Oaths

I support the concept of a loyalty oath for people becoming new citizens of Israel. I had to take such an oath when I became a citizen of the USA. I remember that I had to "swear allegiance to the United States of America and abjure allegiance to all potentates, foreign and domestic!" It seems to me that this is the least that a new member of a country should be expected to do to become a loyal citizen of that country. So therefore I support the institution of an oath of allegiance to the "Jewish and democratic State of Israel" as proposed by the Netanyahu Cabinet. However, I oppose one aspect of the recently approved law, namely that it does not apply to Jews who become citizens through the law of return. I think all new citizens should be treated equally, and all should be required to take a loyalty oath irrespective of their ethnic origin.

There are Jews who are not loyal citizens of Israel, and several times Israeli Jews have been caught spying for the enemy. Recently Anat Kam was caught passing State secrets to a journalist. I suppose that in her position she was required to take a specific oath, but why not have a blanket basic oath that all immigrants are required to take to become citizens of the State. This would certainly diffuse any suggestion that this is a racist oath. There should also be a similar oath for members of the Knesset before being installed. I am not against them holding such views, but I am against them being in the Israeli Knesset. It is self-defeating and makes no sense. This should weed out those Arabs who hold extreme anti-Israel views (this could be considered racist, but its intention is to ensure loyalty of all).

In the USA and now Britain and increasingly in European countries there are now courses that immigrants must take and pass to become citizens. This is to improve integration of new immigrants. When I took the English language test in Baltimore the officer administering the test apologized to me for having to ask me to read a sentence like "Bill and Jane jumped over the fence in the field." He recognized that I spoke better English than he did. But, it was good that everybody, Vietnamese, Russians, Dominicans and the occasional Englishman, had to take the same tests.