Gary Selikow
That is exactly the distinction we should NOT be making!
I can best make my point by quoting worldwide bestselling mystery writer Jonathan Kellerman who exposes the lie that tries to delink Zionism from Judaism and anti-Zionism from Jew-hatred, reminding us that “any attempt to split Israel from Judaism is either deliberate racist mischief or the product of sheer ignorance” and he concludes by declaring to the world: “I am a Jew. Israel is a part of me, and I am a part of Israel.”
I do not think we should be attempting to defend Jews or Jewish communities by calling for a distinction between Jews and Israel. This is in effect – even if it is not intentional on Bergman’s part – distancing ourselves from the Jewish state; Israel is the state of the Jews and the largest Jewish community in the world.
It needs to be the centre to our Jewish identity and our defence of Judaism and Yiddishkeit should be part and parcel of our defence of Israel.
For me the essence of the conflict around Israel is a very simple one. Most of the Arabs and Muslims (with the backing of the international left and some of the world’s far right) want to drive the Jews of Israel into the sea. The Jews of Israel, however, are determined not to be driven into the sea! Hence an irreconcilable conflict.
Israel is the phoenix that rose out of the ashes of the Holocaust and the continuation of the Jewish life and civilisation that was so brutally destroyed in Europe by the Nazis and by the Arabs when the Jews of the Middle East and North Africa were savagely expelled from these lands and fled to Israel with nothing other than the clothes on their backs.
It is up to all decent people around the world to fight against this ghastly spectre, and ensure that Israel survives safe, strong and free.
Israel is the national liberation movement of the Jewish people and a symbol of righteousness, I believe that those who hate and mean harm to Israel, are evil at heart, and hate Israel because it represents what is good and decent.
Johnnesburg
