Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: “Well, then there will never be a solution!”

Betraying the State of Israel
SIDNEY BRICHTO
August 2008
Many people, including marginalised Jews, do not appreciate that
central to Jewish life in Britain, and indeed throughout the world, is
the concern for the state of Israel and its perception of threats
against its existence. For Jews of my generation, the two major events
of the last two millennia were the Holocaust and the creation of
Jewish sovereignty in its ancient homeland. They were viewed not in a
political but in a religious perspective. The Nobel Peace Prize winner
Elie Wiesel described in his autobiographical work Night a public
execution in the Nazi death camp of Auschwitz. Someone asked the name
of the victim dangling from the noose, and the answer was a bellowing
cry from one of the inmates: “God!”
For many Jews, the Holocaust had spelt the end of the Covenant between
God and His people. Hitherto, every national disaster was attributed
to their own sinfulness. This time, only the absence of God could
explain the irredeemable evil the Jews had experienced.
The establishment of a Third Jewish Commonwealth several years later,
amid a mighty struggle against five Arab nations, was viewed not only
as the rebirth of a people but the rebirth of its God. After the vote
in favour of the Partition Plan by two thirds of the UN General
Assembly, Jews danced outside their synagogues, just as when, 10 years
later after Israel’s victory in the Six-Day War, they filled the
synagogues in numbers that approximated those who attend on the
holiest days of the Jewish year. And, of course, for more than 2,000
years, Jews have prayed every day for the ingathering of exiles in the
Promised Land; and every year at the conclusion of the Passover meal,
they declared: “Next year in Jerusalem”
In Jewish life, there can be no separation between religion and the
sense of identity with a people. They are inextricably intertwined.
The Covenant assured the Israelites and the remnant that survived –
the Jews – that God would redeem them from their oppressors if they
walked in His ways. Everything that happens to the Jewish community is
perceived as either an act of God or a sign of His absence. But so
ingrained in the Jewish consciousness is a sense of responsibility for
one’s own situation, that Jews – particularly those who have not lived
under any threat – believe that it is within their power to resolve ­
political conflicts with their neighbours. They resist the idea that
the enemy may be implacable. They make demands of their own side that
they do not make of the other. Rabbis who go against the mainstream
and are highly critical of Israel’s policies are hailed as morally
courageous, while rabbis, such as myself, who defend Israel are
accused of being political.
A recent case in point was the reaction – or lack of it – when Ron
Prosor, the Israeli ambassador to Britain, put his head above the
parapet. Writing in The Daily Telegraph, he told the candid truth that
in Britain, the most extreme elements of the debate on the Israel/­
Palestine conflict have been allowed to “hijack the mainstream”. He
accused the anti-Israel forces of mounting a campaign of
“delegitimisation, demonisation and double standards”. Their call for
a “one-state solution”, he maintained, was “a euphemistic name for a
movement advocating Israel’s destruction”.
The ambassador is right on all counts. Jews, who should know better,
say to me that as Hamas will never agree to a two-state solution, the
only possibility for peace is one state. When I explain that this
would mean that Jews will no longer be in the majority, and so it
would cease to be Israel, and that furthermore Jewish Israelis would
leave their country en masse in fear for their lives, the response is,
“Well, then there will never be a solution!” They look at me in
disbelief when I explain to them that not finding a solution to this
conflict is better than self-destruction.
However, I find it embarrassing that when the Israeli ambassador is
outspoken about the prejudice against Israel in Britain, the
leadership of British Jewry remains silent. It is not that they don’t
agree with him – they do. Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks has written
eloquently and passionately on the demonisation of Israel. As long ago
as February 2002, while dismissing the claim that all criticism of
Israel is anti-semitism, he created a fictional scenario that is worth
quoting in full:
“Suppose someone were to claim that there is a form of prejudice
called anti-Kiwism, an irrational hatred of New Zealanders,” the Chief
Rabbi wrote. “What might convince us he was right? Criticism of the
New Zealand government? No. A denial of New Zealand’s right to exist?
Maybe. Seven thousand terrorist attacks on New Zealand’s citizens in
the past year? Possibly. A series of claims at the UN Conference
Against Racism in Durban that New Zealand, because of its treatment of
the Maori, is uniquely guilty of apartheid, ethnic cleansing and
crimes against humanity, accompanied by grotesque Nazi-style posters?
Perhaps. A call to murder all those with New Zealand loyalties
although they were born and live elsewhere? A suggestion that New
Zealanders control the world’s economy? That they are responsible for
Aids and poisoning water supplies? That they arranged the September 11
attack on the World Trade Center? That they are a satanic force of
evil against whom a holy war must be fought?”
The Chief Rabbi tells us then to “delete ‘New Zealand’ and insert
‘Israel’ and ‘Jews’, and all these things have happened in the past
year. “What more has to happen before an impartial observer concludes
that anti-semitism is alive and well and dangerous?” A lot more has
happened since. What Rabbi Sacks was describing then was attributed to
Islamic extremism. But today it is the British chattering classes, the
intellectuals of the Left in particular, who have bought into this
vile propaganda, agreeing that Israel is comparable to apartheid South
­Africa and even Nazi Germany.
History is dismissed as irrelevant. The fact that Israel has
disengaged from Gaza and is negotiating to disengage from the West
Bank; the fact that it would not have been occupying them had not
Egypt and Jordan sought to invade its borders; the fact that an
independent Arab Palestine could have been established alongside
Israel after the UN Partition Plan agreed in November 1947, had not
Jordan annexed the Old City of Jerusalem and the West Bank while Egypt
occupied Gaza; the fact that in 1964, before Israeli occupation, the
Palestine Liberation Organisation was engaged in guerrilla warfare
against Israel proper; the fact that when Israel disengaged from Gaza,
compelling all Israelis, as much for their safety as anything else, to
leave their properties, the Palestinians razed to the ground 26
synagogues, which they could have converted into mosques – all these
are ignored. So is the fact that maps of the region issued by the
Palestinian Authority, as well as Hamas, include all of Israel as part
of Palestine. So is the fact that whenever Israel withdraws from
territory – Lebanon, Gaza – far from it leading to peace, it has led
to further attacks. Supporters of Israel blame themselves for the
widespread ignorance of the historical background. They shouldn’t. The
anti-Zionists have made up their minds and don’t want to be confused
by the facts.
It is in this context that it is hard to comprehend why the Chief ­
Rabbi and the President of the Board of Deputies did not take this ­
opportunity to continue the new debate courageously initiated by the
ambassador, rather than to let it just vaporise into thin air. It is
particularly surprising as neither the Labour Government nor the ­
Conservative opposition would disagree with the ambassador’s comments,
which echoed the recent report of the cross-party Parliamentary
Committee Against Antisemitism.
At the Jewish communal celebration of Israel’s 60th anniversary in
Trafalgar Square, the Schools Secretary, Ed Balls, said on behalf of
the Government: “To those people who would deny even the right of the
Israeli state to exist, let us say to them: ‘You will not succeed’.
Never again should the Jewish people have to run from tyranny.” But
both parties are constantly advised that they could win more votes if
they distanced themselves from Israel in favour of the Palestinians.
Perhaps the Jewish leadership did not want the British public to think
that they had dual loyalties. If so, they were misguided, because
those who make these accusations do not need any pretext for doing so.
Dual loyalty has been a constant claim of anti-Semites, as if we
didn’t all have a plethora of loyalties.
A united response to the constant slurs and calumnies against Israel
is essential because of the growing number of Jews who have joined in
the irrational attacks on Israel. One example is the Jews who advocate
the boycott of Israel’s academic institutions. Another is the Jews
demonstrating against Israel when the Israeli ambassador was doing a
Q&A at the Welsh Assembly. It is essential that representatives both
of secular Jews and of mainstream traditions of Judaism are seen not
to have lost their nerve at the constant abuse Israel is suffering.
This is particularly so when Jewish anti-Zionism is used by non-Jews
to justify their attacks on Israel. The writer AN Wilson, referring to
Gerald Kaufman’s decision not to visit Israel because of its policies
and praising the Jewish MP’s Zionist credentials as impeccable, ­
concluded that Israel was a failed experiment and that it had been
madness to establish a Jewish state in the first place. This is a
blatant example of how non-Jews will justify themselves against the
accusation of antisemitism by invoking the anti-­Zionism of Jews, who
surely cannot be called anti-Semites. But why not? Jews will have
their Quislings and Lord Haw-Haws, like other ­nations. To recoin a
phrase: “Some of my best friends are Jewish anti-Semites.”
On the BBC Radio 4 Sunday programme on February 19 2004, Chief Rabbi
Sacks said: “There is a conviction now not only that it is legitimate
to criticise Israel, but also to demonise it, to blame it for the
problems of the world and not to make a distinction between Israelis
and Jews wherever they are. That is a seriously dangerous phenomenon.”
The accusation that Zionism, as a fascist movement, and Israel, as a
Western colonial implant in the Middle East, are responsible for all
the ills of the world is reminiscent of historic antisemitism. These
slanders achieved mythic proportions in The Protocols of the Elders of
Zion, first published 1903 in Russia, which has been reprinted in
millions for sale and free distribution in Muslim countries and
communities throughout the world.
Ironically, the now familiar anti-semitic motifs of countless
cartoons, showing Israel as a Nazi state and Moshe Dayan as Hitler,
with the Star of David replacing the swastika, first originated in
Soviet ­Russia, following Israel’s victory of the 1967 war. It is
understandable that the Arab world, which has always resented the
Jewish state, as it did Crusader rule of Palestine, should use
whatever tools are at hand to delegitimise Israel, which in their eyes
is a Western imperialist implant in their dar al-Islam, the Muslim
patrimony. Many Muslims maintain both that the Jews invented the
Holocaust to justify their right to be given a place of their own and
that the West gave them Israel because the Christians did not want the
Jews in their own countries.
The fact that non-Jews believe this antisemitic propaganda requires
explanation. The pervasiveness of antisemitism in the Western world
for millennia is well documented – pogroms, ghettos, forced
conversions and expulsions, and Jews banned from owning land and
engaging in any crafts. Christian children, it is fair to say, sucked
in anti-semitism at their mothers’ breasts. Even those good Christians
who felt well disposed to individual Jews still saw them as members of
the nation that had killed their Lord. This did not end with the
Enlightenment, or with Jewish emancipation. The Dreyfus case and the
mobs crying, “Kill the Jews” persuaded the Hungarian-Jewish journalist
Theodor Herzl that anti-Semitism could not be defeated and that the
only viable option was national self-determination. Thus was the
Zionist movement born at the outset of the last century. Jews flocked
to the Holy Land from Europe. Land was purchased from (usually
absentee) landlords. By 1912, Jews owned 40 ­villages in what is now
Israel, including 23 villages in what is now the West Bank.The
dehumanisation of Jews in the European mindset, which enabled Nazi
Germany to exterminate 6m people, gave the Western world cause for
reflection. Even those who only engaged in polite anti-semitism, such
as is still prevalent in the prejudice against homosexuals, realised
what terrible consequences could follow. After the war, anti-semitism
became taboo in elite circles. Jews believed that the Holocaust had
taught Europe a lesson. That was a mistake, similar to the one made by
those of us who believed that 9/11 would create sympathy for Israel in
its struggle against jihadi terrorists. The prejudice against Jews
remained.
Zionism – and its creation, Israel – gave that prejudice the excuse to
breathe again. Deep down in the European consciousness, there lingers
a conviction that the world would be better without the Jews. But as
anti-semitism is now an unfashionable tool for achieving this goal,
the way to do it is by destroying the “Zionist entity”. Last year,
Rabbi Sacks made this point by quoting the Israeli author Amos Oz: “In
the 30s, anti-Semites declared, ‘Jews to Palestine’. Today they shout,
‘Jews out of Palestine’. They don’t want us to be there; they don’t
want us to be here; they don’t want us to be.”
The time has come for the Jewish leadership to stop behaving as though
Jews were strangers in the land and act with courage to fight the
antisemitism camouflaged as anti-Zionism. My Christian PA asked me
what the difference was between a Jew and a Zionist. After explaining
the distinction, I realised that in the eyes of the world, there was
none. And just as nothing Jews do would lead to the end of anti-
semitism, nothing Israel does will lead to the end of anti-Zionism,
for they are both expressions of hatred of the Jews.
When British politicians are asked whether they are Zionists, they
often respond by redefining the term to mean the right of Israel to
exist in secure borders. Why is there this need to define the word?
Because the word “Zionist” is being used by anti-Semites. They
describe Israel as “the Zionist entity” and declare that Zionism – the
Jewish movement for the right of self-determination in one country in
the entire world – is expansionist, racist, fascist, apartheid and
imperialist. Untold numbers have been persuaded that it is a movement
designed to enable Jews to take over the world.
As the true objective of Zionism was fulfilled with the formation of
Israel, the time has come for us to pension off this “ism” and compel
those who are anti-Semites to acknowledge their racism. The concept of
Zionism has outlived its usefulness to Jews and to the state of
Israel. Those who support the existence and welfare of Israel should
be referred to as “Friends of Israel”. Indeed, it was at the annual
lunch of the Conservative Friends of Israel that David Cameron and
William Hague identified themselves as Zionists. All that they meant
was that they are friends of Israel.
As for the Jewish community in Britain, it should cease telling ­
Israel how to make peace; Israel does not need, and often resents,
unsolicited advice from Jews of the diaspora. Instead, Jews should use
their influence to persuade the British public that anyone calling for
a one-state solution, or the “right of return” of 4m Palestinian
refugees, is calling for the elimination of Israel as a Jewish state,
and as such deserves to be described as anti-semitic. Were Israel to
suffer the fate desired by its enemies, the freedom and liberty that
we, Jews and non-Jews alike, enjoy because we live in a society built
on Judaeo-Christian values, will be under threat.
http://www.standpointmag.co.uk/node/313/full

 unsolicited advice from Jews of the diaspora.
da quella inglese no, da quella americana i consigli (e soprattutto i
quattrini per le campagne elettorali, che contano anche di più) li
accettano eccome

 Zealanders control the world's economy?
Giano, vi hanno scoperto....
#_Ch' e` successo ???????
no-no-no...io nun c'ero ...non ho visto gnente...nunno' sentito vola' 'na 
mosca e non ho parlato...aNZi ,invoco subbito l'articolo 21 della sacra 
Italica Constitution.
Senno'...Embeh!!...Aho! La mia peNZione INPS, so come farla frutta'!
G. 

 wrote in message 
news:7a2d81c3-af1e-49be...@j22g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...
Betraying the State of Israel
SIDNEY BRICHTO
August 2008
“Suppose someone were to claim that there is a form of prejudice
called anti-Kiwism,
#_Senti Hava Naghila sincopato! Scrivi a Brichto che questo paragone non mi 
va giu`, senno' lo faccio io...
Nella fattispecie, potremmo mettere (invece di someone) tutti quelli che da 
IPI la fanno facile ad indirizzare ai due kiwi, una serie di improperie?
Niente da supporre , basta scorrere i post e controllare... :))
G.