Some Jews try to separate the two. This is impossible, just look at the fact that many of the 613 commandments only apply to Jews living in Israel. Ever since there was a Galut, every Pesach has ended with the words, "next year in Jerusalem" Let me suggest that those who think that the fate of the Jewish People is separate from the fate of the land of Israel do not truly understand what being Jewish is all about.
Anti-Semites understand this bond, that is why they substitute a politically correct "Anti-Zionism" for their hatred of Jews. But there is no difference, they use old European Shylock-type stereotypes to portray Israelis, publish the blood libel from 19th century Russia, the Protocols of the learned Elders of Zion to cast aspersions on Israel. They even have found a way to unite the two, with the new libel of the "Jewish Lobby" that controls US foreign policy (the only Jewish Lobby I know of is in my Shul and it just got a paint job--TWO COATS !)
Noah Klieger's Essay in today's YNET connect the dots...shows the interrelationship between Anti-Semitism and being Anti-Israel.
There is no anti-Zionism, and no anti-Israel, just latent anti-Semitism
Noah Klieger
Last week I returned from a series of lectures in Switzerland where I spoke of the odyssey of the illegal immigrant ship Exodus in 1947. During my stay I was interviewed by several newspapers, including one of Europe's leading publications Neue Zürcher Zeitung.
The interviewee, a well known newspaper veteran, obviously asked me about Israel today and the conflict in the Middle East. He presented several articles (translated into English) that I had published in recent months, and asked me whether I was not exaggerating in declaring that anti-Semitism is on the rise worldwide.
"Perhaps you are mistaken?" he said. "Perhaps it's not anti-Semitism, but rather, anti-Zionism and opposition to the Israeli leadership's conduct towards the Palestinians."
And this is the root of the problem. For years anti-Semites have been hiding behind the argument of their opposition to Zionism and Israel's policies in regard to the Palestinian issue. "We have nothing against the Jews," they reiterate repeatedly," yet we do not agree with Israel's policies."
This is a blatant lie. Are the attacks on synagogues and community intuitions, desecration of cemeteries and assault of orthodox Jews an expression of "anti-Zionism"
Was the murder of a young Jew wearing a skullcap and the attempted "lynch" of another (both in France) carried out in "opposition to Israel's policies"? Last month, half of Ukraine's population announced that there are "too many Jews in their country" and that "their numbers should be minimized." Is this also anti-Zionism?
A few days ago a reputable German institute publicized a comprehensive survey pertaining to the Germans' attitude towards Israel. The results of the survey are worrying: It appears that 44 percent of the population has a negative opinion regarding Israel and that a sweeping majority of Germans (78 percent) believes that Germany should treat Israel as it does any other nation.
As if the grandparents or the parents of the respondents did not partake in the murder of six million Jews. As if there are no Jews still living, who miraculously survived the German style "final solution."
'No to the Jewish State' That very same outspoken apathy by 78 percent of the new German population towards the Jewish State, which was founded on the ruins of European Jewry, is nothing but an expression of latent anti-Semitism.
Otherwise they would have responded by saying that although Germany is committed to the survivors and the inheritors of those who perished, they would express reservation towards the State of Israel's policies. But they simply said: "No" to Israel. "No" to the Jewish State.
When Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad repeatedly says outright that Israel should be wiped off the face of the earth, he is not saying that "the Zionists should be wiped out." He is demanding that the entire Jewish State be wiped out.
The fact that not a single state has demanded that Iran be ousted from the United Nations due to its wild incitement against another state - which is also a member of the organization - is the best indication of the world's attitude and stance towards the Jews. The absence of protest testifies that the madman from Teheran is not alone.
No, there is no anti-Zionism and there is no anti-Israel, there is only anti-Semitism, even if it is presented in a different guise.
2 comments:
I am struggling mightily with all of this without much time at the moment to expand on that struggle. But I would like to ask in the most sincere digital way one can, are you saying that there is no religion known as Judaism without one having a desire for Israel the state to exist as it currently does? Help me understand where upsetment with the decisions a country's government makes fits into being a Jew. Because I think perhaps that's where I'm having the most difficulty understanding what is acceptable and what is not when it comes to being a Jew who may not feel capable of supporting every single policy and action pursued by Israel. I am sincere in this struggle. I'm also quite certain that I'm not alone.
I will try to explain it, as best I can.
Israel, the love, the longing for its land is something that has burned within each Jewish heart for the last 2000 years of exile. Our prayers mention Jerusalem and the rest of the land constantly. Wherever a Jew is in the world, he/she prays in the general direction of Jerusalem. It is that flame, fueled by the longing, fueled by the Almighty's promise that one day Jews will day return home that kept Jews Jewish. This in spite of the Spanish Inquisition, in spite of antisemitic laws, in spite of oprression, in spite of Bogdan Chmielnicky and in spite of Adolf Hitler, may his name be obliterated, the Jews believed and never wavered. It would have been so much easier to convert and stop the killing, the rape, the pillage. Of course, some converted and prospered. The numbers of Jews doing that was relatively small. And when it happened en masse, as in Spain, during the Spanish Inquisition. Those Jews, the Marranos (literally: pigs) secretely and in their cellars still kept their Judaism. By the tens of thousands the Inquistion burned them or skinned them alive when caught... to these days many descendants of Spanish Marranos still practice Judaism.
Of all the ancient people, none remain, the ancient Greeks, the ancient Romans, Etruscans, ancient Egyptians, etc... etc... have long dissapeared and their creeds are studied as merely elegant curiosities that haven't endured. Only the Jews, in spite of having been displaced from the ancestral home, remained faithful in their belief they would one day return. What uncommon power did they have? That belief, the absolute conviction that it would become true one day, kept the Jews (whom British historian, Arnold Toynbee referred to as "the fossil of history") from being relegated to the dustbin of history, as well... unlike the other "fossils"
In 1948, after a horrible Holocaust that systematically decimated close to half the total Jewish population, Israel (who had a constant Jewish population, going back to biblical times), again became the ancestral land, the refuge of a persecuted, despised, people.
Lest you buy into the myth that the land "was stolen" from the Palestinians, let me disabuse you.
Until 1964 there was no such term as Palestinians, there never was a n independent entity called Palestine. This was a name given to the particular region by a Roman Emperor to crush Jewish pride while honoring his favorite girlfriend, Palestina.
While the Bible is full of Jewish Kings and leaders, nowhere, at any time does history record a single Palestinian king, president, or minister... because there simply were none!
Travelers records speak of a Jewish majority throughout a mostly barren land, all the way up to the middle 1900s. In the 20s and 30s Winston Churchill wrote quite a few memos about Arab immigration from the newly formed Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan which would soon overwhelm the Jewish majority.
In 1948, within a day of the State of Israel having been created by the UN, the combined Arab armies of Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, etc... tried to destroy it. For days the Arabs radio stations had broadcast into Israel telling the Arab population to get out of the way, so as not to get hurt. They were told that that within three days they would return and not only settle in their own properties but that they would also be able to take the land and belongings of the vanquished, destroyed, accursed Jews... Then Israeli Prime Minister David Ben Gurion, pleaded with the Arab population not to leave but to stay and build together a new country, a new life, a common future for all (the recordings still exist at the UN building) The majority stayed, between 300,000 to 550,000 left. Rather than being absorbed by the very same countries that convinced their brothers to leave, they were kept under dismal conditions in refugee camps where their despondence and hatred were carefully fostered by Israel's neighbours. The refugees, suddenly became a superb political weapon, though nothing was done to ease their plight.
While the tide of war was in their favor, the Arab armies refused a cease fire. Only in 1949 when superior Israeli strategies were starting to bear fruit the Arabs requested a cease fire. Israel's borders were never officially ratified whether, by Israel, the US, England, France or Russisa. The Armistice lines of 1949 became the defacto borders, at the point where the Armies stopped. The idea being that final borders would be negotiated between all the parties. In spite of repeated overtures by Israel, the Arabs saw peace as something that could only be after the Jews ceased to exist. They refused to talk to them since the very beginning there were acts of terror against Israel, whether in schools, in public buildings, in open markets, etc...
Does that mean that as a Jew, I am in full accord with whatever any Israeli government says or does? ABSOLUTELY NOT!!! Like any political entity anywhere around the world, the Israeli government is all too fallible. Israel is a vibrant democracy, 10% of its Parliamentarians are Arabs as opposed to no Jewish Parliamentarians in any of the 22 Arab countries. No government in the world, even in the US, endures as much criticism from its citizens (whether from the right or the left side of the political spectrum). No government has been changed so often as the Israeli government has. Israel has always sought a willing peace partner among its neightbors and with the exception of Jordan's King Hussein (whom I had the honor of meeting) and Egypt's Anwar Sadat, never one. The Israelis fully accept and understand that there must be a 2 state solution to the war problem, the Palestinian Authority does not! Hamas is willing to offer Israel 10 years of peace, (presumably to be broken when Hamas feels ready) without recognizing Israel's right to exist. The "moderate" Mahmoud Abbas, not only wrote a "learned" denial of the holocaust as his university's thesis, but never bothered removing the clauses calling for the extermination of the Zionist entity from the PA's Charter. Before the first and second "intifada," a large, large percentage of Palestinians worked wihin Israel's Green Line. Slowly the economic situation within bthe territory stated improving, this was not something Arafat's gang could countenance as it diminished their hold on power. Before Arafat was brought into the PA by Rabin and Peres, he lived at first in Jordan, where the US and Israel had to intervene to save the Hashemite Kingdom from being destroyed by Arafat. He then fled to Lebanon, who was just recovering from the ravages of decades of civil war along sectarian lines. There he managed to revive the civil war, with renewed fury and untold ruthlessnes. He then managed to flee to Algeria, when the Algerians were getting tired of their "guest," Israel stepped in to the rescue and brought him to Gaza and the West Bank. They hoped that he would have true leadership skills and bring peace and prosperity to his people and the region as a whole... In Camp David, he was offered an unprecedented deal by Israel's PM Ehud Barak, but he refused, much to the chagrin of his own negotiators.
The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, the one who commanded and led the massacre of the total Jewish community in Hebron (men, women and children, a community that dated back uninterrupted to biblical tiimes)in the late 20s, the one who was Hitler's most constant guest and bosom buddy and Egyptian born Arafat's, maternal uncle, he was twice offered a deal for independence by the British but he refused because it would have meant there would also a small independent Jewish state...
The fact remains that if Israel lays down its weapons, Israel will be wiped off the map. If the Palestinians stop the terror, there will not only be peace but a Palestinian State alongside Israel.
I could go on, but I am afraid I already rambled on too long. Any other questions? Have I answered any that you already asked?
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