Expat Election Ethics 101

Today is Election Day back in the ‘alta heim’ (old country).

Zahava and I mailed off our official absentee ballots weeks ago... and, no, we didn’t discuss our voting preference before we filled out the ballots. It was actually quite funny seeing us sitting across from each other at the kitchen table, nonchalantly shielding our ballots from one another like school kids during an exam.

To date we still have not discussed our choices, but I have a sneaking suspicion that we may have cancelled each other out. This may be just as well because I have been feeling the sting of a real ethical dilemma for quite some time now.

Being an American citizen abroad, it is a wonderful thing to be afforded the ability to cast a vote. However, because we now permanently make our home abroad, there are some very real ethical issues that can’t be ignored. The most prominent one being whether to vote based on what is best for Israel or what is best for the U.S.

Allison discussed this over in her Unsealed Room awhile back, but at the time I wasn’t fully engaged in the issue.

When I was living in the U.S. I used to scoff at the frequent accusations of dual loyalty on the part of the Jewish community. But the more I think about it, the defining issue for many Jewish voters has become less, ‘Is it good for the Jews?’ (which is a reasonable criterion), and more ‘Is it good for Israel?’ (which begins to smell like conflict of interest). In my mind, this becomes ethically problematic; especially when one candidate, who is a complete enigma in terms of his foreign policy, is clearly better qualified to deal with domestic issues (the economy, unemployment, social justice, poverty, education, etc.). And the other, while his foreign policies have been, um, somewhat short sighted and ill advised, seems to be a better potential friend to Israel.

Keep in mind, that nowhere on the ballot for U.S. elections does it ask your motivation for voting one way or another. Unlike the Republican Party, there are no loyalty oaths or any such nonsense on U.S. Ballots. In fact, if one’s sole aim was to bring down the U.S. Government, and he/she thought a vote for a particular candidate might bring about that result… there is no law against doing so. However, I doubt this is what the framers of the constitution had in mind.

For may sake, I was, and to a certain extent still am, torn between ignoring the potential benefit or harm the results of the election will have on either the U.S. or Israel.

Israel has eliminated this dilemma by not allowing absentee ballots in its elections. I don’t know if it was intentional, but this policy echoes a much earlier decision: When the Jews were allowed to return to Israel after the Babylonian exile (6th century before the common era), only a small proportion of them actually did so (sound familiar???). Life in Babylonia (which is the area of modern day Iraq) was quite comfortable for the Jews. There was a vibrant educational and business infrastructure, and the various Jewish communities were extremely well off.

Ezra, the leader of the Jews who returned to Israel, made a decision not to allow the Jews of Babylonia to contribute to the rebuilding of the Temple or in any way be involved in decisions that would impact those who had returned. This decision to exclude the input and significant wealth of Jews living abroad resulted in extreme poverty and hardship (including a ramshackle wooden Temple in Jerusalem), but ensured that people from outside of Israel would not be able to unduly influence decisions regarding how life would be lived here.

Looking at U.S. elections from an Israeli vantage point, I’m pretty sure Ezra was onto something. Why should I be able to influence matters of state in the U.S. when at best I will not be impacted by the results, and at worst my vote will have been cast in order to benefit a foreign country… and at the possible expense of the U.S.?

I won’t tell you how I voted (why should I tell you when I haven’t told my wife?), but I will have some serious thinking to do before I participate in future U.S. elections.