Knave, am I the 'Steve' to whom you refer?

I am perfectly capable of accepting that other people might criticize Israel's actions without being anti-Semitic. I question some of Israel's actions myself.

Nevertheless, some who question Israel's actions are indeed anti-Semitic.

I always thought that the hallmark of the left was grounding a discussion in historical reality. As write on's mythical rhetoric shows it is a lesson yet to be learnt.
It ignores the history of the Jews' illegal immigration to Israel; it ignores the Jews' anti-imperialist struggle, it ignores years of potential deals, it ignores years prior to 1948 ceasefires and broken ceasefires; it ignores the1948 war, it ignores the post-war context of mass movements of peoples; it ignores the politics of what was then known as the "Arab World". But, most disgracefully, it ignores the history of the Palestinians themselves. But, as with so many of his "fair and moral kind", such knowledge which, far from making matters easier, actually makes things as complex as they really are, is superfluous to the easy street of Manicheanism.

Martin gets support from Fran Waddams, from a group called Anglican Friends of Israel. Which sounds a lot nicer than it really is.

Here's an interesting speech made by one of their patrons, Professor David Marsland to the pro Apartheid (in South Africa) Springbok Club. It's worth reading for an insight into the mind of one of Israel's staunchest supporters.

http://www.netcomuk.co.uk/~springbk/speech5.html

He makes several suggestions, one of which is 'Speak out in support of Israel’s fight against terrorism.'

The rest are:

# Make a formal declaration of war on al-Qa’eda, its associates, its supporters, and those who harbour them.
# Introduce compulsory electronic ID cards, beginning with recent immigrants, asylum seekers, anyone with a criminal record and the unemployed, and extending as quickly as possible to the whole population. Failure to produce an ID on demand to be punishable by six months in prison without appeal.
# Withdraw from and replace the UN, NATO and the EU.
# Withdraw immediately from all international treaties and agreements, including all aspects of so-called international law, which might be used by the enemy to impede national self-defence, including the use of pre-emptive military force.
# Immediately halt all immigration, asylum seeking, and student entry by Arab nationals and other Moslems. Identify, arrest and deport Arab and other Moslem illegals. No appeals to be allowed.
# Halt or segregate air flights into or out of Britain by Arabs.
# Transfer to the defence budget, and to the war against terrorism specifically, all the public expenditure currently squandered by the billions of pounds on welfare for derelicts, no-hopers, unemployables and moral delinquents, on legal assistance for career criminals, and on foreign aid to despotic, incompetent rulers in Africa and other parts of the “Third World”.
# Strengthen surveillance of Moslem communities throughout Britain – with no limitation of targets to self-avowed and known “extremists” (Browne, 2004).
# Strengthen anti-terrorist legislation to allow on suspicion indefinite secret imprisonment (without appeal, without visits and without any privileges), tough interrogation, and where necessary summary execution by authorised agents.
# End the production of official, legal, and other reports and enquiries concerning any aspect of the war on terrorism until the war is won. This will take as much as a decade.
# Speak out in support of Israel’s fight against terrorism.
# In Iraq and other anti-terrorist battle-fields, forget “hearts and minds”. The enemy are heartless and of low mentality. Build up allied and local forces and unleash them mercilessly until the enemy is wiped out.
# Rather than risk rescue, suicide or future political concessions, summarily execute Saddam and his top henchmen immediately.
# Never allow anyone – family, company or country – to pay-off hostage-takers, either in cash or in political concessions. Where hostages can be located within twenty-four hours, effect a military rescue if it can be done safely, otherwise destroy the hostages, the hostage-takers and their retinue by bombing. Where location proves impossible within twenty-four hours, bomb any convenient target associated with the hostage-takers.
# Reduce the need for prisons in Iraq by authorising summary execution of known enemy. Throw journalists, servicemen or anyone else who seek to file lying and negative reports about conditions in terrorist prisons in Iraq or elsewhere into these same prisons for an indefinite term.
# Censor prejudiced and negative reporting of the war against terrorism by British media. Neutralise by military means any Arab media providing a propaganda outlet for terrorists.
# Prepare militarily and politically for the next battle in the war on terrorism, wherever it may occur, by cultivating reliable allies; by enhancing the language capabilities of the armed and secret services; by developing unmanned weaponry; and by investing heavily in intelligence capability.

"Where are those who genuinely want to promote israeli-Palestinian peace and reconciliation?"

I suspect beaten down by disappointments from all sides.

Speaking for myself - someone who for years has believed in a two state solution, I no longer believe the Palestinian Arabs currently running the show have any intention or desire to make peace or co exist with Israel or Jews. I believe Israel's restraint or non response in the face of provocation ie rocket attacks - mostly as gestures to the west, have now created a hope in the Arab world that they, Israel is really a paper tiger and is weak and can be beaten.

I believe Ahmadinejad has fueled this notion and I believe the illusion that Hezbollah won in 2006 has only spread this belief.

In my opinion, the west continues to apply a western mindset when formulating ME policy and comes up wrong every time.

Hi Redharry,

thanks for demonstrating definitivelt the fact that you're a nob by quoting from a 20 year old speech from someone who may have met someone who may have met someone who may have met someone who may have written something Martin Bright may have read once.

Anglican friends of Israel. Outrageous. Christians who actually dare to believe other than what most Christians have believed for most of Christian history, that Jews should be kept in a state of dispossession and humiliation!

After so much gloom and talk of even more war just around the corner, perhaps a little optimism and a positive perspective is appropriate? Here is the barest outline of a possible peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians, an alternative to war, which I regard as a form of collective madness.

In principle Israel and the Palestinians could come to a reasonablel, compromise, accomodation; call it 'peace' if you like. It's not impossible to conceive and is highly desirable compared to the ghastly alternatives that await both peoples down the road if they don't find a way to live side by side and together. Something that isn't as strange as it seems, as there was great deal of cultural affinity between the two semetic peoples, before outsiders got involved in the region.

For example there is the Saudi proposal that if Israel agrees to withdraw to the pre 1967 borders, with suitable adjustments, then Saudi and the other Arab states will recognise Israel and 'peace' will be declared, or words pretty much to that effect. If this deal was implimented, and the Arab states then recognized Israel, it would be difficult for the 'extremists' to justifiy what they regard as their legitimate struggle to retake Palestine from the 'occupying entity'. Iran, for example, would be isolated and hardly able to lead the oposition to Israel if the leading Arab nations agreed a peace deal with Israel that had support from their populations as well.

Saudi is worried sick that the conflict with Israel over Palestine, and how to divide it, is undermining the legitimacy and support for a number of Arab regimes and the entire region is like a tinderbox, waiting for some spark that will set it alight and drag them into the ensuing sea of flames.

The Arab regimes want to make peace with Israel in their own self-interest, because they want to survive, yet the conflict is undermining them the longer it goes on unresolved.

This 'deal' wouldn't be perfect and one could still envisage terror attacks by militants who refuse compromise, but it would have the advantage of being an alternative to more wars, which is where we are heading inexorably if we continue along the current, slippery, path.

Israel would still have a mighty army, an incredible airforce, the 'friendship' of the United States, and all its nuclear weapons, enough to level every Arab city if need be. So where is the risk in withdrawing to something like the 1967 borders?

The Palestinians would have Gaza and most of the West Bank, two chunks of territory, linked by a corridor, which would form the basis of a viable state, viable being an important word, because 'viable' would mean stable. The Palestinians could then concentrate on developing their state and Saudi, the Eu and the Americans could buy their agreement with a massive aide programme, not threats and a seige.

It's too simplistic to label Hamas as just another terrorist organization, they are a lot more than that. It's possible to negotiate with them as well, and even Hezbolah in Lebanon.

Unfortunately for this 'plan' to have a chance certain 'dreams' will have to be put back into the fantasy world where they belong. The Arabs would have to accept that Israel exists and the Jewish state isn't going anywhere, this has, in reality already been accepted de facto by most of the Arab states. Israel would have perhaps a bigger problem accepting such a peace for a number of serious and understandable reasons, but which can be overcome, if one really wants to.

At the core I don't really believe the Nationalist Right in Israel wants 'peace' with the Palestinians. They want total surrender on their terms, an ethnically exclusive state, and dream of Israel as a dominant regional power - a Greater Israel. This is understandable as for so long Israel has been a military giant in a weak and disunited region, but will this situation last for ever? History tells us it won't and then what happens to Israel? Does one really want to base Israel's security on its nuclear arsenal? Would using these weapons in some future war of survival make Israel more 'secure'? Can one really use these terrible weapons and remain a civilized state? Can they be justified morally? Wouldn't one be purchasing one's survival at the price of one's soul? Aren't nuclear weapons really Holocaust weapons?

It means that the West has to find a way to undermine the credibility of the Right in Israel as a way forward towards 'peace', not support them and head for more war. This shouldn't be too difficult, but it does require the will to do it, and the Americans don't have that will or desire. The Right in the United States have plans of their own for the Middle East and its resources and they need to keep the Right in power as a heavily armed bridgehead in the heart of the most valuable region on earth. Here I'm talking about energy resources, the control of which is the ultimate prize, a prize of such collosal importance, it can raise and topple empires.

Sorry, I started out trying to be optimistic and now I've returned to something like pessimism, sorry. But at least we can try to be honest about what's really happening and why, can't we? The ordinary people in the region are being held hostage, duped and killed, by elites who don't really give a damn about them, they are expendable in a conflict which has more to do with wealth and power than we realize. The ordinary people of Israel and Palesitne are being sent out to fight like peasants armies in the Middle Ages for the benefit of their fuedal lords and masters, who think they are the great unwashed and they stink. Nationalsim is the greatest confidence trick ever, because it's replaced the real 'war', the class war!

PS The last bit is a trifle over-simplified, but I'm sure you get my drift.

The Palestinians' time is running out

By Bradley Burston

Tags: Israel, palestinians, Nakba

For my Palestinian friends, with sadness:

I understand why you long ago came to believe that time was on your side. I understand the many factors, demographic, cultural, historic, geo-political, which have served to reinforce that belief, the strong conviction that Palestinian statehood was inevitable, inalienable - in every sense, a matter of time.

I understand why you have come to believe that the state of Israel is merely the latest in a long series of fleeting colonial episodes, that its roots are elsewhere, its strength is illusory, its endurance eroded, its spirit broken, its future dim. I understand that you believe you can wait these people out, wear them down, outfight them and out-believe them and out-populate them and, in the end, take them over.

I understand that you believe that rockets and mortars from the north, south, east, and, eventually, west, can depopulate and peel back and obliterate the borders of pre-1967 Israel until there will be no need to agree to a Jewish state on those borders, no need to compromise on refugees, Jerusalem, settlements, no need to talk, no need for self-scrutiny and reconsideration, no need to bend.

I understand that you believe that this is your right, religiously, morally, politically. I understand why you believe that you can wait.

But this month, three generations since 1948, since your Nakba, this is what I ask you to consider:

Your time is running out.

If you do not begin to act with all of your wisdom in moving toward statehood, you run the risk of becoming the Kurds of the Mediterranean basin, the Native Americans of the Middle East, permanently stateless, eternally denied.

If you do not begin to rethink the course which the Palestinian national movement has taken, you must begin to consider the idea of a world without a Palestine. The world is beginning to feel more and more comfortable with that possibility, and it is time for you to think hard about the reasons why.

We in the post-modern West have spent years educating ourselves to believe that all cultures are equally valid - with the possible exception, of course, of our own. We have taken it on faith that to criticize the culture of an indigenous people is obscenely imperialist, paternalist.

In short, we gave you a pass. And we encouraged you to give yourselves one. In respecting you for your steadfastness, we refrained from calling you on your passivity. In accepting and amplifying your contentions as to Israel's acts of wrongdoing, we chose not to hold you accountable for your own, or to explain them away as a function of occupation,

You learned, over time, to hold Israel responsible for the whole of your plight. You learned, over time, to ignore, explain away, blame entirely on Israel, or otherwise deny the ways in which your actions and, in particular, your passivity, have deepened and fostered your misery. You learned to excuse your leaders their corruption, and their policy of foiling Israeli and foreign attempts to improve your conditions. You learned to excuse your Arab brothers their duplicity and their lip service and their exploitation and their cold shoulder and their contempt and their consummate failure to come to your aid.

In the process, you may have grown accustomed to a definition of time, and of indigenous peoples, that bears re-examination. There is, first of all, this:

The Jews are an indigenous people here, no less than you.

The Jews have every right to have a nation here, no less than you.

The Jews are stubborn and proud and fundamentally fierce as hell, no less than you.

You have dismissed the Jews as a foreign influence. You have dismissed their history, waved away their blood and sinew tie to Jerusalem, acted as though they have no business here but evil.

But in the decades you have spent misleading yourself about the true nature of the culture and the origins of the Jews, generation upon generation of Jews has been born here. They are natives. They are not going anywhere. And even the leftists among them are willing to die in defense of staying on this soil.

Worse, perhaps, is the way in which you took deadly aim at the concept of land for peace, and destroyed it, perhaps for all time. Your artful justifications of using Gaza settlement ruins for Qassam launchers wash with no one. You have justified every last claim and prediction of the Israeli right. You have lost immeasurable international support. You are looked upon abroad as Polarized to the heart, paralyzed by internal strife, and unable to arrive at, abide by, or implement decisions.

Your unfortunate ally Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, rising to your defense, marked the anniversary by telling you that Israel "has reached the end like a dead rat after being slapped by the Lebanese" and tha "Those who think they can revive the stinking corpse of the usurping and fake Israeli regime by throwing a birthday party are seriously mistaken."

Your unfortunate ally Osama Bin Laden told you last week that Israel's 60th anniversary was "evidence that Palestine is our land, and the Israelis are invaders and occupiers who should be fought."

"We will continue, God permitting, the fight against the Israelis and their allies ... and will not give up a single inch of Palestine as long as there is one true Muslim on earth."

What your unfortunate allies are saying is that it is more important to eliminate the Jewish state than it is to create a Palestinian one.

For this entire decade, the Palestinian national movement has acted accordingly. At the same time, it has effectively done the bidding of the Israeli right, doing everything in its power to raise the status of the settlers from an unruly, unfocused, marginalized, declining entity to that of a prophetic force.

Thanks in no small part to you, the settlement movement is flourishing as never before, confident that your rockets and your rhetoric will see to it that, as the years and generations pass, the settlers will come to be seen as, yes, indigenous.

The settlers will never be able to repay their debt to you.

You may have noted that in the wake of the second intifada, hundreds of suicide bombings in Israel's main cities, and thousands of Qassams, mortar shells and Katyushas, the Israeli left is furious with you, the Israeli center wants never to hear from you again, and only the Israeli right is delighted with the decisions you have made and the actions you have undertaken.

You made conclude from this that the left were untrustworthy to begin with and all Israelis are the same.

Or you might think twice.

True, Israel was once isolated, stigmatized, universally condemned, boycotted. But your actions, and those of Bin Laden and Iran, have effectively welcomed Israel into the good graces of a range of countries which have begun to think twice about you. And have ceased to care about you. No country in the world - Israel included - has cried wolf more often in the past than you have. Now, when your distress is truly worse than ever, the cry has fallen on deaf - or hostile - ears.

We in the media coddled you, supported you, cast you as the noble underdog. In response, you decided that the Jews control the media, take Israel's side, slander the cause of Palestine.

Look again.

Your celebration of terror has alienated many of your closest friends.

You did this. You. No one else. You have convinced exactly those Israelis who were willing to trade the West Bank for peace, that this would be a literally fatal error.

Last month, as if to remove the remainder of doubt, the veteran Palestinian Authority Representative in Lebanon, Fatah Central Committee member Abbas Zaki, told a Lebanese television station, "Let me tell you, when the ideology of Israel collapses, and we take, at least, Jerusalem, the Israeli ideology will collapse in its entirety, and we will begin to progress with our own ideology, Allah willing, and drive them out of all of Palestine."

You owe your children more than this. You owe your children more than pipedreams, nightmares, threats and delusions. You owe them more than victim status. You owe your children, and theirs, more than a culture of failure and passivity and graft and violence and loss. You owe your children and theirs - and ours - an honest search for peace.

Or would you rather that I simply shut up? Just the rantings of another untrustworthy Jew? Still want to believe you did everything right? Still want to believe that your few friend remaining in the Western left are more than just powerless cranks? Still want to believe that if you hold out long enough, everything will come your way?

As you wish.

I invite you to compare notes with the Native American.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/985341.html

"Ethnic cleansing", Cybertiger, is what you, yes you, have proposed with regard to the Jewish community of Israel, nearly six million of us! How dare you talk about this concept??!!

Zkharya,

That's a powerful piece by Bradley Burston. Do you think it's true (that the Palestinians' time is running out)?

Recently I've been wondering whether the year 2048 will mark a turning point. This will mark 100 years since the founding of the State of Israel and an important psychological barrier. I think that Mr. Burston believes that the Palestinians' time will 'run out' sometime before that.

But what of the future of Israel? Clearly Israel is a reality on the ground, and it, and the Jewish population of Israel are not going anywhere. They are there to stay. But what of the character of the state they have carved out of Palestine? It's almost as if Israel has become a modern version of Sparta. A state created by the military, a state that owes its very existance to military prowess, a militarized state.

Of course one can argue that Israel is the only democracy in the entire Middle East, a vibrant economy, culturally significant; yet the problem of the Palestinians refuses to go away. What about the refugees and their decendents, people who have the right, in international law, to return to their homes, villages, farms, towns and cities? Exactly how democratic is a state that has driven more than half of its original population out and refuses to let them return? The Jewish majority, which excercises its democratic rights inside the borders of Israel, has deliberately excluded the other, alternative, majority, the Palestinians, from the democratic process, 'rigging' the system, so to speak, in favour of Israel's Jewish majority.

So, superficially, Israel appears to be a beacon of democracy in the region, yet this is only possible if one narrowly focuses on the rights of Israeli Jews and chooses to exclude the rights of the Palestinian majority who live in a kind of limbo, in no man's land.

One has created a powerful, successful, state for the Jews, but at the same time, another people, the original majority, the Palestinians, have become 'stateless' and have paid a tremendous price for Israel's 'success'.

When Israel celebrates the success of the state they have created, it seems churlish not to confront the realitiy of the Palestinian question, to ignore the Palestinians completely, as the New Statesman has done in the current issue, is disgraceful.

Somehow the perfectly ligitimate, democratic rights, of the Palestinians have to be addressed justly. The problem is of course that if one accords them equal rights and accepts that they also have a ligitimate claim to the same territory that Israel now controls, then one inevitably calls into question the very nature of Israel as a Jewish state. Democracy for Jews would appear to preclude democracy for millions of Palestinians, because Israel can only exist in its present form by excluding the Palestinian majority from the democratic process, and how 'democratic' is that?

This is of course highly theoretical and esoteric, because Israel will never allow the Palestinians equal rights within Israel's current, disputed, borders. To do so would mean the end of Israel as a Jewish state. But can Israel really subjugate the Palestinians for ever? Is this policy sustainable in the long term? What happens to a people or state that bases its own well-being and very existance on the subjugation of another people? Is this a healthy foundation opon which to build a state or a culture? Where one ethnic group totally dominates another and is so much richer and more powerful? Historically, states built on such a foundation of fundamental injustice, have proven to be of temporary duration. Is Israel, which apparently seems so 'successful' actually creating the conditions for its own decline or even destruction over the long term, and with all the terrible consequences to follow?

Cybertiger, you have called and continue to call, elegantly but very meliciuosly, for the "cleansing" of Israel of its Jewish population, nearly six million of us.

No way can you now attempt now to escape this advocacy by mocking the person who has pointed this racist approach of yours.

How shameful, how shameful!

I just hope that yours is not the face of the entire left in the UK.

I don't usually slum on Left leaning blogs and the comments posted here are the reason why. If these are representative of the level of debate on the Left, Martin Bright should pack up his blog and move out right now. There's not so much "a terrible fault line on the British left." as there is an anti-Semitic psychosis. Mix this in with paranoid ramblings, historic revisionism and outright craziness and you have a stew that Der Sturmer would have been proud to serve. Martin, get out now while you can.

Why are the left anti-Israel? Because we share the guilt of the Holocaust we expected Israel to occupy the moral high ground and the Zionists appear to have descended to the lower depths. It seems morality cannot coexist with the need to survive on their terms. I believe this to be true and am ashamed of it. Their righteousness is difficult to accept. This is why I am anti-Israel. Shalom.

redharry

Thanks for pointing out who bankrolls Bright's brand of "journalism".

It's extraordinary that writers from The New Statesman have thrown their lot in with Israeli arms dealers to push the nascent Iran war and heap more scorn upon the Palestinian victims.

Bright should be ashamed of himself for writing such garbage.

On a lighter note, It's so rare to read anything remotely positive about the ME, but this strikes me as a facsinating idea.

http://www.is-peace.org/wnDispPage.asp?Item=433

Nabil and like minded people, shouldn't the Arabs, Palestinian and otherwise, shoulder any responsibility, both historical and present, regarding the lack of peaceful co-existence between Arab and Jew, between the Arab world and Israel?

Can we ever hear or read a bit of introspection, self examination about the contribution of the Arab world to the misery of the Arabs of Eretz Israel/Palestine?

I look forward to reading some such observation from you!

Im glad the Newstatesman put three other more sobre-minded, rational and informative articles before your Martin Bright. Avi Shlaim's article should do a little to explain things in response to your post Amihai.

Well, Nabil, any introspection? Any at all?

Amihai
Jerusalem, Israel

Martin:

Two points. Had the Arabs accepted Abba Eban's promptly tendered offer of land for peace, there would have been no "colonization" by Israel of the lands now called the "occupied territories". I also wonder if you were made aware during your visit to Sderot, that it is popuplated by Jews who fled "Arab" countries, not Europe, and that up until the Soviet Union's demise, Mizrahi Jews outnumbered Ashkenazim.

WHAT ISRAEL MEANS TO ME.

I see Israel as an aspect of more general "Jewishness" and
shall try to draft their respective impact on my life.

I was brought up in the cosmopolitan context of the Warsaw
intelligentsia, as the son of a German refugee. I vaguely
knew my Jewish origin, but religion and nationality had
little importance for us.

Amid this peaceful context, the encounter with Jewishness
came like a thunder from the blue sky: Nazis occupied Poland
and we were sent to the ghetto. The horror, in the face of
brutal terror, turned soon into revolt. Having escaped from
the ghetto I joined the Polish Resistance, the AK. Due to my
proficiency in German I was assigned as liaison agent to the
Gestapo penetration service, commanded by Captain Danuta.
I applied also for missions of liaison with the ZOB (Jewish
Fighting Organization) in the ghetto. In that role I joined
The Upraising, which coincided with the Passion Week 1943.
My memories in literary form ("Passion Week") are registered
in Yad Vashem.

So much for my encounter with Jewishness. Israel, in the
sense of "Eretz Yisrael", turned up for me after the war,
through meeting other survivors, mostly adherents of
HaShomer HaTzair, preparing to join kibbutzim and Zahal.
We saw Israel as a safe harbor for Jews, as an ideal in
which "Jew" had little to do with religion and meant mainly
"the oppressed". Enthusiastic about the creation of
Israel, we were deeply disappointed by its religious order,
by its biblical justification, by the Law of Return founded
in the halakhic definition of Jew. We dreamed about a secular
country, sheltering of course religious Jews, but open to
anybody sharing Jewish culture or fate. We saw the halakhic
rule as an affront to our secular Weltanschauung and as
outrageous injustice to "Goim" who trained with us in view
of migrating for moral reasons to Israel, some being former
AK liaison agents who had themselves fought in the Uprising.

Most of us were simple youngsters without much intellectual
upbringing, but we saw the halakhic definition of "Jew" as
an insult to common sense.

(Indeed, Halakha defines a Jew as the offspring of a Jewish
mother. However, in order to ascertain that his mother was
Jewish, he would have to prove that in turn, her mother, her
grandmother, etc. were Jewish. A glaring vicious circle
making motherhood-based Jewishness a logical nonsense. The
marginal entry to the cycle, viz. the conversion, is no better:
the converting rabbi must clearly be Jewish, but he cannot
prove it either and may only spin in the same vicious circle.)
Thus, by the halakhic definition itself there ain't no sich
animal as a "Jew". Halakhic "Jew" is an irrational, dogmatic
phantasm. And yet, the fact remains that millions of Jews
have been exterminated.

Phantasms versus Facts. I have fully grasped this dichotomy
much later, working on foundations of Relativity with
Einstein's team.

Einstein believed that a new reason is essential if mankind
is to survive and that blunders cannot be remedied by the
same reason that created them. Established reason, with its
nationalist and religious phantasms and the jungle "freedom",
ended up necessarily at Auschwitz. Thus, an Auschwitz-free,
humane world may only be conceived in terms of a new reason
banning irrational dogma and accepting only factually
verifiable, rational ideas. On the face of it, religions,
with their dogmatic, unverifiable phantasms, should be
disregarded.

Yet, however irrational their dogma, religions are obviously
social facts. Thus, an enlightened country should accommodate
religions while refusing to be in any way ruled by their
dogma and rigorously restricting laws to rationality.
Individual beliefs, however delusory, should be respected as
long as they don't infringe upon the law.

The Halutzim dream of Israel was clear: a shelter for the
oppressed; rational, but tolerant towards irrational beliefs;
peaceful, but unyielding to danger; pragmatic towards the
"free" economy, but unselfish, incorruptible, and supportive
of kibbutzim trying to break with the jungle.

Did this dream come true or, as some people say, has it
turned into a nightmare?

I can only speak for myself.

My Alyah was delayed due to my critically ill father. I came
just after the 6 days war, amid the enthusiasm of having
conquered the Great Israel, the Golden Yerushalaim and the
Snows of Hermon. My HaShomer HaTzair view saw it as a chance
to share with Arabs modern agronomy, technology, democracy
and welfare and to build together the most humane country,
a model for the world.
I was of course aware of another view, that of orthodox rabbis,
for whom the Great Israel was Yahve's present to Moses, in
whose name they were ready to run it and to cash in the profits.

But I saw Israelis as predominantly secular workers and
soldiers, while the devotees with their funny hats seemed
to me derisory and impossible to be taken seriously.
The first anticlimax was sparked by the "street of injustice".
I came across it visiting friends in a Haifa suburb. Its one
side consisted of new residential houses flanked by posh
Mercedes and Volvos. They were inhabited by Olim Hadashim
(new arrivals) profiteering from immigration-boosting
packages. Most of them in this street were thugs or gangsters
escaped from the Soviets on false halakhic certificates
signed by corrupted rabbis.
The other side of the street comprised decrepit shacks in
which vegetated below poverty level old, pre-48 immigrants
from Turkey or Iran. They had no right to any packages, only
to fight in Haganah or in the IDF and, if invalids, to get
$10 monthly pensions. None could dream to ever have even the
cheapest car. The shiny limousines from the opposite side
were like a slap in the face.

Thus, my first disappointment concerned internal injustice
flying in the face of my dream of a model country. Religious
problems of various gravity followed shortly. Compulsory
kashrut was a nuisance, even if a bearable one. The
prohibition of public transportation on Shabbat was more
annoying. Chains blocking roads in religious quarters were
revolting: they barred emergency vehicles and caused serious
accidents such as that of a soldier decapitated in his jeep.
And sacrificing Israel's security for silly rituals seemed
simply abhorrent: At the moment of writing these lines Israel
faces existential risks and the government needing stability
to deal with them may be overturned over the "problem" of
selling bread during Passover!

Finally, the Yom Kippur trauma. The outrageous laxness,
conceit and corruption of idolized leaders who nearly lost
the war and annihilated Israel. And even worse: the apathy
following our protest sparked by Motti Ashkenazi, the chronic
apathy of Israelis. Olmert bungled the Lebanon war as Dayan
the Yom Kippur and protests yielded alike to apathy, leaving
the bungler at the helm in face of existential threats.
Apathy which I never accepted and endeavor to overcome with
our protest motto "Ichpat Li" - "I Do Care".

Yet, disappointments found compensations. Solidarity bridged,
in my IDF unit, the secular-religious gap. The company
counted several religious Yemenis, gentle, helpful and
appreciated as best craftsmen one has ever seen. It visibly
disturbed them to drive army vehicles on Shabbat, even if
they did not refuse to do so. All secular soldiers proposed
to swap their weekday duties against Yemenis' Shabbat ones,
even when that could mean a lost Shabbat leave.

Yom Kippur trauma got abundant compensation, when the war,
as good as lost by corrupted leaders, was unprecedentedly
turned to victory by bottom-up initiative and determination.
My participation in this "war of captains" was the most
exalting experience of my life. It felt as if the Warsaw
Ghetto Uprising had crushed Nazi Germany.

Yom Kippur has unfolded for me another aspect of Israel:
its humanity. I got a leave for treatment of a hand wound
in Haifa hospital. Like all civil hospitals at the time,
it was overrun by wounded Arab POWs. Entering the hospital
you were leaving your religion, nationality etc. outside,
becoming just a patient. My case being benign, I slept on
a mattress in the corridor among lightly-wounded Israelis,
some of them high ranking officers. Comfortable rooms
accommodated more serious cases, mostly the POWs.
I can hardly imagine such a situation in any other country.

I believe this reasonably depicts "What Israel means to me":

A crucial determinant of my outlook on life.
A dream that came true a bit shattered internally and
externally besieged like the Ghetto.
Thus a challenge and a ceaseless commitment.

writeon....you are getting back on track after a wobble. what you suggest might have been possibe. Being really honest in what I believe, it has now gone too far and without taking sides, it is very clear the Israeli elite and their chums in London and New York are intent on their present course....a course which has nothing to do with morality.....they are lost in their little dream where they will one day wake in a sweaty nightmare.

This is not what I would like. But as Mr Bright inclinates, I must temper my comments.....but who is Bright asking me to temper them for???

Mr Bright might mock, but its a certainty, that NS phones were rather hot on Friday....and mocking is all they could do.

@Harvey

"The simple unpalatable truth is that Israel remains an island of democracy. deceny ,modernity and morality in what is in fact a cess pool of totalitarian failed despotic states ... "

Israelis have the power to kill Palestinian children in the defence of state. And its a simple unpalatable truth that the people enthusiastically use that power to defend themselves.

http://www.rememberthesechildren.org/remember2000.html

The sad reality is that the Israeli people swim freely in a cess pool of effluent produced by their own failed democratic state.

I know this link is going to cause a storm. I have read quite a few articles by Michael James over the years. He continues to maintain that he lives in Germany...

....so why hasn`t he been arrested??

This is a good question and I think he might be right. That German prosecutors are scared silly by what he knows.

http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=8619

Did the allies murder 3 million German civilians after the war?

Why can elite Jews get away with directly threatening Europe with nukes?

As I`ve said in an earlier comment. Why did all the Second World War leaders fail to mention anything which could be interpreted as the Holocaust? Why did the Red Cross report also fail to mention any trace of what we understand today as the Holocaust?

It won`t be long before we British will also be gagged by European Holocaust denial laws.....

....what are they hiding, what scares them so much?

David Rose, I comment under my own name. I m not hiding like the SIS and Jewish lobby. Save ORDINARY Jews from abuse.

Martin; I must take issue with this left thing....the Labour party has its own elite Jewish lobby and while Brown`s plays the game, I think it pains him. Blair on the other hand is married to Cherie, for he would also become a Jew.

It doesn`t matter which political party, Britain or Amerika, to get your hands on a power lever, you must sing from the Zionist hym sheet.

Checkout this link.

http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/articles.asp?ID=8601

There aren`t many like Professor Boyle and even now, he`s not main stream.

Martin makes a good point. I don`t have a problem with Jews, or with Jews having a place to call home. But there is one thing I`m certain of, Israel will NOT celebrate its 120th birthday.

It wasn`t that long ago when puppet leaders and MSM hacks were strutting thier knowledge on "hard and soft power".....the NWO (dominated by elite Jews) has so far failed to find a single opportunity to use "soft power" in the Middle East and I can`t see this happening.

The US has armed the ME upto its eye-balls and the game is nearly set. It doesn`t matter which ME state you are talking about. All the elites in these states, including Iran and Syria are playing the NWO game.

Remember that NWO false flag attack on 9/11...of course you do. Remember Musharraf`s first speech after 9/11? He had true fear in his eyes that day and since then, he has performed how a NWO puppet should. Musharraf once said "we`ve arrested all the terrorists" and Washington bit back, "no you haven`t" and this goes hand in hand with Mi6`s British theater of sham terror, with Pakistani patsies paraded in court and convicted on dodge evidence.

Before 9/11, you could debate Israel and its local in relative isolation. Today, things are much more complex. We had MI6 using the best of BL`s men in Bosnia and after that, some were allowed to settle in the UK. So the SIS are Jekyll & Hyde, two peronalities feeding off each other, giving each other something to do.

I am very worried about ordinary Israelies. All elites abuse their own people and the Zionist dominated NWO is no exception, for they have perfected the high art of sacrifice...Pearl Harbour and 9/11 are a couple of examples, you could add Churchill`s veiled theat over Poland. Hitler had no other option, but to go ahead. Even Hitler was a NWO puppet.

Israel is a possible NWO sacrifice and by saying this, I hope that everyone, will understand this NWO construct and by doing so, will close this NWO option off.

In its present context, Israel is a cancer in the Middle East and I`m sick to death of US presidents playing out the peace farce during their final year....big pharma isn`t interested in a cure, just expensive treatment.