A stupid demand
By Yoel Marcus (source HaAretz.com)
Forty years ago, Yaakov Herzog (brother of Israel's sixth president, Chaim Herzog) was invited by the BBC to take part in a symposium. The subject: What Are Israel's Chances of Survival? Herzog, shocked by the choice of topic, declined to participate but said if they ever held a symposium on Britain's chances of survival, he would be glad to attend.
Who would believe that 32 years after Herzog's death, and 60 years after the establishment of the State of Israel, which is still here despite all those who sought its downfall, the leaders of this country are demanding to be recognized as a Jewish state? And by whom? By the Palestinians, who flatly turned down the Partition Plan approved by the United Nations on November 29, 1947, and have done everything they possibly can to remain stateless to this day.
After the Oslo Accords that Yasser Arafat fumbled, and after two intifadas that left a trail of bodies on both sides, they are still without a state of their own. It seemed as if Ariel Sharon's nod to the Palestinians in evacuating Gush Katif would convince them that Israel was sobering up from its dream of a Greater Israel, that it was open to a peace agreement, including concessions that would make it possible for the Palestinians to finally adopt the UN resolution giving them a state of their own.
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I won't repeat here all the preparations being made in advance of the Annapolis summit, the details of which appear daily in the media. We know that we are facing a weak leadership, but neither do they have a sense of Israel's leadership being all-powerful. The infighting between Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert, and the doubts about the ability of the present government to move tens of thousands of settlers into the blocs set out in a future agreement, are not exactly projecting a message to the other side that its expectations can be met.
Olmert believes that both sides, no matter how weak, realize that the chances of reaching an agreement outweigh the obstacles. Let's say we don't make peace, says Olmert, and two years from now, Hamas becomes the ruling power in the West Bank. So what are people going to say? That we didn't see the danger? That we sat on the sidelines and did nothing to prevent it?
Olmert and Barak, who are more in sync than one would think, based on the media leaks and the flying insults, do not delude themselves that Israel will be sitting at the table with a strong Palestinian leadership. But they know that right now, that's all there is. The talks will be conducted the way porcupines make love: v-e-r-y carefully. Neither side wants to get President Bush hot under the collar. Neither side wants to be blamed for the failure of the summit, which is shaping up as a kind of multi-delegation, global conference orchestrated by the president of the United States.
And then we wake up one morning to the announcement by the Palestinian Authority's chief negotiator, Saeb Erekat, who says the PA is planning to recognize Israel's right to exist (well, thank you, Mr. Erekat), but "will not recognize Israel as a Jewish state." You read that statement over and over, and try not to explode. Especially at our stupidity at even making the demand that they recognize for us our Jewishness. Who are they? The Chief Rabbinate? The Council of Torah Sages?
Israel's Declaration of Independence reads: "By virtue of our natural and historic right, and on the strength of the resolution of the United Nations General Assembly, [we] hereby declare the establishment of a Jewish State in Eretz-Israel, to be known as the State of Israel." Eight hours after this declaration, two Egged buses were attacked, an attack snuffing out the lives of the first seven victims of the War of Independence.
The ever-present threat against the very fact of Israel's existence is what has caused, or at least encouraged, the expansion into the territories by tens of thousands of settlers. It is this threat that eggs on the Jewish extremists and has turned this country, which has longed so much to live in peace, into a country of occupiers.
We exist, and we are a Jewish state. The whole world has recognized us as a Jewish state. The Arab countries that attacked after Israel's Declaration of Independence did so because it was a Jewish state. We made peace with Egypt and Jordan in spite of being a Jewish state. If there is anyone who needs recognition, it's the Palestinians. Their leaders over the generations have goaded them into hating Jews and killing Jews, which has gone on without stopping, but left them without a state of their own.
This demand that they "recognize" us as a Jewish state, even if the cabinet votes in favor of it at the insistence of the Yisrael Beiteinu party, is like denying the legitimacy of our own national existence - as if we need them to reinforce the identity of the state.
How does such a smart country come up with such a stupid demand?
Visualizzazione post con etichetta Palestinians. Mostra tutti i post
Visualizzazione post con etichetta Palestinians. Mostra tutti i post
domenica 18 novembre 2007
giovedì 15 novembre 2007
Israel, Jewish and democratic?
Still a democracy?
By Shulamit Aloni (source www.haaretz.com)
The government of Israel, with all due respect, does not represent the Jewish people but rather the citizens of the State of Israel who elected it. Israel is a sovereign state, which is still considered to be a democracy. In other words, it is a state for all of its citizens. Therefore it must not demand of the Palestinians to recognize it as a Jewish state, because in that way it would be declaring that any citizen whose mother is not Jewish or who did not convert with our strict Orthodox rabbis is a second-rate citizen, and his rights as a human being and a citizen are not ensured.
The Jews are a people but not a nation, they are a religious ethnic group or as respected a tribe as may be. The Jewish citizens of Britain, including the Orthodox among them, are British, and that is what is written in their passports and in the British population registry.
The same is true of France; the Jews there are French. In Canada, they are Canadians, and in Holland they are Dutch. They uphold their Jewish lives in their communities, since in democratic nations there is freedom of religion and freedom from religion. If they were to register the Jewish citizens in these countries as "Jewish" in the nationality category, we would accuse them of being anti-Semitic.
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There is a difference between a people and a religion and a nationality, since nationality is decided by citizenship - a people as opposed to a nation - and therefore citizenship is nationality. The affinity of a citizen to the state is based on citizenship and not on religion; it is not based on the tribe nor on the heritage of the genes of the mother.
If among the cabinet ministers there are those who feel that they are more Jewish than Israeli, that is their right, and they can uphold all the religious precepts and pray all the prayers. But that is not relevant to the ties between the State of Israel and its neighbors.
There are people among us who like to repeat that this is a Jewish state and not a state of all its citizens. It is strange that the demand has been raised of the Palestinians, as a condition for ending the occupation, to recognize a state where some 20 percent of its citizens have inferior status.
In the past it was a great joy to be an Israeli. Israel was father to the nations. The word "Jewish" does not exist in any of the prayers. There is: "And I will restore the captivity of my people Israel." And there is the people of Israel, the land of Israel, the Torah of Israel, the God of Israel and the daughter of Israel, who with the Jews is also a second-rate person.
The state of Israel was established as a civilian state, as a state of law, and not as a state of Halakha (Jewish religious law), by the "representatives of the Jewish yishuv and the Zionist movement." Not by the ultra-Orthodox to whom the cabinet ministers enslave themselves, and whose masses they release from military service, from working, and from tuition fees, and even pay them a monthly wage.
In the document establishing the state, it was promised that there would be "complete equality of rights for all its citizens regardless of origin, race or gender." And another reminder: On the Day of Independence, we light 12 beacons, the number of the tribes of Israel.
Let the cabinet ministers feel at home as Jews as much as they want, let them raise their voices in prayer and let them lay tefillin (phylacteries) - but they must remember that they serve the government of Israel, which still represents itself as being democratic. In other words, they are the representatives of all its citizens and are responsible for them.
Therefore it would be better to demand of the Palestinians to recognize Israel as a sovereign state, and not to coerce them with what the citizens coerce us - religion and its rabbis.
The existing arrangement was suitable for the Catholic Spain of Isabella and Ferdinand at the end of the 15th century. That is when the expulsion from Spain took place, since Spanish nationality was granted only to the Catholics or to those who converted to Catholicism.
If it is more important to be a Jew than it is to be an Israeli, why do we demand of the Jews of the world to come here at a time when they are having it good in the democratic countries in which they live as Jews?
By Shulamit Aloni (source www.haaretz.com)
The government of Israel, with all due respect, does not represent the Jewish people but rather the citizens of the State of Israel who elected it. Israel is a sovereign state, which is still considered to be a democracy. In other words, it is a state for all of its citizens. Therefore it must not demand of the Palestinians to recognize it as a Jewish state, because in that way it would be declaring that any citizen whose mother is not Jewish or who did not convert with our strict Orthodox rabbis is a second-rate citizen, and his rights as a human being and a citizen are not ensured.
The Jews are a people but not a nation, they are a religious ethnic group or as respected a tribe as may be. The Jewish citizens of Britain, including the Orthodox among them, are British, and that is what is written in their passports and in the British population registry.
The same is true of France; the Jews there are French. In Canada, they are Canadians, and in Holland they are Dutch. They uphold their Jewish lives in their communities, since in democratic nations there is freedom of religion and freedom from religion. If they were to register the Jewish citizens in these countries as "Jewish" in the nationality category, we would accuse them of being anti-Semitic.
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There is a difference between a people and a religion and a nationality, since nationality is decided by citizenship - a people as opposed to a nation - and therefore citizenship is nationality. The affinity of a citizen to the state is based on citizenship and not on religion; it is not based on the tribe nor on the heritage of the genes of the mother.
If among the cabinet ministers there are those who feel that they are more Jewish than Israeli, that is their right, and they can uphold all the religious precepts and pray all the prayers. But that is not relevant to the ties between the State of Israel and its neighbors.
There are people among us who like to repeat that this is a Jewish state and not a state of all its citizens. It is strange that the demand has been raised of the Palestinians, as a condition for ending the occupation, to recognize a state where some 20 percent of its citizens have inferior status.
In the past it was a great joy to be an Israeli. Israel was father to the nations. The word "Jewish" does not exist in any of the prayers. There is: "And I will restore the captivity of my people Israel." And there is the people of Israel, the land of Israel, the Torah of Israel, the God of Israel and the daughter of Israel, who with the Jews is also a second-rate person.
The state of Israel was established as a civilian state, as a state of law, and not as a state of Halakha (Jewish religious law), by the "representatives of the Jewish yishuv and the Zionist movement." Not by the ultra-Orthodox to whom the cabinet ministers enslave themselves, and whose masses they release from military service, from working, and from tuition fees, and even pay them a monthly wage.
In the document establishing the state, it was promised that there would be "complete equality of rights for all its citizens regardless of origin, race or gender." And another reminder: On the Day of Independence, we light 12 beacons, the number of the tribes of Israel.
Let the cabinet ministers feel at home as Jews as much as they want, let them raise their voices in prayer and let them lay tefillin (phylacteries) - but they must remember that they serve the government of Israel, which still represents itself as being democratic. In other words, they are the representatives of all its citizens and are responsible for them.
Therefore it would be better to demand of the Palestinians to recognize Israel as a sovereign state, and not to coerce them with what the citizens coerce us - religion and its rabbis.
The existing arrangement was suitable for the Catholic Spain of Isabella and Ferdinand at the end of the 15th century. That is when the expulsion from Spain took place, since Spanish nationality was granted only to the Catholics or to those who converted to Catholicism.
If it is more important to be a Jew than it is to be an Israeli, why do we demand of the Jews of the world to come here at a time when they are having it good in the democratic countries in which they live as Jews?
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