspapers, one Hebrew (Kol Ha’am) and one Arabic (Al Ittihad). By virtue of the Press Ordinance 1933, both newspapers had been suspended on the grounds that they had published articles containing material which, “in the opinion of the Minister of Interior, was likely to endanger public peace” (High Court of Justice 73/53, 1). The articles in question contained open criticisms of an alleged agreement between Israel and the United States in case of a war between the United States and the Soviet Union (Schmidt 2001). The Supreme Court, acting as the High Court of Justice, unanimously overruled the Minister’s decision in a three-part reasoning. In the first sequence, the court emphasised the core function of freedom in the democratic regime of Israel, stating that: Israel [. . .] is indeed a state founded on democracy. Furthermore, the matters set forth in the Declaration of Independence, especially with respect to the establishment of the state “on the foundation of freedom” and on the safeguarding of freedom of conscience, mean that Israel is a freedom-loving state. (High Court of Justice 73/53) While acknowledging the importance of freedom in the Israeli democratic regime, a second sequence in the reasoning nevertheless emphasised the relativity of freedom of expression with these words: The upshot of all this is that the right to freedom of expression is not an absolute and unlimited right, but a relative right, subject to restriction and control in the light of the object of maintaining important interests of the state and society, which are regarded, in certain conditions, as taking precedence over those secured by the principle of freedom of expression [. . .] we [must] weigh various competing interests in the balance, and after reflection, select those which in the circumstances predominate. (High Court of Justice 73/53) Mobilising the widespread balance metaphor, the judge articulated freedom of expression and the other interests of society as potentially clashing. He also admitted that, in cases of such a clash, the “interests of the state and society” should prevail over freedom of expression. Similar to answers provided by political theory on the question of emergency, the response of the court to security threats thus created a hierarchy of values in which security is unequivocally located higher than the other principles of democracy, freedom of speech and other liberties. In a third sequence of the ruling, the court nevertheless concluded that, in the absence of a “high probability of a damage to public peace” (High Court of Justice 73/53), the government’s decision to suspend these newspapers should be overruled.

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Freedom of expression as a threat

By developing such reasoning, the Kol Ha’am decision was a significant ruling in shaping freedom of speech and its place in the democratic regime in at least two ways. First, it made freedom of expression an intrinsic part of democracy and, thus, a right to be protected. Second, while doing so, the justices also reproduced the classical notion of a tension or clash between this right and other interests. Accordingly, it was established that the safeguarding of public peace is more important than the protection of freedom of speech. This interpretation would remain a central part of the judiciary discourse and would later pervade the parliamentary arena. If Kol Ha’am can be seen as a pioneering ruling in the regulation of freedom of the press, the Yeredor case was a landmark ruling in matters of political parties’ freedom of speech and participation. In 1965, the Central Elections Committee (CEC), a body of government charged with the carrying out and registration of lists for elections,3 made the decision to disqualify a Palestinian party (the Socialist List) from the Knesset elections. Although the CEC did not have any legal ground for doing so, its decision was based on the fact that the list was considered a threat to the state as it allegedly denied “the integrity and the very existence of the state of Israel” (Harris 1994). The party’s platform, an explicitly pro-Palestinian one, indeed called for “a solution to the Palestinian problem [. . .] according to the will of the Arab Palestinian people” (Harris 1994), which was interpreted by the CEC as denying “the integrity of the state of Israel and even its right to exist” (Klein 1985). When the Supreme Court ruled on the validity of the CEC’s decision, it upheld the disqualification of the party with reasoning similar to that of the Kol Ha’am case. The court started by observing that, “The democratic process enables the selection of the people’s common objectives and the means to achieve them through verbal inquiry and a free exchange of opinions” (Election Appeal 1/65, 386). However, it continued by noting that higher interests could require limiting these principles because “no free regime would lend its hand and recognition to an assembly that seeks to undermine that same regime itself [. . . .] Anyone who witnessed the times of the Weimar Republic will not forget the lesson” (Election Appeal 1/65, 386). The comparison of the Israeli situation to the Weimar Republic is of great significance. Besides the dramatic tone it conveys, this sequence of the ruling also implies that the sheer representation of the Socialist List in the parliament would open the door to a possible destruction of the regime. In a further sequence of the ruling, the court defined more precisely what was meant by the “free regime” whose sovereignty was challenged: Israel is not only a sovereign, independent and freedom-seeking state, characterised by a regime of the people’s government, but it was also established as “a Jewish state in the Land of Israel” [. . .] by virtue of the natural and historic right of the Jewish people to live like any independent nation in its own sovereign state. (Election Appeal 1/65, 385–386)

Freedom of expression as a threat 43 The court here defined the free regime of Israel in two ways: on the one hand as a democratic form of regime “ruled by the people”, and on the other hand as the sovereign state of the Jewish people. In order to protect this specific form of state, the justices of the court supported the disqualification of the list in a rhetoric which would long mark the Israeli public discourse: The German Constitutional Court [. . .] spoke of a “militant democracy”,4 which does not open its doors to acts of sabotage in the guise of legitimate parliamentary activity. As far as Israel is concerned, I am prepared to confine myself to a “defensive democracy”,5 and the instruments for defending the existence of the state are at hand, even if we have not found them set forth in detail in the Elections Law. (Election Appeal 1/65, 390) While referring to the German doctrine of “militant democracy”, the court substantially modified the meaning of the original concept in this ruling.6 Indeed, the German doctrine originally implied the need of a democracy to defend itself against anti-democratic forces aimed at the destruction of democratic values. Here in contrast, defensive democracy is called on to act for the state and more precisely for the Jewish state, which “[j]ust as an individual is not bound to agree to being killed [. . .] annihilated and erased from the map” (Election Appeal 1/65, 390). When asking for a shift from democracy to defensive democracy, the justice thus in fact asks that democracy defend something quite different than in the German case: the nation-state of the Jewish people. On this basis, and despite the lack of legal tools enabling the CEC to do so, the justices who acknowledged the existence of a real danger stemming from the Socialist List agreed that the party should be disqualified from taking part in elections. In the name of defensive democracy, in order to defend the nation-state’s existence, the justices legitimised the limitation of the “democratic process” said to be at the core of the regime. Such reasoning would percolate into the Knesset years later.

“Defending democracy” and the 1985 amendment of the Basic Law: The Knesset Twenty years after Yeredor, the disqualification of two lists by the CEC triggered a new discussion about the relation between freedom of expression, elections and security of the regime. The first list at stake had been compiled in the 1970s by Rabbi Meir Kahane, an American immigrant established in the settlements. His party, Kach, promoted the idea of “[Jewish] terror against [Arab] terror” and called for the removal of mosques from the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, the interdiction of mixed marriages between Arabs and Jews, and their physical separation in public spaces (Pedahzur 2002). The ultimate objective of the party was the establishment of a theocracy in the “Land of Israel” from which the Arab citizens would be expelled in order to secure a Jewish majority (Pedahzur 2002). The disqualification of Kach by the CEC was decided on the

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grounds that the list advocated racist and anti-democratic principles, openly supported terrorist acts, incited hatred and negated the basic principles of the democratic regime (Election Appeals 2/84 and 3/84, 1). The second list was the Progressive List for Peace (PLP), which came from the opposite end of the political spectrum. The PLP was a Jewish-Arab party adhering to the positions of Palestinian nationalism, promoting the establishment of a Palestinian state and viewing the PLO as the legitimate representative of the Palestinian Arab people (Kaufman 1997). One of its members, Mohammed Miari, had formerly been part of the Socialist List, which had been disqualified in 1965. The PLP was excluded from the elections by the CEC on the grounds that it: believes in principles that endanger the [territorial] integrity and existence of the state of Israel, and [the] preservation of its distinctiveness as a Jewish state in accordance with the foundations of the state as expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the Law of Return. (Election Appeal 2/84, 238) Asked to rule on their cases, the Supreme Court largely referred to the Yeredor ruling when making its decision. As in 1965, the Court followed the spirit of defensive democracy, and declared that, “[A] constitution is not a prescription for suicide,7 and civil rights are not a stage for national extinction [because] democracy is allowed to protect itself, and it needs not commit suicide so as to prove its vitality” (Election Appeal 2/84, 97). Like in 1965, it also made explicit that the “democratic regime allowed to protect itself ” did not mean the protection of the democratic substance of the regime per se but rather the protection of the state’s existence. Quoting Yeredor, the justices stated that there is a “vast difference, as between East and West, between a group of people which seeks to undermine the very existence of the state [. . .] and a party that acknowledges the political entity of the state but wishes to alter its internal regime” (Election Appeal 2/84, 73). But contrary to Yeredor, the court this time considered that the PLP and Kach, while challenging the internal regime of Israel, did not in fact constitute a threat to the state itself. Therefore, the court ruled that the disqualification of the two parties was not valid and it encouraged the parliament to fill the legal vacuum on the matter of party disqualification. Soon after the 1984 elections, in which Kach received one seat and the PLP received two, the new government went in this direction and introduced a bill to amend the Basic Law: The Knesset. The original bill mentioned the following criteria on the basis of which a list could be disqualified: denying the existence of the state of Israel as stated in the Declaration of Independence; denying the democratic nature of the state; inciting to racism; or pursuing illegal activities under the cover of the party (parliamentary debate on the Basic Law: The Knesset, 31 July 1985). After several discussions in the plenum, the law was finally passed with 66 votes in favour of the following version:

Freedom of expression as a threat 45 A list may not take part in the national elections if its goals or action include, implicitly or explicitly one of the following: 1 2 3

Negation of the existence of the state of Israel as the state of the Jewish people; Negation of the democratic nature of the state; Incitement to racism. (The Basic Law: The Knesset, Article 7(a))8

Discussions on the amendment of the Basic Law: The Knesset incited a lively struggle, including within the unity government itself.9 Four main competing narratives emerged in the debates, which all offered different interpretations of the law and of the freedom–security nexus. This section scrutinises these narratives and shows how the notion of defensive democracy, which had first appeared in 1965 in the Supreme Court’s ruling, was remobilised by political actors and its meaning transformed. Defending democracy, defending the nation-state The first narrative developed in the debates came from members of the unity government supporting the limitation of political participation. To the extent that this narrative legitimised the law and was told by a majority of MKs taking part in the debate, it can be understood as dominant in the Knesset. The narrative was structured along a series of topics, among which security, history and nationhood were the most important. However, it is with the topic of democracy and rights that the minister introducing the law to the Knesset opened his speech. He stated: The amendment of the Basic Law: the Knesset, which concerns the right to participation of a list of candidates to the Knesset elections, is a topic which touches directly upon the founding of democracy of our state, established through electoral processes. (Minister of Justice Nissim, Likud, parliamentary debate on the Basic Law: The Knesset, 7 May 1985) Like in the 1965 and 1984 rulings, “the right of association, [. . .] freedom of expression, [. . .] the right to compete” (MK Meridor, Likud, parliamentary debate on the Basic Law: The Knesset, first reading, 2 July 1985) and “the concept of minority rights” (MK Katz, Alignment, parliamentary debate on the Basic Law: The Knesset, 2 July 1985) are all framed as forming the basis of the democratic regime of Israel in this first sequence. However, in a second sequence of the narrative, the topic of threat emerges in the story, thereby putting democracy under stress. Explicitly drawing on the words of the Supreme Court’s judgement in the Yeredor affair, the Minister of Justice continued his speech with the following words: We must defend ourselves against those who want to hurt democracy and use a democratic mask to destroy it from within [. . .] “if we don’t say that,

46

Freedom of expression as a threat the explanations of the wars that Israel went through would make no sense. It would be an absolute contradiction to the history of the Jewish people and its yearning, and a contradiction to the fact that the state was created after the Holocaust when millions of Jews in Europe were slaughtered, and which has proven again the necessity of solving the problem of a people without a homeland by establishing the Jewish state in Eretz Israel”. This is what Justice Agranat said. The amendment seeks to turn theory into law [. . . .] concerning the interdiction of a list to participate in elections, we will also take into account the racist character. The state of Israel is the Jewish state, but there are other people who are equal in rights and obligation. At the end of the day, this amendment aims at reflecting the idea of defensive democracy and to provide instruments for the defence of the state so that it will not be destroyed from within. (Minister of Justice Nissim, Likud, parliamentary debate on the Basic Law: The Knesset, 7 May 1985)

Two elements are worth pointing out here. First, the topic of security is constructed in a very peculiar manner. Neither the threat nor insecurity are concretely defined in this speech. Rather, the threat from which democracy should “defend itself ” is evoked without being clearly named: it is constructed through references to the suffering of the past, the wars or the drama of the Holocaust. Second, the construction of the referent object of threat is quite ambiguous. Although the Minister pushes “democracy to defend itself ”, the chains of equivalence and opposition present in this excerpt expand the entity that is jeopardised, and imply that what is so vulnerable and should be protected is not just democracy per se. On the one hand, racism, discrimination and inequality promoted by Kach are dangers which corrupt the democratic principle according to which citizens must be equal. But on the other hand, what the Knesset and defensive democracy are asked to protect when “defending democracy” are also, and perhaps above all, “the Jewish state in Eretz Israel”, the “Jews of the state of Israel” (MK Eytan, Likud, parliamentary debate on the Basic Law: The Knesset, 7 May 1985), and the sovereignty of the Jews on the land of Israel. In that sense, what is first and foremost at stake with the passing of this law is to prevent “the destruction of this country [and] the existence of a Jewish people” which the PLO is said to aim for and the PLP said to promote (MK Meridor, parliamentary debate on the Basic Law: The Knesset, first reading, 2 July 1985). Faced with this existential threat against the Jews, the state and “democracy”, democracy is thus asked to become defensive. In a last sequence of the narrative, what this defensive democratic regime implies is explicated by drawing once again on the judicial discourse: We must act to set boundaries and limits to freedom of association [. . .] no other state would allow people who support an organisation [like the PLO] that wants to destroy it. This is madness. This is a dangerous disease. This is

Freedom of expression as a threat 47 not democracy [. . . .] The Supreme Court coined this phrase: a defensive democracy is a democracy that limits itself to defend its existence. (MK Meridor, parliamentary debate on the Basic Law: The Knesset, first reading, 2 July 1985) Because basic rights are exploited by the enemy and used as a “mask to destroy it”, the speakers conclude that the only way to mitigate the existential threat is through the sacrifice of these democratic rights. For most of the speakers of this discourse coalition, in order to “defend democracy” then freedom of association, though the basis of democracy, is also an obstacle to existence and must therefore be limited. Alternatively, in one of the MKs’ speech, defensive democracy is not simply asked to limit rights but to specifically exclude from the circle of rights those who “use our democracy to come and kill us” (MK Eytan, parliamentary debate on the Basic Law: The Knesset, 7 May 1985). Prefiguring a motto introduced years later by other parties (see Chapter 4), he summarised his idea by stating that, “If you are loyal, you will be citizens. If you are not loyal, then, yes [you’ll face] expulsion and persecution” (MK Eytan, parliamentary debate on the Basic Law: The Knesset, 7 May 1985). Embedding freedom of speech and security in these chains of equivalence and opposition has considerable effects on the shape of democracy. First, constructing rights as potential weapons reproduces the notion of a clash between security and democratic principles and consequently legitimises the limitation of the latter two in the name of the former. Second, while depicting democracy as defending “itself ”, the narrative suggests that the defence of this “itself ” entails more than the protection of equality and rights: the survival of the state, of the Jews and of the Jewish sovereignty in Eretz Israel. Consequently, the narrative considerably blurs the distinction between two central entities in the story: the Israeli democratic regime and the Jewish nation-state. Defensive democracy as the protection of democratic values Alongside the dominant discourse coalition, members of the Zionist left supporting the law developed another story close to the defensive democracy dominant narrative. These MKs, although supporting the fight against racism, opposed the wording of the law, including the mention of “Jewish” and “democratic” in two separate paragraphs. As in the dominant narrative, the MKs of this group started with the double acknowledgement that democracy was in danger and that the law, while protecting democracy, was also a limit to its functioning. One of these speakers put it this way: The law is needed due to the dangers that democracy faces in Israel and because of racism that overwhelms the country. However, this does not make it easier the fact that these laws that seek to defend democracy are bringing a particular injury to the principles of democracy. (MK Harish, Alignment, parliamentary debate on the Basic Law: The Knesset, 14 May 1985)

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Similar to the previous narrative, democracy is once again one of the objects in need of protection. Yet while in the previous narrative the danger against which democracy had to defend itself came from both those threatening the sovereignty of the Jews on their territory and those challenging equality, only one threat is articulated here: racial inequality. As the same MK explained: This bill, in principle, without going into detail, protects democracy from those who threaten it, from those who deny it, from those who say that democracy is not a proper regime to Israel, and offer a different regime, a regime of racial segregation, a regime in which the rights of a person shall be determined by his race, his views, and his beliefs. (MK Harish, Alignment, parliamentary debate on the Basic Law: The Knesset, 14 May 1985) Racism and the inequality of rights not only threaten the democratic patterns of the state but in fact jeopardise the very “foundation of the Zionist movement” (MK Harish, Alignment, parliamentary debate on the Basic Law: The Knesset, 14 May 1985), the aim of which was to establish a Jewish and democratic state. As one of the MKs explained: You want a Jewish state, but democratic. The two elements are divided into two paragraphs, which supports the argument of a person who says that there can be Jewish state that is not democratic. In this perspective, these are two different things. These two things do not appear separately in the Declaration of Independence but you separate them. (MK Aloni, Movement for Civil Rights and Peace, parliamentary debate on the Basic Law: The Knesset, 14 May 1985) Against this threat imperilling the “Jewish and democratic state”, there is a need to act. Like in the dominant narrative, it is claimed that democracy must make use of “the principle of defensive democracy [which also exists] in Europe in several constitutions” (MK Aloni, parliamentary debate on the Basic Law: The Knesset, 14 May 1985). As underlined by one of the speakers, this shift to defensive democracy is not the best option but is a necessary move, and an urgent one: We must come and tell the public: we have become defensive. Democracy begins to fight for its life, and I hope it is not doing it an hour or five minutes too late [because] if [democracy] does not defend itself in time, it will collapse. (MK Ramon, Alignment, parliamentary debate on the Basic Law: The Knesset, 2 July 1985) By articulating defensive democracy in connection with racism, democracy and the Jewish state, this second narrative offers three important discursive changes in contrast to the dominant narrative. In the dominant narrative, the Jewish

Freedom of expression as a threat 49 people’s sovereignty was as much of a concern as was the equality of its citizens. In this narrative, in contrast, the main threat is the establishment of a racist regime jeopardising democracy, a regime without which the Zionist project, the “Jewish and democratic state”, loses its raison d’être. By articulating the threat in this manner, this narrative expands and modifies the notion of defensive democracy and brings it closer to the German interpretation in which democratic values are at stake. Third, and consequently, this narrative, while acknowledging the need to limit a basic democratic right to safeguard the regime, nevertheless leaves the meaning of democracy untouched. At the beginning and at the end of the narrative, democracy remains a regime of equal rights. Democracy as equality Similarly structured along the topics of racism and equality, but focusing on the denial of the Jewish state rather than on the question of racism, a third narrative led to a completely different conclusion from the first two narratives. Told by MKs from the opposition comprised of the PLP, the anti-Zionist party Hadash, and a few members of the far-left party Mapam, this narrative opened with the topics of democracy, liberty and threat connected in these words: This is a dangerous anti-democratic step, and we reject it. We totally reject the use of the just struggle against racism to cover up anti-democratic dangers, threatening steps that annul, ultimately, the freedom of assembly and political public activity, which was secured to date in Israel. (MK Toubi, Hadash, parliamentary debate on the Basic Law: The Knesset, 14 May 1985) Where the two first narratives presented the law as a way to protect democracy from internal and external threats, this counter-narrative in contrast depicts the law as the very danger weighing on the democratic regime. Because it limits freedom of assembly, the law is said to directly infringe upon a right at the core of democracy, and thus upon democracy itself. Moreover, by specifically denying challenges to the Jewish nature of the regime, the law is said to put “the emphasis on the status of the [Jewish] majority by denying the [Palestinian] minority” (MK Peled, PLP, parliamentary debate on the Basic Law: The Knesset, 31 July 1985), hence curtailing the right to equality. As such, the law is not only painted as an obstacle to free representation but as an attack on democracy altogether because, as one MK claimed, “There is no racist democracy. There is a democracy for all the citizens or there is no democracy at all” (MK Miari, PLP, parliamentary debate on the Basic Law: The Knesset, 2 July 1985). Building on the claim that the law would not only generate “dangers for democratic elections, freedom of assembly, freedom of expression and freedom of political struggle” (MK Toubi, parliamentary debate on the Basic Law: The Knesset, 14 May 1985) but also transform Israel “in a state of apartheid” (MK Toubi, parliamentary debate on the Basic Law: The Knesset, 31 July 1985), the speakers of this discourse coalition demanded that the bill be withdrawn.

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Besides the fact that it contests the necessity and validity of the law, this narrative generates two discursive effects in the struggle over the security– freedom of speech nexus. On the one hand, it disentangles the chain of equivalence present in the dominant narrative in which democracy, defensive democracy and the Jewish state were intertwined. On the other hand, it replaces this chain of equivalence with another one in which democracy, freedom and equal rights for all its citizens are similar realities. Unlike the dominant narrative and in contrast with the previous narrative which accepted the limitation of rights in a democratic regime, here the sheer suspension of one right marks the end of democracy. Democracy is and can only be a locus of freedoms and equality. Democracy against the Jewish state The last narrative was issued by MK Kahane from the party Kach, the second party targeted by the amendment of the Basic Law. His narrative was, in a way, the inverse of the previous narrative. Focusing entirely on the article banning racist and anti-democratic stances, he started by discussing the links between democracy and the Jewish state in these words: Jews know that we should reject any Zionist list. We should reject Zionism itself. After all, Zionism is not democratic by nature [. . . .] If there is no Jewish majority, there is no Jewish state, if there is no Jewish state, there is no Zionism. But democracy just wants the opposite. Democracy is not Jewish or Arab, or non-Jewish. Democracy is just the people, the people, whether Jewish or non-Jewish. Therefore, there is a contradiction; there is a conflict, a war between these two concepts. (MK Kahane, parliamentary debate on the Basic Law: The Knesset, 31 July 1985) Kahane here frames the relation between the Jewish state and democracy as tense or even unmanageable. Indeed, “the Jewish state” is understood as a state in which the Jewish people are the dominant majority, and democracy is defined as a state ruled by the people in which all citizens are equal. Accordingly, one would have to make a choice between the latter and the former, which Kahane formulates with the following questions: I am asking you; is it possible that in a hypothetical state of Israel the Arabs become a majority through equality, peace, coexistence and democracy? [. . . .] Yes or no: what is the answer? Who[ever] answers yes is anti-Zionist, [and thus] contradicts the declaration of independence, which states that there will be a Jewish state. So what? He [who] answers no: they have no right to be a majority. And then he is a good Zionist. (MK Kahane, parliamentary debate on the Basic Law: The Knesset, 31 July 1985)

Freedom of expression as a threat 51 In this last sequence of his narrative, MK Kahane undoes two central elements that were present in the dominant narrative. First, he disconnects democracy and the Jewish state, which in the dominant narrative had been merged through the use of defensive democracy. Instead of fusing these elements, he strictly separates them and transforms them into two conflicting concepts. Second and consequently, Kahane’s narrative also resists the merger between the state of Israel and democracy that all the other narratives had attempted to associate. If one wants to follow Zionism’s goals, they must abandon democracy altogether. The structuration of defensive democracy Prior to the 1988 elections, which followed the 1985 amendment, the CEC was for the first time formally entitled to disqualify electoral lists. On the ground of Article 7(a) of the law, the CEC examined the validity of Kach and of the PLP to take part in the elections for the Knesset.10 After discussion, the committee disqualified Kach on the grounds of its call to transfer the Palestinian citizens out of Israel. This decision was unanimously approved by the Supreme Court. In contrast, after debating the issue of the PLP’s platform, the CEC decided not to exclude that list (Peled 1992).11 Thereafter, the question of party disqualification almost vanished from the political arena. No other party was disqualified until the eruption of the second intifada.12 The discourse that had emerged and structured itself in 1985 would, however, not disappear. As the next sections describe, the notion of defensive democracy originally formulated by the Israeli Supreme Court would remain central in all following debates on the security–democracy nexus.

Prohibiting incitement to terrorism, balancing security and rights: the second intifada The outbreak of the second intifada in late September 2000 triggered five years of permanent violence during which more than 3000 Palestinians and 1000 Israelis, mostly civilians, lost their lives. From this date on, the fight against Palestinian attacks became the number one priority of the government and one recurrent issue in the Knesset. At the same time as the relation between Israelis and Palestinians deteriorated, the attitude towards the intifada of Palestinian citizens of Israel, including MKs such as MK Bishara,13 became a source of concern for the Israeli public at large. It is against this backdrop that the connection between anti-Israeli violence and freedom of expression gained renewed attention, leading to the passing of several laws limiting violent and pro-terror speeches. One of these was the 2002 amendment of the Penal Law (amendment 66, Prevention of Incitement to Violence and Terrorism) whose aim was to expand the scope of speeches that could be condemned by law. Besides the existing mention of incitement to terrorism, it inserted incitement to violence and expanded the realm of circumstances under which the law could be applied.14 After having failed to pass through the Knesset three consecutive times in slightly different

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forms (amendments 58 and 63 of the Penal Law), the government15 introduced a new version, which was passed in 2002 with 55 in favour and 36 against it. The final version of the law states that: Any person who publishes either a call to commit a violent act or an act of terrorism, or praises, supports or encourages violent acts or terrorism and if according to its contents and the circumstances in which it was published there is a real possibility that it will lead to a violent act or terrorism, the person shall be liable of imprisonment of five years. (Penal Law, Article 144 D2) Very strong exchanges took place during the debates over the law, especially between the group introducing the law and Palestinian MKs. Three different narratives entailing three different freedom of expression–security nexus emerged at this occasion. This section presents and contrasts these concurrent narratives and their discursive effects on the shape of the regime. Defensive democracy and the balance metaphor The first narrative came from centre-left, centre-right, nationalist, religious and secular parties of the government. Mobilised by a large variety of MKs championing the amendment of the Penal Law, this narrative was the dominant framework of interpretation of the law in the Knesset. Similarly to 1985, this narrative was structured along the notion of existential threat and defensive democracy. However, instead of beginning with the topic of democracy, the narrative opened directly with the topics of insecurity and threat. Introducing the law in the plenum, the Minister of Justice stated: The basic assumption that underlies the proposition before us is that incitement to violence and terrorism is an unacceptable and dangerous behaviour. Unacceptable because it expresses a contempt for the basic social values of human life and integrity; dangerous because, as experience teaches us, incitement to terrorism, when it takes place at the right time, with the right audience, can lead to a bloodbath. (Minister of Justice Sheetrit, Likud, parliamentary debate on the Penal Law, amendment 66, 11 March 2002) Echoing the context of the second intifada, the narrative opens with a very concrete threat weighing on human lives. More specifically, in the first sequence of this narrative, speakers frame expression and incitement as a dangerous behaviour, potentially leading to horrendous phenomena such as “bloodbath[s]” (Minister of Justice Sheetrit, Likud, parliamentary debate on the Penal Law, amendment 66, 11 March 2002), “bloodshed” (Minister of Justice Beilin, Labour, parliamentary debate on the Penal Law, amendment 58, 19 February 2001) or the destruction of “human lives” (MK Pines-Paz, Labour, Penal Law,

Freedom of expression as a threat 53 amendment 63, second and third readings, 25 June 2001; Minister of Justice Sheetrit, parliamentary debate on the Penal Law, amendment 66, 11 March 2002). It is in the second sequence of the story that the danger stemming from “incitement” was connected to the topic of freedom and democracy. This connection was explained by the President of the Internal Affairs and Environment Committee in the following way: I am aware that this kind of bill limits the principle of freedom of expression, which is a very, very important principle of Israeli democracy, and is a very, very important principle to me [. . . .] Freedom of expression is important for everyone, almost sacred to me, but human lives are no less important, even more, and it will be remembered. (MK Pines-Paz, parliamentary debate on the Penal Law, amendment 63, 25 June 2001) Freedom of speech is articulated in two ways in this excerpt. On the one hand, it is presented as a core principle of democracy. On the other hand, as in 1985 it is even more explicitly framed as a potential danger in opposition to another core principle of the regime: survival. The logical consequence of this articulation leads the speakers to demand that freedom of speech – though a fundamental principle of democracy – be balanced by the policy makers in the following way: We, as a society, as a parliament, as a legislature, we have to see that there is a value which is dear and important to all of us, and which is likely to endanger another value, no less important: the right to physical integrity and to life. (MK Pines-Paz, parliamentary debate on the Penal Law, amendment 66, 6 May 2002) The “balance” metaphor is mobilised in an almost identical fashion as in Kol Ha’am. Here, too, while freedom of speech is a basic democratic right, it can clash with and must thus be weighed against “various competing interests in the balance” (High Court of Justice 73/53), including in particular the right to life. As one MK asserted, such balance is the only way to protect the regime from extinction and is in fact part of the regime’s right: The state of Israel is allowed to defend itself as a democracy because there are people who want to overthrow the democratic regime or to act against the state or against the state’s segments. This is the right of a democracy; it can defend itself, even if sometimes it is possible that it limits individual liberties or human dignity and liberty. But it is part of the balance between values. (MK Langenthal, NRP, parliamentary debate on the Penal Law, amendment 63, 9 July 2001)

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Besides the fact that it reinforces the notion of a clash between security and rights, inserting the balance metaphor at the core of the defensive regime generates two significant consequences. First, it makes life the primary “basic right” which the regime must protect. Protecting democracy, the state and the citizens is not only one of the “values” of the democratic regime but is, in fact, its first raison d’être. As in Locke’s and Rousseau’s reasoning, the sacrifice of the regime is thus justified by what appears to be the most fundamental principles of the regime: the will that the state and the community do not perish. In the name of this objective, the regime can limit rights and in fact its own essence. Second, the balance metaphor also inserts the limitation of rights into the core of democratic functioning. Indeed, the limitation of rights is only the result of the “balance between values” that the regular democratic regime is asked to strike. As such, this limitation is not in contradiction with democracy but rather part of it. While the notion of a balance between right and security implies the suspension of such rights for all citizens, a last sequence of the narrative makes clear that, for some of the speakers, this is not truly what is at play. Echoing MK Eytan’s words in 1985, it is here similarly argued that, “[W]e are a democracy and a defensive democracy against those who want to use the tools of democracy against democracy and the citizens of the state” (MK Pines-Paz, parliamentary debate on the Penal Law, amendment 66, 11 March 2002). Accordingly, democracy and its limited defensive version are two different sides of the same regime: democracy is an ensemble of rights ruling most citizens while, for those “who use the tools of democracy” against the state, a defensive democracy is called on to limit rights. The examination of the dominant narrative suggests that beyond the image of the balance thus lies a more nuanced and complex reality: the exclusion of certain citizens from the circle of rights to the profit of the majority’s security. If we compare this narrative to the one deployed in 1985, we observe a slight shift in the construction of defensive democracy. In contrast with 1985, during which defending democracy both meant defending the equality of citizens and the survival of the nation-state, here democracy solely defends the survival of the state and its citizens. Moreover, the limitation of democracy, already present in 1985, is here further integrated into the regime. The limitation of rights through the “balance” is anchored in the very functioning of democracy, whose role is to weigh conflicting interests. Finally, prolonging the discursive articulations of MK Eytan in 1985, the present narrative subtly introduces a distinction between the citizens enjoying democratic rights and the suspicious ones who defensive democracy should reject from the circle of rights. Adhering to defensive democracy, reshifting the balance Against the dominant narrative, one of the counter-narratives opposing the amendment of the Penal Law came from a peculiar coalition of actors made up of the far-left party Meretz and the ultra-orthodox party Shas. This discourse coalition is peculiar as Shas and Meretz usually express divergent conceptions of

Freedom of expression as a threat 55 both the regime and security. The fact that the law could be used against radical speeches expressed by religious leaders is not unrelated to the ultra-orthodox party’s involvement in this discourse coalition.16 The narrative developed by this group opened in a similar way as the dominant narrative, i.e. with the acknowledgement of the link between freedom of speech and insecurity: In this proposition, we are asked to introduce a very grave issue in the legislation whose objective is to protect the security of the state of Israel. In my opinion, this proposition limits freedom of expression, and not only freedom of expression, but the law could allow for a witch hunt. (MK Zeev, Shas, parliamentary debate on the Penal Law, amendment 66, 11 March 2002) In this first sequence of the narrative, the speaker articulates freedom of expression as a potential source of insecurity. Similar to the dominant narrative, the recognition that freedom of expression might be in tension with security also leads to the conclusion that certain limitations could be necessary. However, at the same time, this narrative introduces a nuance into this acknowledgement, arguing that one can “limit freedom of expression only when freedom can really be fatal” (MK Galon, Meretz, parliamentary debate on the Penal Law, amendment 66, 6 May 2002). Reappropriating the metaphor of balance and the defensive democracy notion, this nuance is conceived as follows: I do not think that anyone in this room is not in favour of freedom of expression, and I do not believe that anyone in the Knesset or in the country does not consider that democracy needs to defend itself. Hence, the question is that of the dose and the balance. (MK Maor, Meretz, parliamentary debate on the Penal Law, amendment 66, 11 March 2002) Whereas the dominant narrative ended with the necessity to strike a balance in favour of “the right to human life”, this one ends with the opposite conclusion: There is no doubt that we are facing a problem: there is here a conundrum between the will to conserve freedom of expression in a democratic state and the will to protect security of the state and of the people. There is a contradiction, and there is no doubt that the one who is concerned with freedom of expression, which is the soul of democracy, must object to this law. (MK Tal, Shas, parliamentary debate on the Penal Law, amendment 66, 11 March 2002) In contrast to the dominant narrative which turned the limitation of freedoms into democratic mechanism, the balance which is reached in this narrative creates an opposite result: if the “soul of democracy” is freedom of expression,

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the only balance which can allow democracy to survive is one in favour of this freedom. By concluding in this way, the counter-narrative significantly transformed not just the relation between freedom, security and democracy, but also the overall meaning of the regime as freedom, rather than survival, becomes the ultimate foundation of democracy. Nevertheless, at the same time the narrative strikingly draws on and reproduces the binary reasoning put forward by the dominant story. Indeed, here too freedom of expression is painted as potentially dangerous, as an obstacle to security thus opposed to survival. In that sense, this counter-narrative, while contesting the security tool, does not enable the narration of an alternative story. Democracy as equality of rights The last narrative emanated from members of Palestinian and anti-Zionist parties on the left. Although this group opposed the amendment and mobilised the topic of freedom and democracy in ways similar to the narrative of balance discussed above, this one more seriously challenged the main dominant discursive constructions. In contrast to the two previous narratives, this narrative indeed completely denied the link between freedom of speech and danger. Among others, one of the speakers of this group, for instance, claimed to the plenum that, “praise and solidarity with political groups [. . .] is a legitimate struggle [. . .]; it does not jeopardise the foundations of democracy” (MK Bishara, Balad, parliamentary debate on the Penal Law, amendment 58, 19 February 2001). In a second sequence, the construction of the source of danger by the dominant narrative was dismantled and replaced by another source of threat. Instead of freedom of expression, the law itself became the element jeopardising democracy, one MK arguing for instance that: This law is the exact antithesis of liberal democracy. After all, one of the basic rights of democracy is freedom of expression. Here, the government puts pressure with the Ministers, with the Cabinet secretary, with the Attorney General to pass an anti-minority law. The majority has become destructive, nationalist, anti-Arab. (MK Tibi, Balad, parliamentary debate on the Penal Law, amendment 66, 6 May 2002) Similar to one of the counter-narratives deployed in 1985, this sequence of the narrative paints the law as an anti-minority and discriminatory instrument whose target would solely be the Palestinian population. By limiting the basic right of a targeted population, the Palestinian minority, the law is thus constructed in opposition to the spirit of democracy and labelled as the “antithesis of liberal democracy”. Therefore, the defensive democracy framework used by dominant speakers to justify the law is challenged altogether by the MKs who assert that, “On behalf of defensive democracy, we shut mouths” (MK Dahamshe, Ra’am, parliamentary debate on the Penal Law, amendment 66, 6 May 2002).

Freedom of expression as a threat 57 Focused on the anti-democratic curtailment of rights (of the Palestinian minority), this narrative thus unpacks most of the dominant narrative’s central discursive categories. First, similar to the previous counter-narrative, this narrative re-establishes democracy’s purpose as the creation of a regime of freedom, rather than as the protection of security. Second, and in contrast to the previous two narratives, this group of speakers de-securitises freedom of speech by deconstructing the equation of freedom of expression with security threats. Third, and consequently, this narrative dismantles the possible tension between freedom of speech and security and the alleged necessity to strike a new “balance” in times of danger. As the next sections show, this narrative would gain force in the following debates and would impose itself as the main counter-narrative in the parliament.

The state against “parliamentary terrorism”17 and new elections rules Concurrent with the amendment of the Penal Law, the Knesset passed another law aimed at limiting support of terrorism, this time from within the Knesset itself. The law, which was passed in May 2002, more specifically added support for armed struggle and terrorism as additional grounds for disqualification from the Knesset elections (Basic Law: The Knesset 2002). Not only a whole list but specific members of a list could be disqualified for his or her support of terrorism. The bill was first introduced by MK Israel Katz from the Likud party at the end of October 2000, a few weeks after the launching of the second intifada and the “October events” in which 12 Palestinian citizens were killed by the IDF in violent clashes between demonstrators and the army18 (Peled 2005). After a preliminary reading, the government endorsed the bill and introduced a similar text, which was passed with 76 votes and states:19 A candidates list shall not participate in elections to the Knesset, and a person shall not be a candidate for election to the Knesset, if the goals or actions of the list or the actions of the person, expressly or by implication, include one of the following: 1 2 3

Negation of the existence of the state of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state;20 Incitement to racism; Support for the armed struggle of a hostile state or of a terrorist organisation against the state of Israel. (Basic Law: The Knesset 2002, Article 7(a))21

Two competing narratives emerged from discussions about this amendment. The first and dominant narrative was underpinned by the notion of a tension between security and rights, and rallied around the statement already expressed, that “defensive democracy must limit itself to survive”. The second narrative was in line with the second counter-narrative presented above and framed the limitation

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of rights as a threat to democracy. As this section shows, this narrative competition reinforced most of the discursive categories present in the previous debates. Defensive democracy and the exclusion of dangerous citizens The first and dominant narrative was elaborated by representatives of the centreleft, right-wing, religious and ultra-nationalist parties. The ultra-orthodox party Shas, that had countered the law on incitement to terrorism, was this time part of the dominant discourse coalition in favour of the measure. This narrative revolved mostly around the topic of security and was structured, once more, along the notion of defensive democracy. Similar to the previous debates, this narrative started with the topics of security and threat, which were presented as the core rationale for passing the amendment. The bill for instance stated that the law was the answer to the radicalisation of a part of the political leadership among Arabs of Israel, and of parliament members that incite to rebellion against the state of Israel and against Jews and that express support to terrorist movements. (Bill p/2262 to amend the Basic Law: The Knesset 2000) Even more explicitly than in the previous debates, the narrative here opens by establishing a direct connection between freedom of expression of certain citizens and the danger that the citizens and the state are facing. Freedom of expression is framed as a potential security threat, as a “danger against the existence of Israel” (MK Zeev, parliamentary debate on the Basic Law: The Knesset, 15 May 2002), while it is said that, “Words kill, words encourage murder” (MK Orlev, NRP, parliamentary debate on the Basic Law: The Knesset, 5 November 2001). It is against the backdrop of this tense insecurity context that democracy appears in a second sequence of this narrative. More specifically, democracy appears simultaneously as the source of danger, as a weak victim of those who want to exploit it, and as an agent able to “rise to their feet, stand up, join their hands, gather all forces and fight their enemies, and successfully” (Minister of Justice Sheetrit, parliamentary debate on the Basic Law: The Knesset, 7 November 2001). Indeed, as in the previous dominant narrative, this vulnerable democracy can overcome its weakness by becoming defensive. As one of the speakers put it: [Israeli democracy] has imposed many limitations on itself, and it has been characterised in the constitutional law as a defensive democracy [. . .] that means that even a democracy can set democratic rules so that it will be able to defend itself from people who seek to undermine the very existence of democracy within that country. The comparison we always made was with the Nazi regime which came to power by democratic means. (MK Langenthal, parliamentary debate on the Basic Law: The Knesset, 5 November 2001)

Freedom of expression as a threat 59 In the name of security, Israel is thus once again asked to impose limitations on itself. As underlined by many speakers, this is not the first time that Israel has done so. Indeed, in contrast to “[t]he United States [which is fighting] today in another part of the world [. . . .] [w]e have been engaged in this fight since the beginning of our existence” (Minister of Justice Sheetrit, parliamentary debate on the Basic Law: The Knesset, 7 November 2001). The perpetual fight against existential threats in which Israel has been engaged has led to repeated limitations of political participation and to the alteration of its regime. Indeed, it is argued that: if we were a normal state, like all other states in the world all Israeli citizens, all citizens of that state, would be able to freely elect their representatives in the parliament, and we would say “the public will judge”, we should not make any rules. But this is not exactly what the state of Israel has gone through until now. (MK Langenthal, parliamentary debate on the Basic Law: The Knesset, 5 November 2001) Because of the constant threats that it faces, Israel has been pushed to fully integrate the limitation of rights into its regime. These limitations imposed in the name of democracy, the state and the citizens’ right to survive have progressively become part of the “democratic rules” of the Israeli regime, of its normal functioning. In the last sequence of this narrative, the speakers define, more specifically, what these limitations that “democracy has imposed on itself ” mean practically. Even more clearly than in the previous debates, these limitations imply a distinction between different categories of citizens justified on the basis that: There is no doubt that there cannot be a situation in which Knesset members identify with the enemies of Israel, call for continuing the war against Israel and remain members of Knesset and get their salary [. . .] members of parliament need to know exactly where they stand. (Minister of Justice Sheetrit, parliamentary debate on the Basic Law: The Knesset, 5 November 2001) Concluding this narrative, the Minister of Justice calls on defensive democracy to distinguish between safe and dangerous freedom of expression and between safe and dangerous speakers. Resorting to a similar language as in 1985, it is claimed that those who have proven “loyalty to the state of Israel as a Jewish state” (MK Eytan, parliamentary debate on the Basic Law: The Knesset, 5 November 2001) can continue to enjoy the full array of democratic rights, while the unfaithful citizens are rejected from this circle of rights for “it is the limit that exists, that people who support actions against their state, against the citizens of their state, cannot sit here in the Knesset” (MK Israel Katz, Likud, parliamentary debate on the Basic Law: The Knesset, 5 November 2001).

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As in the previous debates, this defensive democracy narrative has important discursive consequences on the meaning of the democratic regime. First, the construction of a clash between rights and survival justifies the “democratic” limitation of core basic rights because “democracy [needs] to defend itself against itself ” (Minister of Justice Sheetrit, parliamentary debate on the Basic Law: The Knesset, 15 May 2002). Second, defending “democracy” once again means something quite different from the protection of democratic principles. What is at stake in defending democracy is indeed the defence of “the state of Israel”, “the Jews” and “the Jewish state”, hence blurring the lines between democracy, the state and the nation-state. Third, by articulating the instruments of defensive democracy, the narrators also reshape the boundaries of the regime. Even more than in 1985 and in the previous 2002 discussions, the boundaries of democracy distinguish between loyal and disloyal citizens, and are used to exclude allegedly dangerous citizens from the circles of rights. Democracy as protection of rights Against defensive democracy, a counter-narrative opposing the law emerged among MKs who had previously developed two distinct competing narratives. This narrative specifically came from the Zionist left party Meretz, one member of the Labour party, and MKs of Palestinian parties. The first sequence of this narrative focused on the topics of democracy and liberty. In response to the defensive democracy argument, one MK indeed stated that: Obviously a democracy must defend itself [. . . .] Democracy should not commit suicide. I think that the power and strength of democracy is that it allows the possibility of expression, if this expression is not jarring. The right to vote is part of the right of freedom of expression. (MK Galon, parliamentary debate on the Basic Law: The Knesset, 15 May 2002) In the first sequence of this narrative, the right to take part in elections is directly connected with freedom of expression, itself presented as the essence of democracy. In this perspective, the limitation imposed by the law on the right to take part in elections is unjustifiable and equated with the end of the democratic regime because, as most MKs of this group argue, such a measure “hurts all the foundations of democracy [. . .] threatens democracy with erosion” (MK Maor, parliamentary debate on the Basic Law: The Knesset, 15 May 2002). As in the dominant narrative, democracy here appears as an object under threat. Yet in contrast to the dominant narrative, the source of the threat does not emanate from citizens abusing their freedom of expression to hurt democracy, but rather from the curtailment of basic rights which are “really the destruction of the Israeli democracy because it expropriates from the right to introduce a different opinion, different from the consensus” (MK Elsana, Ra’am, parliamentary debate on the Basic Law: The Knesset, 5 November, 2001).

Freedom of expression as a threat 61 The conclusion of this narrative summarises the central elements of this story and reiterates its opposition to the dominant narrative, claiming that: I think that democracy must defend itself, but it must defend itself from those kinds of propositions. It is also a way to ruin democracy [. . . .] We say defensive democracy. From whom does it defend itself? Can an Arab deputy jeopardise this state? In reality, the fact that we are here and express our different opinions is the mark of democracy. [. . .] If there was not freedom of expression, what would remain of democracy? (MK Dahamshe, parliamentary debate on the Basic Law: The Knesset, 15 May 2002) Instead of calling for the protection of democracy from an enemy exploiting one of its attributes, specifically freedom of expression, defending democracy here entails the protection of democracy’s own attributes, i.e. basic rights and liberties. In this perspective, the objective and raison d’être of democracy remains untouched all over the narrative and independent of the insecurity context. The 2003 elections and the defence of democracy in the Supreme Court One year after the adoption of the new amendment further limiting election eligibility and participation, the CEC attempted to disqualify two Palestinian political lists, Balad and Ra’am, as well as two of their members, MK Bishara and MK Tibi. The argument on which the CEC based its decisions was twofold. First, members of the committee underlined the potential threat posed by the lists due to their alleged support of terrorist movements. Second, proponents of the disqualification claimed that the Palestinian lists’ demand to turn Israel into “a state of all its citizens” was a way to deny the Jewish character of the state of Israel, and was consequently in contradiction with Article 7(a) of the Basic Law: The Knesset (Pedahzur 2004, 92). Soon after, the Supreme Court ruled against the disqualification in a panel of 11 justices. Several of the justices invoked the notion of defensive democracy and the necessity of occasional limits on democracy in order to face certain threats. Against this backdrop, four justices claimed that the lists and their candidates did, in fact, represent a threat because of their support for armed struggles against the state of Israel. The majority of the justices, however, cast doubts about the potential threats created by these lists and consequently cancelled the CEC decision (Election Confirmation 1128/02; Election Appeal 131/03; Election Confirmation 50/03). Although it overruled the CEC decision, the court’s decision to allow the political parties to compete for election left intact core elements of the dominant political narrative. These elements included: the representation of freedom of speech as a potential danger; the tension between security and freedom of speech; and the acknowledgement of the need to act defensively by limiting rights. As Chapter 4 will show, the connection between democracy, security and

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the need to prevent parties from being represented, shaped on the occasion of the amendment of the Basic Law: The Knesset (2002) and partly reproduced by the Supreme Court, would re-emerge in slightly different forms after the end of the intifada.

Conclusion Freedom of speech and freedom of association have never been explicitly protected by Israeli legislation; it is the Supreme Court that originally defined these rights in two landmark rulings in 1953 (Kol Ha’am) and 1965 (Yeredor). The first ruling defined freedom of expression as a fundamental right at the same time as allowing its limitation in order to protect other “interests”. The second ruling, borrowing the notion of militant democracy from the German Constitutional Court and renaming it defensive democracy, conceived freedom of expression, freedom of association and freedom of representation as basic rights, but also as potential weapons at the disposal of enemies of the regime. When in 1985 the Knesset amended Article 7(a) of the Basic Law: The Knesset to limit farright and far-left political parties, the dominant discourse coalition supporting the law incorporated most of these elements into its narrative. Fifteen years later, in the context of the second intifada, defensive democracy appeared again as the main framework of interpretation of two laws passed in order to regulate freedom of expression. The imposition of the “defensive democracy” narrative in the parliament had significant discursive effects on the way security measures have been envisaged. First, all over the debates, the dominant narrative articulated the limitation of rights as a necessary measure due to the circumstances, but also as a democratic mechanism. By associating rights with the source of the existential threat threatening the regime, by making them an obstacle to security, the narrative necessarily concluded that their limitation was the only way to “defend democracy”. Democracy and the democratic “right to life” required that democracy limit itself to protect itself. Second, while democracy was defined as a regime of rights and freedom in each dominant narrative, the context of insecurity systematically turned democracy into a regime in which survival, rather than the protection of rights, was the utmost objective. More specifically, when said to defend “itself ”, the narrative made clear that democracy’s first goal was in fact survival of the (Jewish) state and of the (Jewish) citizens, hence blurring the distinction between democracy and the (nation-)state. Finally, at the same time as the narrative modified the raison d’être of democracy, it also modified the boundaries of the regime. In 1985, defensive democracy was asked to limit itself and the whole regime in order for the regime to survive. In 2002, the limitation of democracy in addition meant the denial of the rights of specific allegedly dangerous citizens. From a democracy defending itself by limiting itself, defensive democracy was thus ultimately turned into a regime “able to fight” and to sort out what was “dangerous” and what was “harmless”, who was worthy and who was unworthy to enjoy democratic rights.

Freedom of expression as a threat 63 Against this dominant narrative, several narratives envisaged both the source of danger and the referent object of threat in different fashions. Among them, a counter-narrative, systematically marginal, contested the construction of a tension between democratic principles and the survival of the citizens and the (Jewish) state. It dismantled the construction of freedoms as a threat and instead presented the curtailment of basic democratic rights as the real danger. The law and the limitation of rights, rather than the utilisation of a basic right like freedom of speech, were, accordingly, the most imminent dangers weighing on democracy. By competing over the framing of the links between insecurity and freedom of speech, the counter-narrative thus also shaped the regime in a very different way. Democracy was conferred an unalterable meaning in which the curtailment of one single basic right in fact meant the destruction of the entire edifice. Chapter 4 explores how the discursive articulations of freedom, democracy and threat have developed after the end of the second intifada. It investigates the continuity and changes in the discursive constructions and the impact they have had on the boundaries of the democratic regime. Among other things, the chapter will show that the narrative of defensive democracy has remained dominant after 2006. It also displays how the process of differentiation among the citizenry and of exclusion from the circle of rights has been reinforced to become the central tenet of defensive democracy.

Notes 1 The German Basic Law provides that a party may be disqualified if it seeks to “impair or destroy the free democratic basic order or to endanger the existence of the Federal Republic of Germany” (Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany 1949, Article 21.2). On this basis, the German Federal Court banned a Nazi and a communist party in the 1950s. In Spain, the radical Basque party Batasuna was dissolved in 2003 on the basis that it supported terrorism. See Mersel (2006) and Niesen (2003). 2 The 1995 Australian law specifies that a group can be considered terrorist if it “advoc ates the doing of a terrorist act (whether or not a terrorist act has occurred or will occur)” (Australian Criminal Code, Section 102, 1(A)) (Roach 2011). The 2006 British Terrorism Act, amended after the 2005 London bomb attacks, prohibits “indi rect encouragement or other inducement to them to the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism or Convention offences” (British Terrorism Act 2006, Encouragement to Terrorism section). At the European level, the EU Framework Decision on combating terrorism (first passed in 2002) encourages the prevention of terrorism “through reducing the dissemination of those materials which might incite persons to commit terrorist attacks” (Council Framework Decision 2008/919/JHA) (Galli and Weyembergh 2012). In the United States, criminal proceedings for advo cacy performed in co ordination with or at the direction of a foreign terrorist organ isation has been deemed constitutional by the Supreme Court in 2010 (Barak Erez and Scharia 2011). 3 The CEC comprises MKs and is chaired by a Supreme Court’s Justice. 4 The notion of “militant democracy” was first introduced by the German sociologist Loewenstein to refer to the mechanisms that democracies in Europe should adopt to combat fascism and extreme left parties. The institutional instruments promoted by Loewenstein included laws that banned, disqualified or sought to control “subversive

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8 9 10

11 12

Freedom of expression as a threat movements” from the far left and far right (Loewenstein 1938). After the Second World War, the principles of militant democracy were transcribed into the German Basic Law of 1949 and the concept was later explicitly referred to by the German Constitutional Court. While several translations of the Supreme Court’s Yeredor ruling use the notion of “self defending democracy”, more recent studies of demokratia mitgonenet have translated the phrase as “defensive democracy”, which is the term used in this book. On the expansion of the concept of militant democracy by the Israeli court, see Klein (1985). It must be emphasised that the German doctrine also broadened the notion of militant democracy over the years (Thiel 2009, 112 113). The image of the constitution committing suicide is borrowed from American political and legal discourse. It was, allegedly, first utilised by Abraham Lincoln during the Amer ican Civil War. It was later made famous by Justice Jackson in his dissenting opinion in a Supreme Court case concerning freedom of speech (Terminiello v. Chicago 1949). At the same time, the Knesset amended the Elections Law (Consolidated Version) and the Law of Association, while the Penal Law was amended so as to make “incite ment to racism” a criminal offence. The government coalition was then composed of the Likud, Alignment, Shinui, the National Religious Party, Agudat Israel and Shas. The case of Moledet, a far right wing party, was also intensely discussed for its racist declarations. The CEC, however, allowed the party to take part in the elec tions on the grounds that its platform did not focus on the Palestinian citizens of Israel per se. The party, however, disappeared from the political map after the electoral threshold was raised to 2 per cent in 1992. In 1990, Meir Kahane was murdered in New York. Two political movements fol lowed his footsteps, which were both excluded from the 1992 Knesset elections by the CEC. The same year, the Parties Law voted on in 1992 reproduced the wording of the Basic Law: Knesset, stating that: [A] party will not be registered if its goals or actions include, explicitly or implic itly, one of the following: 1 Negation of the state of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state; 2 Incitement to racism; 3 Reasonable grounds for the inference that the party is going to be used as a front for illegal activities. (Party Law 1992, Article 5)

13 The speeches made by MK Bishara in 2000 and 2001 in which he praised resistance to Israel and expressed support for Hezbollah were indeed of particular concern. Con sidered as support for terrorism, these speeches led to MK Bishara’s indictment under the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance. 14 While the catalyst that facilitated the passing of the amendment in 2002 was without question the second intifada and the Bishara case, the amendment to the Penal Law was already on track long before. Two important events preceding the intifada had led to the first formulation of this amendment and to its discussion in the parliament. The first was the assassination of Prime Minister Rabin by religious extremist Ygal Amir in 1995. The murder had followed a series of protests against Prime Minister Rabin, organised by radical rabbis, during which religious leaders issued death threats. The second key event was the 2000 Supreme Court’s ruling on the Jabarin case. This ruling concerned the appeal of a Palestinian Israeli journalist prosecuted on the basis of the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance for having praised violence in one of his articles during the first intifada (Shinar 2001, 155). Analysing the case, the court con cluded that, since Jabarin’s speech was not connected with the activity of a terrorist

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15

16 17 18 19

20

21

organisation, Jabarin should be acquitted. The ruling pushed the government to intro duce a law in order to fill what was seen as a legal vacuum. The government was composed of the Likud, the ultra nationalist National Union Israel Beiteinu, which supported the law, the centre left party Labour, which was split but eventually supported the law, the ultra orthodox list Shas, which opposed the bill, Israel Be’alyah, the Centre Party, Gesher and UTJ, which remained silent during the debates. As mentioned in note 15, the law was first introduced after Rabin’s assassination in the context of violent speeches against his person. MK Zeev, Shas, parliamentary debate on the Law on Immunity, 22 July 2002. The “October events” refers to a series of demonstrations in which Palestinian citizens denounced their status in the state of Israel and/or gave support to the intifada. In 2002, the Knesset also modified the Law on Immunity in a similar direction. The law now states that an MK’s immunity can be lifted if the MK, “denies the existence of Israel as a Jewish state”, “denies democracy”, “incites to racism because of colour, race, ethnicity or religious belief ” or “supports the armed struggle of an enemy state or terrorist acts against the state of Israel or against Jews or Arabs because they are Jews or Arabs, within or outside of Israel” (Law on Immunity 2005). The 2002 Article 7(a) fused the Jewish state criterion and the democratic criterion (becoming “Jewish and democratic”) in order to reproduce the wording of the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty, and the Basic Law: Freedom of Occupation voted in 1992. The amendment of the Basic Law: The Knesset was voted on together with the amendment of the Party Law (amendment 13) and of the Law on the Elections of the Knesset (amendment 46), which thus integrate this article as well.

4

Defining the enemy and the borders of loyalty

In Chapter 3, I explored how freedom of expression was articulated with (in)security during the second intifada. I showed that concerns about the support of terrorism were accompanied by the construction of freedom of expression as a source of existential threat, which had, in turn, legitimised the limitation of this freedom in order to “defend democracy”. While the number of terrorist attacks declined after the end of the second intifada, the second Lebanon war and what would be called the “Bishara affair” (covered later in this chapter) generated increased attention to both contacts with enemies and the identification of Israeli citizens with them. In political discourse, the post-Lebanon war period was indeed marked by the rearticulation of the security–democracy nexus in two fundamental ways. First, the category of “enemy” was expanded so as to include the notion of “contacts” with the enemy. Second, post-Lebanon war discourses were characterised by the structuration and institutionalisation of the notions of loyalty and worthiness already present to some extent in 2002. This chapter investigates these discursive developments. It does so by examining three series of consecutive debates held after 2006 on three distinct security measures. The first one is an amendment of the Basic Law: The Knesset (2008), which added illegal visits to an enemy state as a new criterion for the disqualification of a party or a party candidate from the elections. The second one is the 2008 amendment of the Citizenship Law, which states that citizenship can be revoked in cases of a “breach of trust”. The last debates to be discussed occurred when the Knesset decided to withdraw MK Zoabi’s parliamentary privileges because of her participation in the Marmara flotilla (outlined later) in 2010. On the basis of these discussions, I ask: how were the categories of “enemy” and “contact with the enemy” originally framed? How were they contested and supported? How were these categories connected to democracy, and what were the effects of the competing narratives on the meaning and boundaries of the democratic regime? The analysis suggests that the dominant narrative framing the contact with the enemy–democracy nexus has considerably reshaped the polity in two ways. First, the increasing mobilisation of the requisite of “loyalty” strengthened the mechanisms of exclusion present in defensive democracy. Second, these exclusionary features were incorporated into democracy itself, further reshaping the boundaries of the democratic regime.

Defining the enemy and borders of loyalty 67 As noted, this chapter presents the dominant narrative and those contesting it accordingly: it starts with the debates that took place on the Basic Law: The Knesset (2008), continues with the debates on the Citizenship Law amendment (2008), and ends with the discussions on the withdrawal of MK Zoabi’s parliamentary privileges (2010). Before doing so, the chapter introduces the notion of contacts with the enemy in two steps. First, it displays how the categories of “enemy” and “contacts with the enemy” have been institutionalised in legal discourse. Second, because of its significance in articulating the contacts with the enemy–democracy nexus, the chapter offers an analysis of the debates that took place on a 1986 amendment which criminalised Israeli citizens making contact with members of terrorist organisations. The chapter will show how the discursive practices institutionalised in 1986 re-emerged in a very different context after the 2006 Lebanon war.

The enemy and contacting the enemy in Israeli legal discourse References to the category of “enemy” are abundant in Israel. It appears in all kinds of arenas: in military speeches, in the media, in street debates and in the Knesset. In legal discourse, it is probably in the Penal Law that the definition of “enemy” is most detailed. According to the code, the “enemy” is defined as anyone who is a belligerent, maintains a state of war against Israel or declares himself one of those, whether or not a war was declared and whether or not armed hostilities are in progress, and [is] also a terrorist organisation. (Penal Law 1977, Article 1, 91) In that sense, the enemy may refer to two different types of actors according to the law. First, the enemy can be a country, an “enemy state” that “maintains a state of war against Israel” (Penal Law 1977, Article 1, 91). Although the Penal Law does not give a list of the states classified as enemies, the notion of “enemy states” has often been used to refer to the states mentioned in the Prevention of Infiltration Law, which originally included Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Trans-Jordan, Iraq and the Yemen (Prevention of Infiltration Law 1954). Since 2008, the Citizenship Law refers to: Afghanistan, Lebanon, Libya, Sudan, Syria, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen and the Gaza Strip. Second, according to the Penal Law, the enemy may also be a “terrorist” or a “terrorist organisation”, itself defined by the Penal Law as “an organisation, the objectives or activities of which aim at the destruction of the state, at damaging its security or the security of its inhabitants or of Jews in other countries” (Penal Law 1977, Article 91). In addition to defining the “enemy”, Israeli legislation has integrated clauses aimed at dealing with the potential interactions between Israeli citizens and these hostile entities or persons. The Prevention of Infiltration Law, for instance,

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explicates that entering the state of Israel is a punishable crime for any citizen or resident of one of the enemy states (Prevention of Infiltrations Law 1954). Besides, the original version of the Citizenship Law (1952, Article 11) specified that if a citizen “has committed an act of disloyalty towards the state of Israel, a District Court may, upon the application of the Minister of the Interior, revoke such person’s citizenship”. Moreover, in 1980, this article was amended in order to provide that: [a] citizen who enters in an illegal state according to section 2 (a) of the Prevention of Infiltration Law or is granted the citizenship of such a state, will be regarded as having renounced to the Israeli citizenship and will lose its citizenship from that day on. (Citizenship Law 1980, Article 11(a)) This article was further modified in 2008 and 2011, as is discussed later in this chapter. Besides the punishment for contacts with enemy states, the Penal Law has also long criminalised relations with terrorist organisations. Indeed, in addition to delivering information to enemy and passing secrets to the enemy (Penal Law 1977, Articles 112 and 113), the Penal Law criminalises contacts with “foreign agents”. Except if the person in contact with the foreign agent did not intend to injure national security, establishing or maintaining contacts with a foreign agent with no reasonable explanation is liable to 15 years imprisonment. The foreign agent is himself defined as: [a] person who on reasonable grounds may be suspected to have acted or to have been sent to act on behalf of or for a foreign state or a terrorist organisation [. . .] to [intentionally] injure the security of the state of Israel. (Penal Law 1977, Article 114) Two additional legal clauses have further expanded the criminalisation of contacts with terrorist organisations. In 1980, the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance was amended to include “any act manifesting identification or sympathy with a terrorist organisation” as an act liable of three years of imprisonment.1 Six years later, the article was altered in order to include contacts with foreign agents in the definition of “support to terrorist organisation[s]” (Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance 1986, Article 7). This amendment would be repealed in 1993. Before turning to the post-2006 discourse on the enemy–democracy nexus, the next section explores the discursive struggle that occurred over the passing of this amendment which represented a significant step in the definition of the enemy and in the formulation of a democracy–enemy nexus. Not only did it enlarge the definition of support to terrorism to contacts with foreign agents while aiming at fighting against external terrorist organisations, but this law directly touched upon the definition of Israeli citizens’ rights and freedom in the regime (Keren 1999).

Defining the enemy and borders of loyalty 69

Breaking the link with the enemy: the 1986 amendment The passing of the 1986 amendment of the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance took place in a particular context connected with the development of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation. At the end of the 1960s, the organisation adopted a more radical approach to its fight against Israel2 (Sahliyeh 1997, 14). Terrorist attacks on Israeli citizens outside the country and incursions of fedayeen from South Lebanon – where the PLO was established since the early 1970s – increased in these years. As of the mid-1970s, however, a segment of PLO representatives manifested openness to unofficial discussions with the Israeli leadership. Encounters between members of the PLO and Israelis, including leftwing politicians from the opposition, started taking place (Keren 1999; Navon 2004). At an official level, until Rabin’s government established in 1992, the consecutive Likud-led (1977–1984 and 1990–1992) and national unity (1984–1990) governments alike rejected any direct relations with the PLO, labelled by Prime Minister Begin as “the blackest organisation other than the Nazi murder organisations” (Begin speech 1978, following the hijacking of a bus by the PLO that made 37 casualties). The successive governments therefore also condemned unofficial encounters between Israelis and PLO officials. Four years after the Lebanon war against PLO bases, the government introduced an amendment to the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance with the purpose of breaking these contacts. The amendment expanded the definition of support for terrorism as: [a person who] being an Israeli citizen or a resident of Israel, knowingly and without lawful authority, makes contact in Israel or abroad with a person occupying a position in the directorship, council or other organ of an organisation that has been declared a terrorist organisation by the Government pursuant to section 8, or who acts as a representative of the said organisation. (Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance 1986, amendment 2, Article 7) Presented by its supporters as a necessary security measure, the amendment was harshly contested in the parliament by those who saw the law as an obstacle to peace, freedom and democracy. The amendment generated lively discussions in the Knesset, including within the government coalition led by Likud and Alignment.3 After its passing by a vote of 47 to 25, the law remained in force for seven years, during which it was effectively used against two Israeli citizens who had publicly met with Yasser Arafat.4 In 1993, shortly before the handshake between Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat, the Knesset repealed the contentious article. Because of its significance in structuring the boundaries of acceptable dissent in a democracy facing insecurities, the next sections explore the debates that took place in 1986 and examine the narratives that developed on this occasion: the dominant narrative supporting the law on the ground of a language of war, a

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counter-narrative articulating the topics of democracy and pluralism, and a very marginal narrative supporting the law in the name of the Jewish state. The narrative of war The dominant narrative supporting the passing of the amendment was issued by a discourse coalition encompassing the Likud, the ultra-orthodox parties and Tekhya. MKs from Alignment who voted in favour of the law did not express their views in the debates, largely due to the contested character of the law within the party (Keren 1999). The narrative of the dominant discourse coalition was mostly articulated around the topics of insecurity and opened by offering a definition of the PLO’s role in the insecurity of the state of Israel. The Minister of Justice introducing the law stated: Mr Speaker, honourable Knesset, last year there were more frequent meetings of Israelis with representatives or activists of organisations, activist murderers, [. . .] representatives of the enemy against whom we are at war [. . . .] The Penal Law defines a terrorist organisation as “an organisation whose goals or actions are directed to eliminate the state or harm the security of the country or safety of its residents or the Jews in other countries”. The PLO has not changed his goals and therefore there is no doubt that it is also an enemy by definition of the Penal Law. (Minister of Justice Nissim, parliamentary debate on the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance, 31 July 1986) In this first sequence of the narrative, the PLO is presented as a terrorist organisation seeking to kill the state, the citizens and the Jews, and as an enemy against which the state is at war. This enemy, the “activist murderers”, are not just any kind of foe. They are cruel adversaries, seeking to extinguish the state and the Israeli citizens in a decidedly repugnant way: “17 people were killed just recently, and several were injured and how many were wounded? And in which ways? In abhorrent and cruel ways. Are people in this house aware of the list of assassinations?” (Minister of Justice Nissim, parliamentary debate on the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance, 31 July 1986). The PLO’s intentions make them a unique type of enemy. Not only is this organisation particularly brutal in its way of acting, but it also differs from other terror organisations in terms of its final objective. As stated by one of the speakers: This is not about Germany, their terrorist organisations and their anti-terrorist legislation in Germany. This is not about Italy, their terrorist organisation and their anti-terrorist legislation in Italy. This is about Israel and terrorist organisations that do not only want to change the regime through non-democratic revolution, by throwing bombs, but that also want to eliminate its people. (MK Eytan, parliamentary debate on the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance, 31 July 1986)

Defining the enemy and borders of loyalty 71 By its very nature, essence and purpose, this enemy is exceptional. The enemy is “abhorrent and cruel”, intentionally seeking “to disrupt life” (Minister of Justice Nissim, parliamentary debate on the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance, 31 July 1986) and to kill an entire people, the Jews. Under those extraordinary circumstances, dialogue is inconceivable. In fact, discussions with such organisation whose ultimate desire is the elimination of the Jews equates negotiating with the devil: “Allowing the citizens of Israel to contact the enemy, the murderers of our people who want to make possible its physical destruction, is no less than contacts with Hitler and the Nazi movement in Germany before the Holocaust” (MK Verdiger, Poalei Agudat Israel, parliamentary debate on the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance, 31 July 1986). Echoing the 1985 debates in which the Holocaust was associated with the threat stemming from the PLO and its supporters, here again the Palestinian organisation is directly compared with the Nazi movement. Faced with such a vile enemy whose sole purpose is seemingly the destruction of the Jewish people as a whole, the government must take part in the war that the PLO had allegedly started. In this war, meeting with the enemy is not only unconceivable but a real threat to national security. Indeed, as underlined by the Minister of Justice, such contacts blur the lines between the enemy and “us” and is therefore an obstacle that “could cause a lot of political and security damage to Israel” (Minister of Justice Nissim, parliamentary debate on the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance, 31 July 1986). As emphasised by one of the MKs of the discourse coalition: those who fought in the battlefield know that a soldier can be facing a grey situation, in which he does not know the difference between friend and foe. One elementary thing in such struggle is to know who can be shot and who should not be shot. Participation in war is the most difficult act, and if you want people to pull the trigger, they must know exactly who the enemy is. (MK Neeman, Tekhya, parliamentary debate on the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance 31 July 1986) The blurring of the lines between friend and foe is not only reprehensible because it constitutes an obstacle to the progress of the combat. In a last sequence of the narrative, contacts with the PLO are also constructed as a crime for another reason: it transgresses the implicit boundaries between us and them, it is a “broken expectation [. . .] from those in the We” (Åkerström 1991, 11) and an act of treason. As stated by one of the Likud members: We need to distinguish between those willing to live with us in co-existence and those who defy my country and want to ruin it. Those who wish to be loyal to the Jewish state shall enjoy all the rights, but those who come out against it, we will fight him, and will not allow those who deny the state and get up to destroy it to be in the state of Israel. (MK Landau, Likud, parliamentary debate on the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance, 31 July 1986)

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In this last sequence of the narrative, the speakers produce an important mechanism already marginally present in 1985: the exclusion of the Israeli citizen contacting the enemy from the circle of rights normally attributed to the citizen of the state. Indeed, such a citizen does not deserve to enjoy the rights of the democratic regime anymore because, as one of the MKs emphasised, “Democracy, freedom of expression, freedom of conviction: Yes. But you [the opposition] making the policy: No. It is forbidden by law. Israel will not negotiate with the PLO” (Minister of Justice Nissim, parliamentary debate on the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance, 31 July 1986). These articulations lead to a handful of significant discursive consequences. First, the metaphor of war radically excludes any means other than an armed struggle against rivals. Against a cruel enemy seeking the annihilation of the Jewish people, war can only be terminated by military means. Second, by constructing the situation as a war, any act that may blur the distinction between enemy and friend becomes an obstacle in the fight against the enemy, and thereby a threat to survival. Third, any citizen blurring these boundaries is not only impeding the fight against the enemy, but betraying his or her own state and the democratically elected government. This disloyal person must consequently be distinguished from “the good” citizens, impeded from acting and excluded from the circle of rights. The narrative of pluralism A second narrative came from a discourse coalition composed of the Zionist left and anti-Zionist far-left members of the Knesset opposing the passing of the amendment.5 While the topic of democracy was somewhat absent in the dominant narrative, this counter-narrative was mainly structured around the topics of democracy and peace. Although they deployed a similar sequencing of topics, the speakers of this discourse coalition differed in the way they referred to the PLO in their stories. For most Zionist MKs, the construction of the enemy was close to the one present in the dominant narrative. One of the MKs of this group, for instance, claimed that: There is no need to idealise. On the contrary, we need to look at things as they are. The PLO is a cruel enemy [. . . .] But I cannot select the enemy – and the PLO is the enemy – nor can I choose the representatives of the enemy. (MK Sarid, Movement for Civil Rights and Peace, parliamentary debate on the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance, 31 July 1986) In contrast, for other speakers of the group the dominant construction of the Palestinian organisation as an enemy was dismantled altogether, with some MKs stating that, “The claim that the PLO wants to destroy Israel – that is a demagogic immoral discourse. Everyone knows that the PLO is ready for peace with Israel” (MK Wilner, Hadash, parliamentary debate on the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance, 31 July 1986).

Defining the enemy and borders of loyalty 73 Interestingly, despite this divergence in terms of the construction of the enemy, the rest of the narrative followed the same path in both groups. In a second sequence of their narrative, the discourse coalition transformed the meaning conferred to meetings with PLO members. Instead of acts in support of terrorism, encounters with the PLO were presented as a “dialogue for peace” (MK Shem-Tov, Mapam, parliamentary debate on the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance, 5 August 1986). In a further sequence of the narrative, the law was consequently framed as an “obstacle against the efforts to seek paths to peace” (MK Peled, parliamentary debate on the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance, 31 July 1986). In addition to being an obstacle to peace, the speakers also articulated the law as a hurdle to democracy, the reflection of “a whole philosophy which seeks to narrow the already narrow margins in which the opposition can play, and its freedom of action” (MK Watad, Mapam, parliamentary debate on the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance, 5 August 1986). More specifically, the law was framed as an impediment to the following elements attributed to the democratic regime: “the right to be different, the right to share, the right to conceive and express an opinion that challenges the consensus, the right to promote opinion sharing, including the right to hold meetings” (MK Sarid, parliamentary debate on the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance, 5 August 1986). Because it touches upon these rights, it is said that the law “hurts democracy, it paralyses the mind” (MK Miari, parliamentary debate on the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance, 31 July 1986) and should therefore be rejected from the book of laws. Through these discursive sequences, the counter-narrative thus dismantled and transformed many of the dominant patterns. First, dangerous contacts with enemies were turned into safe steps towards peace. Second, instead of the state and the citizens, the referent object of threat was equated with basic rights. Third, in place of contacts with enemies, the very source of threat became the law. Finally, by doing so, the counter-narrative transformed the meaning conferred to democracy. From a regime aiming at survival and requiring loyalty to the government’s policies, in this counter-narrative the minority’s right to express its political stance and to criticise the government became the very foundation of the regime and its raison d’être. The ethnic-line narrative The last narrative was developed by MK Kahane, the sole representative of Kach. As in 1985, his narrative mostly revolved around the topics of threat and Zionism. This time, the topic of democracy was, however, absent. Kahane’s story opened with the issue of insecurity, and more specifically with the construction of threat, in the following way: “This government is bankrupt. It turned the Zionist dream into a nightmare. [. . .] Jews today are afraid to allow their children to go out in the evenings” (MK Kahane, parliamentary debate on the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance, 31 July 1986). In this first sequence of the narrative, MK Kahane slightly transforms the referent object of threat. Instead of

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a multidimensional object, the only population presented as threatened are the Jews “who are afraid of going out at night”. Moreover, here the government itself is painted as the source of threat since, because of its policies, it made the “Zionist dream a nightmare”. It is in a second sequence of the narrative that MK Kahane referred to the issue of contacts with the PLO. Like the dominant narrative, it constructed these contacts as a threat, asking the following questions to the plenum: Talk to the PLO? Destroy the PLO. Talk to Nazis? To Kahane, we must not talk; but to the PLO we must talk? The enemy commands to hate. You have to understand the verse in Ecclesiastes that says: “A time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.” The PLO commands to hate [. . . .] Do not talk with the PLO: destroy the PLO. (MK Kahane, parliamentary debate on the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance, 31 July 1986) As in the dominant narrative, the PLO is the foe with which Israel is at “war”. Against such a hateful enemy, might is necessary. More specifically, interpreting the Ecclesiasts’ adage as a commandment to hate, the narrative invites the complete destruction of the enemy as the only possible reaction in a war against evil. The tracing of a clear line between “us” and the enemy goes hand in hand with another distinction also at play in the dominant story: loyalty versus disloyalty. Maintaining the metaphor of war, delineating the loyalty of citizens is indeed said to be necessary because, “Those who meet them [the enemy] [MKs] Peled, Miari, Harel, Avineri and other vermin, are traitors in the full sense of the word” (MK Kahane, parliamentary debate on the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance, 31 July 1986). The war against the PLO is thus fought on two levels: at the external level it is fought against the PLO, and within the country it is fought through the identification of traitors. Yet, while separating loyal and disloyal citizens is one step in the fight against the enemy, it is far from enough in MK Kahane’s narrative. He stated: Jews, this law is important. We must support it; we must. But, it does not solve the problem. The problem lies in the presence of Arabs in our midst. They hate us [. . . .] There is only one solution: Arabs out. Population exchange [. . . .] I wish them happiness and wealth. There, not here. (MK Kahane, parliamentary debate on the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance, 31 July 1986) In this concluding excerpt, the speaker expands the category of enemy. From the very specific PLO organisation which “commands to hate”, the enemy is here turned into “the Arabs”, a homogenous enemy who hates “us”. In such a chain of equivalence, the wrongs that were attributed to the PLO are suddenly merged with those attributed to “the Arabs” as a whole, and the war against the PLO is

Defining the enemy and borders of loyalty 75 turned into a war against this entire national group. The construction of the enemy along ethnic lines has important consequences. If the Arabs as a group are a threat, their mere presence in the territory becomes a menace as well. From this homogenisation of the enemy follows an all-encompassing solution, which is the core of MK Kahane’s political programme: the transfer of Arab populations out of Israel’s borders. Structuring the contacts with enemy–democracy nexus The category of “enemy” has been anchored in Israeli legislation in a series of laws, which have defined this entity either as the states at war with Israel or as terrorist organisations. Contacts with enemies or visits to enemy states, too, have been defined by laws and constructed as a danger to the state, hence punishable. Drawing on the pre-existing legal categories but also reshaping them, the dangers stemming from these contacts and the need to ban them in a democracy were rearticulated in the 1986 debates. In comparison with the debates that took place on a related topic in 1985 (the dangers stemming from a party supporting the PLO and contesting the existence of the state of Israel), there are similarities and divergences in the 1986 security– democracy nexus articulated by the dominant narrative. It is, for instance, notable that in 1986 the dominant narrative did not mobilise the defensive democracy category, and even used the topic of democracy only marginally. The dominant narrative in effect mainly articulated the topic of security, loyalty, threat and nation. It started with security constructed as a context of war with terrorists, continued with the construction of contacts with enemy as actions hampering the war effort, and finished with the need to distinguish the enemy from the friend, those standing with us from those acting in the enemy’s camp. Thus, and here recalling the words of one MK in 1985 who claimed that, “If you are not loyal, then, yes [you’ll face] expulsion and persecution” (MK Eytan, parliamentary debate on the Basic Law: The Knesset, 2 July 1985), the dominant narrative here ended up by tracing boundaries between the enemy and us, between us and disloyal citizens. If the topic of democracy was not very often mobilised, the narrative nevertheless clearly reconstructed the democratic regime in a way that both restricts dissent and excludes the disloyal citizen from its borders. As mentioned above, in 1993 the Knesset repealed the article penalising contacts with PLO members in foreign countries. Nevertheless, as the next sections show, the dominant discursive articulations and categorisations present in 1986 have partly remained.

The Knesset banning visits to enemy states: the 2008 Basic Law amendment Twenty years after the passing of the amendment of the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance and 13 years after the article banning contacts with PLO members

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was repealed, concerns about citizens’ connections with enemies came back to the fore with very strong intensity. In a context marked by the Lebanon war and the illegal visits of MK Bishara to Syria, during which he expressed sympathy to the Hezbollah movement (Kaufman 2011), several MKs introduced a series of amendments aimed at forbidding contacts by Israeli citizens with enemy states.6 Among these was a bill explicitly referring to MK Bishara’s conduct that demanded an amendment to Article 7(a) of the Basic Law: The Knesset. The bill, introduced by two MKs and later supported by the government, proposed to expand the definition of “support to terrorism” to illegal visits to an enemy state, thereby enabling the exclusion from elections of any MK visiting an enemy state without authorisation. In June 2008, amendment 41 of the Basic Law: The Knesset, voted through with 54 voices in favour and 24 against, added the following section to Article 7(a) of the law: With respect to the section on support to terrorism [providing the disqualification of a list if it supports armed struggle of an enemy state or of a terrorist movement against the state of Israel], a candidate who has been illegally in an enemy state [Iran, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Pakistan, Yemen or the Gaza Strip] seven years prior to the candidacy will be considered as having accomplished an act of support to the armed struggle against the state of Israel. (Basic Law: The Knesset 2008, Article 7(a), section 1) The proposition of this amendment generated lively debates in the Knesset, during which two main opposing narratives reiterated a similar competition as the one observed during the second intifada. A dominant narrative supporting the law mobilised the topic of existential threat and the category of defensive democracy, while a marginal narrative structured itself along the topics of democracy and basic rights in order to oppose the amendment. The present section is interested in the narration of dominant actors who supported this law and in the ways this law was contested by other MKs. Because the Supreme Court was called to rule on the matter soon after the passing of this law, this section also presents the main reasoning of the court on this issue. The discursive consequences of these competing voices on the shape of the political regime are also investigated and assessed. Defensive democracy: sorting out good and unworthy citizens The narrative that served as the dominant framework of interpretation of the law came from ultra-nationalist, ultra-orthodox MKs and Likud representatives. Although they were in the government supporting the bill, the two biggest parties of the coalition (Kadima and Labour) barely expressed their stances on the law in the plenum.7 Like in 1986, the topic of war and insecurity were core discursive categories of this dominant narrative. Yet, in contrast with 1986, the topic of democracy was mobilised much more extensively and can be seen as another central discursive category of the narrative.

Defining the enemy and borders of loyalty 77 It was with the topic of insecurity that the narrative opened, and more specifically with the link between visits to enemy states and threat. The bill itself emphasised that “visiting an enemy country without authorisation can cause a real risk for the state of Israel and its citizens” (Bill p/17/2506 to amend the Basic Law: The Knesset), while the promoter of the bill declared to the Knesset: The problem – let us tell the truth – of the visits of Arab MKs is that they are visits that call for resistance, for the destruction of the state of Israel as a Jewish state. It is the main objective of these visits [. . . .] Arab representatives have decided to deny Israel as a Jewish state and want to change it in a state that will not be a Jewish state. (MK Orlev, National Union-NRP, parliamentary debate on the Basic Law: The Knesset, 23 June 2008) While contacting the enemy was the source of threat in 1986, here visiting enemy states constitutes the danger. Moreover, similarly to 1986 and to the other dominant narratives developed during the second intifada, the source of threat might change but the referent object of threat remains the same: a multidimensional object comprising the state, the citizens and the Jewish state. Faced with the potential destruction of these entities, the speakers ask in a further sequence that the regime act responsibly. As an MK quoting the Supreme Court in this speech asserted: The Supreme Court has indicated that section 7(a) of the Basic Law is in accordance with democratic states and seeks to resolve a difficult dilemma that the state is facing: on the one hand, the democratic principles, which allow freedom of thought and freedom to participate in the elections; on the other hand, the right of democracy to defend itself. The court has called this dilemma the “democratic paradox”.8 (MK Tal, Kadima, parliamentary debate on the Basic Law: The Knesset, 23 June 2008) Mirroring the 2002 dominant narrative, this sequence contains interesting ambiguities. First, while the right of democracy to defend itself is evoked in this excerpt, it is however the state that has to make the decision between protecting democratic rights and defending democracy. Democracy and the state thus appear to be interchangeable or to constitute one same reality. Second, this sequence of the narrative creates a tension between the democratic values and the need to protect security: democratic rights and the right of democracy to defend “itself” are here framed as two opposed realities, necessarily contradicting one another. Faced with a dilemma between protecting the former or the latter, the narrative is yet unambiguous regarding which direction to take, claiming that: I suggest [that those opposing the law] stop insulting the important majority of Israeli citizens for whom democracy is important because we talk at the

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In order to “defend democracy”, to protect the state, the people and the nation, the democratic regime must become defensive and leave aside some of its basic “democratic principles”. This is not debatable as any democracy understands that there is no wish to commit suicide and that it is impossible in Israel that we elect people to the Knesset who will take advantage of their presence in the Knesset to hurt the state, to hurt the regime, and to hurt the people who live in it. (MK Orlev, parliamentary debate on the Basic Law: The Knesset, 26 May 2008) From these last excerpts, it appears very clearly that “defending democracy” does not imply defending democratic values. Rather, the object that is meant to be protected when democracy defends “itself ” entails the following elements: the (Jewish) state of Israel and its (Jewish) citizens. And in order to do so, defensive democracy is called upon to limit democratic rights, or more precisely the rights of those “who will take advantage of their presence in the Knesset”, the “people who support actions against their state, against the citizens of their state” (MK Israel Katz, parliamentary debate on the Basic Law: The Knesset, 5 November 2001). Mobilising the image of a war that was present in 1986, one of the speakers summarised this in these words: “We are in a situation of war [. . .] it is not permissible that they exploit democracy and attack the state in which they live” (MK Zeev, parliamentary debate on the Basic Law: The Knesset, 26 May 2008). The narrative concludes in a similar fashion as in 1986. In the war that Israel is fighting, those citizens who are “loyal to the state and its laws” (MK Zeev, parliamentary debate on the Basic Law: The Knesset, 26 May 2008), and those who “keep fidelity to the state of Israel” (MK Orlev, parliamentary debate on the Basic Law: The Knesset, 23 June 2008) can continue to enjoy democratic principles, while “[t]hose who are not [loyal] cannot be here” (MK Tartman, Israel Beiteinu, parliamentary debate on the Basic Law: The Knesset, 26 May 2008). This exclusionary practice by which defensive democracy acts is not only justified in the name of the war that Israel is fighting, which requires the distinction between patriotic citizens and those who show affinities with the enemy. This process is in fact made part of the regular democratic functioning. Indeed, as emphasised by the MK who introduced the law to the Knesset, “the first rule of democracy is to be loyal to democracy” (MK Orlev, parliamentary debate on the Basic Law: The Knesset, 23 June 2008). By acting as such, defensive democracy shapes the boundaries of rights in a particular way. Democracy becomes both a regime protecting the rights of the

Defining the enemy and borders of loyalty 79 majority and, simultaneously, limiting those of some “disloyal citizens” in order to follow its main objective: the security of a multidimensional object comprising democracy, the state, the citizens and the Jewish dimension of the regime. The democratic locus of rights Against the narrative of defensive democracy, a counter-narrative was developed by Zionist and non-Zionist left-wing MKs. This group of speakers articulated a narrative that revolved entirely around democracy, itself constructed as a locus of rights. The topic of security was, for the most part, absent from the story. If a few references were made to the categories of “threat” and “enemy”, it was only to dismantle and transform their constructions by the dominant narrative. As in 1986, this dismantlement or transformation process occurred in two different ways depending on the political group to which the speakers belonged. On the one hand, the Palestinian group deconstructed altogether the notion of “enemy states” cited in the law, explaining that: We oppose the definition of “enemy state”. According to us, Syria, Yemen, Lebanon, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt are not enemy states but brother states, those brothers of which we are proud, and it is our right to have relations with them. (MK Zahalka, Balad, parliamentary debate on the Basic Law: The Knesset, 26 May 2008) On the other hand, the Zionist left endorsed the construction of “enemy state”, but dismantled the link between visits to these states and potential threat. For instance, MK Galon stated, “I do not like these visits, but a visit in an enemy state does not mean support to armed struggle” (MK Galon, parliamentary debate on the Basic Law: The Knesset, 26 May 2008). In both groups, a further sequence of the narrative actually reconstructs the source of threat in a very divergent way from the dominant narrative. As the same speaker underlined: What you are asking now is to hurt the thing that to me, is the cornerstone of democracy, the basic human right of a person to vote, to be elected, in the framework of equality, in a civilised state. (MK Galon, parliamentary debate on the Basic Law: The Knesset, 26 May 2008) In this sequence of the narrative, the basic components of democracy form the main referent object of threat. The right to vote, the right to be elected and the right to equality, said to be the cornerstone of democracy, are allegedly jeopardised by the law. Without these rights, the narrative concludes that democracy can only collapse because, “When the right to vote is cancelled, when the right to be elected is cancelled, we withdraw the legitimacy of democracy itself ” (MK

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Khenin, Hadash, parliamentary debate on the Basic Law: The Knesset, 23 June 2008). As in the previous counter-narratives, democracy is framed as a locus of rights by the MKs opposing the law. These rights are considered untouchable and equally distributed between citizens. In this perspective, the real source of threat is not the visits to enemy states, and the category of “enemy” does not comprise those visiting the enemy states, but rather the legal tool that is discussed: The law is an anti-democratic law because it hurts one of the basic elements of any democracy that MK Orlev and MK Tartman have not heard of: they understand democracy as the democracy of the Jews, and want the Arab to wait alongside. I do not even know if they believe in democracy for the Jews. They are people whom I would describe as enemy of democracy. It is not a defensive democracy; it is national chauvinism which goes against democracy. (MK Zahalka, parliamentary debate on the Basic Law: The Knesset, 23 June 2008) By embedding the law in an alternative story, the main counter-narrative issued during the debate on the Basic Law: The Knesset transforms the main discursive categories put forward in the dominant narrative, including the categories of the “enemy” and “defensive democracy”. In that sense, the narrative acts as a distorted mirror of the dominant one. Democracy is indeed threatened but it must defend itself from those who jeopardise rights and equality, not from Palestinian MKs visiting enemy states; democratic tools are indeed exploited but by the promoters of the law who attempt to limit democracy and the right of the minority. The Supreme Court’s defence of democracy One year after the passing of the amendment of the Basic Law: the Knesset, the CEC was called on to decide which political parties would be qualified to take part in the next Knesset elections. Two Palestinian lists, Balad and Ra’am-Ta’al, were excluded by the committee. The decision was based on the claim that Balad’s demand that Israel be a “state for all citizens” contradicted the Jewish nature of the state, protected by Article 7(a) of the Basic Law: The Knesset. Similarly, the fact that Balad never officially disapproved of MK Bishara (despite the fact that he had been suspected of security offences during the second Lebanon war) was presented as evidence of its support to terrorism. Against Ra’am-Ta’al, illegal visits to enemy states were presented as grounds for disqualification. When asked to rule on the CEC’s decision to disqualify these parties, the Supreme Court’s decision partly reproduced the categories at the core of the competition in the Knesset. The court overruled the disqualification on the basis that the existence of a genuine danger was not proven and emphasised, as in the counter-narrative that “democracy is based on free market of ideas and opinions,

Defining the enemy and borders of loyalty 81 so that each list of candidates is entitled to voice their opinions and participate equitably in elections” (Election Appeal 561/09). Simultaneously, the court nevertheless mobilised categories that were present in the dominant narrative. The court first recognised “that democracy has the right to ‘defend itself against those rising up against it’ [. . .] so that democracy may deny participation in the democratic process to lists that deny its existence” (Election Appeal 561/09). Moreover, when mobilising the notion of democracy defending itself, the court associated this defence with the need to protect the Jewish state. By doing so, the court thus replicated the separation, tension or opposition between the protection of democratic rights on the one hand, with defensive democracy limiting those for the sake of the survival of the state, and its Jewish character on the other hand.

Defining breach of trust, excluding the disloyal citizens: the 2008 Citizenship Law Concomitant with discussions about the exclusion of MKs from the parliamentary arena, the Knesset engaged in debates on other laws seeking to limit contacts with enemies. It did so by mobilising the mechanisms enabling granting and withdrawal of citizenship.9 From the beginning, the laws regulating citizenship included parameters related to security and loyalty. As mentioned above, the Citizenship Law permitted to withdraw citizenship in case of breach of trust since 1952, and the 1980 version of the law stated that a person entering an enemy state can be considered as renouncing Israeli citizenship. The link between loyalty and citizenship was again reasserted in the public arena and in the Knesset after 2006. For instance, in 2007 a bill which received much attention at the time was introduced to the cabinet with the aim of amending the oath of allegiance provided by the Citizenship Law. Whereas the existing version of the law required a naturalised citizen to pledge allegiance to the state of Israel, the new bill demanded that the new citizen declare his allegiance to “the state of Israel as a Jewish, Zionist, and democratic state, its symbols and values” (Bill p/17/3046 to amend the Citizenship Law 2007). The bill rationalised the need for such amendment as follows: The connection between citizenship and loyalty to the state is an unbreakable connection. In recent years, it was discovered that some citizens of Israel are not loyal to the state, its symbols and values, and that they dodge military services or national service. This bill seeks to bind loyalty to the state, its symbols and values, and military or national service, to Israeli citizenship. (Bill p/17/3046 to amend the Citizenship Law 2007) Due to strong opposition in the government, the bill was rejected by the cabinet and was not introduced to the Knesset (Lis 2010).10 The link between citizenship and loyalty was nevertheless reasserted during the same period with the amendment of Article 11 of the Citizenship Law, which

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is the subject of this section. According to the bill, the objective of the amendment was twofold. The first aim was to improve the rule of law by passing the authority to revoke citizenship from executive to judicial hands (Bill p/17/1708 to amend the Citizenship Law 2006). The second and more explicit aim of the bill was to facilitate the process of citizenship revocation. The previous version of the law had long been considered dormant; it had “only” been used twice.11 In this perspective, the bill attempted to more precisely delimit the term “breach of trust” according to which citizenship could be revoked. The original draft of the law defined breach of trust as acts entailing espionage or “illegal exit to a country, which is in the list of illegal states, and acquisition of the citizenship of one of those states” (Bill p/17/1708 to amend the Citizenship Law 2006). After several debates in the Internal Affairs and Environment Committee, the law passed with 27 votes in favour and five against. The finalised law defined “breach of trust” as: a

b

c

an act of terrorism as defined by the Prohibition of Financing Terrorism Law (2005) [. . .], aid or solicitation to one of the acts mentioned above, or taking part in a terrorist organisation as defined in that law; an act which constitutes treason under sections 97 to 99 of the Penal Code, 1977 [including impairment to sovereignty of the state, causing war and assistance to enemy in war . . .] or espionage Under Section 113 (b) of the said Law; the acquisition of citizenship or permanent residency right in a country or territory listed in Appendix. [Iran, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Libya, Sudan, Syria, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen and the Gaza Strip]. (Article 11 (a), Citizenship Law 2008)

In addition, the new amendment specified that a citizen could not be deprived from his or her citizenship if left with no citizenship at all. Permanent residence in another country was defined as the equivalent of having another nationality. The debates preceding the 2008 amendment of the Citizenship Law were very animated in the public and in the media. In the Knesset itself, the discussions were passionate but comparatively swift.12 Most supporters of the law did not give speeches in the plenum and their positions are only known from the remarks made during the speeches of other MKs.13 Despite the ambiguity of the law, which gave less power to the executive but expanded the definition of “breach of trust” and thus the ground for citizenship revocation, the narratives that emerged in the Knesset were quite homogeneous and clear-cut. As the next sections show, two main groups of MKs developed two distinct narratives that competed during the debates.14 The dominant narrative incorporated the notion of defensive democracy and made “loyalty” a core discursive category. Countering the dominant narrative, a more marginal group of speakers articulated a different narrative that framed human rights and citizenship as the foundation of democracy.

Defining the enemy and borders of loyalty 83 Defensive democracy against the assassins of the state The first and dominant narrative was mainly developed by political actors from the Likud party, from which the amendment of the Citizenship Law originated. As in previous debates, insecurity was the most important topic in this narrative. It is nevertheless with a discussion of the basic right affected by the law that the promoter of the bill opened his speech, stating that, “It is common to see the right to citizenship as a basic right and basic human rights” and that, “The withdrawal of citizenship is an extreme step” (MK Erdan, Likud, parliamentary debate on the Citizenship Law, 16 October 2007). In the first sequence of the narrative, citizenship is presented as a basic human right. Because of this, the promoter of the bill argued in a further sequence that “the denial of such a major right should be done by a judiciary procedure and not by an administrative procedure” (MK Erdan, parliamentary debate on the Citizenship Law, 16 October 2007). As such, the law’s objective was framed as the protection of the right to citizenship by allowing more transparency in the revocation procedure. Despite this narrative opening, the improvements made on checks and balances in citizenship withdrawal were not at the core of the dominant interpretation of the law. Rather, “existential threat” and “necessity” were again the central discursive categories of this narrative. The bill itself and most speakers supporting the law in the Knesset indeed justified the amendment of the law on the basis of the topics of threat. More precisely, they constructed the law as a response to existential threats stemming from “[t]he terrorists and their supporters” which “hurt this state and its citizens” (Bill p/17/1708 to amend the Citizenship Law 2006), aiming for the “killing of the state”, “the extermination of the state” and its annihilation (MK Eytan, parliamentary debate on the Citizenship Law, 16 October 2007). In another sequence, the narrative connected this existential threat jeopardising the state and the citizens with democratic principles. As already observed in other debates, the narrative continued by equating basic rights with the channel through which the threat could materialise. The “rights and liberties that a democratic state provides” (Bill p/17/1708 to amend the Citizenship Law 2006) are depicted as instruments at the hands of the enemy, who can use them to imperil “the existence of the state in which he is a citizen” (MK Rivlin, Likud, parliamentary debate on the Citizenship Law, 16 October 2007). This construction of democratic rights as a threat leads to an inevitable “choice” between living and altering democracy altogether: The state is confronted to terrorism and if it cares for its survival, it must act in accordance with the notion of “defensive democracy”. Defensive democracy faces those who want to take her soul away, and unfortunately they are also in its home. (Bill p/17/1708 to amend the Citizenship Law 2006) In this sequence, the choice is obvious. If democracy is not turned into its defensive form, the state will die. Therefore, democracy is called on to transform itself

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in order to act against its enemies. As in the previous debates, what this shift in regime implies is the restriction of democratic limits through the suspension of those rights depicted as an obstacle to its own survival. In addition to being legitimised by the extraordinary situation, suspending those rights is an action articulated as compatible with the “enlightened” character of Israel. As one MK of the Likud put it, “The state may and will be enlightened if it denies him his citizenship and says to him: if you acted against the state you claim to be a citizen of, you do not deserve to be a citizen” (MK Rivlin, parliamentary debate on the Citizenship Law, 16 October 2007). Because “[a]ll rights get limits and curtailments. No right is absolute” (MK Eytan, parliamentary debate on the Citizenship Law, 16 October 2007) and because “one cannot be a citizen of a state he seeks to destroy” (Bill p/17/1708 to amend the Citizenship Law 2006), the suspension of citizenship is not only a security measure but a legitimate step compatible with the enlightened state. By so doing, the speakers thus integrate the limitation of democracy into the regime itself. In this (defensive) democracy, it becomes legitimate to deprive suspicious citizens of their rights and to push them out of the citizenry. Citizenship as the right to have rights Against this dominant narrative, Zionist and non-Zionist parties on the left formulated a counter-narrative opposing the proposed law. The topic of security was totally absent from this narrative, which was mainly structured along the topics of rights and democracy. Referring to a United States Supreme Court ruling, one MK opened his speech with the following words: Justice Warren, the Chief Justice of the United States’ Supreme Court said in Perez vs. Brownell ruling that it was the principle: “Citizenship is a man’s basic right, for it is nothing less than the right to have rights”. This means that citizenship is the right upon which all other rights depend. (MK Khenin, parliamentary debate on the Citizenship Law, 16 October 2007) Whereas the dominant narrative depicted citizenship as “an important right” nevertheless likely to be curtailed, it is here presented as an unalterable right, as the very essence and foundation of the democratic regime. Consequently, by limiting this right, lawmakers supporting the law are said to act “against the basic rules of the game of a democratic society” (MK Beilin, Meretz, parliamentary debate on the Citizenship Law, 28 July 2008) and to wrongly “normalise a prescription which is not normal” (MK Khenin, parliamentary debate on the Citizenship Law, 16 October 2007). In a further sequence of the narrative, not only is the deprivation of citizenship an abnormal, undemocratic limitation of a fundamental right, it is also framed as a discriminatory tool, hence reinforcing the anti-democratic character of the measure. Indeed, the law is presented as explicitly targeting the Palestinian minority. As argued by one Palestinian MK:

Defining the enemy and borders of loyalty 85 The unbearable ease by which such a law comes to the Knesset demonstrates the grave disdain towards democracy and human rights [. . .] the goal of the law is above all to hurt Palestinian citizens. I did not see MK Erdan proposing a law which would cancel the citizenship of Ygal Amir.15 (MK Zahalka, parliamentary debate on the Citizenship Law, 16 October 2007) In this sequence, the equation made in the dominant narrative between the denial of citizenship and an “enlightened” practice is completely dismantled. The cancellation of the right to citizenship is not only anti-democratic but intentionally hurtful towards Palestinian citizens. As another MK summarised and concluded, “Who does not want to defend democracy? This is not a bill proposal that seeks to protect democracy. It is a bill which progressively asks to lead to the transfer of the Arab Israeli citizens from here” (MK Galon, parliamentary debate on the Citizenship Law, 10 January 2007). At the same time as the narrative constructs deprivation of citizenship as a discriminatory act, it challenges the link between the “security” measure and the defence of democracy. The suspension of the right to all rights, coupled with the discriminating use of this tool, cannot work in favour of democracy and can certainly not be defined as an “enlightened” instrument. According to this counternarrative, democracy precisely entails the opposite: the unalterable protection of basic rights and equality. By challenging the main discursive connections present in the dominant narrative, the speakers thus fix the meaning of democracy as they had done during the previous debate: as an ensemble of rights fairly distributed between citizens of the state. The expansion of “breach of trust” (2011) Three years after the modification of the Citizenship Law in 2008, another amendment was added to the law. This amendment extended the legal grounds for the revocation of citizenship by including additional acts of espionage within the notion of “breach of trust”. While it only slightly modified the previous version of the law, the passing of this amendment provoked intense debates in the public. The particular attention given to it can be explained by the fact that the GSS had first given their public support to the bill, only to later backtrack (Lis 2011b; parliamentary debate on the Citizenship Law, 28 March 2011). The question raised fewer debates in the Knesset proper, where only three MKs supporting the law – including the one introducing it – explained their positions visà-vis the amendment. The narratives that were developed during the three readings of this new amendment further reinforced the discursive constructions already present in 2008. On the one hand, those supporting the law articulated the question in terms of survival, in which the referent object of threat was a merger of the state, its citizens and democracy. Once again, MKs claimed that some “want to destroy the state of Israel” (MK Zeev, parliamentary debate on the Citizenship Law, first

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reading, 7 March 2011) by “us[ing] democracy to undermine it from within” (Minister of Energy and Water Landau, Israel Beiteinu, parliamentary debate on the Citizenship Law, 28 March 2011), arguing that the “state has to defend itself and the citizens” (MK Levin, parliamentary debate on the Citizenship Law, 7 March 2011). Consequently, some claimed that although democracy includes “freedom of expression and human rights” (MK Levin, parliamentary debate on the Citizenship Law, 7 March 2011), these rights should be limited in the name of survival as well as “in favour of democracy” itself (MK Zeev, parliamentary debate on the Citizenship Law, 7 March 2011). Finally, some claimed that, “Traitors who ask [for] citizenship” (MK Zeev, parliamentary debate on the Citizenship Law, 7 March 2011) should be expelled from the polity. Conversely MKs from Meretz, Hadash and Palestinian parties developed a narrative of rights close to the one of 2008, in which citizenship was located as the source of all other rights and framed as the basis of democracy. The new amendment was approved with 37 in favour and 11 votes against. As the next section will show, the debates held in 2010 on MK Zoabi’s participation in the Gaza flotilla witnessed a quasi-identical competition of narratives while reinforcing the exclusionary mechanisms entailed in defensive democracy.

My enemy’s friend shall be my enemy: the “Zoabi affair” In May 2010, a six-ship flotilla dubbed the “Marmara flotilla”16 approached the Gaza Strip with the proclaimed intention of delivering humanitarian aid to the strip, where a blockade had been in place since Hamas had effectively taken power in 2007.17 The flotilla was comprised of about 700 activists from a wide range of countries, including parliamentary representatives from Europe (Migdalovitz 2010). Among the participants was MK Hanin Zoabi, a member of Balad. Because information about alleged terrorists and weapons aboard the flotilla was given to the Israeli authorities, the Israeli government decided to intervene militarily against the activists after having attempted to stop the ships through other means. As a result of the Israel Defence Force’s assault, nine people were killed and 24 were injured (Migdalovitz 2010; Turkel Commission Report 2011). Right after the assault, Prime Minister Netanyahu justified the action of the army in the following words: Last night a regrettable incident occurred, during which people were killed and others were injured. IDF soldiers who were compelled to defend their lives were also injured. This incident was the result of an intentional provocation of forces which support Iran and its terrorist enclave, Hamas, in the Gaza Strip. This enclave, Hamas, has fired thousands of missiles to the State of Israel, and it is amassing thousands more. This is a clear case of self-defence. Israel cannot allow the free flow of weapons, rockets and missiles to the terrorist base of Hamas in Gaza. (Netanyahu speech 2010)

Defining the enemy and borders of loyalty 87 A few days after the event, MK Zoabi issued a personal statement to the Knesset plenum in which she questioned the way the IDF had acted towards the flotilla and demanded an explanation from the government. The intervention of MK Zoabi provoked severe reactions, including that of MK Regev who gave a speech ending this way: MK Zoabi should be punished. We do not need Trojan horses in the Knesset. Therefore, I propose to MK Zoabi to listen carefully to the words, and I hope to pronounce them correctly in Arabic: rouhi la Ghazzi, ya khâyina [go to Gaza, traitor] [. . . .] We do not need traitors here, in the Israeli Knesset. (MK Regev, Likud, parliamentary debate on the Motions for the Knesset agenda, Gaza Flotilla and Israeli response, 2 June 2010) In light of MK Zoabi’s participation in what was presented as a terrorist activity, the Knesset Committee was asked to assess the possibility of sanctions against her. Two months after the events, the Knesset voted with 34 votes for and 16 against to accept the committee’s recommendation to deprive MK Zoabi of the following parliamentary privileges:18 1

The right according to which “the need to receive a state permit or license to exit from the country shall not apply to a Knesset member except during the war”, under section 10 (a) of the Immunity Law; 2 The right to receive a diplomatic passport under section 10 (b) of the Immunity Law; 3 The right to receive a participation in judiciary costs under section 10 (a) of the Law, if they are expenses generated by a judiciary proceeding. (Proposition of the Knesset Committee to withdraw MK Zoabi’s rights until the end of the 18th Knesset, 13 July 2010) The debates that took place on the withdrawal of MK Zoabi’s parliamentary privileges represent, in many respects, an apex in terms of the violence expressed, including attempts at physical violence.19 These debates also condensed and reinforced many of the discursive practices present in the previous debates, with two main narratives competing: one structured on the image of defensive democracy, and the other articulating democracy as an ensemble of rights. This section investigates these narratives and their impact on the construction of democracy. Defending democracy, drawing red lines The dominant narrative was developed by a group of speakers that included members of the government and the opposition from centre-right, far-right and religious parties.20 It was structured along the topics of security, democracy and loyalty, and opened with the connection between the exploitation of rights and insecurity. The MK presenting the decision to the plenum, the chairman of the Knesset Committee, articulated this link in the following manner:

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Defining the enemy and borders of loyalty MK Zoabi systematically exploits her position as a member of the parliament and the consequent rights that derive from that in order to act against the state, to encourage the states of the world to act against Israel, to support terrorist groups, to support those who harm the soldiers of the IDF, and not less serious, to incite the Arab public in Israel. The state of Israel, the Knesset of Israel and, first and foremost, the citizens of the state of Israel require our protection today, the Knesset’s protection. (MK Levin, Likud, parliamentary debate on the Proposition of the Knesset Committee to withdraw MK Zoabi’s rights, 13 July 2010)

In this first sequence, the construction of threat is quite similar to the one already observed in previous debates. First, basic rights are again presented as one of the causes of threat. Echoing all dominant narratives from 1985 to 2008, the rights conferred by democracy are depicted as potential weapons that can be used and exploited in order to hurt. Second, the referent object of threat is again itself multidimensional. Not only does it entail the state of Israel, the Knesset and the citizens but also the Jewish dimension of the state, as appears in one MK’s speech: The desire of Zoabi to support the destruction of the state of Israel coincides with her initiative a couple of years beforehand, when the organisation she led signed with other Arab-Israeli organisations the Haifa Declaration. (MK Michaeli, Israel Beiteinu, parliamentary debate on the Proposition of the Knesset Committee to withdraw MK Zoabi’s rights, 13 July 2010) The comparison between the destruction of the state of Israel and the Haifa Declaration infers a very specific conception of the state of Israel. The Haifa Declaration was issued in the context of the effort of the Knesset to establish a constitution for the state of Israel. The declaration drafted by a group of Israeli Palestinian intellectuals offers a counter-narrative on the establishment of the Israeli state – presented as the nakba (catastrophe) – and advocated the establishment of an Israeli “state for all its citizens” in which the Palestinian minority would have more autonomy.21 Equating the participation of MK Zoabi in the flotilla and her “desire to support the destruction of the state” with the signing of the Haifa Declaration in turn implies a clear merger between the state of Israel and its Jewish identity. In addition, it also constructs any challenge to the Jewishness of the state as an existential threat to the state and as a hostile act. Indeed, whether supporting the declaration or participating in the flotilla, MK Zoabi is depicted as an enemy of the regime. As one of the speakers put it, “You cross the line between speech and act. Like Azmi Bishara had crossed the lines and who, by speaking in favour of Hezbollah, became an agent of Hezbollah” (MK Danon, Likud, parliamentary debate on the Proposition of the Knesset Committee to withdraw MK Zoabi’s rights, 13 July 2010). The discursive categories used in this sequence generate a war-like dynamic similar to the one witnessed in 1986: the choice is between supporting the

Defining the enemy and borders of loyalty 89 in-group or the enemy – there would be no other alternative. As such, any interaction with someone designated as “the enemy” cannot be interpreted as anything other than treason, as explicitly stated by one of the MKs: We don’t want any Trojan horses in the Knesset, MK Zoabi, we want loyalty to the state [. . .] the discussion is not about Arab Israelis, the discussion is not about freedom of expression. The discussion is about treason against the state thanks to which you can eat. (MK Regev, Likud, parliamentary debate on the Proposition of the Knesset Committee to withdraw MK Zoabi’s rights, 13 July 2010) By drawing upon the category of loyalty already present in the previous debates, this narrative produces an important “ ‘movement’ from the inside to the outside” (Schehr 2007, 315), an exclusionary process where the internal enemy is necessarily expelled from the polity. As expressed by one of the speakers: Any state where an member of the parliament crosses the red line, where he or she identifies with the enemy and arms him with weapons of destruction to destroy the country, cannot find in its pocket a diplomatic passport of the country which he seeks to destroy. MK Zoabi, I take your loyalty to Iran very seriously [so] allow me to provide you with a temporary Iranian diplomatic passport, that will be useful to you in all your trips of incitement, because I think that we will take your Israeli diplomatic passport away from you [MK Michaeli brandishes a mock Iranian passport]. (MK Michaeli, parliamentary debate on the Proposition of the Knesset Committee to withdraw MK Zoabi’s rights, 13 July 2010) By constructing the internal enemy as Iran’s faithful servant, the narrative reinforces both the construction of threat as existential, and the categorisation of MK Zoabi as an enemy who does not and cannot belong to the community. In a last sequence, this exclusionary process of the citizen “crossing the red line” is integrated into the very functioning of the Israeli democracy, one MK emphasising that: Although Israel is indeed a democracy, perhaps too much at times. But, and this is a big but, it is a defensive democracy that protects itself against threats unparalleled in the whole world. It must defend itself and set red lines. (MK Shamalov-Berkowitz, Kadima, parliamentary debate on the Proposition of the Knesset Committee to withdraw MK Zoabi’s rights, 13 July 2010) In the conclusion of the dominant narrative, Israel is once more depicted as a double-facetted democracy. At the same time as Israel is a democracy guaranteeing the protection of rights, it is also a defensive democracy which limits those

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rights because “limits to democracy must exist [against] freedom of action for the enemies of Israel” (MK Pinyan, Likud, parliamentary debate on the Proposition of the Knesset Committee to withdraw MK Zoabi’s rights, 13 July 2010). The limitation of rights and the drawing of “red lines” are all democratic patterns of Israel as it follows the right of “the Jewish nation to decide democratically that it is in danger” (MK Yaakov Katz, National Union, parliamentary debate on the Proposition of the Knesset Committee to withdraw MK Zoabi’s rights, 13 July 2010). According to this logic, excluding the “enemy” and limiting democratic principles can even lead to the reinforcement of democracy. Through the process of sorting good and bad citizens, one speaker claimed that, “We pave the way [for more freedom of expression and action] today, by exercising our right and duty to protect the Knesset, the state and the citizens against those who decide to be a dangerous fringe” (MK Levin, parliamentary debate on the Proposition of the Knesset Committee to withdraw MK Zoabi’s rights, 13 July 2010). The dominant narrative synthetises most of the discursive practices underlined in the other debates. First, MK Zoabi’s participation in an action along with the “enemy” makes her a disloyal citizen or even an enemy herself. Second, in order to protect democracy/the state/the citizens/the Jewish state from the nefarious actions of this enemy of the state, the Israeli democracy is called on to sort trustworthy citizens from traitors and to exclude the latter from the political arena. Finally, these practices are not only legitimised in the light of the existential threat weighing on the state but are incorporated into the Israeli democratic regime itself, hence transforming the meaning of democracy. Democracy might be a regime of rights but it is also one which can curtail its values in order to guarantee survival. The narrative of pluralism The counter-narrative was developed by a discourse coalition comprising (anti-) Zionist far-left MKs and, for the first time, Zionist centre-rights MKs. Their narrative mainly mobilised the topics of democracy and pluralism which were deployed in order to oppose the Knesset decision. It was with the definition of the Gaza flotilla and its relation with terrorism that the narrative started. As in 2008, significant dissimilarities existed between how Zionist and anti-Zionist speakers related to the notion of “enemy”. In the anti-Zionist group, the equation between the Gaza flotilla and an enemy act was dismantled altogether. MK Zoabi herself stated that the flotilla was launched “against the siege and starvation, against concentration camp[s], that act against my people, against the Palestinians” (MK Zoabi, parliamentary debate on the Proposition of the Knesset Committee to withdraw MK Zoabi’s rights, 13 July 2010.) Most members of the Zionist group, on the other hand, mentioned their strong reservations about the flotilla’s aims and actions but nevertheless challenged the relationship between the flotilla and terrorism. Instead of an enemy act, the

Defining the enemy and borders of loyalty 91 participation of MK Zoabi in the flotilla was indeed associated with the notion of freedom of expression, one Likud MK, for instance, claiming that, “I believe in a certain Israeli democracy and I believe in the right of anyone to speak, even when it is uncomfortable or when it hurts me” (MK Rivlin, parliamentary debate on the Proposition of the Knesset Committee to withdraw MK Zoabi’s rights, 13 July 2010). In this excerpt, the action of MK Zoabi is framed as a manifestation of her right to speak within the Israeli democratic regime rather than as an act of terror. The expression of this right does not generate an existential threat but only a possible discomfort to those who do not agree with her position. A different threat, however, is said to exist, and it is precisely the limitation of this freedom. Referring to dark days in the history, one speaker expressed this in a dramatic tone, saying, “After they outlawed the Communist Party of Germany [. . .] and accused them of having burnt the Reichstag. Yes, there is a comparison to make. This is how democracy was eliminated” (MK Khenin, parliamentary debate on the Proposition of the Knesset Committee to withdraw MK Zoabi’s rights, 13 July 2010). Evoking events usually mentioned by the dominant discourse coalition to justify the limitation of rights, the speaker here precisely transforms the analogy: the limitation of rights rather than their exploitation is what brings about the end of democracy. Consequently, the narrative also reconstructs the category of enemy, arguing that, “What is dangerous today for democracy is the Kahanist Trojan horse that clashed with the soldiers of the IDF, a hundred thousand times more than Hanin Zoabi” (MK Gilon, Meretz, parliamentary debate on the Proposition of the Knesset Committee to withdraw MK Zoabi’s rights, 13 July 2010). Racism, incitement and accusations against the minority are the only threats jeopardising the democratic regime. As on MK explained: Mr Speaker of the Knesset, I want to tell you, I do not identify with Hanin Zoabi, but democracy should be democracy. There can be a democracy only for those who do not want to trample over the minority. (MK Molla, Kadima, parliamentary debate on the Proposition of the Knesset Committee to withdraw MK Zoabi’s rights, 13 July 2010) Drawing on this sequencing, this marginal narrative ends, once again, by altering the notion of defending democracy and democracy. As MK Zoabi articulated it regarding the protection of equality and pluralism, “This is the meaning of democracy and I am the one defending democracy, not you. You threaten democracy” (MK Zoabi, parliamentary debate on the Proposition of the Knesset Committee to withdraw MK Zoabi’s rights, 13 July 2010). Despite the very different positioning of the speakers vis-à-vis the flotilla and MK Zoabi’s action, the speakers thus developed a quite similar sequencing that generated significant discursive transformations of categories present in the dominant narrative. First, echoing the claim heard in 2002 – according to which “the fact that we [Arab MKs] are here and express our different opinions is the mark of democracy” (MK Dahamshe, parliamentary debate on the Basic Law:

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the Knesset, 15 May 2002) – those depicted as disloyal or dangerous in the dominant narrative become the ones that deserve protection. Second, protecting the rights of minorities, here embodied by MK Zoabi, is once again what gives democracy its raison d’être. Third and consequently, “defending democracy” does not mean survival through the limitation of rights, since doing so on the contrary eliminates the basis of the democratic regime altogether. Sympathising with the enemy against the right to speak Concurrent to the discussion of the withdrawal of MK Zoabi’s parliamentary privileges in July 2010, the Knesset Ethics Committee was asked to take another step against the deputy’s participation in the Gaza flotilla. After examining several complaints, the committee ultimately made the decision, one year later, to suspend MK Zoabi’s right to speak in the Knesset until the end of the parliamentary session two weeks later (Azulai 2011; Lis 2011a). This decision implied that during these two weeks MK Zoabi was entitled to be present in the plenum and committees’ debates and to vote, but was barred from expressing her position during the discussions. Echoing the dominant narrative analysed above, the committee deployed a vocabulary of insecurity, coupled with a language of merit to justify its decision: The very participation in the flotilla, which was intended to break the naval blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip as part of the armed conflict with Hamas, constitutes an action which hurts state security and does not fall within a Knesset member’s legitimate freedom of action. (Knesset Ethics Committee, 2011) Three years later, while the operation Protective Edge launched in the Gaza Strip was going in full force, MK Zoabi was once again the object of complaints before the Ethics Committee. The complaints related to several declarations from MK Zoabi about three Israeli teenagers kidnapped and later killed by Palestinians of the West Bank, believed to be linked to Hamas. On this occasion, MK Zoabi publicly declared in a radio interview that the kidnappers should not be considered terrorists because, “Even if I do not agree with them, they are people who do not see any way to change their reality and are forced to use these means until Israel sobers up a bit” (Knesset Ethics Committee 2014). Pertaining to this statement, the Minister of Foreign Affairs directly declared that “not only are the kidnappers terrorists, Hanin Zoabi is a terrorist too” (Harkov 2014). A few weeks later, the Knesset Ethics Committee made the decision to deprive MK Zoabi of her right to take part in all Knesset activities, except for voting, for a six-month period. In its decision, the committee articulated the link between MK Zoabi’s words of sympathy with the enemy and the rights conferred by the democratic regime as follows: It is the right of Knesset members to express non-consensual positions and public criticism of the government [. . . .] However, one must distinguish

Defining the enemy and borders of loyalty 93 between criticism and harsh but legitimate protest, and encouraging the enemies of the state [. . . .] Israel, like any country, expects that members of parliament who declare allegiance to the state, do not encourage those who rise up against it. (Knesset Ethics Committee 2014) The discursive patterns present in the committee and the plenum on the occasion of the consecutive decisions to suspend MK Zoabi’s rights were very similar to those observed in the previous debates. On the one hand, dominant speakers reaffirmed most of the rhetorical elements at play since 2002 and increasingly purported after 2006: the conflation of sympathy with the enemy’s cause and “hurting the state security”, the depiction of democratic rights as potential weapons, the tracing of a line between loyal and disloyal citizens, and the need for democracy to expel the disloyal to protect the regime. As claimed by one of the MKs during a debate that followed the committee’s decision, such a decision might be exceptional but it is also a very regular step to take because “no parliament in the world, not the United States, not Britain, not France, not Germany, not Japan, not Australia, not Canada [. . .] would accept in times of war [. . .] such statements, behaviours” (MK Akunis, Likud, parliamentary debate, Knesset Protocols, 30 July 2014). Against this conception of a democracy, a smaller discourse coalition composed of left-wing and centrist parliamentary actors continued to oppose the limitation of the right to speak and to be part of the political conversation. Despite several criticisms of MK Zoabi’s declarations, these speakers contested the dominant interpretation of her actions and the decision to suspend her rights in the name of pluralism, the “rights of the minority, the rights of the Arabs, the rights of the opposition” (MK Galon, parliamentary debate, Knesset Protocols, 30 July 2014).

Conclusion The discursive connection between security, democracy and maintaining links with the enemy has not emerged recently in Israel. The first section of this chapter showed that Israeli legislature articulated encounters with terrorist organisations and visits to enemy states as a threat since its first years in several pieces of legislation. Among these laws, the amendment of the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance passed in 1986 and repealed in 1993 was a significant step in regulating contacts with enemies by Israeli citizens. The debates which took place over the passing of this amendment were crucial in many respects. Not only were they a locus of struggle on the definition of the enemy and of the meaning of “contacts with the enemy”, but they also perpetuated a discursive struggle over the definition of the boundaries of democracy, which would structure the discursive struggle in the Knesset long after the repeal of the article. The dominant discourse coalition condemning contacts with the PLO entangled these “contacts” in a particular narrative of war which had a series of discursive effects. First, the dominant narrative demonised the enemy and thereby disqualified the possibility

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of negotiation with the PLO. Second, it created a clear barrier between an “us” to protect and a “them” to fight against. Under those circumstances, any person belonging to “us” and entering into contact with “them” became a traitor. Finally, under these specific conditions, it was suggested that democracy could expel a treacherous citizen outside the circle of rights. MK Kahane, who developed his own narrative, drew on this logic of exclusion while simultaneously transforming it. By reconstructing the enemy as an ethnic other, his minority narrative demanded the exclusion of the enemy, the traitor and of anyone belonging to the Arab group. Against these two stories, a minority narrative opposed the law in the name of peace and democracy defined as a locus of rights and plurality. Twenty years after these debates, the contact with the enemy–democracy nexus re-emerged during three lively parliamentary discussions. During these debates, the counter-narrative deconstructed the conflation of “contacts with the enemy” and threat, while also transforming the category of threat. Instead of “contacts with the enemy”, the threat was said to come from the curtailment of rights, thereby jeopardising the democratic regime. In contrast, in promoting the law the consecutive dominant discourse coalitions promoted the interdiction of “contacts with enemies” in a defensive democracy narrative. The structure of this narrative was reminiscent of the logic of war produced in 1986, although it mobilised the topic of democracy to a much more significant extent. Whether or not the notion of war was explicitly mobilised (and whether or not war was actually taking place), the construction of the enemy as a vile foe threatening the existence of the regime led to the same dynamic as in previous eras. Relations with the enemy were framed as dangerous, as an existential threat jeopardising democracy, the state, the citizens and the Jewish state. In the extraordinary security situation that Israel was said to be facing, contacting or helping an enemy state (2008), visiting an enemy state without authorisation (2008 and 2011), taking part in an activity alongside alleged terrorists (2010) or sympathising with the enemy (2014) were all framed as potential obstacles to survival. Moreover, because “[w]ithin the war metaphor, any hesitation to support the war becomes unpatriotic” (Steuter and Willis 2008, 12), these contacts could be no less than acts of “transgression of the political boundaries” (Lee 2011), genuine acts of disloyalty and treason. As such, the dominant discourse framed the question in binary terms: one was either a loyal supporter of the “in-group” (Simmel 1992 [1918]; Coser 1956) or against it, a discursive dynamic that is reminiscent of the discourses on the “war on terror” touted in the West after 11 September 2001.22 In this context, the solutions presented in the dominant narrative were connected with democracy in a similar fashion as during the second intifada. Because rights were allegedly instruments in the hands of the enemies and their allies, and because those rights could work as an obstacle to survival, democracy was asked to defend “itself ” by limiting rights. Or more precisely, defensive democracy was asked to curtail the rights of some, i.e. the “disloyal” citizens. Those who were considered “disloyal” could and would be expelled

Defining the enemy and borders of loyalty 95 from the circle of rights, the political sphere or the polity. Importantly, these exclusionary practices were not restricted to periods of danger and war. Once again echoing the debates taking place during the second intifada, in which democracy could fix “democratic rules in order to defend itself ” (MK Langenthal, parliamentary debate on the Basic Law: The Knesset, 5 November 2001), exclusionary features were incorporated into the democratic regime itself. It was not only defensive democracy but democracy itself that was asked to set red lines, for “the first rule of democracy [is] to be loyal to democracy” (MK Orlev, parliamentary debate on the Basic Law: The Knesset, 23 June 2008). Chapter 5 will show how a similar configuration of narratives was at play during the debates on the Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law. It will also highlight how the notion of “the enemy” and “war” have been further reconstructed, and discuss the effects of these reconstructions on the boundaries and identity of the regime.

Notes 1 This amendment mainly targeted the Palestinians from the Occupied Territories sup porting the PLO (Keren 1999, 99). 2 This was reflected in its 1968 Charter which included a call for the retrieval of Pales tine “and its liberation through armed struggle” (Article 8), “the elimination of Zionism in Palestine” (Article 15) and claimed that “the liberation of Palestine will destroy the Zionist and imperialist presence” (Article 22). These articles were declared void in 1993 by Arafat and in 1996 by the Palestinian National Council. See Ministry of Foreign Affairs (“the Palestinian National Charter”). 3 The government was composed of the Likud, the Alignment (without Mapam which had withdrawn from the alliance when the Labor Party entered the national unity gov ernment), the National Religious Party and the ultra orthodox parties Poalei Agudat Israel, Agudat Israel, and Shas. 4 Abie Nathan and David Ish Shalom were condemned to 18 and 7 months respectively. Their sentences were reduced by a decision of the President of Israel to 12 and 3 months (Amnesty International 1992). 5 In addition to this discourse coalition, a small group of MKs who opposed contacts with PLO members did, however, oppose the law in the name of democracy, which the law was said to “cannibalise” (MK Atashi, Shinui Centre Party, parliamentary debate on the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance, 31 July 1986). 6 Thereafter, the GSS announced they had enough evidence to indict MK Bishara for crimes during the Lebanon war, including aid to the enemy (Weiss 2007; Shahar and Lis 2007). This announcement was followed by MK Bishara leaving the country for Cairo and by his resignation from the Knesset in 2007. In 2011, Bishara’s pension as a former MK was cancelled following a decision of the Knesset. 7 The other parties of the government were Shas, Israel Beiteinu and the party of the pensioners. 8 While ruling on the disqualification of MK Bishara by the CEC in 2003, the Supreme Court stated that: the evidence required in order to determine that the acts of Member of Knesset Bishara involve a denial of the existence of the state of Israel as a Jewish state and

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9 The relation between terrorism and citizenship deprivation is not a practice confined to Israel. In the United Kingdom, the 2006 British Immigration, Asylum and Nation ality Act amendment, for instance, allows the Home Secretary to revoke British cit izenship whenever such a “deprivation is conducive to the public good” (Article 56(2) of the law). See on this topic Gibney (2013). Other Western states, including France and Australia, have similar mechanisms as well, which they have often reinforced after 9/11 (Beauchamps 2013; Gibney 2013). 10 The point of contention essentially stemmed from the emphasis put on the Jewish character of the state. According to two members of the cabinet opposing the draft, such mention was not only irrelevant but also unnecessary and provocative to the Pal estinian citizens living in the state of Israel. Interview with Minister Begin (2010) and Barak (2010). 11 In September 2002, the citizenship of Mr Obeid, a senior Hezbollah militant in Lebanon involved in the abduction of an Israeli businessman, was revoked. In November 2002, the citizenship of Mr Abu Kishak was cancelled for being a senior member of Hamas’s military wing (Yoaz 2007). 12 The brevity of the debates and the small number of speeches might be due to the fact that the possibility of revoking citizenship already existed in the law. It could also be due to the ambiguity of the law: on the one hand, it reinforced mechanisms presented as democratic (namely the passing of the authority from the minister to the judiciary). On the other hand, it strengthened a mechanism presented as undemocratic (namely the revocation of citizenship). 13 The Labour party and Kadima in particular were strikingly absent from the debates. 14 MK Pines Paz, chairman of the Knesset Internal Affairs and Environment Committee, developed his own narrative in support of the law, in which he conceived the transfer from the administrative branch to the judiciary one as an added value (a merit that MK Erdan also emphasised in his speech). 15 The murderer of Prime Minister Rabin. 16 The term “Marmara flotilla” comes from the name of the ship Mavi Marmara (a Turkish ship formerly used as a ferry in the Sea of Marmara), which led the flotilla, which was also called the “Gaza Freedom Flotilla” by those on board. 17 The control of the Gaza Strip by the Hamas movement followed the 2006 elections won by Hamas and a series of violent clashes with Fatah within the Gaza Strip. 18 Concurrently, the Attorney General demanded the opening of a criminal investigation into her role in the affair. The investigation was closed in December 2011 over legal difficulties and problems pertaining to evidence (Zarchin 2012). 19 At one point, MK Anastassia Michaeli attempted to physically assault MK Zoabi in the plenum. Footage of the incident was caught by television cameras. 20 The government was composed of Likud, Labour, Shas, Israel Beiteinu, UTJ and the Jewish Home. 21 For the text of the document, see Haifa Declaration. For analysis of these documents, see Waxman and Peleg (2008) and Ghanem and Mustafa (2009). 22 For more on the notion of the “war on terror”, see Steuter and Willis (2008).

5

The security–immigration nexus Between terrorist and demographic threat

Israel has the right [. . .] to ensure that it remains a Zionist state with a Jewish majority that provides full rights. But is the family unification right stronger than the right to protect the character of the collective as Jewish? (Interview with an MK from Kadima 2010)

In March 2002, a terrorist attack was committed in a restaurant named Matza in the city of Haifa, killing 16 people. The perpetrator, a Palestinian from the Occupied Territories acting on behalf of Hamas, had previously been granted Israeli citizenship on the basis of family reunification. Several weeks later, the Minister of Interior announced that, as long as the security situation required it, residents of the Palestinian territories would not be granted residence permits or citizenship anymore, including on the basis of family unification1 (Government Decision 1813, 2002). The impact of this decision on family unification was direct, with thousands of Israeli families being barred from living united within the Israeli borders (Hamoked 2006). One year later, while the intifada was at its apex, the government demanded the Knesset institutionalise this decision as an emergency law with a time limit of one year. The Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law (Temporary Order) 2003 (hereafter “CEIL”) was meant to be reexamined in the light of the security situation at the end of this period. Presently, after 15 consecutive prolongations by the Knesset, the law is still in force. Since its first enactment, the law has generated harsh criticisms by civil rights associations, international bodies,2 political actors and intellectuals in Israel and abroad. Two failed appeals against the law were introduced to the Supreme Court, which each time ruled that the law was constitutional. These rulings nevertheless asked for some modifications to be introduced (HCJ 7052/03 and HCJ 830/07),3 which were translated into several amendments to the law over the years. Against this background, this chapter investigates how the fight against “the war of terror” (Sharon speech 2001), which took place during the second inti fada, originally legitimised the CEIL and the limitation of the right to family unification that it generated. It is also interested in the possible shift of language following the end of the Palestinian uprising and the decline of terrorist attacks.

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More specifically, this chapter explores development of competing narratives legitimising or de-legitimising the law by asking: how were the topics of threat and insecurity connected with the question of residency, rights and democracy in Israel during and after the second intifada? How was it narrated by different competing discourse coalitions? And how did these processes affect the boundaries of the regime? The narratives that were articulated during these debates are presented in three sections. The first section focuses on the narratives developed in the Knesset during the first passing of the law and during its first prolongation in the middle of the intifada. The second section delves into the debates on the prolongation of the law after the end of the second intifada, between 2005 and 2009. The last section examines the competing narratives between 2010 and 2013, a period during which the government attempted to replace the emergency law with a permanent law on immigration. The chapter displays how two discourse coalitions opposed the law through slightly different counter-narratives of rights, while one minority narrative supported the law by mobilising the topics of security and demography. Constantly dominant, a defensive democracy narrative imposed itself while fusing with the demographic narrative in the last series of debates. The chapter argues that by doing so, the dominant discourse coalition has further modified the meaning and shape of democracy, whose ultimate objective became the preservation of the “Jewish state”.

Emergency, necessity and the banning of the enemy: 2003–2004 One year after the government had decided to put an end to the granting of residence permits to residents of the Occupied Territories, the government asked the Knesset to institutionalise this decision by voting through the Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law. In comparison with the government decision, the law added exceptions by which entering the country was still possible for Palestinians of the Occupied Territories: entry into Israel for the purpose of work or medical treatment (for a fixed period not exceeding three months), and for cases in which the Minister was “convinced that the [applicant] identifies with the state of Israel and its goals and that the person or a family member acted to advance the security the economy or another matter important to the state” (CEIL 2003). The Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law (Temporary Order) 2003 was passed one month later with 48 voices in favour and 25 against, after vigorous debates in the plenum. When the law expired one year later, in July 2004, the government demanded that the Knesset extend the law for another six months.4 This occurred again at the end of the six-month period, after which the Knesset extended the law for another year. This section of the chapter explores the discursive competition that took place over this law of emergency. It shows that two main narratives competed during these debates. On the one hand, a dominant discourse coalition developed a

The security–immigration nexus 99 narrative of emergency and war anchored in the democracy–security dichotomy to justify the law (first sub-section). On the other hand, a minority group drew on the categories of racism, democracy and rights to create a narrative contesting the law (second sub-section). Due to the significant involvement of the Supreme Court in the debates, a last sub-section also examines the 2006 ruling of the court regarding CEIL, and highlights the dynamic relations between the political and judiciary discourses. War, emergency and the “exceptional” treatment of the enemy The first and dominant narrative emanated from members of the centre-right party Likud, the secular party Shinui, some ultra-orthodox MKs from Shas, and Zionist religious MKs, who all supported CEIL. This discourse coalition formulated a narrative structured along the topics of insecurity, war and rights. Like most of the dominant narratives previously analysed, the narrative started with a discussion of the threat and of the need for self-defence. The chairman of the committee introducing the law in second reading put it in these words: we are at war, this war is one with a clear national character, we are not the ones who opened it, we are not the ones who initiated it, we got it as a result of terror from the other side, and that is why we must defend ourselves. It is the duty of a government to first of all protect its citizens. (MK Stern, chairman of the Internal Affairs and Environment Committee, National Union-Israel Beiteinu, parliamentary debate on CEIL, 31 July 2003) Echoing post-11 September 2001 speeches formulated in Europe and the United States, Palestinian terrorism is here equated with a “war” of self-defence imposed on Israelis. As in any war, the camps are unambiguous and the enemy is clearly identified. In this context, “us” and “our blood” (MK Margi, Shas, parliamentary debate on the CEIL, 20 July 2004) are indeed opposed to a unified and homogeneous “national enemy” living in the enemy entity, namely: [Palestinian residents] who kill us and murder a woman and her children and an unborn son in her womb, kill Israeli families during the Passover seder5 and kill teenagers in the Delphinarium [a club in Tel Aviv]. (MK Stern, parliamentary debate on CEIL, 20 July 2004) In comparison with the previous debates, the category of the enemy is thus reconstructed here. The enemy does not only include enemy states or terrorist organisations anymore but any person living in the enemy state, i.e. “everyone who comes from Judea and Samaria and from Gaza, today” (MK Zeev, parliamentary debate on CEIL, 17 June 2003). Following this depiction of the enemy, the narrative continues as in the other debates. Faced with the overwhelming enemy aiming to kill, the narrative

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invokes the right for “democracy to protect itself” (MK Rivlin, parliamentary debate on CEIL, 31 July 2003). Under exceptional circumstances, the shift to defensive democracy is the only option, and this defence implies to strike a more appropriate balance between democratic rights and security. As one MK expressed: The balance is between the principles of democracy, the liberal foundations of our society, our belonging to the Western world, and the needs of security, of self-defence. Every democracy that is at war or in difficult security situations needs to deal with these questions. America, after the one-time event of 9/11, changed its procedures and rules. (MK Stern, parliamentary debate on CEIL, 31 July 2003) In this sequence, the narrative reproduces patterns of the classical framework of emergency. Rights, democratic principles and “belonging to the Western world” are depicted as hurdles to the protection of survival. This is the case because rights are not only attributes of the democratic regime but can also be used as a “weapon to enter the Israeli borders easily and as an advantage for complotting” (MK Pinkelstein, NRP, parliamentary debate on CEIL, 17 June 2003). As put by one of the speakers: It is clear that there is a possible involvement [in these attacks] of Palestinians who are residents [in Israel] thanks to their spouses who have blue identity cards6 which allow them to enjoy freedom of movement in the territories of the Palestinian Authority as well as in Israel. (MK Pinkelstein, NRP, parliamentary debate on CEIL, 17 June 2003) Because the freedom stemming from the right of residence can be exploited to hurt, one has to solve this “contradiction between rights and security” (MK Pinkelstein, NRP, parliamentary debate on CEIL, 17 June 2003) by striking a new balance between the former and the latter. In this framework, what comes first presents not equivoque: the “greatest right of all [is] the right to live” (MK Saar, Likud, parliamentary debate on CEIL, 31 July 2003). The limitation of the right to family unification is thus a measure of no choice, a measure of necessity. As the Minister of Interior put it: I want to tell you, that for me, this is not a joyous law. I agree with the comment that it would have been more becoming if this law never would have made it into the law books, that an enlightened and humane society should allow family reunifications. But an impossible situation has been created, and this legislation is brought to you in the absence of choice. (Minister of Interior Poraz, Shinui, parliamentary debate on CEIL, 17 June 2003) The law, while clashing with the “liberal foundations” of the society, is a necessary emergency measure which other countries have also been using elsewhere:

The security–immigration nexus 101 Who gave the Germans, the citizens of Nazi Germany, the possibility to marry British citizens and to establish in England during the war? Who has given to Germans from Nazi Germany the possibility to marry American citizens and to establish in the United States and receive American citizenship? (MK Stern, parliamentary debate on CEIL, 20 July 2004) Like in any other liberal state, the security context leaves no other choice but to depart from what an enlightened society “should normally do”, namely guaranteeing the right to family unification. Although the right to family unification should ideally be protected by democracy, it is argued that, “We cannot, in the name of democracy, in the name of our values, abandon our blood. It is not comfortable, it is not easy, but these laws are emergency laws” (MK Margi, parliamentary debate on CEIL, 20 July 2004). Reproducing the “no choice” motto as well as the classical opposition between democratic principles and survival, the narrative thus leads to similar conclusions as in 2002, 2008 and 2010. In time of war and emergency, democracy has no other choice: it must not only repel the external enemy. In this case, this war also involves exceptionally limiting its own attributes by suspending the rights of some (Palestinian) citizens in order to safeguard its overarching objective: the protection of the citizens and the state. Hurting rights and the destruction of democracy Against the dominant narrative, anti-Zionist MKs and far-left Zionist MKs developed a counter-narrative opposing the law, interpreting the measure in a divergent manner and dismantling most dominant discursive articulations. Instead of insecurity and war, their narrative was mostly structured along the topics of democracy, racism and human rights, and started as follows: Mr Speaker of the Knesset, Members of the Knesset, the law is an instrument for anti-democratic steps, preventing people from choosing their spouses, invading the residents’ private lives. It reminds me of the German Nuremberg laws, in which it was determined whom you can marry and even whom you cannot have relations with. This is an invasion into a person’s privacy, reminiscent of dark regimes. This law aims to strengthen the antidemocratic approach that we have warned against, that will lead to an apartheid regime in the state. The law means that if you are Jewish, you have the right to choose a spouse, if you are Arab, you do not. (MK Taha, Balad, parliamentary debate on CEIL, 17 June 2003) Whereas the dominant narrative depicted the law as a response to a war imposed on Israel, the first sequence of the counter-narrative completely disregards the issue of insecurity. The law is not depicted as a wartime measure resulting in the unfortunate suspension of the rights of Palestinian citizens. On the contrary, the law is paralleled with the discriminatory measures taken against the Jews in

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the first days of Nazi Germany and painted as a deliberately discriminatory measure. Rather than security, discriminatory considerations as well as demographic concerns are thus presented as the real rationales of the law: This law has no connection with security. This law relates to demographics. You want to reduce the number of Arabs in the state of Israel. Say it, you need to say it. Say it, and then we will know what we are talking about. But what is this tale about security? What does this have to do with security? (MK Bishara, parliamentary debate on CEIL, 31 July 2003) By painting the law as intentionally discriminatory, aiming at “racial purity” (MK Barakeh, Hadash, parliamentary debate on CEIL, 31 July 2003) or “ethnic purity” (MK Dahamshe, parliamentary debate on CEIL, 17 June 2003), this narrative decouples the connection between the measure and the maintenance of security. When in some rare instances the genuineness of terrorist threats is acknowledged in the narrative, the focus is nevertheless on another danger, namely the law itself: “This law is a mega-terrorist attack. Speaking of terrorist attacks – and we want to prevent terrorist attacks in this country – this law, this proposed bill is a mega-terrorist attack on democracy and humanity” (MK Taha, parliamentary debate on the CEIL, 31 July 2003). Drawing on the category of threat mobilised by the dominant discourse coalition, a distorted mirror of the dominant narrative is produced. A security threat does indeed exist, but it is the threat stemming from the law itself: “It is a law that transforms this house in a state of proclaimed, official, apartheid. I have never seen a law that explicitly and publicly states that what is allowed for Jews is forbidden for Arabs” (MK Dahamshe, parliamentary debate on CEIL, 17 June 2003). By introducing a distinction between Jews and Arabs, the law is said to derogate its obligation to protect the rights and equality of citizens. Instead of being an instrument used to obtain a state of security, the law is painted as a direct and intentional attack on the very foundations of democracy, which must therefore be opposed. Through this articulation of the law with the democratic regime, the marginal counter-narrative not only challenges the purpose of the measure but also confers its own meaning to the signifier “democracy”: a regime of equal and unalterable rights. War, rights and state identity: a legal interpretation of the law Soon after CEIL was passed in 2003, the human rights organisation Adalah (the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel) and other individuals, including MK Galon from Meretz, challenged the constitutionality of the law in the Supreme Court. They argued that by impeding certain categories of citizens (i.e. Palestinians) from uniting with their partners in Israel, the law was discriminatory and thus unconstitutional. At the time of the deliberation, almost 80 per cent of Palestinian-Israeli families’ demands for unification had been frozen and more

The security–immigration nexus 103 than 72,000 nuclear families were directly affected by the law (Hamoked 2006). Three years later, in May 2006, the Supreme Court published the ruling, handed down by an extended panel of 11 justices. Five of the justices pronounced themselves in favour of the petitioner’s argument and proclaimed that the law was unconstitutional (High Court of Justice 7052/03).7 While integrating the argument of security, these justices formulated a narrative of human rights reminiscent of the counter-narrative developed in the Knesset. The minority justices focused on the right to family unification and started by assessing whether the right to family life of the Israeli citizens was a constitutional one. The answer was in the affirmative: according to them “the right to live together as a family unit is a part of the right to human dignity” (High Court of Justice 7052/03, 30) entrenched in the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty. To the question of knowing whether the deprivation of this right constituted discrimination, the court again ruled in the affirmative, stating that, “A law that causes an injury that focuses almost exclusively on the Arab citizens of Israel violates equality” (High Court of Justice 7052/03, 40). Like in the parliamentary counter-narrative, the infringement of rights was thus framed as doubly problematic: first because the infringement hurt the right to family unification, and second because it compromised the right to equality guaranteed by the basic law on human dignity and liberty (High Court of Justice 7052/03). Accordingly, the minority justices declared that the law was in contradiction with constitutional rights. The last step of their reasoning examined whether the curtailment of equality was proportional. At this point, the justices reproduced the dichotomy embedded in the dominant parliamentary narrative and acknowledged that “every democracy is required to balance the need to preserve and protect the life and safety of citizens against the need to preserve and protect human rights” (High Court of Justice 7052/03, 85). Yet, in contrast to the dominant narrative, the minority justices concluded that the balance struck by the government was not adequate. Justice Barak made this claim in the following words: Democracy should not commit suicide in order to protect the human rights of its citizens. Democracy should protect itself and fight for its existence and its values. But this protection and this war should be carried out in a manner that does not deprive us of our democratic nature. (High Court of Justice 7052/03) Although it fully integrated the possible contradiction between rights and security present in the dominant parliamentary narrative, the justices thus rejected the idea that security should come first against the right to equality, and declared the law unconstitutional and void. Six other justices addressed the issue from a vastly different angle. Closer to the dominant parliamentary narrative than to the narrative of rights, these justices extensively evoked the link between the passing of the law and the security situation of Israel, stating for instance:

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The security–immigration nexus The Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law was enacted against the background of the armed conflict and state of war between Israel and the Palestinians, and therefore there is a proper and permitted distinction between persons who married foreigners, who are Palestinian “enemy nationals” that are presumed to constitute a potential security risk to the residents of the state, and persons who married foreigners who are not “hostile nationals”. (High Court of Justice 7052/03, 149)

Similar to the dominant narrative, the justices here equate Palestinians with enemies and depict the security context as a kind of battle. In this exceptional situation, it is claimed that Israel should have the right to repel its enemies from the territory in order to guarantee survival. One of the justices put it in these words: a state has a right, in times of war, to limit the immigration of those considered to be “enemy-subjects”, even if it leads to the curtailment of rights: when we place these conflicting values before us, we must clarify and weigh up to what extent the right to family life as aforesaid detracts from the values of life and security, and vice versa: to what extent do the values of life and security detract from family life. (High Court of Justice 7052/03,142) Acknowledging the fact that repelling the enemy from the country also directly affects the right to family unification of Israeli citizens, the justices nevertheless agreed with the government that such right to family unification should not be an obstacle to security. Therefore, they concluded that the limitation of this right was acceptable. Prolonging and expanding this notion, one of the justices explained this in more detail in a subsequent passage of the ruling: In this case, we say that recognising the rights of the citizen to bring into Israel, in a time of war, a family member who is an enemy national causes harm in two ways: first, it violates the right of the organised society in Israel to decide who will live in Israel and who will be its citizens and residents, i.e. it impairs the ability of the state to determine its identity and character, second, it harms – or at least it is likely to harm – national security. (High Court of Justice 7052/03, 145) This sequence of the ruling is notable for several reasons. First, it reinforces the merging process of the Palestinian residents with the category of enemy. Second, it prolongs the notion that rights can be used as tools of the enemy. Third, it envisages security as the prevailing aim that the state should perpetually pursue. Finally, besides the balance between national security and rights, the justice here also establishes a balance where the right to family unification is weighed against the right of the state to “determine its identity”. On the grounds of this legal reasoning, the constitutional character of the law was recognised and the law upheld.8 The 2006 ruling of the Supreme Court was

The security–immigration nexus 105 harshly debated and probably marks the climax of public interest towards the law in the media, among NGOs and in academia. The question of identity protection in particular, although marginal in the ruling, raised significant controversy (Bilsky 2008). As the next sections show, the connection between the law, the immigration of Palestinians and the protection of the state’s character gained importance in the Knesset debates in the years to come.

The perpetuation of emergency: 2005–2009 The Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law (Temporary Order) 2003 was originally passed as a law of emergency meant to be temporary. After 2005 and the official ending of the second intifada, the country witnessed a reduction in the number of terrorist suicide attacks and the main security issue became the increase in rocket launchings from South Lebanon and the Gaza Strip. It was in this context that the government asked the Knesset to prolong the law originally crafted to counter suicide attacks. At the same time as it was prolonged, the law was also amended several times, including in order to expand the scope of the law to “anyone living in an area in which operations [exist] that constitute a threat to the security of the state of Israel”, specifically Iran, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq (CEIL 2007, Article 3d)9 and later Gaza (CEIL 2008). The next sections explore the debates that took place from the end of the second intifada to 2009, including on these new amendments. It presents and examines the four narratives which competed in the Knesset during this period: a dominant narrative of perpetual emergency promoting the law, a narrative of demographic threat supporting the law as well, a narrative of rights opposing the prolongation of the measure, and finally a narrative balancing the regime identity against democracy. The narrative of eternal emergency The dominant narrative was articulated by speakers of the government and of the opposition from centre-right, centre-left, religious and far-right parties.10 Despite the change in context in comparison with 2003–2004, the striking quality of this narrative was its similarity with the previous dominant narrative. As in the latter narrative, the topic of security opened the discussion and the situation was depicted with the same words as it was during the intifada. Introducing the law to the plenum in 2006, the Minister of Interior stated, “In light of the continuous security situation and in light of the continuous security threat that we face, the same situation on which the temporary regulation was based, it is important to extend this regulation” (Minister of Interior Bar-On, Kadima, parliamentary debate on CEIL, 19 December 2006). Despite the end of the Palestinian uprising, the extraordinary or exceptional insecurity situation which characterised the second intifada is still present in the narrative. Indeed, even though the situation is said to have improved in the West Bank, it is also claimed that there is “no change in the security situation in the Gaza Strip” (Minister of Interior Yishai,

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parliamentary debate on CEIL, 27 July 2009). As a consequence, freedom of movement and the right to reside in Israel could still be “used to hurt the security of the state” (Minister of Justice Livni, Likud, parliamentary debate on CEIL, 25 May 2005) while, “in the streets of Israel there is still a danger that at any minute, some calamity will break out” (MK Rivlin, parliamentary debate on CEIL, 1 July 2008). If the situation remains unchanged, the prolongation of the law, too, continues to be justified. In the continuous emergency perilous context, it is argued that, “[T]here is absolutely no obligation to introduce enemies who have declared war to us in the state of Israel” (MK Saar, parliamentary debate on CEIL, 1 July 2008). Such a step might be abnormal, but it is once again necessary and exceptional. Although for “the state of Israel, whose democratic name precedes it from one end of the world to another, this law will not be a glory” (MK Rivlin, parliamentary debate on CEIL, 1 July 2008), the security situation, which was unknown “in civilised countries worldwide” (Minister of Interior Yishai, Shas, parliamentary debate on CEIL, 27 July 2009), requires the introduction of a twist in the normal functioning of the democratic regime. Indeed, “[D]emocracy not only needs to stand up, it not only has a right, it has the duty to protect and the obligation to give security to its residents and citizens” (MK Mitzna, Labour, parliamentary debate on CEIL, 27 July 2005). In a last sequence, this departure from civilised values is further justified and rendered compatible with the ultimate obligation of the regime. It is stated: We believe that the right of Israeli citizens to live is more important [than the right to family unification]. Which means that on a hierarchy of values, we do not deny the other [democratic] values, but we say that there is another value, Mr Speaker, and it is the value of life. (MK Saar, parliamentary debate on CEIL, 1 July 2008) The balance that is depicted in this sequence is not ambiguous in its prioritisation. The “appropriate balance between security needs of the state’s citizens [. . .] and the possibility to allow people” to unite in Israel (Minister of Justice Livni, parliamentary debate on CEIL, 25 May 2005) once again shifts in favour of the former at the expense of the latter. Because the duty of democracy is to guarantee the “rights of Israeli citizens to live”, the curtailment of another democratic right is the logical and natural consequence of the democratic functioning. At the same time as the measure is presented as either an inglorious necessity or as an abnormal practice, the limitation of rights in the name of security is thus framed as compatible with, and even embedded in, the values of the regime. Security as survival, survival as demographic balance The second narrative came from a series of centre-right members, and from ultra-orthodox and religious ultra-nationalist MKs. Like the dominant narrative of perpetual war, this narrative revolved mostly around the topic of insecurity

The security–immigration nexus 107 and consequently framed the law as an instrument of necessity. This narrative opened with the topic of insecurity, with speakers asserting that “security grounds are real reasons” (MK Levin, parliamentary debate on CEIL, 27 July 2009) and pointing out that, despite the end of the intifada, terror still existed. For instance, as one MK stated during the debate, “missiles are sent to us [from Gaza] to remind us: do not forget, we are here, terror is here, terror lives and survives” (MK Zeev, parliamentary debate on CEIL, 15 January 2007). While starting in a similar manner as the dominant narrative, the second sequence of the narrative diverged. In the second sequence, the construction of threat was expanded and modified in comparison with the eternal war constructed by the dominant discourse coalition. Alongside the missiles threatening the bodies of Israeli citizens, the threat was said to be of another kind as well: demographic. As argued by one member of the Knesset when justifying the passing of the law, “[Arafat] said: ‘I will fight the state of Israel through the womb of the Muslim woman’. Meaning, we, with our birth rate, will beat the state of Israel [. . .] destroy the state of Israel” (MK Zeev, parliamentary debate on CEIL, 15 January 2007). In this second sequence of the narrative, the threat does not anymore arise from the missiles launched from Gaza to Israel. Rather, the source of danger jeopardising “us” is now demography,11 a weapon as dangerous as terrorism and used by enemies to infiltrate the state of Israel and destroy it. As underlined by one of the speakers of this discourse coalition, this threat is indeed of upper significance because: If the [demographic] balance is against us, it endangers the very existence of the state in the future, and we must see the truth and speak the truth, to put it on the table: it is not only about the security issue, but it is about the Jewish character of the state. (MK Gabai, NRP, parliamentary debate on CEIL, 19 December 2006) Just like terror, the risk that the majority of the population of Israel would not remain Jewish is another element to add to the realm of the existential menaces. Similar to suicide bombings, demographic imbalance is also a danger that jeopardises the very existence of the state of Israel. As expressed by one MK: Except for the radicals from Meretz and the Arab MKs, the majority of the Jewish people in the state of Israel is sane. They do not know how to express themselves and call that “security” or “demography” but feel they are confronted with a real existential security danger. (MK Elon, National Union, parliamentary debate on CEIL, 27 July 2009) By expanding the category of threat to the demographic danger, and by constructing the protection of the Jewish character of the state as an existential issue, the narrative considerably modifies the meaning of security. Security is not only about the “mediation of death” anymore, but also pertains to “societal security”

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or the “mediation of chaos”, i.e. the possibility for the community to order itself and to guarantee the survival of the society’s identity (Huysmans 1998). Put differently, the referent object of security is not anymore only sovereignty, but also the survival of the society’s identity (Wæver 1995). And in the narrative, threatening the latter or the former results in the same thing: the destruction of the state and the regime. Even more explicitly than in other dominant narratives analysed so far, the state of Israel and its Jewish identity are thus one and the same. In a last sequence, the demographic narrative frames the need for such security as being in opposition with the democratic values of the regime of Israel. Like in the dominant narrative, the speakers indeed recognise that, in order to preserve security, some democratic rights have to be truncated or “balanced”. This time, however, rights are not only balanced against the right of the state or democracy to “defend itself ”, but also against the right of the state to define its identity. As one MK of a secular party emphasised: It is true that denying residency in the state to Palestinians who got married to Israeli citizens is an injury to the principles of democracy and equal rights, but the meaning of the Jewish state implies our right as a nation to define ourselves, as is defined in the Declaration of Independence. With all due respect and sympathy to family reunification, there is a fundamental right of every member of the Jewish majority to preserve and to maintain the character of the state, and we are talking about the national character, cultural, and the public order within it, its security and future. (MK Golan, Shinui, parliamentary debate on CEIL, 27 July 2005) In this final sequence, the speaker reappropriates the image of balance at the core of the dominant narrative. Like in the dominant narrative, democratic principles and rights are on one side of the balance. However, on the other side of the balance it is not only the protection of the “security and future” of the state but also the right “to preserve and maintain the character of the state” or, to put it in other words, the need for “identity protection” (MK Levin, parliamentary debate on CEIL, 27 July 2009). The narrative of democracy as an ensemble of equal rights Opposing the law, a narrative very similar to the counter-narrative of 2003–2004 was developed by MKs from Palestinian and Zionist left parties and by one Druze MK from Kadima. As in 2003–2004, the narrative was mainly rooted in the topic of human rights and strove to dismantle the security argument. It was, in fact, against the security argument that the speakers of this discourse coalition opened their narrative. One speaker, for instance, stated that, “This security argument is – call a spade a spade – a cover for the struggle against the ‘demographic threat’ ” (MK Galon, parliamentary debate on CEIL, 21 March 2007), while another claimed that:

The security–immigration nexus 109 With this law, we try to deal in the name of security, with demographic issues [. . . .] This law was born in times of conflict, of the second intifada, but is kept even on days when there is no intifada and no conflict. (MK Khenin, parliamentary debate on CEIL, 27 July 2009) At the same time as the speaker here recognises that the intifada was a situation of conflict, he nevertheless challenges the dominant construction of insecurity as a permanent fact of Israel’s existence. Accordingly, the prolongation of the law is not the result of security concerns but rather said to be the outcome of demographic considerations targeting a specific group, the Palestinian citizens of Israel, which more fundamentally reflects a flaw in the regime. As one of the speakers claimed: When it comes to Jews, look how quickly you can become a citizen, to influence what happens here in Israel. But when it comes to citizens, that are not Jews, then there is an attempt to prevent from them the thing, in my eyes, that is most meaningful, the right to a family life, the right to love, the right to get married, and the right to choose and decide where to live. (MK Galon, parliamentary debate on CEIL, 27 July 2005) Because it suspends a basic right from a specific category of citizens, by discriminating against non-Jews and by creating inequality among citizens, the law is once again presented as a threat to democratic values and even to the very existence of democracy. As one of the speakers claimed, referring to MK Kahane, the whole of society and the regime are imperilled: “The law marks the victory of Kahanism in Israel, and we condemn this. And if twenty years ago, the Kahanists were illegal, nowadays, Kahanists define the law and control the development of this society” (MK Makhoul, parliamentary debate on CEIL, 27 July 2005). By repealing the right to equality, “one of the basic values of the Israeli legal system” (MK Galon, Parliamentary debate on the CEIL, 21 March 2007), the law opens the way to a Kahanist regime, a racist anti-democratic society. In a last sequence of the narrative, the speakers reaffirm that such a law cannot claim to defend democracy, since democracy is precisely the opposite of what is created. By framing the law as the source of discrimination between citizens, as “a racist law” (MK Wahabi, Kadima, parliamentary debate on CEIL, 27 July 2009), the narrative thus turns the “security instruments” into a source of danger. By making use of these instruments, Israel does not belong to the civilised nations of the West anymore, nor is it even a democracy. Instead of a regime constructed in the dominant narrative in which democracy was allowed to curtail some of its own attributes in order to protect “itself ”, democracy is here constructed as only and solely an ensemble of equal rights. Without the protection of these rights, the Israeli democracy will, by definition, die away.

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Democracy versus the identity of the regime The last marginal narrative was developed by one specific speaker, MK Oron from Meretz. Although this deputy opposed the law and developed a narrative very close to the main counter-narrative, he articulated the issue in a slightly divergent way, mobilising different topics and producing an alternative story to the main counter-narrative. Another notable difference in this narrative was its chosen audience: the Jewish MKs in opposition to the entire plenum. As in the main counter-narrative, MK Oron’s speech contested the coupling of the law with security as produced by the dominant narrative, and instead connected the law with exclusively demographic concerns: I seek to transform this debate in a debate among Jews, so that it will be harder, more painful and more real. Because the words that the deputies have said here are true but do not go to the roots of the question [. . . .] Mr Speaker, I believe that the question is the question of the “Jewish or democratic state” where there is a Jewish majority. I believe it is an issue, that there is a problem there [. . . .] It is my central argument. There is a divergence of opinion between us on the definition of the state of Israel. (MK Oron, Meretz, parliamentary debate on CEIL 25 July 2005) Similar to the main counter-narrative, the issue of insecurity is absent from this first sequence. What is at play is not the management of an existential threat but rather the issue of demography, i.e. the preservation of a Jewish majority and thereby of the regime’s identity. In a second sequence, MK Oron articulates more precisely the dilemma at stake by drawing upon the classical metaphor of balance, hence echoing the two narratives supporting the law. The “balance” is constructed in these terms: these discussions [. . .] actually undermine the basis of the existence of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, because this basis must rely on security, not security in the sense of the “security situation”, but on the moral confidence that when you are looking for a balance between “democratic” and “Jewish” you stay faithful to your fundamental values. There are too many people who start to feel that this compromise is impossible, and if it is not possible, it is not sure that they will choose your compromise. (MK Oron, Meretz, parliamentary debate on CEIL 25 July 2005) In this sequence, the speaker draws upon several of the categories present in the three other narratives. From the dominant narrative, he borrows the category of security, albeit a very different form of security. As explicitly stated by the speaker, security does not mean the management of lives but rather the moral reassurance that Israel will always respect the “fundamental values” of the state. Second, the narrative echoes the main counter-narrative opposing the law by presenting the measure as a threat to the foundation of democracy. As he put it:

The security–immigration nexus 111 You talk about democracy defending itself, and I am talking about elementary fundamental rights that we must not harm, because when we hurt them, democracy is already not democracy anymore and is not defensive anymore, but begins to be something else. (MK Oron, Meretz, parliamentary debate on CEIL, 21 March 2007) While in the previous counter-narrative the “erosion” of rights generated by the law imperilled only the basis of democracy, what the law here destroys entails more: the “Jewish and democratic state”. Finally, the narrator mobilises a similar balance metaphor as the one present in the demographic narrative, i.e. a balance that contrasts the protection of the Jewish identity of the state with democratic principles. Instead of tilting the balance in the direction of the Jewish identity of the state, however, MK Oron comes to a vastly different conclusion: “What is the definition of a Jewish and democratic state, if to build it, we prevent people from marrying, and we conquer territories, and we enter Palestinian lands? Spare me this, I do not want this” (MK Oron, Meretz, parliamentary debate on CEIL 25 July 2005). In his excerpt, MK Oron recognises the dilemma between maintaining the values of democracy and preserving the Jewish identity of a state sustained by a Jewish majority. Yet, in direct opposition to the demographic narrative, he does not conclude with the need to limit the former to the benefit of the latter. In his narrative, not only is the fact of curtailing rights in contradiction with democratic principles, but such curtailment destabilises the delicate balance at the core of the “Jewish and democratic” regime, thus threatening its very existence. Here, democracy is no obstacle to the Jewish state. Rather, it is framed as the core component of Israel without which the Israeli regime ceases to exist.

Prolonged emergency and the normalisation of the demographic narrative In 2010, while the second ruling of the Supreme Court on the constitutionality of the Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law was still pending, the government announced a project to formulate a legislative piece on immigration. The project sought to bring a definitive answer to immigration from enemy entities as well as to the question of “family immigration, the entry of workers, the entry of illegal entrants, asylum seekers and refugees to Israel” (Minister of Environment Erdan, parliamentary debate on CEIL, 17 January 2011). For as long as this new law was not enacted, the government asked the Knesset to extend the law on Citizenship and Entry into Israel. This section of the chapter focuses on the prolongation of the law in this context, between 2010 and 2013. Because the debates held in the Knesset over the extension of the law were remarkably limited during this period,12 they were complemented with several interviews with MKs and ministers of the government who acted during this period.13 Two main broad narratives were identified on this basis, one supporting the extension of the measure and one opposing it. The dominant narrative was

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similarly sequenced as the previous dominant narratives deployed between 2003 and 2009. However – and this is the most significant development in the post2010 discourse – many speakers who had previously elaborated a narrative of war entirely focused on terrorism and the ontological threat now started expanding the notion of threat in a way close to the demographic narrative. This in turn had important effects on the construction of the regime. The counter-narrative opposing the prolongation of the law was for its part structured on the topics of human rights and discrimination, and very close to the previous counter-narratives already examined. Terror, war and demographic imbalance as existential threats The first and dominant narrative was developed by MKs from Likud, Shas, Kadima and far-right parties. As in the previous debates, this dominant narrative was structured along the notions of threat, war, and the necessity of a balance between security and democracy. However, as in the demographic narrative presented before, the notion of threat was expanded, hence considerably modifying the conclusion of the narrative and its effect on the regime. Similar to the dominant narrative developed from 2003 to 2009, a first sequence of the narrative started by depicting the security situation as an extraordinary, permanent and immutable state of war: there is no change in the basic conditions that brought about this enactment of the law, and the state of Israel is still in a state of war in Judea and Samaria and the Gaza Strip. Although these past few months there has been a decrease in terrorism, in these areas there are terrorist infrastructures that enjoy wide public support from the population, and therefore there is no change for the better in the security reality that was the ground the enactment of this law. (MK Margi, parliamentary debate on CEIL, 21 July 2010) Despite the decline in terror attacks emphasised by the speaker, the security threat from dangerous terrorists in Israel is depicted as being as acute as it always was. The continuous state of war and the permanent existential threats weighing on the state make the prolongation of this law inevitable. As one minister of the coalition told me during an interview in 2010: When you are in a state of war with another state, it is not inhuman or bad to say: now, we are in a state of war, there is no free access to Israel. Or when two states are at war, let us take Germany and France during the World Wars, [to say]: we cannot continue normal life. (Interview with a Minister, Likud, 2010) Following the classical analytical framework, survival of the state and of the citizens is again opposed to the normal functioning of democracy. In exceptional times, the shift from a regular to an emergency form of government is required.

The security–immigration nexus 113 While for some speakers of this discourse coalition this necessity to preserve lives in times of war is the only issue at stake, many speakers admitted that “we need to tell the truth: the debate is both about security and about demography” (MK Shaked, Habayt Hayehudi, parliamentary debate on CEIL, 22 April 2013). Indeed, most speakers of the dominant discourse coalition constructed demography as another type of ontological threat menacing Israel. It was once again argued that: “Demography today is a threat to Israel. This is a security threat for me, according to my vision. Arafat said explicitly: I will defeat the state of Israel with the Palestinian womb” (MK Zeev, parliamentary debate on CEIL, 21 July 2010). In this excerpt, the potential alteration of the demographic balance is framed as a very concrete threat to the state of Israel. Such a threat itself has a very clear source: the attempt of the Palestinians to “exercise the right of return through the back door, by using the pretext of human rights and civil rights, by using family reunification in order to eliminate the state of Israel” (MK Akunis, parliamentary debate on CEIL, 23 January 2012). By exploiting rights offered by democracy, the Palestinians are here framed as a new type of threat: one that jeopardises Israel’s identity and “its values as a Jewish and democratic state” (Minister Erdan, parliamentary debate on CEIL, 17 January 2011). By constructing the category of threat this way, this sequence of the narrative not only expands the referent object of threat to the Jewish state, but also reproduces the common opposition between rights and the protection of survival. The rights offered by democracy are once again equated with dangerous weapons likely to be “exploited, by people who wanted to hurt us, to hurt the resident of the states of Israel” (MK Avraham Michaeli, Shas, parliamentary debate on CEIL, 17 January 2011). As a consequence of this construction, the question asked by the speakers remains the same as before: “In the name of democracy, [can we] commit suicide? [Can’t] his state also kill himself?” (MK Zeev, parliamentary debate on CEIL, 21 July 2010). The answer given is as follows: If Israel is not a defensive democracy, it may not be at all. So we are fighting here now, tonight, basically all day, every day, for the existence of Israel in general and for Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, the nation-state of the Jewish people. (MK Akunis, Likud, parliamentary debate on CEIL, 23 January 2012) In the name of survival, democracy must become defensive. As such, a new balance is created between the right to family unification and “the right to protect the character of the collective as Jewish” (Interview with an MK, Kadima, 2010) and “between Israel’s security and individual rights” (MK Zeev, parliamentary debate on CEIL, 21 July 2010). This step is an unwanted but necessary solution which is not in complete contradiction with the basic tenets of democracy. As stated by one MK, “We are a democracy. But in a democratic state too there is a limit, there is a limit to our immorality. We cannot abandon our blood, our sons,

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our wives and our children” (MK Zeev, parliamentary debate on CEIL, 17 January 2011). Although the Israeli regime, as a democracy, should ideally offer the right to family unification, it must nevertheless also prescribe its own limits. As in previous debates, the role of (defensive) democracy is to strike a new balance in favour of the right to survive. This time, however, the balance that is struck is between the right of democracy to survive as a (Jewish) state on the one hand, and the rights of those who belong to the other national group on the other. Under those circumstances, filiation to the other as much as affiliation with an enemy group becomes the new criterion for exclusion from the circle of rights. The narrative of human rights Against this dominant narrative, non-Zionist and Zionist MKs from the left, this time including MK Oron, issued a narrative once again anchored in rights, democracy and equality. As before, the narrative started by dismantling the security argument invoked by the dominant speakers. MK Oron for instance, emphasised that: this document [speaking of an official report] says that the last two years were the best since 1967. So what exactly is the reason? Mr Speaker, I want to say in the clearest and most difficult way: the argument is not security, the reason is demographic. (MK Oron, parliamentary debate on CEIL, 17 January 2011) Acknowledging the existence of insecurity during the second intifada, the speaker makes the claim that “the security consideration was baseless from the start, but it is even more so today [after the end of the second intifada]” (MK Barakeh, parliamentary debate on CEIL, 21 July 2010). Instead of survival, demographic considerations contradicting the rights of “equal citizens” (MK Agbaria, Hadash, parliamentary debate on CEIL, 21 July 2010) are said to be the rationale behind the law. According to this logic the law is necessarily antidemocratic, as instantiated by one MK asking the Knesset, “How can you make claims on democracy and humanity and the rule of law and modernity at the same time that Members of the Knesset raise their finger in favour of an anti-humane, racist law as this one?” (MK Swaid, parliamentary debate on CEIL, 21 July 2010). Answering the questions of one MK of the dominant discourse coalition, MK Zoabi thus concluded the narrative with, “Do not commit suicide, Members of the Knesset, just erase the word ‘democratic’ from the definition of the state” (MK Zoabi, parliamentary debate on CEIL, 17 January 2011). This last excerpt challenges the definition of (defensive) democracy present in the dominant narrative. In contrast to the dominant narrative, the regime is not a democracy or a Jewish democratic state balancing different values in order to defend the lives of its citizens. Because the intention of the law is demographic,

The security–immigration nexus 115 and because the measure infringes upon equality of rights at the core of democracy’s only definition, the regime can simply not attribute to itself the label of “democracy”; it becomes something else.

Conclusion In the previous chapters, I explored the way the category of enemy had been expanded to include those supporting, sympathising or contacting the enemy during and after the second intifada. In the name of survival and the right of democracy to defend itself, citizens falling in this category were excluded from the regime of rights, from the political arena or from the regime. In the present chapter, another close mechanism in the “political definition of the borders and boundaries” (Huysmans 2006, 111) was explored: the identification on the basis of a safe/unsafe dichotomy of who can and cannot enter the regime through the granting of permits of residence and citizenship. The connection between immigration and security is not a phenomenon specific to Israel. Several scholars already emphasised that wars have been common moments of “internal rifts and exclusionary politics [. . .] above all against foreigners who happen to be citizens of enemy states” (Frevert 2011, 109). Another range of studies showed how contexts of wars, terrorism and emergency have been used to legitimise the exclusion of “strangers”, generating a reinforcement of border controls and a toughening of the procedures for visas and asylum (Huysmans 2000; Duez 2008; Squire 2009; Kanstroom 2012; Roach 2011). Other scholars finally demonstrated how political actors have oftentimes securitised the question of state identity, creating a need to defend “societal security” (Wæver 1995, 48). The Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law, passed for the first time in 2003 and extended repeatedly since, included all these elements and pushed them to the extreme: the sweeping exclusion from the circle of rights of “enemy nationals” impacting not only on the “foreigners” but an important part of citizens included in this national category, the reinforcement of borders, and the construction of the immigrant other as a threat to the physical security of the state as well as to its identity. In comparison with other debates examined in this book, the discursive competitions at play between 2003 and 2013 revealed striking continuities as well as substantial changes. The first element of continuity concerns the central role of the category of threat in the narrative competition. As in other debates, the category of threat was a nodal element in structuring the dominant narrative, while its meaning was expanded over time. From 2003 to 2005, the threat was clearly linked to a very specific security context, namely the second intifada, and accompanied by a description of the situation as exceptional and very concrete. Such exceptionality was the grounds for justifying “a law that we should not put in the book of laws” (Minister of Interior Poraz, parliamentary debate on CEIL, 17 June 2003) but was considered a necessity for the protection of human life. It was the construction of the situation as an exceptional emergency, coupled with the articulation of rights as potentially dangerous tools, that led to the consequent and logical conclusion

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that Israel (normally part of enlightened society) had to become a defensive democracy and resort to exceptional means, including the suspension of rights. Interestingly, after the end of the second intifada the dominant narrative did not stop constructing the situation as exceptional, and the discursive categories employed during the intifada continued to appear at the centre of the narrative. The citizens were said to continue to be “at every moment in a situation of danger that does not stop” (MK Rivlin, parliamentary debate on CEIL, 1 July 2008). Contradictorily, the extraordinariness of the situation had become quite normal. After 2010, the dominant narrative merged with the minority demographic discourse coalition, thereby incorporating the demographic threat into the existential threat. While continuing to paint terrorism as a threat, the narrative proceeded to mingle the “survival of identity” (Wæver 1995, 67) with the existence of the state. The threat to one or the other would, theoretically, lead to the same thing: the annihilation of the state. By doing so, the dominant narrative both expanded the category of “enemy” from potential terrorists to a national other that threatened a destabilising demography, and reinforced the process of fusion between three core discursive categories: (defensive) democracy, the state and the Jewish nation-state. As with other debates, against the framing of the “extraordinary threat” were other narratives that presented their own construction of the danger. First, the demographic narrative was developed by a small discourse coalition which fused with the dominant coalition after 2010. This narrative articulated the threat as both security-related and demographic. Second, the main counter-narrative either overlooked or dismantled the construction of insecurity, and the connection between insecurity and the call to limit rights. In this narrative, the threat was not related to the physical or literal safety of citizens but stemmed, instead, from the laws infringing on citizens’ rights. As such, the only referent object of threat was solely and systematically democracy. The construction of threat in the last narrative developed by MK Oron between 2005 and 2009 was close to the main counter-narrative. In his narrative, the object under threat also included democratic rights, which the law was accused of curtailing. However, these rights were not only presented as forming the basis of democracy but more largely the foundation of the “Jewish and democratic state” itself. As in the other debates, but more explicitly this time, the struggle which took place over the law was thus also a struggle over the definition of democracy and the definition of the Israeli regime. In the counter-narratives, the curtailment of rights and of the equality principle were depicted as the main threats endangering democracy’s foundations – or, in MK Oron’s speech, the Jewish and democratic state’s basis. In such a chain of equivalence and opposition, the first raison d’être of democracy (or of the Jewish and democratic state) was the protection of rights and equality, without which “democracy is already not democracy anymore and is not defensive anymore, but begins to be something else” (MK Oron, parliamentary debate on CEIL, 21 March 2007).

The security–immigration nexus 117 In the demographic narrative, the first objective of the regime was the preservation of the “state of Israel”, which itself included the Israeli citizens, the sovereignty of the Jews on their territory and the Jewish identity of the state. The need to protect this entity justified the infringement of democracy. In the dominant narrative, finally, democracy, though defined as a regime supposed to grant equal rights, was transformed through its intertwinement with the category of threat. Following the classical framework of emergency, the disruption of “normal life” by the extraordinary threats weighing on the state justified the alteration of the regime and the suspension of rights. The continuity of the exceptional security situation, which has no equal “in [any] civilised countries worldwide” (Minister of Interior Yishai, parliamentary debate on CEIL, 27 July 2009) systematically led the speakers to the conclusion that democracy should defend “itself”, i.e. the state and citizens or the Jewish identity of the state, by limiting itself. From a regime granting rights, democracy should become defensive and repel the “enemy national”, and as of 2010, the external and internal other, from the circle of rights. Though defined as abnormal, this “balance” between democratic values was simultaneously anchored in the regular functioning of the democratic regime itself. This discursive articulation contributed to the blurring of both the distinction between the defensive and regular regime and the difference between three core entities: (defensive) democracy, the state and the nation-state.

Notes 1 Until then, Palestinians married to Israeli citizens were allowed to ask for family uni fication in Israel on the ground of the Citizenship Law. The first step pertained to the granting of permission to temporarily stay in Israel, after which a permit of temporary residence could be granted for a limited period of one year. Thereafter, a permanent residence permit, or citizenship, could be granted by the Minister of Interior. At each stage of the process, the applicant’s case was reviewed to verify the existence of the family unit and to check that the person did not present any security risk (Lapidoth and Friesel 2010). 2 The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, for instance, recommended the state of Israel to repeal the law and to “reconsider its policy with a view [to] facilitating family unification on a non discriminatory basis” (Report of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination 2007, 42). 3 The first ruling was published in 2006. A majority of six judges maintained that the law was constitutional, against five stating otherwise (see elsewhere in this chapter). The second ruling was published in January 2012. It upheld the constitutionality of the law as well in a six five decision. 4 Until November 2004, the government was composed of Likud, Shas Shinui, National Union, the National Religious Party and Shas. 5 The Passover dinner. 6 The blue identity cards are the identity documents granted to residents of East Jerusa lem and their spouses. 7 For a discussion of the ruling and an alternative interpretation of the law, see Carmi (2007). 8 A few months after the ruling, a civil rights association reintroduced an appeal to the Court and, in January 2012, the court once more declared that the law was constitu tional (High Court of Justice 466/07). The judges in favour of upholding the law ruled

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as in 2006 that the threat posed to the lives of Israeli citizens should prevail over the right to family unification. The five justices who declared the law to be unconstitu tional did so on the grounds that the law violated the constitutional right to family unification. One of the judges claimed that the discriminatory nature of the law con tradicted the definition of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. The 2007 amendment also provided exceptions to the rules, stating that residence permits in Israel may be granted for medical treatment, work in Israel, or a specific temporary purpose provided that the permit shall not exceed the cumulative period of six months. The amendment in addition enabled the granting of visa permits to women over the age of 25 and to men over the age of 35 to prevent separation from their spouse(s) or to a minor child to avoid separation from his/her parent. In 2005, the composition of the government formed in 2003 changed due to the entry of Labour and Agudat Israel into it. Labour later left the government in November 2005. Between the 2006 elections and the March 2009 elections, the government included Kadima, Labour, Shas, Gil and Israel Beiteinu (which left the government in 2008). From March 2009 until January 2013, the government coalition was composed of Labour, Likud, Israel Beiteinu, Shas and the Jewish Home. Demography had already been emphasised by two speakers supporting the law in 2004, but the demographic dimension became more predominant and at the core of the coherent narrative after 2005. For instance, while the law was voted on with 53 voices against 13 in 2010, only three MKs in favour of the law explained their rationales. The debates held in January 2011 were similarly deserted by the supporters of the law, which was ultimately passed with 28 voices in favour of the law and nine against. In 2012, the law was prolonged with 37 versus 14 votes, and six MKs supporting the law issued speeches. The number of votes increased in 2013 with 73 votes in favour and 18 against. Although one must be cautious that the interviews do not have the same status as the Knesset debates (as the interviewees do not address the same audience and do not participate directly in the formation of the political discourse), the motivation at the basis of the analysis of interviews is twofold. First, it allows completing the empirical material, i.e. the absence of certain political groups’ voices in the plenum during the debates. Second, the interviews offer the possibility to see how, spontaneously (in contrast with the more or less prepared speeches in the parliament), political actors graft on to the existing narratives in the parliament.

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How should our governments deal with security crises? How can terrorism be fought without compromising the rights of citizens? These questions have pervaded the political arena, academia and the media this last decade with more intensity than ever before. With the so-called global war on terror, Western states have reformulated the answers to these questions while simultaneously assessing the adeptness of their legal frameworks. Much has been said about how “measures of exception” passed in the name of the fight against terrorism impact on our liberties. Many studies have addressed and challenged the virtue of these measures or their exceptional character. Less has been done to deconstruct the discourse of insecurity and necessity that has surrounded the passing of anti-terrorism legislation. In line with other critical security studies (Tsoukala 2006; Huysmans and Buonfino 2008; Neal 2010), this book was geared towards this objective. More specifically, this research aimed at problematising the widespread assumption according to which security and the democratic regime are fixed realities whose leading principles necessarily contradict one another. Rather, I claimed that these conceptions are the product of discursive articulations that have a fundamental influence on the meaning and boundaries of the democratic regime, and should therefore be unpacked and critically assessed. In order to investigate the construction of the security–democracy nexus and its effects in Israel, I pursued an investigation of the competing narratives deployed in the Israeli parliament over security measures before, during and after the second intifada. On this basis, this book highlighted that security measures passed to counter terrorism are not evident tools used to respond to objective threats, but the outcome of competing narrations in which political actors select topics, facts and events and give them sense. The topics used, their sequencing and the way they were deployed and linked to one another offered different interpretations of the measures introduced (depicted as instruments of security, as anti-liberal mechanisms, as racist tools etc.), hence legitimising or de-legitimising the security instruments. The exploration of the competing narratives also permitted to illustrate that, even if at a given time a specific way of framing reality dominated in the Knesset, the “regime of truth” that imposed itself was continuously contested, challenged and criticised. The study finally showed that the intertwinement and sequencing of topics in competing narratives

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were discursive processes that all affected the meaning and shape of insecurity and threats, as well as the Israeli democratic regime. In the following sections, I discuss the main discursive mechanisms identified in the narrative competition with a focus on the two narratives that have been the most stable over time: the dominant narrative supporting the passing of the security measures, and the counter-narrative rejecting these laws by framing them as anti-democratic tools. The first section synthetises the main development of narrative competition observed in the Knesset on the basis of the debates studied in this book. More precisely, it examines the ruptures and continuities in the structuration and institutionalisation of the competing narratives. The second section pertains to the discursive struggle that took place over the category of threat. I argue that, in the dominant narrative, the classical act versus death and normality versus survival dichotomies were central in the creation of an ambiguous notion of necessity and exception, which underpinned the legitimisation of the security measures over all the years. It is also suggested that the construction of an ontological threat has somehow limited the space for contestation by the counter-narrative. The third section focuses on the role that democracy played in the narrative competition. It claims that, besides the category of threat, democracy was a central category of the narrative competition in almost all debates under study, with every narrative attempting to incorporate this category and fix its meaning. A fourth section develops the argument according to which the specific articulation of the security–democracy nexus influences the shape of the democratic regime. It highlights how the construction of “defensive democracy” trough the interrelation of binary oppositions like normality–survival and democratic rights–security, remodelled the boundaries of the regime. Lastly, this final chapter reflects on what it at stake in the formulation of security measures and its contestation.

Discourse structuration, stability and change This book was interested in the discursive struggle accompanying the passing of security measures in the Knesset. The objective was to scrutinise and interpret each of the competing narratives that were legitimising or de-legitimising the security measures debated in the parliament during and after the second intifada and, in two cases, in the 1980s. In this section, I focus on the main elements of continuity and change in this discursive competition. First, I examine the developments of the discursive chains within each of the two main narratives. Second, I gauge the stability and alteration in the structure of the narrative competition over the years. Third, I focus on the continuity between the Knesset’s narrative and the discursive categories that have been at work outside the parliament. The first point of this section relates to the continuity and changes in the internal structure of the two main competing narratives explored in this book. As was shown in Chapters 3, 4 and 5, the two main narratives were quite stable over time. In Chapter 3, which investigated the freedom of speech–security nexus, we

Narrating insecurity, reshaping democracy 121 saw that in 1985, as in 2002, the dominant narrative constructed freedom of speech as an existential threat or a source of danger. In each dominant narrative, the referent object of threat was itself multidimensional and included democracy, the Jews, the citizens, the state and the sovereignty of the Jewish people on their territory. Due to the existential threat weighing on these elements, democracy was asked to “defend itself ” by limiting itself, which included balancing rights and security or sorting out faithful and suspicious citizens. Chapter 4 exposed very similar chains of equivalence and opposition in the dominant narrative after 2006 and in 1986 alike. Whether discussing contacts with members of terrorist organisations (1986), the definition of breach of trust (2008), the disqualification from elections of candidates who visited enemy states (2008) or the decision to withdraw MK Zoabi’s parliamentary privileges (2010), the dominant narrative continued to be deployed in a very constant manner. Although in 1986 democracy did not play as central a role as between 2008 and 2010, the structure of the dominant narrative was quite constant. Like in 1985 and 2002, it painted rights as possible tools to hurt the citizens, democracy, the state and the Jewish state. It therefore concluded that democracy – or the government in 1986 – should defend itself by limiting rights and excluding potential internal enemies and disloyal citizens from the circle of rights. The last chapter, devoted to analysis of the debates on the Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law institutionalising a nexus between security and immigration, unveiled comparable discursive patterns. Here again, the dominant discourse coalition developed a narrative based on the topic of threat and was structured along defensive democracy lines. As in the other dominant narratives, it conflated rights and dangers and argued that, due to the extraordinary existential threat weighing on the citizens, the state and the Jewish identity of the state, democracy should balance democratic rights with security. The stability of chains of equivalence and opposition articulated in the counter-narratives was also striking. Independently of the issue at stake and whatever the composition of the discourse coalition was, the counter-narrative framed the given law as a direct menace to basic democratic rights, including equality, pluralism, freedom or the right to family life. As a consequence of such construction, the counternarrative constantly presented the given security measure as a step towards the destruction of the democratic regime. This stability in the internal structure of the two main narratives was accompanied by the stability in the overall configuration of the narrative competition. As the analysis conducted in Chapters 3, 4 and 5 showed, the narrative competition appeared quite stable over the years. Although the number of narratives varied depending on the debates (from two to four), two main discourse coalitions were systematically formed. On the one hand, a dominant discourse coalition supported the law in the name of necessity and, except for 1986, in the name of defensive democracy. On the other hand, a counter-discourse coalition opposed the law in the name of democracy, rights, equality and pluralism. This stability is especially striking if we take into account the significant variations at work over the years in terms of security context, topics discussed – laws limiting

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freedom of expression, laws regulating the cancellation of citizenship, measures limiting the rights of parliamentary members and an emergency law focusing on the right to establish in Israel – and in terms of actors speaking in the parliament. The representation of actors in the parliament – within political parties, in the government and in the opposition – have indeed significantly fluctuated over the years. Their position towards the laws was not always constant, either. If those in favour of the laws were usually centre to far-right members of the parliament and those opposing the measures left-wing and anti-Zionist MKs, other configurations were observable. For instance, Chapter 4 highlighted that in 2010 some centre and centre-right MKs contested the withdrawal of MK Zoabi’s parliamentary privileges. While changing their position, they did not develop a new narrative but rather adopted the discursive articulations of the counter-discourse coalition, namely a narrative of basic rights and pluralism. This endurance in the structure of the narrative competition despite changes in context and political configuration seems to suggest that actors tended to borrow pre-existing discursive categories rather than creating new ones. The examination of the parliamentary debates revealed that this continuity in the deployment of narratives and discursive categories was not only at play within the Knesset proper. Indeed, diffusion and continuity across loci were also apparent. The most striking example of such continuity pertained to the “defensive democracy” concept. Originally conceptualised by a Jewish scholar in exile in the United States during the Second World War under the name “militant democracy”, the concept was later used by the German Constitutional Court to justify the banning of two political parties. Soon after, while examining the right of a Palestinian party to take part in elections, the Israeli Supreme Court remobilised the concept and relabelled it “defensive democracy”. The category was then rearticulated in the Knesset in 1985 during the debates on the amendment of the Basic Law: The Knesset, which changed the conditions for a party to participate in elections. Years later, the notion of defensive democracy had become very commonly used in the political debate, appearing in all sorts of matters including electoral rules, but also the right of citizenship, freedom of expression and the right to family unification. Beyond the single category of defensive democracy, the analysis pursued in this book showed that the competing discursive chains of equivalence developed in the Knesset were also present outside the parliamentary arena. For instance, the investigation of Israeli Supreme Court rulings on the right to take part in elections and on the Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law displayed strong similarities in the discursive categories employed in the Knesset and in the Supreme Court. Indeed, both the dominant narrative and the Supreme Court constructed liberty as opposed to security, justified the need to exceptionally curtail some values of the regime in case of insecurity, and incorporated the need to “strike a balance” into the democratic regime. In a similar manner, both the counter-narrative developed in the Knesset and some of the opinions formulated in the Supreme Court shared close discursive elements, including the framing of freedom as the essence of democracy and the articulation of democracy as a regime of equal rights.

Narrating insecurity, reshaping democracy 123 Alongside the process of discourse diffusion between the Israeli institutions, strong similarities were also observed between the narratives developed in the Knesset and discourses structured outside Israel. As is further elaborated on later in this chapter, the narratives that emerged in Israel during and after the second intifada, for instance, included many of the discursive chains formulated in the context of the “fight against terrorism” in Western states. Among these similarities, we can cite the construction of an exceptional context to legitimise the security measures, the notion of an opposition between rights and survival, the idea that a balance must be struck between those elements, the need for a shift from a regular to a defensive (i.e. emergency) regime, and a claim that the security measures are taken in the name of democracy.1 All these elements of stability, diffusion and structuration in the discursive competition reveal the strength and stability of the narration and counter-narration of emergency across borders and times. In the next sections, I investigate more specifically the main discursive chains constantly present in the narrative competition and their effects on the regime.

On the role of threat in the narrative of necessity and its contestation In this section, I focus on the construction of threat and the competition of the narratives over this category. As Chapters 3, 4 and 5 revealed, existential threats and extraordinary insecurity were undoubtedly the first discursive categories that emerged in the dominant narrative in favour of security measures. The security measures and the limitation of rights enacted were not presented as a response to a context of sheer unease but were aimed at mitigating an allegedly extraordinary situation: a “state of war”, a period of “terror” and “emergency” known in “no place in the world” (Minister of Interior Yishai, parliamentary debate on CEIL, 27 July 2009). Whether evoking a law taken to stop support of terrorism, to impede the denial of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, or to limit the legal status of Palestinian residents in Israel, the passing of these measures was always presented as a question of life and death. More precisely, an existential threat was systematically said to jeopardise a multidimensional referent object of threat: Israeli citizens who were faced with terrorism, the (nation-)state which was threatened with destruction, the Jewish people who were faced with potential annihilation, the Jewish identity of the state which was jeopardised by the enemies, or democracy which was constantly under threat of being eliminated. Following this logic of “securitising intensification” (Huysmans 2014, 38), the shift to defensive democracy was represented as an absolute necessity. Due to the exceptional character of the situation, dominant speakers were led to the conclusion that “we have no choice” but to bring about a shift from the regular democratic regime to its “defensive form”. As was put clearly in the bill on citizenship revocation, “The state is confronted [with] terrorism and if it cares for its survival, it must act in accordance with the notion of ‘defensive democracy’ ” (Bill p/17/3046 to amend the Citizenship Law). Faced with what was portrayed

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as an alternative between fight or die, the speakers were said to be pushed to, constrained to, or not wanting to but obliged to pass extraordinary security measures. In order to survive, sacrifices had to be made: “very bad laws” had to be passed limiting freedom of expression, the values of democracy, the right to participate in elections or the right to keep citizenship. By doing so, the dominant narrative thus articulated the security measures as “extraordinary defensive moves” (Buzan et al. 1998) going beyond the “normal haggling of politics” (Buzan et al. 1998, 29), even though these measures were all very regular measures from a legal point of view. With the exception of the Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law of 2003 (prolonged repeatedly), the measures discussed during and after the second intifada as well as in the years 1980 were indeed all regular amendments modifying regular pieces of legislation and even Basic Laws, considered as the basis of the regime. Using a language of exceptionality, as was done during all the debates, brought about a sense that these regular amendments were, however, exceptional, abnormal and temporary security measures acting outside of the “normal” regime. It created a notion of exception. At the same time as it resorted to this classical logic of “exceptionalist securitising” (Huysmans 2014, 33–35), the dominant narrative introduced an ambiguity in the construction of the “extraordinary situation” and “extraordinary security measures”. Despite the use of the rhetoric of war and emergency, the “situation” was indeed also continuously constructed in the opposite form: as permanent. Unlike other countries facing similar threats, Israel was said to “have been in this fight since the beginning of our existence” (Minister of Justice Sheetrit, parliamentary debate on the Basic Law: The Knesset, 5 November 2001). In 1985, the threat stemming from the PLO was framed as a prolongation of the same dangers that had jeopardised the survival of the Jewish people in the past, while after the second intifada had ended Israel was said to remain confronted with the same extraordinary enemies, recalling that “terror is here, terror lives and survives [and] will make this state disappear” (MK Zeev, parliamentary debate on CEIL, 15 January 2007). This extraordinary situation and the need for defence thus became standard, thereby paradoxically “collapsing the dialectic of norm/exception” (Neal 2010, 97) and blurring the lines between normality and extraordinariness. As I further discuss below, this discursive ambiguity had profound effects on the shape of the democratic regime. The responses to the construction of necessity through the articulation of threat as extraordinary, existential and permanent took different forms in the counter-narratives developed during and after the Palestinian uprising. In one small minority counter-narrative developed in 2002 during the debate on the Penal Law, the ontological threat stemming from terrorism was incorporated as a main category, as well as the need to “defend democracy”. Only in the conclusion did the sequencing of this counter-narrative diverge by challenging the suitability of the “balance” struck by the law, by locating freedom of expression before survival. In doing so, this narrative contested the security practices and made liberty the highest norm of the regime, but left intact the main categories of the dominant narrative: the ontological threat, the alternative between act and

Narrating insecurity, reshaping democracy 125 die, and the opposition between the regular functioning of the regime and survival. Most of the time, however, a group of speakers including Palestinian, far-left and centre-left MKs developed distinct discursive practices to respond to the dominant construction of the security measures. The first (although rare) response to the dominant narrative was the dismantlement of the construction of threat and of its source. After the end of the second intifada, one speaker for instance stated that, “This law was born in times of conflict, of the second inti fada, but it is kept even on days when there is no intifada and no conflict” (MK Khenin, parliamentary debate on CEIL, 27 July 2009), hence directly challenging the labelling of the situation as a context of war and emergency. In other instances, the incriminated acts (freedom of expression, visits to enemy states, participation in the Gaza flotilla etc.) were decoupled from the threat. In 2008, one MK for instance claimed that “a visit in an enemy state does not mean support to armed struggle” (MK Galon Basic Law: The Knesset, first reading, 26 May 2008), a practice also observable in 2010 when one MK depicted MK Zoabi’s action in the flotilla as “the right of anyone to speak, even when it is uncomfortable or when it hurts me” (MK Rivlin, Proposition of the Committee, 13 July 2010), rather than as an existential danger. The second and more frequent observable way to respond to the dominant construction of threat was to present a completely revised narration of “threat”. Rather than concerning itself with threats of literal violence, the counter-narrative constructed the security measures as the real threat. Because these measures enacted a limitation of rights, it was each time claimed that the law hurts “all the foundations of democracy [. . .] threatens democracy with erosion” (MK Maor, parliamentary debate on the Basic Law: The Knesset 15 May 2002). In contrast with the dominant construction of the source of threat, this narrative thus painted the real danger as stemming from the limitation of rights, and presented the “enem[ies] of democracy” (MK Zahalka, parliamentary debate on the Basic Law: The Knesset, 23 June 2008) as those supporting the restrictive measures. Consequently, the dominant multidimensional referent object of threat (the state, the citizens, the Jews, the nation, democracy) was also replaced with one constant and unique object: “democracy”. Notwithstanding the transformation of the source of threat (as stemming from the law) and of the referent object of threat (as democracy), the core elements sustaining the construction of necessity in the dominant narration were left aside in the counter-narrative. The categories of terrorism, war and emergency that were drawn upon to justify the law in the dominant narrative were indeed barely utilised in the counter-narrative. Only on very rare occasions were the “terrorist attacks” or the “conflict” mentioned by the speakers opposing the measures. Most of the time, this type of (in)security was absent. As such, the invocation of the existential threat or the “securitising move” generated by the dominant discourse coalition seems to have framed the issue “in terms that lessen the scope for political debate” (Squire 2009, 30) and the possibilities of contestation. Acknowledging and incorporating the existential threat, as was done in the

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counter-narrative of a small discourse coalition opposing the law in 2002, led to the reproduction and reinforcement of the dominant narrative of necessity and of the dichotomies on which it was based. Neglecting the existential threat, in contrast, left the category of insecurity untouched and its interpretation in the hands of the dominant speakers. Moreover, Chapter 5 in particular emphasised that contesting the construction of threat could be particularly arduous as the prospect of being labelled as a traitor was never far away. Despite the difficulty in challenging the existential threat at the core of necessity, the logic of exceptionalist securitisation was not the only one at work in the legitimisation of rights curtailment, and other modalities of contestation also emerged, as the next section argues.

On the role of democracy in the construction of necessity and exception Existential threat was the first category playing out in the dominant narrative to justify the shift from the regular regime to defensive democracy. The rhetoric of no choice, of “act or die”, coupled with the opposition between normality and survival, were core elements in the discursive machinery of necessity, the central catalyst for the justification of the alleged “shift” to defensive democracy and the institutionalisation of security instruments limiting rights. However, alongside these categories, democracy too played a central role in the narratives contesting and legitimising the law. In the dominant narrative, the integration of democracy played out in three main ways in legitimising the security measures. First, irrespective of the origin of threat, democracy consistently appeared as one of the referent objects of threat. Indeed, the shift to emergency and the limitation of rights that it implied were not only formulated in the name of the state and citizens’ lives but also in the name of democracy itself. As in often-heard rhetoric after the 11 September 2001, at stake was “the independence of the state, the maintenance of the existing constitutional order [and] the defense of the political and social liberties of the people” (Rossiter 2002, 5), and “freedom” or “liberty” (Tsoukala 2006; Esch 2010) itself. Democracy, as much as the state and the citizens, had the right to be protected for and from itself. Paradoxically, the limitation of democracy was thus framed as its reinforcement. As one MK put it when referring to the 2002 law defining criteria to exclude lists from taking part in the Knesset elections, “The Knesset has built a parapet to reinforce the Israeli democracy and its public. Today, the Israeli democracy has been reinforced.” (MK Katz, parliamentary debate on the Basic Law: The Knesset, 15 May 2002). As such, the limitation of rights was not only justified by the protection of the citizens but for the sake of democracy, which had to defend itself. Second, democracy played out in the exact opposite form, namely as the source of threat. Indeed, at the same time as rights were framed as a “very important principle of Israeli democracy” (MK Pines-Paz, parliamentary debate on the Penal Law, 25 June 2001), they were systematically understood as a

Narrating insecurity, reshaping democracy 127 weapon, as an obstacle to security. For instance, on the revocation of citizenship, it was stated that, “The terrorists and their supporters use the rights and liberties that a democratic state provides to hurt this state and its citizens” (Bill p/17/3046 to amend the Citizenship Law). By offering the basic right to speak, to be represented in the parliament, to use parliamentary immunities and privileges, to circulate freely etc., democracy was systematically presented as the channel, the source of threat, the “democratic mask” that external and internal enemies could use and abuse. Therefore, the limitation of democratic principles was not in real contradiction with democracy, for “democracy must also defend itself against itself ” (Minister of Justice Sheetrit, parliamentary debate on the Basic Law: The Knesset, 15 May 2002). Third, equating democratic rights with dangers finally reproduced the classical rights–security dichotomy and balance metaphor found in contemporary discourses. Accordingly, democratic rights and security both constitute the democratic regime and should therefore be protected by it. In times of emergency, however: we have to see that there is a value which is dear and important to all of us [freedom of expression], and which is likely to endanger another value no less important: the right to physical integrity and to life. (MK Pines-Paz, parliamentary debate on the Penal Law, 6 May 2002) Reproducing the postulate “that the protection of [rights] operates at the expense of [security], it is presumed that the government cannot possibly counter” the existential threat without reaching a new balance between security and rights (Tsoukala 2006, 614). Because “[a]ll rights get limits and curtailments. No right is absolute” (MK Eytan, parliamentary debate on the Citizenship Law, 16 October 2007), this new balance in favour of the “sacred right to security” is the only legitimate way to protect democracy from itself. While similarly presenting democracy as the referent object of threat, the counter-narrative contested and reframed the role played by democracy and its relation with insecurity in many instances. The first way in which the counternarrative did so was by pulling apart the equation between freedom, rights and threat, thereby de-securitising rights and democratic principles. During the debates on incitement to terrorism, one of the MKs, for instance, transformed the “dangerous words” limited by the 2002 amendments into “[p]raise and solidarity with political groups [that are] legitimate” (MK Bishara, parliamentary debate on the Penal Law, 19 February 2001). Discussing the use of freedom of expression by Palestinian MKs in order to allegedly incite terrorism, another speaker similarly asked whether “an Arab deputy [can] jeopardise this state?” and stated in response that, “In reality, the fact that we are here and express our different opinions is the mark of democracy” (MK Dahamshe, parliamentary debate on the Basic Law: The Knesset, 15 May 2002). The second and connected manner by which the counter-narrative challenged the dominant articulation of democracy was by contesting the relation of rights

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with the democratic regime. Rather than being one part of the democratic regime which could be balanced against security, rights and democratic principles were systematically constructed as the “mark of democracy” and as the very basis of this regime. As one of the MKs emphasised in his question to the Knesset, “If there was no freedom of expression, what would remain of democracy?” (MK Dahamshe, parliamentary debate on the Basic Law: The Knesset, 15 May 2002). By de-securitising rights and by transforming them into the basis of democracy, the counter-narrative echoed post-September 2001 counter-discourses in Europe, and thereby “denied any possible tension between security and liberty [and rights] and highlighted instead the emergence of an authoritarian-driven executive power” (Tsoukala 2006, 623). In this counter-narrative, curtailing rights inevitably leads to the end of democracy.

Competing security–democracy nexus and the struggle to fix democracy’s meaning The incorporation of democracy into necessity and the contestation of the security–democracy nexus by the main counter-narrative considerably affected the discursive competition at play in the Knesset. Aside from the struggle over the labelling of threat and on the validity of the security instruments proposed to respond to the threats, the discursive competition also proved to be over the meaning of democracy, which thereby became a floating signifier. In the main counter-narrative, the exclusion of the ontological threat stemming from terrorism and the transformation of threat into one weighing on democratic principles shaped democracy in a very stable fashion during and after the second intifada. As underlined above, in this narrative the curtailment of one single right generated by the security measure – be it freedom of speech, the right to take part in elections, the right to residence, the right to express dissent or the right to citizenship – was constantly framed as the source of danger jeopardising democratic foundations. Such limitation did not mean temporary distorting democracy in order to adapt it to the circumstances, but rather the beginning of the erosion and destruction of democracy as a whole. Any limitation of rights would necessarily transform the Israeli democratic regime into an anti-democratic regime, a state of apartheid, a Kahanist state or a racist regime. The counter-narrative thus not only challenged the assertion that democracy would be “defending itself ” by formulating the security measures, but claimed instead that “democracy must defend itself, but it must defend itself from those kinds of propositions” (MK Dahamshe, parliamentary debate on the Basic Law: The Knesset, 15 May 2002). By avoiding and/or dismantling the classical dichotomies of emergency, this narrative also incorporated and fixed the meaning of democracy, which was constructed in only one possible way independent on the security context: as a regime encompassing and protecting basic rights and the equality of its citizens. In the dominant narrative, the ambiguous survival–democratic normality relation affected the meaning of the democratic regime in three directions. A first

Narrating insecurity, reshaping democracy 129 alteration was generated by the aim of democracy when turning defensive. Throughout the parliamentary debates, democracy was systematically defined by the dominant narrative as a regime “that preserves democratic principles, a state that allows freedom of expression and to speak almost without limit” (Minister of Justice Sheetrit, parliamentary debate on the Basic Law: The Knesset, 15 May 2002). But when faced with threats, democracy was called on to limit those rights in order to protect safety and ensure survival. In times of crises, democracy thus first and foremost had “the duty [. . .] to defend its citizens” (MK Stern, parliamentary debate on CEIL, 31 July 2003), was “oblig[ed] to give security” to the state (MK Mitzna, parliamentary debate on CEIL, 27 July 2005), or to guarantee the right to live of the Jews, the nation, and the Jewish identity of the state. Under those circumstances, the defence of democracy obviously never implied the protection of democratic principles, values and rights, which were themselves equated with death and destruction and required limitation. Instead, the first objective and raison d’être of democracy when defending “itself ” was the survival of the multidimensional referent object of threat, which proved to be “the overriding interest and the principle above all other principles” (Neocleous 2007, 137). At the same time as survival of the nation, the citizens and the (Jewish) state was turned into the main democratic aim, the “abnormal” defensive instruments of defensive democracy were integrated into the democratic regime, hence further altering the meaning and shape of democracy. This occurred in two ways. First, the construction of the extraordinariness of the situation as permanent, previously evoked in this chapter, blurred the distinction between the regular form of Israeli democracy and its defensive form. By articulating the security situation as an enduring feature of Israel, the dominant narrative indeed also framed the resort to the rules of defensive democracy as a permanent necessity of the regime. As such, defensive democracy was not just a temporary emergency government, but in fact the very standard form of the Israeli regime. As one Knesset member underlined during a discussion on the limitation of the right to take part in the elections: if we were a normal state, like all other states in the world, we could say that all the citizens of Israel can elect freely their representatives [. . . .] But it is not exactly what the state of Israel has done until now. (MK Langenthal, parliamentary debate on the Basic Law: The Knesset, 5 November 2001) Second, the fusion between defensive democracy and regular democracy was also performed through the incorporation of the “abnormal rules” in the democratic regime. Even if the security measures were systematically depicted as abnormal and unwanted mechanisms of defensive democracy, they were also constructed as the only proper way of the regime to act, not only in Israel but in any democratic state, be them confronted by security crises or not. For instance, during the discussion on the need to limit freedom of speech, the balance in

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favour of security was made one of the existing “democratic rules in order to defend itself against those who challenge the existence of democracy in this state” (MK Langenthal, parliamentary debate on the Basic Law: The Knesset, 5 November 2001). Similarly, the exclusion of disloyal citizens from the political arena or the polity was both painted as an irregular defensive process and as a democratic measure that “exists in numerous enlightened democracies, [. . .] not only in those that defend themselves” (MK Rivlin, parliamentary debate on the Citizenship Law, 16 October 2007). Under those circumstances, the defensive democratic regime limiting rights and its regular form seem to have become one and the same thing: Israeli democracy was defensive democracy. Over the years, this integration of defensive democracy’s instruments into the regime significantly reshaped the boundaries of the regime and its circle of rights. In 1985, the shift to defensive democracy implied that democracy would limit itself and the entire circle of rights. During the 2002 debates on incitement to terrorism and election rules, (defensive) democracy was called on to balance different rights and to delimit two distinct circles of citizenship: a first circle comprising most Israeli citizens, and another circle which included unworthy and potentially dangerous citizens. While the former could continue to enjoy democratic rights, the latter would see their rights suspended in the name of survival. In this respect, the dominant narrative made it obvious that, like in many other cases, “the discourse about the ‘balance’ between liberties and security is wrong, or at least flawed. It is not ‘our’ liberties that are being exceptionally compromised or suspended, but the liberties of particular target individuals or groups” (Neal 2010, 98). In the debates on election rules (2008), on deprivation of citizenship (2008) and on MK Zoabi’s parliamentary privileges (2010), this process was pushed further due to the increasing mobilisation of the category of loyalty. On the grounds that “[t]hose who are not [loyal] cannot be here” (MK Tartman, parliamentary debate on the Basic Law: The Knesset, 26 May 2008), (defensive) democracy was asked to trace lines and to expel “disloyal” citizens from the circle of rights, the political arena or the regime. The boundaries of the regime were finally further reshaped between 2010 and 2013 during the debates on the residence of Palestinians in Israel. Through the equation of the existential threat with both “the terrorists” and the ethnic other, (defensive) democracy was turned into a regime differentiating an us likely to enjoy the rights conferred by democracy, and an other deprived of some of those rights (see Figure 1). Israeli “democracy” has thus been considerably reshaped by the dominant narrative. Instead of the regime of rights created in the counter-narrative, the dominant (defensive) democracy has been constructed as a regime of constant vulnerability and abnormality whose primary mission is the survival of the state, the nation, the Jews and its Jewish identity, as with the state and the nation-state. In this regime, the limitation of rights, though neither normal, ideal nor enlightened, is however part of the regular (ab)normal (defensive) democratic rules.

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underlined that the classical dichotomies of emergency, which so deeply affect the shape and meaning of democracy, are not self-evident and are not necessarily the only possible “reality”. The previous chapters showed that, despite the difficulty in contesting the dominant narrative’s core discursive category, i.e. existential threat, the counter-narrative in Israel nevertheless created another coherent story focused on rights and democracy. In this story, democracy and survival were not diametrically opposed, and human rights, as opposed to survival, were turned into the primary aim of the democratic regime. Through this specific narration, the counternarrative challenged the dominant way of legitimising the measures as well as the underlying premises that they were enacted in the name of democracy. By shedding light on the discursive mechanisms which served to construct and deconstruct necessity and emergency in Israel, by unpacking the narrative of emergency and highlighting the effects of the narrative competitions on the regime, this book thus reminds us that discursive categories like the security– democracy tension, the balance between rights and security, or the notion of extraordinary emergency rules are not anodyne, and all have deep implications for the definition of the regime and its boundaries. It also highlights that these dominant categories, despite their strength and deep anchorage in many arenas, can be disentangled, contested and transformed. Beyond strategic discussions and debates about the proper balance that could be struck, the elaboration of security policies thus seems to ask first and foremost what kind of regime we decide to construct.

Note 1 Distinctions were obviously also present. Among them, we can cite the discursive con struction of rights and democracy. Different studies have shown how, in Western states’ discourses after September 2001, the enemies were said to directly threaten democratic principles, including our liberties, our values and our freedoms (Huysmans 2014; Tsoukala 2006). Although “democracy” was said to be threatened in Israeli dis course as well, the enemies were not depicted as a threat to democratic values per se. Rather, they were painted as exploiting democratic values in order to kill and destroy the existence of a regime defined as a democratic nation state. In both cases, however, the rhetoric device was the same since the defence of “democracy” was said to be at stake.

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Index

Page numbers in bold denote figures. Adamsky, A. 33 Afghanistan 67, 76, 82 Agamben, G. 14 Agudat Israel (AI) 64n9, 95n3, 118n10 Åkerström, M. 71 Alignment 32, 45, 47 8, 64n9, 69 70, 95n3 Alon, Y. 36n14, 37n21 Amnesty International 95n4 annihilation: of the Jewish people 72, 123; of the state 25, 43, 83, 116 anti Zionist 3, 50, 79, 84; far left MKs 72, 90, 101, 122; parties 49, 56 Arab 25, 50, 61, 80, 101; anti Arab 56; Arabic 87; Arabic newspaper 41; citizens 43, 103; deputy 61, 127; group 94; Israeli 36n11, 85, 88 9; Jewish Arab party 44; MKs 77, 91; Legal Center for Minority Rights 102; MKs 107; Palestinian people 42, 44; populations 33, 75; public 88; regions 31; representatives 77; terror 43; world 25, 33; see also Balad Arabs 25, 26, 43, 65n19, 74 5; of Israel 36n11, 50, 58, 102; rights of 93 Aradau, C. 15 Arian, A. 24, 26, 27 Aronson, S. 36n10 assassination 70; of Prime Minister Rabin 31, 38n29, 64n14, 65n16 assassins of the state 83 Austin, J.L. 16 Australian Criminal Code 63n2 Azulai, M. 92 Balad (Arab Democratic Party) 34, 61, 80, 86; parliamentary debate 56, 79, 101

balance 1 2, 6, 21, 22n9, 29, 41, 56, 83, 103, 108, 117, 128 30; demographic 106 7, 113; metaphor 13 14, 40 1, 52 5, 110 11, 127; new 20, 57, 100, 113 14, 127; right 21; security rights 14, 35, 100, 104, 113, 121, 132; struck 103, 122 4, 132 Balzacq, T. 15, 17 Barak, A. 29 30, 63n2 Barak, R. 96n10 Barak Erez, D. 63n2 Bar Or, A. 37n25 Barzilai, G. 26, 29 Basaran, T. 3, 15 Basic Laws 29, 31, 34, 124; for the Federal Republic of Germany 63n1; Freedom of Occupation 29, 65n2; Human Dignity and Liberty 5, 29, 65n20, 103; The Government 27 8, 31; The Knesset 5 7, 31 2, 39 40, 43 50, 57 62, 65n21, 66 7, 75 80, 95, 122, 124 30; The Military 31 Basque party Batasuna 63n1 Beauchamps, M. 96n9 Begin, M. 4, 33, 36n15, 69, 96n10 Ben Eliezer, U. 37n19 Ben Gurion, D. 4, 30, 36n14 Benvenisti, E. 29 Bigo, D. 15 Bill p/17/1708 to amend the Citizenship Law 82 4 Bill p/17/2506 to amend the Basic Law: The Knesset 77 Bill p/17/3046 to amend the Citizenship Law 81, 123, 127 Bill p/2262 to amend the Basic Law: The Knesset 58

150

Index

Bilsky, L. 105 breach of trust 7, 19, 32, 66, 81 2, 85, 121 British Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 96n6 British Terrorism Act 63n2 Buchhandler Raphael, M. 31 Buzan, B. 2, 16 17, 124 Campbell, D. 7, 131 Carmi, N.A. 117n7 c.a.s.e. collective 15 Central Elections Committee (CEC) 42 4, 51, 61, 63n3, 64n10, 80, 95n8 Ceyhan, A. 15 Chalk, P. 1, 12 13 citizenship 86, 115, 117n1, 130; American 101; cancellation of 19, 122; deprivation 96n9; Israeli 36, 68, 81, 97; revoked 7, 19, 32, 66, 68, 81 2, 85, 88, 96n9, 96n11 12, 122 3, 127; right to 83 5, 124, 128; withdrawal of 81, 83 4 Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law (CEIL) (Temporary Order) 7, 19, 32, 95, 97 9, 104, 121 2; parliamentary debate 99 102, 105 17, 123 5, 129; parliamentary debate on extension of the law 111 Citizenship Law 19, 67, 68, 81; amendment 7, 32, 66 7, 82 3; parliamentary debate 83 6, 127, 130 coalition 54, 76; dominant 116; government 64n9, 69, 118n10; members 27; minister of 112; see also discourse coalitions Cohen, A. 30 1, 37n22, 38n29 constitution 11 12, 15, 44; committing suicide 44, 60, 64n7, 78, 103, 113 14; failure to enact 8n2; French 12; state of Israel 88; US 12; written 30 constitutional 63n2; assembly 8n2; chamber 3; extra constitutional 12; German Court 43, 62, 64n4, 122; law 1, 58, 97, 102, 104, 111, 117n3, 117n8; order 126; revolution 29; rights 103, 118n8; terms 16 Council Framework Decision 63n2 defence 35, 124; of democracy 61, 80 1, 85, 129, 132n1; Ministerial Committee 27; policies 33; self defence 26 7, 35, 47, 86, 99 100; of the state 28, 46, 60 defensive democracy 2, 6 8, 22n9, 30, 40, 43 52, 54 9, 61, 75 6, 80 4, 87, 89, 95, 100, 113, 116 17, 122, 129 30, 131;

construction of 120 1; demokratia mitgonenet 64n5; exclusionary practices 66, 78, 86; narrative 7, 20, 60, 62 3, 79, 94, 98; role 114; shift to 48, 100, 123, 126, 130 detention 28; administrative 8n5, 13 14, 30; Law 13, 37n23 diplomatic passport 87, 89 discourse coalitions 18, 22n3, 22n8, 54 5, 70, 73, 99, 121, 126; competing 19 20, 98; counter 121 2; demographic 116; dominant 47, 58, 62, 70, 91, 93 4, 98, 102, 107, 113 14, 121, 125; MKs 71 2, 90, 95n5; speakers 47, 49, 72, 107 8, 113 discursive categories 9, 17 20, 57 8, 76, 80, 82, 83, 88, 116, 120, 122, 123, 131 2 disloyal citizens 60, 74 5, 79, 81, 90, 93 4, 121, 130 disloyalty 68, 74, 94 disqualification 19, 51, 63n4, 93, 95n8; of candidates 121; grounds 57, 80; of a list 43 4, 61, 76; of a political party 6, 39 40, 42, 44, 63n1, 66 Donohue, L. 1, 12 Dotan, Y. 8n4, 30 Egypt 25, 67, 79 Election Appeal 1/65 42 3 Election Appeal 2/84 44 5 Election Appeal 3/84 44 5 Election Appeal 131/03 61 Election Appeal 561/09 81 Election Appeal 11225/03 95n8 Election Confirmation 50/03 61 emergency 3, 5 6, 41, 115, 124 5, 131; classical dichotomies 128, 132; classical framework of 100, 117; continuous 106; discourse 17; governments 12, 14, 112, 129; laws 21, 32, 97 8, 101, 105, 122; measures 1 2, 9, 100; narrative of 98 9, 123, 132; perpetual 105; practices 35; prolonged 111; regime 123; shift to 126; state of 1, 4 5, 8n5, 12 13, 15 16, 26 8, 31, 37n16, 38n27; times of 1, 15, 101, 127 Emergency Powers (Detention) Law 13, 37n23 emergency regulations 5, 16, 28, 30, 37n23, 123; rules 15, 132; Defence (Emergency) Regulations 4, 26 7, 36n15, 37n20 enemy 3, 19, 23, 25 6, 74, 78, 83, 86, 91,

Index 95, 116, 131; aiding 17, 31, 82, 95n6; banning the 98; construction of 7, 72 3, 75, 94; contacts with 66 8, 71 2, 93 4; entities 99, 111; exceptional treatment 99; external 7, 101; group 114; internal 7, 89; nationals 19, 104, 115, 117; of the regime 88; representatives 70, 72; rights exploited 47, 61; of the state 90; states 7, 57, 65n19, 66 8, 76, 79, 81, 94, 99, 115, 121; sympathy with 92 4; visits to enemy states 32, 75, 77, 80, 93, 125 enemy democracy 7; nexus 6, 66 8, 75, 94 Epstein, C. 8, 18 Eretz Israel 5, 33 4, 46 7 establishment of the state of Israel 36n3, 38n30; Declaration of Establishment 5, 24 EU Framework Decision 63n2 European Convention on Human Rights 12 European Court of Human Rights 13 exceptional 4 5; circumstances 15, 100; context 123; decision 93; enemy 71; limitation of democratic principles 20; means 116; measures 15 17, 119; practices 14 15; security measures 2, 124; security situation 117; situation 104 5, 115; step 106; suspension of principles 14; times 112; treatment of the enemy 99 exceptionality 2, 14 17, 115, 124 exclusion 51, 66, 94; from the circle of rights 47, 54, 58, 60, 63, 72, 114 15; of disloyal citizens 130, 75; of the enemy 90, 121; of external issues 18, 22n4, 23, 80; from elections 39 40, 44, 76, 81, 126; of public 28; of threat from terrorism 128 exclusionary 95; features 66; mechanisms 86; politics 115; practices 78; process 89 Fischer, F. 18 foreign agents 68 Foucault, M. 15, 18, 21n1 floating signifier 18, 128 freedom of association 8n5, 47, 62; limits to 46 freedom of movement 12, 100, 106 freedom of expression 8n5, 12, 39 43, 45, 49, 51 3, 56 62, 66, 72, 86, 89 91, 122, 125, 127 9; limiting 55, 124 freedom of speech 19, 22n9, 39, 41 2, 47, 53, 55 7, 61 3, 64n7, 121, 128 9 freedom of speech security nexus 40, 50, 120

151

Freilich, C. 25, 27 France 93, 96n9, 112; French constitution 12 Garapon, A. 14 15 Gaza Strip, the 7, 25, 28, 36n5, 67, 76, 82, 86, 92, 96n17, 105, 112; Gaza flotilla 7, 19, 86 7, 90, 92, 125 General Security Services (GSS) 27, 31, 35, 38n29, 85, 95n6; Law 32 genocide 25; see also annihilation German 43; Basic Law 63, 64n4; Constitutional Court 43, 62, 64n4, 122; doctrine 43, 64n6; Federal Court 63n1; interpretation 49; Nuremberg laws 101; sociologist 63n4 Germany 39, 93, 112; anti terrorist legislation 70; Communist Party 91; Federal Republic 63n1; Nazi 71, 101 2 Gibney, M.J. 96n9 Gil, E. 14, 118n10 Gross, O. 12, 36n15 Hadash 34, 49, 72, 80, 86, 102, 114 Haifa 97; Declaration 88, 96n21 Hajer, M. 21n2, 22n3 halacha 33 Hamas 86, 92, 96n11, 97; Charter 36n6; movement 96n17 Hamoked (2006) 97, 103 Hansen, L. 7, 131 Harris, R. 34, 42 Hazan, R. 27, 38n31 Hermann, T. 27, 37n18 Hezbollah 34, 64n13, 88; agent 88; militant 96n11; movement 76 High Court of Justice 28 9, 38n29, 41, 53, 97, 103 4, 117n8 High Court of Justice 7/48 29 High Court of Justice 73/53 41, 53 High Court of Justice 466/07 117n8 High Court of Justice 606/78 29 High Court of Justice 680/88 29 High Court of Justice 4764/04 28 High Court of Justice 5100/94 38n29 High Court of Justice 7052/03 103 4 Hobbes, T. 10; Hobbesian self help system 33 Hofnung, M. 8n4 5, 13, 15, 29 30 Holocaust, the 24, 36n10, 46, 71 Horowitz, D. 28, 33, 37n19 Huysmans, J. 5, 7, 15 16, 18, 108, 115, 119, 123 4, 131, 132n1 Ignatieff, M. 1, 14

152

Index

immigrants 33; American 43; Jewish 36n3; other 115 immigration 16; British Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act amendment 96n9; Jewish 5; law 98, 111; limiting 104; mass 24; of Palestinians 105; security immigration nexus 7, 115, 121 immunity 65n17, 65n19, 87 Inbar, E. 24 6, 37n21 information 13; delivering 68; on terrorists 86 insecurity 1, 4 6, 8, 10, 16 18, 20, 24, 39, 46, 52, 55, 63, 70, 73, 76 7, 83, 87, 98 9, 101, 106 7, 110, 114, 120, 122 3, 126 7, 131; construction of 109, 116; context 58, 61 2; discourse of 25, 28, 32 4, 119; in Israel 30, 4 35; management of 3, 14, 21, 23, 29 30, 131; vocabulary 92 institutional 6, 8n1, 37n19; design 31; instruments 63n4; law 32; mechanisms 21 institutions 3, 36n3; civil and military 37; Israeli 23, 123; judicial 13, 30; security 23, 27, 32 intifada (uprising) 51, 97 8, 107, 109, 116, 125; first 19, 26, 38n28, 64n14; post second intifada debates 3; post second intifada security laws 19; second 1 3, 6 7, 8n7, 16, 19, 23, 25 7, 29, 32, 36n7 8, 39 40, 51 2, 57, 62 3, 64n14, 65n18, 66, 76 7, 94 5, 97 8, 105, 109, 114 16, 119 20, 123 5, 128 Iran 36n10, 76, 82, 86, 89, 105; Iranian passport 89; nuclear facilities 25 Iraq 67, 79, 82, 105 Israel 27; Israel Beiteinu (IN) 33, 65n15, 78, 86, 88, 95n7, 96n20, 99, 118n10; nuclear project 24; Security Agency 36n7 8; Supreme Court 29, 40, 51, 122; Israeli 17; Arab 36n11, 88 9; Arab Israeli organisations 88; army 37n17; authorities 4, 86; borders 97, 100; businessman abducted 96; child 24; civilians 31; court 64n6; declaration of independence 4; Defence Force (IDF) 36n5, 57, 86 8, 91; defensive democracy discourse 8; democracy 39 40, 53, 58, 60, 89, 90 1, 109, 126, 129 30; democratic regime 7, 41, 47, 90 1, 120, 128; diplomatic passport 89; discourse 26, 132n1; experience 16; families 18, 97, 99, 102; government 30, 32, 36n11, 86; hegemonic discourse 5;

independence 4; institutions 23, 123; Knesset 87; law 27; leadership 69; legal discourse 67; legal system 109; legislation 62, 67, 75; legislature 93; loss of life 51; military 37n22; national security policy 25; Palestinians 26, 31, 34, 64n14, 88, 102; parliament 2 3, 8n2, 21, 23 4, 40, 119; policies 26; political discourse 6; political regime 4, 35; public 27, 31, 43, 51; public discourse 43; regime 3, 59, 111, 114, 129; residents 31; response 87; situation 42; society 3, 24 5, 32; state 4, 88; teenagers killed 92; terror attacks on 25, 39 Israeli citizens 1, 7, 19, 39, 59, 66, 77, 117, 130; Arab 85; citizenship 36n11, 68, 81, 97; contacts with enemies 69, 72, 76, 93; criminalised 67; right to family life 103 4, 108, 117n1, 117n8; rights 68, 106; terrorist attacks on 69 70, 107, 123 Israelis 25, 51, 69 70, 99; Arab 89 Jewish 32, 49, 101; Arab party 44; character 61, 80 1, 96n10, 107, 113; citizens 62, 78; democracy 34, 50; and democratic 34, 65n20, 111; democratic state 5, 33 4, 48 9, 57, 64n12, 110 11, 113, 116, 118n8, 123; dimension 79, 88; Home 96n20, 118n10; homelessness 24; identity 88, 108, 111, 117, 121, 123, 129 30; immigrants 36n3; immigration 5; majority 43, 49 50, 97, 108, 110 11; MKs 110; nation 90; Palestinian communist party 34; person 37n17; population 27, 107; presence 33 4; rebels 35n2; scholar in exile 122; sovereignty 47; terror 43 Jewish people 25 6, 33, 42, 107; destruction 71 2, 123; history 24, 46; sovereignty 48 9, 121; state 4 6, 24, 43, 45, 50, 113; survival 124 Jewish state 24, 42 4, 46, 50 1, 59 60, 65n19 20, 70 1, 77 8, 81, 90, 94, 95n8, 98, 108, 111, 113, 121; nation state 47, 116; survival of the state 62 63, 114, 129 Jews 3, 34, 43, 50, 58, 80, 109 10, 121, 125, 129 30; afraid to go out at night 73 4; defence of 60; discriminatory measures 101 2; in Europe 24, 46; in other countries 67, 70; sovereignty 48, 117; survival 47; terrorist acts against 65n19, 70 1 Jordan 25, 79; Trans Jordan 67

Index justices 42 4, 104; Agranat 46; Barak 103; panel 61, 103, 117n8; Supreme Court 63n3; US 64n7, 84 Kach 43 4, 46, 50 1, 73 Kadima 32, 76 7, 89, 91, 96n13, 97, 105, 108 9, 112 13, 118n10 Kaplan, T. 18 Kaufman, I. 34, 44, 76 Keren, M. 68 70, 95n1 kidnap 92; abduction 96n11 Kimmerling, B. 27, 33 Klein, C. 37n17, 42, 64n6 Knesset Committee Proposition 87 91 Knesset Ethics Committee 92 3 Knesset House 70, 102; Committee 87 Kretzmer, D. 8n1, 8n4, 13, 30 Labour party 60, 96n13 Landau, U. 36n4; commission 38n29, 86 Lasswell, H. 1, 12 law constitutional 1, 58, 97, 102, 104, 111, 117n3, 117n8; unconstitutional 102 3, 118n8 Law on Immunity 65n17, 65n19 Law of Return 34, 44 Lebanon 26, 67, 76, 79, 82; militant 96n11; military interventions 25; South Lebanon 69, 105 Lebanon War 26, 36n5, 69, 76; crimes 95n6; post war period 66; second 36n5, 66 7, 80 legal discourse 67; American 64n7 Libya 67, 76, 82 Likud 32 3, 45 6, 52, 59, 64n9, 65n15, 69 70, 83 4, 87 91, 93, 95n3, 96n20, 100, 106, 112 13, 117n4, 118n10; members 71; party 57, 83, 99; representatives 76 Lincoln, A. 12, 64n7 Lis, J. 81, 85, 92, 95n6 Locke, J. 1, 10 11, 54 Loewenstein, K. 63n4 loyalty 66, 73 5, 82, 87, 130; to the state 59, 81, 89 McDonald, M. 17 Machiavelli, N. 10 Mapai 32, 38n32 Mapam (United Workers’ Party) 49, 73, 95n3 Marmara flotilla 66, 86, 96n16 Mehozay, Y. 16, 26, 28, 37n23 Members of the Knesset 3; Agbaria 114;

153

Akunis 93, 113; Aloni 48; Arab 77, 91, 107; Arieh Eldad 23; Atashi 95n5; Barakeh 102, 114; Begin 36n15; Beilin 34, 37n16, 77n16, 84; Bishara 51, 56, 61, 64n13, 76, 80, 95n6, 95n8, 102, 127; Dahamshe 56, 61, 91, 102, 127 8; Danon 88; Druze 108, 112; Elon 78, 107; Elsana 60; Erdan 83, 85, 96n14; Eytan 46 7, 54, 59, 70, 75, 83 4, 127; Galon 34, 55, 60, 79, 85, 93, 102, 108 9, 125; Gilon 91; Golan 108; Harish 47 8; Katz 45, 57, 59, 78, 126; Kahane 50, 73 5, 94, 109; Katz (Y) 90; Khenin 79 80, 84, 91, 109, 125; Langenthal 53, 58 9, 95, 129 30; Landau 71; Levin 86, 88, 90, 107 8; Makhoul 109; Maor 55, 60, 125; Margi 99, 101, 112; Meridor 45 7; Miari 49, 73; Michaeli 88 9, 96n19, 113; Mitzna 106, 129; Molla 91; Neeman 71; Orlev 58, 77 8, 80, 95; Oron 34, 110 11, 114, 116; Peled 49, 73 4; Pines Paz 52 4, 96n14, 126 7; Pinkelstein 100; Pinyan 90; Porush 34; Ramon 48; Regev 87, 89; Rivlin 83 4, 91, 100, 106, 116, 125, 130; Saar 100, 106; Sarid 72 3; Shaked 113; Shamalov Berkowitz 89; Shem Tov 73; Sheetrit 26; Stern 99 101, 129; Swaid 34, 114; Taha 101 2; Tal 55, 77; Tartman 78, 80, 130; Tibi 56, 61; Toubi 49; Verdiger 71; Wahabi 109; Watad 73; Wilner 72; Yahalom 25; Zahalka 79 80, 85, 125; Zeev 55, 58, 65n17, 78, 85 6, 99, 107, 113 14, 124; Zoabi 7, 19, 66 7, 86 93, 96n19, 114, 121 2, 125, 130 Members of the Knesset political stream 22n5, 35, 45, 47, 63n3, 70, 82, 95n6, 97, 118n12, 126 7; anti Zionist 101, 122; centre 33, 122; centre left 33, 125; centre right 90, 122; exclusion of 81; far left 90, 101, 125; immunity 65n19; Jewish 110; left wing 79; opposing the law 80; Palestinian 52, 60, 80, 84, 108, 127; secular party 108; ultra nationalist 106; ultra orthodox 76, 99; Zionist left 108; Zionist religious 33 4, 72, 99, 101, 114 Meretz 34, 54, 60; MKs 86, 102, 110; parliamentary debate 55, 84, 91, 110 11; radicals 107 Migdalovitz, C. 86 Minister 33, 56, 113; Foreign 36n4 Ministerial Committee on Defence 27

154

Index

Minister of Defence 37n23 Minister of Energy and Water 86 Minister of Environment 111 Minister of Interior 7, 37n20, 41, 97 8, 100, 105 6, 115, 117, 117n1, 123 Minister of Justice 37n16, 45 6, 52 3, 58 60, 70 2, 106, 124, 127, 129 Ministry of Foreign Affairs 35n2, 95n2 nakba (catastrophe) 34, 88 National Religious Party (NRP) 53; parliamentary debate on the Basic Law 58, 77 8; parliamentary debate on CEIL 100, 107 National Union 65n15, 77 8, 117n4; parliamentary debate 90, 99, 107 National Union Israel Beiteinu 65n15; parliamentary debate 99 National Union NRP parliamentary debate 77 8 Navon, E. 33, 69 Nazi 31, 36n15, 58, 63n1, 69, 74; aggression 36n9; Germany 101 2; Holocaust 24; movement 71 Neal, A. 5, 13, 15 16, 119, 124, 130 Neocleous, M. 10, 13, 15, 129 Netanyahu, B. 25, 36n9, 86 no choice (ein breira) 26, 28, 30, 100 1, 123, 126 left wing MKs 79, 114 Northern Ireland 12; (Emergency Provisions) Act 12 13 Occupied Territories 7, 28 9, 34, 95n1, 97; Green Line 4, 8n5, 18, 28; residents of 37n22, 98 Ochs, J. 1, 25 Olmert, E. 27 Operation Cast Lead in Gaza 36n5 Operation Protective Edge in Gaza 63n5 Ottolenghi, E. 8n1 2 Pakistan 67, 76, 82 Palestinian 111, 113; Arab 42, 44; armed groups 31; attacks 51; citizens of Israel 8, 25, 34, 36n11, 36n13, 51, 57, 64n10, 65n18, 85, 96n10, 101, 109; enemy nationals 104; group 79; Israelis 64n14, 88, 102; minority 25, 34, 36n11 12, 49, 56 7, 84, 88; MKs 52, 80, 84, 125, 127; National Council 36n6, 95n2; nationalism 44; parliamentary actors 34; parties 34, 42, 56, 60, 86, 108, 122; people 25, 34, 36n11, 42; political lists

61, 80; political parties 34; population 34, 38n32, 56; residents 18 19, 37n22, 99, 104, 123; state 34, 36n6, 44; territories 97; terrorism 36n8, 99; uprising (intifada) 1 2, 39, 97, 105, 124 Palestinian Authority 8n7, 100; Chairman 8n7 Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) 31, 44, 46, 70, 72, 94, 95n1; Charter 36n6; contacts with 71, 74, 93; members 69, 73, 75, 95n5; threat 71, 124 Palestinians 3, 102, 104, 108; expropriated 37n23; family unification 113, 117n1; Gaza flotilla 7, 19, 86 7, 90, 92, 125; immigration 105; Israeli 26, 36n11, 100, 130; kidnap 92; loss of life 51; of the Occupied Territories 7, 37n22, 95n1, 97 8; permits of residence 32; tortured 38n29 parliamentary debates 130; Basic Law: The Knesset 44 50, 58 61, 75, 77 80, 95, 124 30; Citizenship Law 83 6, 127, 130; Law on Immunity 65n17, 87; Motions for the Knesset agenda, Gaza Flotilla and Israeli response 87 Party Law 64n12, 65n21 Pedahzur, A. 32, 43, 61 Peled, Y. 51, 57 Peleg, I. 5, 96n21 Penal Law 31, 67 8, 70; amendment 19, 32, 39, 57, 64n8; (amendment 58) 52, 56; (amendment 63) 25, 52 3; (amendment 66) 51 6; parliamentary debate 124, 126 7 Peri, Y. 26 7, 31, 37n18 19 Poalei Agudat Israel 71, 95n3 Press Ordinance 37n20, 41 Prevention of Infiltrations Law 67 8 Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance 13, 64n13 14, 75; (1948) 13; (1980) 31, 68; (1986) 7, 19, 31, 68 74, 93, 95n5; (1993) 37n26; repeal 76, 93 Prime Ministers: Begin 4, 33, 39, 69, 96n10; Ben Gurion 30; Netanyahu 25, 86; Rabin 31, 64n14, 96n15; Shamir 38n30; Sharon 26 Progressive List for Peace (PLP) 44, 46, 51; parliamentary debate 49 property: demolition 28, 30; expropriation 37n23; searches 13 Ra’am (United Arab List) 34, 38n33, 61; parliamentary debate 56, 60; Ra’am Ta’al alliance 80

Index Rabin, Y. 25, 31, 33, 96n15; assassination 38n29, 64n14, 65n16; government 69 red lines 36n9, 87, 89 90, 95 religious leaders 55; rabbis 43, 64n14 rights 5, 7, 8n5, 11, 17, 47, 84, 98, 132; basic 10, 30, 56, 60 2, 73, 76, 83, 85, 88, 122, 128; democratic 2, 4, 54, 59, 62 3, 77 8, 81, 83, 93, 100, 108, 120 1, 127; equal 34, 49 50, 80, 85, 108 9, 116 17, 122; exploitation 47, 87; and freedom 62, 68; guaranteed 12 13; human 12, 29, 82 3, 85 6, 101 2, 108, 112 14, 132; infringement of 1, 103; limitation of 13, 50, 54, 59, 62 3, 90 2, 106, 123, 125 6, 128, 130; minority 45 right to 16, 33, 73, 87, 97, 106, 113, 122; citizenship 83, 85, 128; defend itself 4, 81, 104; equality 49, 79, 103, 109; family life 103 4, 109, 121; family unification 18, 97, 100 1, 103 4, 106, 113 14, 118n8, 122; freedom of expression 41; have rights 84 5; human dignity 103; life 53, 55, 62, 100, 129; participate in elections 122, 124, 128 9; participation 45, 124; privacy 12; protection 42, 126; speak 91 3, 127; survive 59, 114; vote 60, 79, 95n8 Roach, K. 63n2, 115 Rossiter, C. 1, 12, 126 Rouhana, N. 5, 34 Rousseau, J. J. 1, 11, 54 Saudi Arabia 67, 79 Saussure, F. 18 Scharia, D. 8n4, 63n2 Schmidt, Y. 26, 31, 41 securitisation 9, 16 17, 21, 126; securitising 123, 125; de securitisation 16, 57, 127, 128; de securitising 125, 128 security 2 6, 10, 105, 129; crises 9, 20, 119, 129; laws 19, 35; measures 7 8, 8n4, 13, 16, 19 21, 22n2, 29, 35, 62, 69, 84 5, 119 21, 123 6, 128, 131; services 13; situation 94, 97, 100, 103, 106, 110, 112, 117; threats 1, 41, 57 8, 102, 112 13 security democracy dynamic 9; nexus 2 4, 6, 18, 20 1, 23, 30, 32, 35, 51, 66, 75, 119, 120, 128; opposition 10, 14, 20; relations 5 6; tension 2, 5, 132 Sharon, A. 26, 97 Shas 54, 58, 64n9, 65n15, 95n3, 95n7, 96n20, 112, 117n4, 118n10;

155

parliamentary debate 55, 65n17, 99, 106, 113 Sheffer, G. 37n19 Shinui 64n9, 95n5, 99 100, 108, 117n4 Shlaim, A. 4, 25 6, 33, 36n14 situation (ha matzav) 4 Six Day War 24 Smooha, S. 5, 25, 36n13 Socialist List 42 4 South Lebanon 69, 105 Squire, V. 20, 115, 125 Steuter, E. 94, 96n22 Sudan 67, 76, 82 Suez Campaign 30, 36n5 suicide 35n2; attacks 36n7, 38n28, 105; bomb attacks 7, 32, 107; constitutional 44, 64n7, 114; democracy 60, 78, 103, 113; Supreme Court sitting as the High Court of Justice 41, 47, 77, 80, 97 Syria 67, 76, 79, 82, 105 Ta’al (Arab Movement for Renewal) 34, 38n33; Ra’am Ta al 80 terror 16, 43, 99, 107, 123 4; act of 91; attacks 4, 39, 112; organisations 70; pro terror speeches 51; war of terror 26, 97; war on terror 1, 94, 96n22, 119 terrorism 16, 18, 32, 83, 90, 96n9, 107, 113, 115, 119, 125; Act 13; acts of 12, 52, 63n2, 82; British Terrorism Act 63n2; counter terrorism 5, 15, 26, 35; definition of 69; fight against 13, 15, 19, 29 31, 39, 123; incitement to 19, 32, 39 40, 51 2, 58, 127, 130; laws against 15, 19, 119; Palestinian 36n8, 99; parliamentary 57; support 6, 17, 31, 39, 57, 63n1, 64n13, 66, 68, 69, 73, 76, 80, 123; threat 116, 124, 128; war on 112 terrorist 7, 25; activities 38n30, 87; acts 13, 44, 63n2, 65n19; anti terrorist legislation 13, 70; attacks 13, 63n2, 66, 69, 97, 125; base 86; groups 63n2, 88; infrastructures 112; movements 58, 61, 76; organisations 19, 25, 67 8, 70, 75, 93, 95n8, 99, 121; potential 116; separatist movements 12; suicide attacks 105; threats 102 terrorists 75, 83, 92, 112, 127, 130; alleged 86, 94; potential 7, 116 threats 2, 4, 6, 12, 14, 16 18, 20, 22n9, 23, 30, 34, 63, 73, 75, 83, 91, 93 4, 98 9, 118n8; concrete 21, 52, 113; constant 24, 59; construction of 73, 88 9, 107,

156

Index

threats continued 116, 123, 125 6; death 64n14; to democracy 21, 58, 60, 110; demographic 105, 108, 116; to democratic values 109, 132n1; existential 7, 18, 25, 27, 46 7, 52, 59, 62, 66, 76, 83, 88, 90 1, 110, 112, 116, 121, 123, 125 7, 130, 132; extraordinary 116 17; of genocide 25; identification of 8; insecurity 8; internal and external 49; to Israel 28, 113; missiles 107; multidimensional referent object 123, 125, 129; objective 7, 119; ontological 112 13, 120, 124, 128; to national security 71; permanent 5; potential 19, 61, 79; referent object 46, 63, 73, 77, 79, 85, 88, 113, 116, 121, 127; to the regime 111; security 1, 3, 10, 41, 57 8, 102, 105, 112 13; source of 26, 56, 73 4, 77, 79 80, 125 7; to the state 113, 115, 123 4; to survival 72; terrorist 102 torture 14, 30, 38n29 treason 71, 82, 89, 94 Tsoukala, A. 5, 13 16, 119, 126 8, 132n1 Turkel Commission Report 86 United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination 117n2

US Civil War 64n7 US constitution 12; committing suicide 64n7 US Justices: Jackson 64n7; Warren 84 USA Patriot Act 13 Wæver, O. 2, 16 17, 108, 115 16 Waldron, J. 13 14 War of Attrition 36n5 wars 24, 36n5, 66 7, 69, 76, 80, 95n6 Waxman, D. 5, 7, 96n21 Weldes, J. 2, 131 wiretappings 13, 15 Wodak, R. 20 Yemen 67, 76, 79, 82 Yiftachel, O. 5, 37n23 Yom Kippur War 36n5 Zionism 36n6, 50 1, 73, 95n2 Zionist 3, 36n6, 79, 95n2; armed group 38n30; dream into a nightmare 73 4; left 34, 47, 60, 72, 79, 108; list 50; MKs 72, 90, 101, 114; movement 48; parties 84; political group 22n7; project 49; religious MKs 33 4, 99; state 36n6, 81, 97; see also anti Zionist