Author: Martin Kramer

Israel’s default constitution

On By Martin Kramer

“We’re declaring independence, nothing more,” David Ben-Gurion told Israel’s proto-parliament in the hours before the declaration, on Friday, May 14, 1948. “This isn’t a constitution. As for the constitution, we will have a session on Sunday, when we will deal with it.” But they didn’t deal with it on that Sunday, or on any subsequent day. Israel has no constitution.

Or does it? Does its declaration of independence double as a constitution?

This is the question I address in the seventh and final installment in my series on that declaration. I discuss the so-called “constitutional revolution,” the nation-state law, and other controversies that give new salience to the declaration. “I didn’t attribute much value to declarations,” said Ben-Gurion when asked about his role on May 14. “Not that they didn’t have great value, but at the time I didn’t make much of them.” But since then, Israel has relied heavily on its declaration of independence for guidance in the present. Can it hold up under the weight?

Read the finale at this link, at Mosaic. Since it’s the monthly essay, there may be responses, in which case, I’ll respond in turn. Stay tuned.

(Illustration: inaugural ceremony of the Israeli Supreme Court, September 14, 1948.)

Ivory Towers on Sand at 20

On By Martin Kramer

This week marks twenty years to the launch of my book Ivory Towers on Sand: The Failure of Middle Eastern Studies in America. That’s a whole generation. Someone who sat in second grade on 9/11 (like the elementary school kids visited by President Bush that morning in Florida) may be finishing a Ph.D.

This is an invitation to that generation to read Ivory Towers and consider the controversy it stirred. The establishment in the field would prefer to forget both the book and the controversy, which is precisely the reason they should be revisited. There is no progress without contention, and the debate stimulated by my book was a good thing. The fact that there hasn’t been a comparable dust-up in twenty years doesn’t speak well for Middle Eastern studies. Like the Middle East itself, there was a glimmer of “spring,” followed by a return to a long “winter.”

Over the years, I’ve occasionally issued assessments of the field, usually because someone invited me to do so. This happened as recently as last month, on the anniversary of 9/11. None of these “updates” was as comprehensive or timely as the original book, but they do suggest where I thought I saw continuity and change over the years. Even I find surprises in rereading them.

So here’s the library I’ve assembled for this anniversary. Begin by reading (or rereading) the book. It can be downloaded here in its entirety. It’s not long; its brevity actually made it more effective.

• 2001 (October 16): At the book launch, held at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, I highlighted what seemed to me the book’s significance. Read my remarks here.

• 2005 (March 6): When a huge controversy broke out at Columbia University, implicating Middle Eastern studies professors, I placed it in a wider context, in an address to Columbia students. Read my remarks here.

• 2005 (April 1): Much to my astonishment, the Center for Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University invited me to speak at a conference on the state of the field. Read my remarks here. (I didn’t mince words.)

• 2005 (April 5): On this date, Brandeis University inaugurated a new Middle East center. I spoke at the inauguration, spelling out what was wrong, and how the new center might help to fix it. Read my remarks here.

• 2007 (April 12): The Manhattan Institute, a New York think tank, asked me to revisit the state of the field. Listen to my remarks here.

• 2007 (November 7): At Harvard University, graduate students used to take a course on approaches to Middle Eastern studies. I had a Harvard affiliation at the time, and the instructor asked me to come to class and reflect on my book and its impact. Read my remarks here. 

• 2016 (October 28): After 9/11, two of my mentors, Bernard Lewis and Fouad Ajami, created an alternative to the Middle East Studies Association. The Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa continues as an essential venue for solid scholarship. In 2016, I delivered the plenary address at the annual conference in Washington, on the pathology of Middle Eastern studies. Read my remarks here, or watch me deliver them here. 

• 2021 (September 10): On the twentieth anniversary of 9/11, the Middle East Forum, under the leadership of Daniel Pipes, asked me to give a current assessment. Among other points, I emphasized that if I wrote a book on the subject today, almost no one would care. Watch to see why.

As I reread myself, it strikes me how much I’ve wavered between optimism and pessimism over the years. It’s hard to get a comprehensive read on something as amorphous as an academic field. But I’m quite sure I did just that twenty years ago. Is there anyone out there willing to attempt it again?

The right of the Jewish people

On By Martin Kramer

“All men are created equal… they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.” These two principles, from the American Declaration of Independence, form the very bedrock of the United States. Did Israel, in declaring its independence in May 1948, assert the same principles?

In my latest (sixth) installment on Israel’s declaration of independence, I examine its treatment of rights. The bedrock of Israel isn’t individual rights; it’s the collective right of the Jewish people to independence in its own homeland. The fact that Israel has a secure Jewish majority makes it possible for the Jewish state to function as a democracy that recognizes the equal political rights of its citizens, and the collective rights of its minorities. But that majority wasn’t self-evident in May 1948, and the language of the declaration reflects it.

The word “democracy,” present in the drafts of the declaration, was ultimately struck. But the declaration does guarantee the “full and equal citizenship” of all. So just where does the declaration come down on the question of collective versus individual rights? And what’s the one right that is totally unique to Israel?

Read the full essay at Mosaic.