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Of Civil Society and the State
Roni Ben Efrat interviews Professor Itzhak Galnoor
What were the main problems that troubled you and your colleagues where the Third Sector is concerned? Galnoor: What troubled us was the fact that there is no clear and consistent government policy toward the Third Sector. On the other hand, we also worried that if such a policy should come into being, it might be so intrusive and prying that it would tamp down the creativity that gave rise to this sector in the first place. The sector developed in the early 1980's beneath the unwatchful eye of the government. If that eye had been open, it might not have appeared. In the report we say that despite the lack of an explicit policy, the government does have a policy nonetheless, which has accrued haphazardly from little decisions and laws. On the one hand, then, we asked that there be some internal logic to this conglomeration of rules, and on the other hand, where supervision is concerned, we recommended that it be carried out by the Third Sector itself – not by external factors. In reading the report, I noticed that the Committee encourages the establishment of non-profit associations (NPAs) that seek social change. The report claims that in Israel their proportion among NPAs is small compared with the rest of the western world. Why is that? Galnoor: Right, the report gives special prominence to two topics. One is indeed the NPAs for social change, and the other is the Arab NPAs. We found that a large part of the more positive dynamism in Israeli democracy – alongside its many less pleasant aspects – is a certain "readiness to take initiative" that we find among people who seek change, whether in the form of scrutinizing the government or standing up for human rights or organizing communities to help themselves. The data show that these causes don't get anything like their proper share, whether in the number of organizations or the number of people employed. They certainly get no support from the government, and they don't receive indirect encouragement, for example when it comes to taxes. The field of taxation is extremely political in Israel, and so they get nothing. The state does not yet understand that its critics are doing it a favor. The state's position ought to be this: "We don't agree with your views, but we very much want you to continue to act." Half of the money in the organizations we checked comes from overseas, mainly from Jews who understand that there is a blemish in our society and want to correct it. Israelis don't contribute much to these organizations, and so they have to struggle very hard. We found a very large number of groups that start up and then close down. You're surely aware of the central complaint against the organizations of civil society, that by their very existence they aid the dismantling of the welfare state, much to the joy of the wealthy. In other words, civil society, by providing services, relieves the state of its obligations to its citizens. Galnoor: We dealt with that, though not in those words. We talked about "NPAs that substitute for the state," meaning those that provide services in education, health and welfare. By the way, they make up most of the NPAs in this country, and that is a negative phenomenon. The state sloughs off its accountability, but the NPAs have a hard time surviving. On the other hand, there do exist organizations of civil society that do not fall into this category. I oppose the gross generalization that you mentioned. I even find it irresponsible. Civil society is there to correct distortions, not to replace the state. It's true that the state has encouraged it to manage certain services, but in many cases civil society forced the state to do things it would not otherwise have done. Take, for example, centers for battered women. One can claim, and rightly so, that this task should be part of the welfare state, and that these centers should be established by the government or local authority. From my own knowledge, I can tell you that women came from civil society and tried to persuade the state to do just that. There wasn't much consciousness at the time, however, as to the importance of this issue, and so the centers arose independently by means of contributions from abroad. The purpose, from the beginning, was to establish an organization which, in due time, would be adopted as a model by the authorities. And that is precisely what has happened in several places. There then is civil society. For another example, take hunger. Here the dilemma is a hard one. Should we content ourselves with telling the state to fulfill its commitments in social welfare, or should we establish NPAs that feed people and at the same time convey the message to the state that this should not be our function. It's wrong to see the question in terms of black and white. We need to lower the threshold of our expectations where the state is concerned. The statement that civil society is dismantling the welfare state does not take into account the changes that are taking place in the nature of the modern state. When your report mentions the Registrar of NPAs, it speaks very critically, using terms like "invasive," "prying" and "destructive." Is this criticism aimed specifically at the former registrar Amiram Boget, or do you include the policies of his predecessors? Galnoor: We did not intend these words for a specific person. As soon as the law authorizes such activity, and it is put into practice, the person to blame is the legislator. It is true that before that [before Boget – RBE], there wasn't such massive use of supervision. What happened was part of a trend, which began when the state woke up to find all the NPAs that had sprouted around it. Some of them really were corrupt, and there was pressure to bring order. But then, instead of seeing it as his main task to encourage the NPAs, aiding them in organization and financial management, and only supervising when necessary, the Registrar channeled most of his efforts toward supervision. He became the policeman of the NPAs. The Registrar appeared before our committee, and I have to say there was a bitter argument. It turned out he couldn't care less about what an NPA does or whether it achieves its aims. He said he wasn't interested in what you, the NPAs, do, as long as you do it legally and play by the rules. It is important, of course, that if the state funds the NPAs, it should check them. But that is not the exclusive task of the Registrar. We complained that he had turned this into the main thing. I got the impression that after the discussion with us, he took these matters a little more to heart, but in any case, he did not remain in office. Maybe we'll have to have a new discussion with the new Registrar. The Committee devoted a special chapter to the Arab NPAs. How do they differ from the rest? Galnoor: Three of our 17 members were Arabs, and they voiced severe criticisms about discriminatory interference by the Registrar in the affairs of Arab NPAs. What stood out was the fact that these NPAs have been established explicitly to provide the same services that the Jewish public gets from the state or local authorities. Most of the Arab NPAs are "substitutes for the state," for example, the day-care centers. In this respect they differ from Jewish NPAs. On the other hand, it's good that they exist. First, because they work to ensure that the Arab public receives the services it needs, and second, because, as I've already said, when there are hungry people and you need to help them, you don't stop and argue with the state about whether it's doing its job or not. Also, in my opinion, a new consciousness is growing that the community needs to help itself. Sometimes, too, there are little victories that have an exemplary effect, showing how things ought to be done and forcing the ruling powers to do what they don't want to do. The discrimination we identified is shown in the fact that the Arab NPAs get very little government support. There are hardly any contractual relations between government offices and the service-oriented Arab NPAs. The number of these NPAs that seek tax benefits is tiny. They don't try because they figure they don't have a chance of receiving the necessary accreditation. The really important phenomenon, though, is the emergence of NPAs for social change that turn to public opinion, building pressure on the authorities to alter policy. These have a great deal of difficulty in gaining support, not just from the state but also from Israeli philanthropies. Most of their money comes from abroad, and that isn't healthy. It provides the authorities with an opening to accuse them of receiving illegitimate funds, resulting in a vicious circle. Don't you see, in the persecution of the Arab NPAs, a continuation of government policy, which has tried since the founding of the state to prevent the strengthening of the Arab population by encouraging passivity and by supporting a conservative leadership? Galnoor: A policy is something that's thought out in advance. I don't think that anyone sits in the Prime Minister's office or any other office and plans how to hamper the Arab NPAs. The topic doesn't interest the policy makers that much. What is true, though, is that the general attitude filters into policy. Because the general attitude is one of suspicion concerning the Arabs' loyalty to the state, especially when the authorities think they're doing them a favor by letting them live here at all, then, quite naturally, when a body emerges that is more independent and assertive, it arouses very grave concerns. Then they say right off the bat that the NPAs serve this or that interest. They neglect to point out that the Arab citizens are taking the same steps as the Jewish, using what little power they have in order to demonstrate, to influence, to go to the High Court. It's like what they always say to the Arab Knesset members: "In Syria you wouldn't be able to do this or that." I never heard anyone say such a thing to an Israeli Jew born in America. One finds the same policy, for example, in the Knesset Finance Committee. Nobody needs to tell the legislators not to approve budgets for Arabs. Because they have great suspicion about the Arabs from the outset, they don't approve budgets for the Arab sector. When you add all these little decisions together, it amounts to a policy of discrimination. Don't you worry about a situation where the Third Sector, which does not present a political alternative, brings about a de-politicization of the public? It's very attractive today, after all, to belong to an NPA for social change and work within a small, secure area. But when a potential activist forgoes politics, he forgoes his possibility of influencing things on a national scale. Galnoor: You put your finger on a very real phenomenon, which includes the decline in the power of political parties in democratic regimes. If you ask me what I would recommend to a young man or woman who wants to contribute time and energy, whether to act from within a party or from within an NPA, I would recommend acting in the party. A party is extremely important. It has power to change things. However, if we put the question more moderately and ask whether they should join such parties as exist today, then the answer is harder to give, and maybe it should be in the negative. In Israel today there are no parties. That's an illusion. Then what is there? Galnoor: Chaos. Utter contempt. It's hard to say how long we can go on like this. What we have are phony parties. What they are, in fact, is vote-contractors. They are interest groups of Likud or Labor, and their advantage over the NPAs is that these interest groups take part in the regime. It is important to bear this distinction in mind. We are in for a very long process, in which we shall have to rebuild our parties, turning them into parties with positions on vital issues, and not just contractors to round up votes at election time or interest groups that want a slice of the regime. In this transitional period, I say, we are lucky to have the safety valve of civil society, which does a great many things that the parties don't. It does a better job of representing interests, it is sensitive to social needs, and it is much more humane. It even takes the place of the Histadrut, for example, which does not look after the interests of the working public. In this transitional period, then, one shouldn't take issue with the NPAs as keeping people out of politics: that's cutting down a tree that for now doesn't even exist. Let's take the case of a party that wants to establish an NPA to help or strengthen its target population. In the report you related to this very briefly. What kinds of relations can legitimately exist between political parties and NPAs? Galnoor: I would draw a distinction among three types of cases. There is one case, where a group organizes, whether for an idea or to advance its interests. Let's say they heard our discussion of politics and NPAs, and they reached the conclusion that the best way to accomplish their aims is to become a political party. That's legitimate, good, desirable. For example, the Zionist Forum of [Natan] Sharansky. They started out as an NPA to help new immigrants. There wasn't much ideology. But then they wanted to gain more influence, and they established a party. The second kind of case, which you mentioned, is also fine. A party wants to provide certain services, and to this end it establishes organizations. Take el ha-Ma'ayan. Here was an educational network that changed from an NPA to a branch of the Education Ministry – in effect becoming a [government] institution. Truly a dream! [On the relation of el-ha-Ma'ayan to Shas, a political party, see article, p. 10. – RBE.] The third type of case is illegitimate. This is the minority, but it blemishes the rest. What am I talking about? When they establish fake NPAs like those of [Ehud] Barak. These had no ideational message. Their only concern was to serve Monsieur Barak, and that was illegitimate. Such a phenomenon gives all NPAs a bad name. If we'd had a stronger Attorney General, he would have dealt more firmly with this issue. n
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