Israel and India: exceptional, essential

LOS ANGELES — When you hold yourself up to an exceptional standard, the world will expect exceptional conduct.

By self-advertisement, India is the world's largest democracy — a system of government uncommon to its region. And Israel, to which India lately has pulled much closer diplomatically, is the shining democracy of the troubled Middle East. And so, in important respects, India and Israel are exceptional and essential.

But there are problems. Let's take Israel first.

In a speech in Los Angeles (Nov. 11) before a distinguished L.A. World Affairs Council audience, Abraham H. Foxman surprisingly and vehemently rejected the Israel exceptionalism standard.

"I am not aware Israel held itself up to a higher standard," said the U.S. director of the Anti-Defamation League, in response to a question from the audience on Israeli exceptionalism. In fact, he added, "no thanks!"

Why?

"Please don't set for me a standard that will lead to my destruction."

How's that again?

"Let us live normally! Don't you tell us to turn the other cheek. Don't set up standards for us that we can't meet."

Foxman's new book — "Never Again?" — argues that the world is witnessing a revival of anti-Semitism and a counter-response is urgently needed. Referring to near-daily terrorism, Foxman said: "In Israel, it takes a hero to get on a bus — or to even sit in a coffee shop."

Alas, in his speech he pointedly attacked the unfortunate but hardly unprecedented recent comments of Malaysia's Mohamad Mahathir, who recently stepped down as prime minister, that were widely viewed in the West as anti-Semitic. Mahathir is gone — let the sleeping dog lie.

The logic of Foxman's overreaction appears to be that in order to save Israeli democracy, it may be necessary to destroy it — or at least whittle it down. The danger in going this route is that, in the end, you may have little left of what you set out to preserve, and on the descent to the anti-democratic basement of your neighbors, you sacrifice the world's admiration and support, which was essential to your survival. Having driven yourself down to the Hobbesian level of your worst enemies, you now risk the fate of your isolation among them.

Foxman's advice is bad for Israel.

The other democracy that sometimes acts uncertain about the continuing value of the democratic process is India, which Ariel Sharon visited in September, the first ever by an Israeli prime minister.

Take the issue of India's free press, to which Indians frequently point with pride as an exemplar of exceptionalism. And its press surely is exceptional — as, unquestionably, is The Hindu, a great newspaper and perhaps the most respected English-language daily in India.

So why were some of its top editors arrested earlier this month on orders of the provincial assembly of Tamil Nadu?

The arrests were the vengeance of the speaker of the regional assembly. The charge was breach of legislative privilege. The particulars were a newspaper editorial in The Hindu that the arrest order claimed used "abusive and intemperate language" against the local government. Indian observers say the crackdown was not an isolated incident but part of a larger effort in the northern region to stifle dissent against government policies. The local government claims that, on the contrary, it was the arrested journalists who brought Indian democracy into disrepute by criticizing it.

This latter is curious reasoning — akin to the proposition that democracy has to be destroyed in order to save it.

Fortunately, there are many Indians who do not subscribe to such absurdity. Among them is its Supreme Court, which recently (Nov. 10) issued a stay on the assembly's order, resulting in the journalists' release.

The speaker of the Tamil Nadu assembly may still try to strike back. But these brave Indian journalists do not shrink from the challenge. They believe that democracy is at its most vigorous only when it is aggressively and thoroughly tested.

This view has wide support. Indian democracy, however flawed — as are all democracies (including the world's most prominent) — is a huge plus for that developing country and the region. That's why Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani, ordinarily a hardliner on most issues, praised the high court's ruling. His stance is good news for India: Advani could well become the country's next prime minister.

In Israel, too, many people prefer true vigorous democracy to anything like democracy lite. When the going gets tough, as Americans say, the tough get going: The time to abandon democratic principles — of justice, due process (even for enemies and those captured in conflict) and open debate — is not when the heat is on. That's precisely when the commitment to democracy is most needed.

Tom Plate is a UCLA professor and founder of the Asia Pacific Media Network (www.asiamedia.ucla.edu). His column appears regularly on editorial pages of The Times.