Center Field: Yes, Minister Lapid, Israel can be both Jewish and democratic

Something about Israel prompts even sophisticated people to make simplistic statements. Last week’s most sophisticated simpleton was Finance Minister Yair Lapid.

While pleading eloquently for Arab equality at the “Prime Minister’s Conference on Arabs in the economy” at Tel Aviv University last Tuesday, Lapid claimed a Jewish democratic state posed an impossible contradiction.

As a columnist, Lapid’s job was to provoke controversy, occasionally. As a statesman, Lapid should be less inflammatory and more accurate, especially regarding his country’s character and democracy’s meaning.

Most of Lapid’s speech was courageous and constructive. True, Israelis frequently rely on tokenism, pretending “that if there’s a successful Arab soccer player, then we don’t have a problem.” Lapid’s admirable solutions include implementing local policing – which would protect all citizens better – integrating women into the labor force, national service for all, and “education, education, education.”

He spoke movingly about Jews’ “moral obligation” given our unhappy past as the oft-oppressed people “to always remember what it is to be a minority... to feel alien in the land you were born in.”

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Center-Field-Yes-Minister-Lapid-Israel-can-be-both-Jewish-and-democratic-330713