: re: Israel Struggles With Its Identity

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Tue, Dec 9, 2014 at 8:21 AM
Subject: re: Israel Struggles With Its Identity
To: "letters@nytimes.com"

To the Editor:

  Seven decades later, ambiguities left unresolved at the United States' founding erupted into Civil War; Israel is right on schedule. The details are not the same, of course. Bizarrely, the bid to split Israel comes from within the government itself.

     Of course, there are differences. Israel has no written constitution. If it had, the details of the bill Netanyahu proposes would probably violate it. If fit passes, Israel will no longer be democratic, ruled by the People, but by the Jews. Just as important, it will no longer have "one law for the stranger and for the homeborn" as is commanded of all Jews. I.e. it will not be Jewish, either. 

Barry Haskell Levine

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/09/world/middleeast/israels-nationality-bill-stirs-debate-over-religious-and-democratic-identity.html?_r=0