Israel, Questions of Identity and Birthright - by Liat Collins

...Ra’anan Shaked is one of those satire and comedy writers who themselves become a parody and a (bad) joke. There’s a one-word answer to the question why Jews – of different religious streams and political ideology – leave comfortable lives to move to Israel, where they usually earn less, downsize housing and cars, and periodically come under rocket attacks or yet another wave of terrorism. It’s called Zionism. It’s not a rude word – but it is a defining one.

Taglit-Birthright Israel mega event in
Jerusalem on January 1.
(photo credit: Jane Peimer)

Liat Collins..
JPost..
11 January '19..
Link: https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Questions-of-identity-and-Birthright-577027

It wasn’t the $60-million question and it wasn’t a question of a zero-sum game, but the phrasing riled me. I recently participated in a panel at Limmud UK with the title: “Is the Israeli government doing enough to promote the peace process with the Palestinians?” In accordance with a longstanding Jewish tradition, I answered the question with a question: “Shouldn’t we be asking what the Palestinians are doing to promote peace – or even stability or economic viability?”

I have been asked variations on this theme regularly in recent years and I have come to the conclusion that it embodies two significant problems: The first, that the onus for somehow creating peace lies only on Israel and the second, that the conflict with the Palestinians should be what defines Israel.

The peace process, such that it ever was, is obviously stuck, but it is wrong to place all the blame for that on Israel, whichever government is in power.

During the election period, the question of security is usually high on the agenda, but Israel, at 70-plus, like most normal countries, also has other things on its collective mind. There are a lot of social issues to deal with – the widening socioeconomic gaps, a medical system that is not working as well as it once did, tension and division between different sectors.

At least we are holding elections. Democratic ones. Those urging Israel to reach an agreement with Palestinian Authority head Mahmoud Abbas are willing to ignore the fact that the 83-year-old PA president was elected to a four-year term this week – 14 years ago. It literally doesn’t add up to democracy.

Similarly, despite his age and poor health, Abbas has appointed no apparent heir, leaving the vast majority of Israelis and Palestinians wondering who will come next. The “two-state or one-state” mantra has been out of date for years. While Abbas’s Fatah movement continues to clasp on to power in the West Bank, its archrival, Hamas, is in control of Gaza. The two-state solution is already a three-state solution; four, if you count Jordan, where there is a Palestinian majority.

The international obsession with the Palestinian narrative has done nothing to bring about peace. On the contrary. Every time pressure is put on Israel to reach an agreement, the Palestinians feel they can sit back and enjoy. Until it all blows up.

Israeli Identity: What Has Changed This Year? - by Maj. Gen. (res.) Gershon Hacohen

...The tension between forging a unified nation and preserving the riches of multicultural variety should be seen as a fortunate advantage. This perpetual tension, which the Jewish people has experienced since it came into existence, is also its uniqueness.

Maj. Gen. (res.) Gershon Hacohen..
BESA Center Perspectives No. 599..
29 September '17..
Link: https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/israeli-identity/


External threats to our existence as Israelis create an awareness of a common fate. It is tempting to focus on such threats, because they provide a comfort zone in which security-political experts can ask the familiar question: how will we continue to defend our existence over the coming year? By concentrating on this question, we have found a way to repress basic questions about Israeli identity.

Beyond anxiety over our common fate as residents of this country stands a key question: do we still have anything in common? This debate, which has gathered steam over the past year, invites us to reconsider who we are and what we expect from our joint existence as a nation.

This past year, the Israeli identity crisis was expressed in new ways in the public discourse. President Reuven Rivlin described it in terms of the four tribes of the state of Israel: the religious, the secular, the ultra-Orthodox, and the Arabs. Amnon Rubinstein addressed the issue in his book The Tribes of the State of Israel: Together and Separately – Liberalism and Multiculturalism in Israel. Haaretz has devoted many articles to the topic.

Notwithstanding the president’s view, a focus on the deep structure of Israeli society, especially among the Jews, reveals an important common denominator, one that is more and more evident in the synagogues. Between Mizrahi and Ashkenazi Jews there are differences of formulation, not of essence. Hence a new trend is apparent in large synagogues in Tel Aviv: the conducting of frequent integrated prayer quorums and the use of blended versions of prayers.

Not only is there a new trend of integration of communities, but religious and secular Israelis are intermingling. Israeli sociologists largely concur with one another that “secular Jews are the majority.” They tend to identify the large numbers who identify as traditional as a secular subdivision – “secular lite.” As sociologist Oz Almog put it, “The majority of Israeli society is secular and traditional.”

Based on the same data, however, one can propose a different perspective and a contrasting conclusion. If we merely change the point of departure for the distinction between secular and religious – if we agree that not everyone who drives on Shabbat is necessarily secular, as in the case of Shalom Asayag in the fascinating TV series The 1980s – we can assert that the majority of Israeli Jewish society is religious and traditional. Those of a pronounced secular bent are in the minority.

The most important accomplishment of Obama's visit

...Who knows? Maybe next time, we will take our visiting VIPs to the altar built by Yehoshua ben Nun on Mount Eval just forty years after the Exodus from Egypt. The Dead Sea Scrolls are certainly important. But our history in this Land does not begin 2000 years ago. It begins 3300 years ago.

MK Moshe Feiglin..
Jewishisrael.org..
11 Nissan, 5773
March 22, '13





Translated form the Makor Rishon newspaper

The special relationship between Israel and the U.S. is not a cliché. Polls and in-depth surveys repeatedly prove that the American nation relates to Israel positively in the most fundamental way – despite the tireless efforts of the Jews of the New York Times and Ha'aretz to the contrary.

We share common values, based on the Bible. America's Founding Fathers saw their new country as a rebirth of the nation of liberty and its universal message. These common goals should have been the basis for the relationship between Israel and the US. "And I will bless those who bless you and those who curse you shall be cursed," G-d says to Abraham. That is the motto of some 80 million American Evangelicals who are convinced that American prosperity is contingent on its significant alliance with Israel. Hardship, they believe, happens when the US takes a stand against Israel.

But instead of reinforcing our status as the eternal People of the Book and the source of American values, we have chosen to market ourselves as a young nation searching for its place amongst the established nations and under their patronage. Our relationship with the US has become – through our own volition – a father-son relationship.

American "aid", merely 1.5% of Israel's income, is not something Israel really needs. In the long run, it harms us economically, politically and militarily. But our insistence on receiving it stems from a psychological need. When our pocket money continues to roll in from across the ocean, it shows that "Father" is still there and that we are not alone among the nations. When we try to escape our Father in Heaven – we have to look for a weak replica in foreign lands.

This flawed mentality was the source of the "Obamania" that we experienced during Obama's visit to Israel. Thus, relations that could have been based on shared values were instead based on dependence.

Israeli in NY explains "Why I choose to return"

Eran Davidi
Israel Opinion/Ynet
06 April '11

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4052836,00.html

Op-ed: Israeli in NY explains why he won’t stay in US, says quality of life has to do with meaning

My name is Eran and I’ve been living for almost a year now in New York, in a nice apartment near wonderful Central Park. I also study at a top-notch private university. In a few months I’ll be completing my studies, and naturally I’m thinking about the future.

After a year in the United States I can sum up by saying that it’s mostly comfortable here. Life is comfortable when you discuss the TV ratings of the Super Bowl or environmental issues in China over lunch. It’s nice to go through everyday life without hearing depressing news about terror attacks and road accidents. It’s also convenient to study for a whole year without performing military reserve service, use a subway that spares me traffic jams and parking issues and shower for as long as I want, without feeling pangs of conscience over the state of the Sea of Galilee.

Life is truly comfortable for me here. I can also predict with confidence that things will be getting even more comfortable in the future: The average salary of graduates in my field is 12 (!) times what it is in Israel, the professional challenge is much greater, and my circle of friends will continue to expend.

So why will I be returning to Israel? It’s precisely the stay here that made me realize that we have no other place except our country. I now understand that Israel is the only place in the world where I’ll truly feel at home. I understand that despite my reserve service and all the wars, I nonetheless feel the safest in Israel. I realize that Israel is the only place where my identity as a Jew won’t stop me from at least dreaming to reach as far as possible.

I also understand that it’s important for me to take part in these historical moments where the Jewish people returned to its homeland after 2,000 years of exile. Mostly, my stay here made me realize that in the era of human rights the Jewish people has no future without tiny Israel. And this future is dear to me.

People who moved overseas tend to say that they did it because of the quality of life. However, quality of life is not only measured by the size of your house or the view from the window; it is also not measured by the amount of money you make or its color.

Hopeful about Israel’s future

Quality of life is measured first and foremost by the meaning of the life you live and is derived from the sense of belonging to the people around you, the wholeness of your identity, and the knowledge that by living in our state you are part of something bigger; bigger than you, and sometimes bigger than logic.

Indeed, it’s comfortable in America, yet as it turns out, human beings prefer meaning. And a Jew can only find meaning in Israel.

I will lie to myself if I say that there is nothing to improve in our state. There is plenty of room for improvement. The vision of the model society that our founding fathers dreamed of building here is far from being realized. The inequality between the rich and the poor is outrageous. The inequality between Jews and Arabs is blatant.

Meanwhile, whole sectors that enjoy rights but are unwilling to assume duties are expanding. The pursuit of peace, which for years now has been taking one step forward and then two steps back, is frustrating. Finally, our leaders, who are scared to lead yet are able to surprise us anew every time with the cynical exploitation of the mandate they received from us, are frustrating.

Nonetheless, something in my Israeli character doesn’t allow me to despair; I am unwilling to give up when faced with a fateful mission unlike no other. Perhaps it’s the age, or the stage in life, but many members of my generation and myself - all proud descendents of the Zionist movement - are still hopeful about Israel’s future, and mostly feel that everything still depends on us.

The writer is a Master of Laws student at Columbia University in New York

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Ouch! It's my Jewish Identity!

Moshe Feiglin
Jewish Leadership Movement
28 Adar, 5770 (3 March)

Translated from the NRG website

"Israel's problem is its public relations," people reason as they attempt to explain how it is that Israel is always at the receiving end of the world's criticism and hatred. "Israel simply doesn't know how to highlight all of its positive points."

But the problem is not simply lack of budget for public relations, as the Foreign Ministry would like us to believe. There is also no dearth of eloquent Israelis and fluent English speakers who could take Israel's case to the world. The problem is that instead of explaining its own position, Israel explains the position of its enemies.

When is the last time that you heard an official Israeli representative simply state that this is our Land – without ifs, ands and buts? Simply, "The Land of Israel belongs to the Jewish Nation, period." Has the prime minister made such a statement? Any minister? Perhaps an ambassador?

All the torrents of claims against Israel can be distilled to this one simple question: Whose land is this, anyway? But here's the caveat: It is impossible to say that this is our Land without falling back on our Jewish foundations. To avoid that unthinkable eventuality, Israel trades it ultimate playing card for paltry claims that its soldiers are the most humane in the world – and endangers their lives to prove it - and that it is the most democratic regime in the region.

The world, though, doesn't really care if Israel's armed forces are humane. What determines if you are right or wrong is if the ground under their feet belongs to you or not. The most courteous intruder is still an intruder who belongs in jail.

The refusal to admit that this is our Land - or in broader terms, to re-connect as a state to our Jewish identity - has brought Israel to its diplomatic knees. Netanyahu's senior ministers have arrest warrants waiting for them in Israel's capitals and the assassins of arch-terrorist Mabhouh are wanted all over the world while mass-murderer Ahmadinijad is invited to lecture at Columbia University. The modern-day Amalek does not tell the world that he is humane. He explains that he is right. The world accepts this as fact because Israel's leadership plays straight into his hands.

Just like the first Amalek, who attacked Israel when the entire world was afraid to initiate a fight with the nation that had just defeated the Egyptian empire, so Ahmadinijad publicly declares his intention to destroy Israel and proceeds with his technical preparations basically unhindered.

(Read full article)
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The Land of Israel in Exchange for Goldstone

By Moshe Feiglin

Translated from the Hebrew article on Ma'ariv's NRG website

If it were not so dangerous, it would even be amusing. There is certainly an element of poetic justice in the fact that the same people who gleefully destroyed the homes of over 8,000 Jews in Gush Katif are now being labeled as international war criminals.

In the summer of 2005, Israel's Left waged a war against the settlers. All the forces in Israel allowed to use violence were drafted for the battle. The goal of the war, as so accurately defined by Yair Lapid was "to teach them a lesson." Not peace, not security, not anything else. The State was simply drafted to wage war against the Left's internal ideological adversary.

As far as I am concerned, anybody who took part in the crime of Expulsion is a war criminal. True, there are varying degrees of crime; beginning with Sharon and Olmert, on through the Supreme Court justices and the writers, journalists and anchormen who enthusiastically encouraged the crime, the Likud ministers who voted in favor of the Expulsion, the rabbis who gave the halachic go-ahead to carry it out and down to the soldiers who obeyed their orders. Ultimately, all of them were polluted by this war crime in some measure.

My son will be enlisting in the army next month. I said to him: "If two top officers order you to guard the entrance of a room so that nobody will prevent them from raping a woman soldier inside, you must refuse to obey your orders. And by the same token, if they order you to simply be in the second military line-up or the tenth around the expulsion of a Jew from his home in the Land of Israel - it is exactly the same thing. Exactly."

That is why there is poetic justice in the fact that the Expulsion leaders are now being accused of international war crimes. He who sacrificed his brothers and his land on the altar of international acceptance now finds himself on the international defendant's bench.

It is even amusing. Imagine that tomorrow the current government falls, and businessman Ehud Barak, no longer armed with diplomatic immunity, cannot land in London. Can you imagine a greater tragedy? Bibi and Sarah will not be able to go to the opera, as they did when half the country was in bomb shelters and 130 soldiers and citizens were killed - all in the name of Olmert's attempt to boost his Convergence scheme to continue to destroy the settlements.

Did anyone really listen to Netanyahu's speech in the UN? What was the nucleus of his speech - after he dispensed with all the melodrama? Netanyahu's speech was directed at neutralizing the danger of the Goldstone report. In other words, he wanted to ward off the danger that an entire slice of political and military leaders will not be able to go shopping at Marks and Spencer. In his speech, Bibi said that - with his support - the State of Israel took unilateral action and expelled the Jews from Gush Katif. And if you don't get this Goldstone off our backs, we will not be able to continue to expel more settlers and to establish a state of terrorists in Israel's heartland.

Like it or not, that was the crux of Netanyahu's speech: The Land of Israel in exchange for Goldstone.

I once knew a very special Jew by the name of Shlomo Baum. He was Ariel Sharon's deputy in Unit 101. Before he died, he said to me, "Shimon Peres could not care less if this entire country turns into a pile of ashes - as long as he will be left standing on top of the pile." I was naïve then and I thought that the likeable old man was exaggerating. Today I know that his analysis of Peres holds true for an entire echelon of leaders who will sell this country out so that the capitals of Europe will remain open for their pleasure. Our situation today is more dangerous than ever before because until now, the citizens of this country were able to compensate - with their sweat and blood - for the foolishness of their leaders. Now, the enemy has found the way to direct the arrows straight into our weak spot - the leaders of the State of Israel.

The danger at our threshold is much broader than the question of how our threatened leaders will behave. Historically, physical destruction has always come on the heels of demonization. Gush Katif could not have been destroyed before the demonization of the settlers that preceded the actual expulsion. Even though I was just a young boy in 1967, I still remember Nasser's propaganda against Israel that preceded the Six Day War. All the pogroms and the holocausts that we suffered in the exile were preceded by poisonous propaganda that negated the Jews' very right to exist.

Our flight from our Jewish identity and our decades-long attempt to establish a state of all its citizens in Israel precludes our ability to give a Jewish answer to the claims of the Moslem and Christian world. When we adopted their moral standards, we seated ourselves on their defendant's bench.

It makes no difference how many Israeli soldiers were killed and will be killed, G-d forbid, in our attempt to wage war according to the values of the Western world. We will always be the bad guys- the robbers - in the story. When in 1967 we did not do what we did in 1948 - and left the Arabs in our land - we proved that we accept the principle that this land actually belongs to them. When we drove out the Jews who nevertheless believed in this land and made it flourish, we irreversibly proved the claim that this land is not ours.

I was there, in Gush Katif, when it happened. There was more foreign press there than there were grains of sand. The entire world watched in anticipation to see if it would really happen. The Jews drove themselves out of their land and from that point and on, we are robbers/colonialists - also in Tel Aviv and in Haifa. Furthermore, whoever fires missiles at us from Gaza is a freedom fighter. You can send them one thousand text messages before you invade - but you will still be a war criminal. The Goldstone Report would never have seen the light of day without the Expulsion.

So there is no reason to be amused. The international demonization that we are experiencing threatens more than Ehud Barak's next weekend in London. It threatens us all with physical annihilation.

Nevertheless, there is something positive that is coming out the Goldstone debacle. The State of Israel has its back to the wall and is being forced to re-think its basic assumptions. The 'normalcy' idea is officially bankrupt. The commentators and pundits are still attempting to blame the IDF or Israel's diplomatic efforts. "We should have cooperated with Goldstone," they say. But here and there, we already see individual journalists, like Ari Shavit in Ha'aretz, who at least understand that the problem is not tactical, but rather the essential negation of Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state.

Understandably, the solutions that they suggest are the very same "political processes" that have brought us to this crisis. Their horizons are as broad as an ant's. But as the crisis continues, wider and wider circles in Israeli society will begin to listen to the voices outside the media bubble. Policies that base their justice on Judaism will become Israel's lifeline.

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