Israel is not a normal state. Here’s why.
I am a person of the left and have been ever since I was a girl and Jackie Robinson joined the Brooklyn Dodgers or maybe it began when the Rosenbergs were executed and I knew a great lynching had occurred or maybe it was the photos of Auschwitz that I saw in Life magazine that made it clear I was one of those inside the fence not those waving at passing trains. That is why today the phrase “Zionism is Racism” sends shivers down my spine and sets my teeth to grinding.
Zionism is not about race. It is a nationalism. It makes a claim for the Jewish people that they are a folk like other folk and entitled to a land of their own just like the French have France and the English have England and the Bulgarians have Bulgaria. Nations have histories and the Jews have a history, long and eventful, rich in creative moments, overflowing with sorrowful memories, complete with documents, music, stories, language and also religion, and a religious memory of temples bygone and exiles endured and architecture described and columns buried in the soil and a millennium dream of return.
This dream of return, this next year in Jerusalem, existed long before the Holocaust. It existed before Herzl and the Zionists of the century before last had ever taken their first breath. It is a dream sunk deep into the Seder ritual, “Next Year in Jerusalem.” This vision of an end to exile kept the Jews together and brought them hope through the years spent in Babylon millennia ago when the texts that form our memory were edited and scrolls were connected and ordered into a lasting canon.
Sense was made of Jewish misfortune through a vivid if perhaps dubious belief in God’s punishment and eventual forgiveness. If the disasters that befell the Jews came about through Jewish defiance of God’s law then Jews could hope to make amends and keep their religion and their hope of redemption alive.
Even when Jews were defeated in battle we kept our God and held dear the promises he had made us of a land of our own: a land that he had granted to us in the time before time. Other defeated peoples gave up their gods who had performed badly in war and were now no more than broken stones strewn on the bloodied soil. In blaming ourselves for our misfortune Jews were able to hold on both to our God and to the hope of return to the land that had been promised. Our conception of the wages of communal sin saved our God from the dustbins of abandoned texts where specialists can still read today of Marduk and Sargon.
This hope of return to the land of Israel, which God had given to the Jewish people through Abraham, through David, for all time, this hope of return lasted through the exile of our people from England and France, the calamity of the Spanish exile and and of Portugal’s cruel dictates.
A wish for a land of one’s own for a nation of people with a story and a root, and a hope that carried on for more than a thousand years is unusual in human history. But if one thinks for a moment how the French would feel scattered to the four corners of the globe, Paris gone, the Seine named something else, the great cathedrals burned, the people now living along the Seine having descended from other folk who lived in other places, who did not know the French story, did not honor Charlemagne or Joan of Arc, or even speak French and instead spoke strange words in a language that Proust, or Flaubert, or Molière could not have deciphered, think how they might create a nationalism of their own that called for a return of Paris to the French and if that happened would they be racists or would they be nationalists, and why would they be entitled to a land of their own and the Jews denied?
And what if these French were denied citizen’s rights in some of the places they settled? What if they had been gassed or pushed into trenches where they died by the tens of thousands? What if the French had no army, no police of their own and were prey to the anti-French who roamed across all continents. What if the other countries denied the French access to law courts, to medical schools, to universities? What then? The French would start looking around for a land to call their own and they would call their promised land France and if others were living there they would still return if they could, because the French like any other national group deserves a land of their own, in a world of nation-states. And so do we Jews.
In today’s world to be called a racist is to be attacked with a nasty word that conveys immorality and inhumanity on the part of the racist. It hurts to be called a racist, especially if one is not. A Hungarian immigrant may enjoy a croissant but not feel a strong identity with French culture or history. What if such Hungarian immigrants were unexpectedly in the majority in what had been recognized as France? What if the French in Colombia or Nigeria wanted to return to France: Would anyone call them racists or would they be exiles, carrying with them Diderot, Molière, Madame Curie, Charcot, Camus, Stendahl, André Gide, Corneille, on their backs to lands where they had settled?
Despite United Nations resolutions to the contrary Jews are not racists to want a land of their own, a geography that contains their history, a place where their armies and their arms can protect them. They are human beings who claim the common endowment of what in this day and age passes for humanity.
Racists are despicable people who think they are superior to and more entitled than others of different groups, different nations, different skin color, different religious beliefs. America has a lot of racists living in its cities, small towns, its hills, its purple mountains majesty but slowly we are getting better at understanding that America is a place of many races and the mixture itself creates a nation that is beautiful in its variety and has for spacious skies that stretch from sea to sea.
Yes, Zionism can lead to excess of rage. It can inspire folks to deny others basic human dignity, the same way that anyone else’s nationalism can. It can turn ugly when the desire for “mine” becomes the desire to deny “yours.” But that is not the Zionism of the Jewish people. It was not Herzl’s Zionism. Our bid is just to be a nation like the other nations.
Well, not exactly like all the others. It was hoped that Israel would not enslave anyone. It was hoped that Israel would treat the strangers who lived among its people with justice and equality. It was expected Jews would not throw rocks at passing Arab cars and that we could make room for other dreams and other visions and other nations to settle near by or live in peace among us.
Zionism remembers the vulnerability of the Jews living without a state of their own and so it balances the needs of others to thrive in their own orchards and the needs of the Jewish community to become itself, at last, a nation without a foreign ruler, without a wicked king appointed by a distant empire, but a place where the Jewish story can be told by free men and women with confident voices in safe places where their Jewish children can learn and grow without fear. In other words a nation just like the French or the Spanish or the Poles who are not racist for waving the French, Spanish, or Polish flag or singing the anthem they learned at school.
If this return had happened in 1776 then the state of Israel could easily have acted in the way that America did—a way that came to be viewed, rightly or wrongly, as “normal.” It could have marched its Palestinians out beyond its borders and the crime of it, the pain of it, would have lost its immediacy, no cameras, no reporters on the ground. Native Americans were stripped of their land and their culture trampled and no one saw it on the news and by the time anyone could weep for them, the deed was done and could not be revoked. America had slaves for a hundred and fifty years and was indeed a racist country and remains so in some places. Think of the faces of the men and women who lined up to mock the entrance of a few Black children into a white school in Alabama. That is the face of racism.
If Israel was a normal country like Iraq or Syria the ultra-Orthodox would be at war with the citizens of Tel-Aviv who go to the movies on Shabbat. The followers of this rabbi or that would take to the hills with their guns. If Israel was a normal country like Mexico its citizens would be afraid of the police and the drug cartels would appoint the chief of police. If Israel were really normal the Ashkenazi Jews would arm themselves against the Sephardim and civil war would take the lives of Jews just as civil war decimated the population of young men in America as boys lay dead on battlefield after battlefield, leaving mothers to grieve and sweethearts to weep and children to grow up without fathers. That is our normal.
So, it might be not such a good idea to be a normal state. And while it might not be entirely fair to hold Israel to a higher standard, I do in fact expect that Jews will hold back the killing hand, the truly racist call, and that Zionism would be, could create a decent place, where a variety of religious approaches could co-exist and secular folk could walk about unmolested. It is a dream, but not an impossible one.
This vision of Israel (that is where as a child I thought my tree was growing) did not fully understand that Palestinian Arabs were or would become a people with a claim of their own to a national homeland. This conflict needs to be settled; both peoples need settled borders in which to build and flourish. But Zionisim is not racist to speak for itself and the illogic, the unthinking hatred behind that slogan, makes me sick. It is a lie and a smear hiding behind a proclamation of seeming virtue. To be against racism is good but to see it where it is not, to use the word to attack Jews, is appalling.
@ Bear Klein:
Another Dicha of Deborah
@ honeybee:
Short and to the point!
We Jews have a right to our own country in our historical homeland! It does not matter if we have critics or foreigners who tell Israel what she should do or not do. Hell the Hillary Clintons and Barak Obamas of the world tell us they are the friends of Israel but tell Israel they have no right to build homes in Jerusalem. If they did that in NY City apartment CO-OPS that would be called Anti-Antisemitism.
The Jewish people have a right to its own state. Some want that state to be governed by Jewish Law (CHalacha) and some want to be less religious in legal application. That is the debate of Israel and the Jewish People. Naturally outsiders will have opinions but they are not relevant. Israel is a Jewish democratic Country where minorities have civil rights (voting, free speech, right to assemble, etc.). Only the Jewish people and their relatives have the right of return (immigration to Israel) as it is the Jewish peoples country.
yamit82 Said:
Zionism is NOY racist, Zionism IS survival !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
yamit82 Said:
They fly ??????? Is that any thing Mrg 3105 “dangerous bull sh-t” ???
CuriousAmerican Said:
I didn’t think you would understand. 😛
Purposely obtuse or naturally dumb?
Frankly I don’t give a flying F,,k what you and your Europeans Cretans think? Why should I?
CuriousAmerican Said:
What’s Jewish about a secular Jewish State other than name?
Judaism isn’t a religion, your screed might be considered a religion but not Judaism.
I recommend all you christians convert to Islam. At least it’s monotheistic. Btw, who gives you any standing to tell or suggest anything regarding our most Jewish internal debate and the nominal workings of our political system? Who? You are nothing to us but a classic Jew hater who trolls Jewish sites acting as a provocateur. Should we / I go to christian sites and rant against your beliefs and you mythical pagan gods? That would not be nice would it? How about I go to christian sites and relate the historical sins of christians against not only Jews but against Muslims as well? How would I/we be received and especially when I voice my views of yeshu?//
No you did by attacking the religious monopoly on civil marriages, divorces and burial. Three very Jewish traditions that identify Jews as Jews and not Cubans. Thinks of it like the rules for a closed club or committees who select residents for condos. They accept some and reject others because it’s a private internal. The State of Israel is similar we accept some and reject others . We determine who is one of us and who isn’t, no one is forced to accept our rules, laws and traditions they don’t have to be here either. I could end your vile missionary activity here in Israel in five min by doing an ISIS and chop off a few heads….Works for them and should for us as well. 😛
Nohahide covenant preceded Abraham and that’s good enough for you goyim, Follow that and you need nothing more. Only two peoples remain under the Abraham covenant Jews and Arabs 😛
Both christianity and Islam are our enemies but Islam is more immediate.
Judging from the rants coming out of the evangelicals, hatred and fear of Islam is only superseded by hatred of the church. 🙂
@ CuriousAmerican:
Bear Klein is so right on. You are so condensending! Oh sure just ignore them and let them lead off another 6 million Jews to the gas chambers. You don’t really believe that Christianity and Catholicism is just going to get a 2 thumbs up without being held accountable do you? Islam is your ememy. Thanks to your religion for helping them to flourish – AND STILL DO!
OMG. The Jews are getting too sassy, too strong, too powerful, too rich again. Time to cut them down to size again.
What’s it to you anyway? You are a shame and a disgrace to your to your religion and to your Jesus – MY KIN. That’s right, you’ve gone the way of Cain….PAUL. I am finished debating with you. It’s redundant. If you want to try to brow me some more go ahead……it will be on deaf ears.
I recommended a secular state for the Jewish people.
Hence a secular state is the ideal.
You are the one who just brought in religion.
Come now, you know better. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jabob makes some very exclusive claims.
True, but all monotheistic religions make exclusive claim.
No you don’t. You should have just ignored them like everyone else does. Islam is your enemy now.
No one pays attention to the papacy, not even Catholics. You cannot broadside their beliefs without opening up your own side to a broadside.
You brought up theology, not me. Deal with Zech 12:10 Isa 53’s suffering servant, the Mighty One of Isa 9:5, et al.
I would go further, but Ted forbids it.
Time will tell who is the fool.
At least you are honest.
Can you understand then why white in Europe and America might view this as a double standard?!
@ CuriousAmerican:
The Catholic Church is far more rational and true than the gobbledegook crap you adhere and profess to believe.., As a Jew I think you are all full of shit but that’s my personal view…. 🙂 Mormonism as a belief is more rational and theologically comprehensible! You believers in wood and stone are the pits… totally pagan… totally a Un- monotheist…. Mithra would feel at home in any of your church pews and within your theology. Hey curious he’s dead and will stay there for ever and ever… fool. 🙂
CuriousAmerican Said:
Zionism is not racist but Judaism is and the only way we can justify our Jewish existence here in Israel and discriminate against non Jews is Judaism not Zionism.
Israelis shouldn’t care about the national aspirations of the Palestinians. Arab rights are a mere curiosity, just like the rights of conflicting groups in African civil wars. Rights, whether Jewish or Arab, are irrelevant. Germany had a good claim to Alsace-Lorraine and to German-settled parts of Poland and Czechoslovakia.
The Jews should not unreasonably or unnecessarily harm the Arabs, and the transfer passes that test. A fifty-mile relocation to Jordan, where the Palestinians form the majority, is no great hassle. Israeli Arabs will lose the welfare provisions, but Jews should not be helping them in the first place.
Modern democracy is usually liberal or republican which means that basic rights and freedoms of minorities are protected. Blacks are few in America, but the country is not called “a White state.” Likewise, Israel cannot call herself a Jewish state without violating republican rights of Arab minority. Israeli policies are racist: national anthem mentions Jews only, the Law of Return applies only to Jews, Independence Day celebrates victory of Jews against those who became Arab citizens of Israel. If Jews and Arabs are equal citizens, if both’ rights should be respected, if both have valid claim to the land, why did the Jews audaciously displaced the Arabs in 1948? Why did the Jews disrespect Arab rights with massive immigration to Palestine?
During the 1975 “Zionism is racism” resolution deliberation in the UN, Israel agreed that she discriminates against Arabs, but argued for the ultimate morality of establishing a state for stateless Jews. Racism for a reason is still racism. Israeli reasoning does not hold: Jews are allowed to live in Israel according to our laws and theoretically without fear; founding of the state exhausted the moral debt owed to the Jews. Moreover, Arabs could not be asked to pay the moral debts of European Christians who persecuted the Jews. Discrimination of Arabs cannot be justified on moral plane, but only on religious grounds which secular Israel rejects – or by racism, a sensible feeling unacceptable to democratic government.
Institutional lie, a statewide hypocrisy are not sustainable policies. Unless Israel drives Arabs out, she would have to formally renounce her symbolic Jewishness. Atheist Jewish liberals would not dare say to their gentile friends that Jews possess something which gentiles lack; that the Jewish way of life is inherently better. Liberals have no right to say this, as their way of life is not Jewish in any sense, but indistinguishable from the nations’. A Jewish liberal who speaks of Judaism somehow being equal to Jeffersonian political utopia—what can he teach his gentile acquaintances? His “Judaism” only includes the points acceptable to his fellow gentile liberals; all the rest is abandoned. It has not even been eradicated, as that would have required knowledge of Judaism on the liberal’s part, but simply abandoned, left unlearned and unknown. The liberal’s Judaism is narrower than gentile ethics, a subset of it. Such “Judaism” includes what gentiles accept, but not everything that they accept. It contains only the things which gentiles have long adopted anyway, and therefore cannot serve as a light unto the nations.
Zionism, if not racism, is chauvinism. But so is every national movement and every stripe of nationalism. Instead of refusing to acknowledge this fact, we must concentrate on making sure that our chauvinism does not evolve into national or racial discrimination. And the only way to practice our nationalist beliefs freely yet make them harmless to others is by relocating Israeli Arabs to a state of their own where they have already refused citizenship to Jews.
@ CuriousAmerican:
Your the one who always wants to make this a religious issue. First and foremost we are a people, people, people, people – GET IT??
Torah is the only way of life for the Jewish People – GET IT?? We are not saying that we belong to the only true religion for all people – it’s just for JEWS. The Catholic Church claimed they were the one true religion for ALL people – THAT WOULD INCLUDE YOU.
We have a duty and obligation to rebuke their claim. Not only for the sake of Jews but for the whole human race!!
No I don’t know what you mean. Try and explain it cogently, without being vituperative.
The irony is: That in the West, Jews fought to have state and church separated as a principle. Adolphe Cremieux comes to mind.
Or Disraeli who fought for the right of Lionel De Rothschild to sit in Parliament without declaring a belief in the Christian Trinity.
Up to that point, Christianity was a way of life in Europe. The Calendar, festivals, national holidays, the day of rest were all ordered on Christian interpretations of the Bible.
Yet, Adolphe Cremieux in France and Lionel de Rothschild in Britain did not mind upsetting those Christian lifestyles.
I do not mind separating Religion and State, though I be Christian, because I think they corrupt each other — but you cannot have one standard in the West, and another in Israel without being accused of a double standard.
Let me give you an example:
About 15 years ago, the Vatican reasserted that Catholicism was the true religion. — I do not agree with that the Vatican’s viewpoint
However, all religions tend to view their religion as the true one.
Jewish groups were furious. How dare the Vatican say it was the true religion?
The point is: Jews feel just as strongly, as Catholics, that their religion is the true religion.
This was the pot calling the kettle black.
You cannot condemn Catholicism for have an attitude of exceptionalism that you yourselves hold.
I am not even Catholic, and I see that.
Me, I just laughed the Catholic pronouncement off.
So now you are prescient.
And I am the arrogant one?!
@ CuriousAmerican:
Jewish Law. Read Caroline Glicks book. Judaism was never intended to be a ‘religion’. It’s a way of life. There are differences of opinion as to how it should be applied today. That is for US to figure out. Go preach to the choir boys. They may need your protection – if you know what I mean.
@ CuriousAmerican:
I knew you would say that. It’s not arrogance at all – it’s a fact. You have not been where we have been, you are not where we are at and you are not going where we are headed as a Jewish people.
You are just an observer witnessing the rebirth of our nation after 2000 years of exile and the complications we encounter.
It boggles my mind how someone like you can claim to be so astute with the Christian Bible which would include the Torah and yet so ignorant about the Jewish people.
You have no idea how happy I was that the complaints you received were not about me.
Since you concede state and religion should be separate, why would you defend it for Israel.
A state for the Jews (secular) does not have to be a Jewish state (theocratic).
I do. I am not here daily, like many of you are. But I am allowed to have an opinion. It is you who talk down to me.
Now, who is being arrogant?
I received this email.
@ CuriousAmerican:
Take Bear Kleins advice and just leave the Jewish State in our hands. These are matters that are too complex for you to comprehend.
Civil Marriage for one.
Juliano Mer Khamis, who was very sympathetic to the Arabs, was considered Jewish because he had a Jewish mother. Not exactly Zionist. He had an Arab father.
Alin Levi, who is Zionist, and has a Jewish father, but not a Jewish mother is not officially Jewish. She tried to convert but the rabbis made the conditions too strict.
If a person has a Jewish mother, he or she can live as wanted, even profligately and be considered a Jew. But someone who has a Jewish father is suspect, and held to a higher standard. Again, Juliano Mer Khamis comes to mind. I do not disagree with everything Mer Khamis did, but the irony compared to Alin Levy is amazing.
She cannot get married to a Jew in Israel, though she was raised Jewish. Should she get married to a Jew outside Israel, and then have a daughter, the daughter would not be considered Jewish.
And the silliness (meshugges) would start all over in the next generation, even though the daughter would then be 3/4 Jewish – and yes, such things happen.
Herzl never envisaged giving the rabbis such power.
Israel’s marriage laws stem from the Ottoman Muslim millet law, which put such matters in the hands solely of clerics.
The state should not be supporting clerics with a paycheck; and then giving preference to Orthodox over Conservative over Reformed Jews.
That is a state-religion connection. Not good.
Even in ancient Israel, one tribe ruled the state [Judah], while another ruled religion [Levi]. The Torah kept them apart in different tribes.
Separation of state and religiohn pre-dated the Englightenment.
Jesus who was Jewish, said “Render unto Caesar’s what is Caesar’s and unto God what is God’s. – Mark 12:17”
He did NOT say render unto God what is Caesar’s nor vice-verse. He separated state and religion 1800 years before Jefferson.
Unfortunately, Christians did not listen to His sage advice, until the American and French Revolutions.
So you have both Jewish and Christian agreement in this. [What you call the Western world].
Israel was foolish to give such power or preference to rabbis, in what should be be a private matter.
Herzl envisaged a state of the Jewish people, but did not consider giving political power, or civil power to rabbis.
CIVIL MARRIAGE would be a very good start.
STOPPING THE STATE SUBSIDIES WOULD BE ANOTHER STEP.
Religion is dead in Europe where it is subsidized. It thrives in America where the state has little control, and subsidizes no one.
You could still be a state of the Jewish people without having such regulation.
America is the most Christian nation in the Western world, without a state church. Those without state churches are not practicing Christians.
@ CuriousAmerican:
You mean just like Saudi Arabia?
I don’t know if you have ever been to Israel, but it’s about as secular as one can imagine. And also very multicultural in its own way.
The country is run under Jewish law, which happens, like or not, to be the foundation of the laws of many Western nations.
What would you suggest should be changed in all this?
@ CuriousAmerican:
You maybe right or not right about your views that you express however, you are an outsider neither friend, fellow Jew, or Israeli. It is the Jews who will determine what happens in Israel for better or worse because it is Jewish peoples country. Like all countries and peoples we are not perfect but either we will figure it out or not.
@ CuriousAmerican:
You have already stated that. AGAIN – For the umpteenth dozen times we have gone over this with you here on Israpundit – it’s not US that wants it that way…..It’s Hashem. We are partners with Hashem so eventually there will just be the one Jewish nation and the Jews should forget about being accommodated anywhere else….because that is what it will come down to. We have been in exile for 2000 years (many thanks to your religion to have had a big hand in that) so it won’t be rectified overnite!
I wonder why. The Pope has praised the Iran deal. Prince Charles is pleading on behalf of persecuted Christians but NOT ONE WORD IS MENTIONED ABOUT THE CONTINUATION OF THE PERSECUTION OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE.
Cut us some slack. Just work on your own country. That should keep you busy enough.
I was concerned that I had some fundamental disagreements with this well written article but published it anyway. The comments are excellent.
To Dove: Let me follow up.
Until 1800, Jews were socially and culturally assigned to the ghettoes.
What got them out of the ghettoes was the secularizing American and French Revolutions.
In America’s case, the American people were strongly Evangelical Christian, but still felt that the government had no business in religion.
In France’s case, the people were fed up with the excesses of the Catholic Clergy.
The separation of Church and state freed the Jews.
The Catholic, Eastern Christian Orthodox, and Lutheran Churches soundly condemned Napoleon for equalizing the Jews. And yes, he did.
Having prospered under secular regimes, especially in America, why would you then restore a quasi-religious state in the Mideast.
Having been freed by the Enlightenment, why would Israel then give offical sanction to rabbis by insisting on an Orthodox rabbinate, subsidized by the state.
This is not bigoted. This is a serious question. I have had a lot of Jews, who are terrified of church-state connections. Yet, have no problems with synagogue-state connections.
This is a double standard.
Herzl, who was rather secularized, seem to have wanted only a homeland where the Jewish could be free to be Jewish, but without state subsidization.
This ends up in absurdities where Alin Levy is not considered Jewish but Juliano Mer Khamis was,
What I find amazing is that some Jews applaud multiculturalism in the West, where they are minorities, but want a Jewish state where they are in the majority.
You cannot have it both ways.
You cannot support secularism in the West (which I support myself), yet insist on a Jewish state in Israel without sounding like two standards are in operation.
Israel could have been constituted, as Herzl suggested, as a civil secular state for the Jewish people, rather than attaching Jewish religiousity to it.
Simple things live Civil Marriage should be allowed.
@ CuriousAmerican:
So don’t say we didn’t try. You imply that we want the State of Israel to be Jewish so that we can isolate ourselves from the gentiles. The fact of the matter is that the gentiles don’t want us as Jews and we refuse to be anything else other than what we are!
What is ignored are some inconvenient facts.
Quite often, American Jews were at the forefront of liberalizing America’s immigration laws. Prior to 1965, American immigration laws preferred German, England, Ireland, and Sweden in that order.
After 1965, America’s immigration laws were made non-ethnic specific, and America went from being 90% White to 66% white, and will probably flip in 50 years.
One of chief authors of that change was Emmanuel Cellar. (Click Here) to see his biography on the Virtual Jewish Library
He was not the only one, Kennedy was involved.
But here was a powerful New York Congressman who was willing to break America’s Ethnic center (NW European).
I have no problem if Israel wants to be Jewish. Amen!
But all too often, it was prominent Jews in the West who were at the forefront of multiculturalism.
It did look like a double standard.
Well – some Jews.
I agree completely. As I keep on saying, we don’t need to try to convince them to love us, because they won’t under any circumstances. We need them to fear, and thus respect, us, just as the Arab world used to fear and and to some extent respect, the long arm of the Mossad.
These tired and whiny narratives annoy me: Jews appologising for their very existence, trying to justify themselves to swindlers, liars, torturers and abusers.
the epithet “zionism is racism” is immediately debunked by the aliyah of Ethiopian black jews. Something that not even any african blacks have done to return africans to africa.
Therefore the question is not to answer the false canard that by its very speaking is a transparent demonstration of one more attempt to defame and swindle jews of whatever they have whether it be their homeland, their bible, their culture.
It appears that only those descended from the hijackers of the Hebrew bible, the exile of Jews from their homeland,the libel, swindling, torture and slaughter of the Jews for 2000 years, are interested in perpetrating this libel in a perennial attempt to discredit the Jews in order to create failure of the Jews in Israel. The supersessionist Christian BDS churches are behind most of the defamation of Israel and they fund the seculars, the honor killers and influence govs to propagate their vile schemes. I have unmasked many a BDS church troll sent out in droves by their handlers to Jewish sites and elsewhere to libel and incite against israel and the Jews. Jews would do better to spend less time justifying their existence to their would be killers and more time working on practical ways to neutralize or liquidate them.
My perspective is that anyone who spreads these lies and propaganda are collaborators in the attempted murder of Jewish children. Lies, libels, always preceded pogroms and most who spread lies know this, therefore they intentionally seek to incite murder and genocide. When viewed in such a light it becomes unimportant to convince them of anything, they become an existential enemy who should be destroyed before he is successful.
Who needs convincing is Jews.
You still do not fully understand. Understand at all it would seem. The “Palestinian” Arabs have not become a “people”. In fact, just imagine if the Jews never returned to the Holy Land. Do you honestly think the world would have heard of a “Palestinian People” an Arab people? Of course not. Has there ever been a “people” who’s founding ethos and justification is the destruction of the other? A “people” with no distinct history, language, culture, religion or collective memory? Of course not. These are simply the same variety of implacable Arab Jew haters like all the rest that just happened to be situate in the Land of Israel, most directly due to the prosperity that Jews brought upon their return. A border for them? You mean another border for them in addition to Gaza, Jordan and 22 Arabs states. Get real!
Okay. So we’re racists. The Nazis pounded into everybody’s heads that the Jews were a distinct and definable race.
Well, so what?
We’re smarter and more focused than most others; we’re great survivors; HaShem invented us; other than the Chinese, we’re more or less the only people in the world who returned to use of our original ancient language, and migrated back to our original ancient land, where our folks found a desert supporting only goats and Arabs, but turned it into one of the richest, smartest and most productive countries in the world.
What has characterized me through and through for most of my 81 years is that I am remorseless about logic. I have no interest whatsoever in political correctness. I hate apologetics. Right or wrong, I want the Jews to win. I like being one of us, and the thought of having avoided spending more than 80 years belonging to any other race causes me to manifest great joy, with all the horns tooting, whistles shrieking, and banners snapping in the wind.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Woman, how much more proof do you need? Gaza is a perfect example that two states is not what the Palestinians would ever agree to. All they will do is use their state as a launching pad to destroy Israel.
The only thing Anne Roiphe gets wrong is the Arabs do not want a state.
They want to eliminate Israel and for Netanyahu and her along with every one else in the two state crowd to tell us both claims are morally and factually equivalent is to insult our intelligence.
Zionism is not invalidated by its enemies attacks upon it.