That is true, & probably a truism too. It is almost enough for me, and maybe more than enough. I don't need any other reason. I am a Zionist because I am a Jew. I am a Jew by birth. I am a Jew by conviction. I am a Jew. I am a Zionist.
If being a "Jew" does not connote only a political or religious affiliation, then it must connote affiliation to a people or nation. So, I am a Jewish patriot just as an Irishman or woman would naturally be an Irish patriot and an Italian would be an Italian patriot. At it's simplest, Zionism is Jewish nationalism, the understanding that Jews are a people, that Judaism is not solely a religious belief or set of values, and that Israel is the Jewish homeland. I do not need any more justification for Zionism than that, and the state of Israel should not have to apologize for its existence any more than Australia or Ireland or the Czech Republic apologize for their existences. Even if I were not Jewish, I would support the right of the Jewish people to self determination just as I support the right of other peoples to self determination ~ including many, such as the Kurds and the Tibetans, whose rights have also been trampled upon by the neglect of the international community.
I think that's an important point. We do not begrudge the French their language, their nationalism, their religions, or their homeland. We do not demand to internationalize their capital city of Paris, or to give Paris to the Germans on the grounds that only Germans truly love Paris. And I could make the same comments about most other nations that we are content to allow to exist as sovereign entities. Only Israel, the Jewish State, gets held to a different standard & criticised whatever it does, or is, or seeks to become.
As one who supports human rights, I therefore obviously support Zionism. To do otherwise would be to oppose the genuine & inalienable human rights of Jews. So although I am not at all surprised or saddened by the fact that the world at large does not support Zionism, it grates against the grain that some of my fellow Jews, especially in Eretz Yisrael itself, regard Zionism as something not quite, um, kosher.
But, it's not really entirely that simple either. I wish it was, but Zionism is not a simply defined concept. There are multifarious sub categories & I constantly get asked what 'type' of 'Zionist' I am????
That to me is sort of nonsensical really, I am a Zionist. But, definitions matter to people. Definitions do matter & that is kind of the purpose of this to define me & my Zionism. Not to measure it mind, I am a Zionist! Period. To me that is a most important aspect of my identity. Of who I am. Of what I am made of. Of me. Pana. Jew Girl. Zionist. It has always shaped my identity ~ the entity & the essence that is me.
Zionism is more than a political movement or 'secular' ideology. Zionism began with Ha'Shem. This is it's beginning, not as a philosophy but as a way of life. And a means of life & to life.
Israel's right to exist, and the legitimacy of Zionism, are not dependent on my moral purity ~ my behaviour has no bearing on the issue (thank goodness!). Or even the moralness or uprightness of the Jewish people as a whole. Nations have the right to statehood whether they are, to coin an Irish term, 'saints or sinners', and whether their governments are wonderful or terrible. Why would imperfections in Israeli governance be an excuse for denying me being a Jew or having the desire & right to my own homeland?? The terrible nature of governance in the Sudan does not in any way threaten the right of Sudan to be a nation-state. Nobody calls for the dissolution of Syria because of the corrupt and dictatorial regimes that have ruled that country since its independence. Or Iran. That nation remains unchallenged & unquestioned thirty plus years after it's destruction of all basic civil rights there. Nobody believes the Chinese people should be denied the right to self-determination because of rights violations in Tibet. It is just the Jewish State of Israel that is under constant scruitny. The State of Israel was not established so that the anti-Semites will disappear, but rather, so we can tell them to get lost & "butt out" of our affairs!
Never again will Jewish children stare in fear begging to be spared. Never again will we let our enemies determine the fate of the Jewish people and we will able to protect our sons." ~ IDF Chief of Staff Lieutenant-General Gabi Ashkenazi.
In our world of today Zionism is definied by solely by the Arab world's bloody hostility to the Jewish State of Israel. That's wrong!
To stick to this definition is so to miss the wonder that is everyday life in Israel, the millions who are able to live and learn, laugh and play, in security in the Middle East's only democracy. To do so is to underestimate the power of Zionism, a gutsy and visionary movement that has outlasted the Twentieth Century's other grander and seemingly 'permanent' revolutions such as Bolshevism, Nazism, Fascism and Communism. Arabs have demonized Zionism as the modern 'bogeyman', and many have clumped Zionists, along with all Jews, Americans and most Westerners, as the 'Great Satans'.
The United Nations libel equating Zionism with racism continues unabated & mostly unchallenged. The media too, including CNN, the BBC, the New York Times, & many, many more have played along with dramatic anti-Israeli libels. In Israel, a small but influential group of intellectuals fancy themselves to be 'post-Zionists', whilst a negligible but voluable minority of Jews in the Diaspora please man-bite-dog opinion page editors by proudly proclaiming themselves Jewish anti-Zionists. Zionists must not allow their enemies to define and slander the movement!
No nationalism is pure, no movement is perfect, no state ideal, but today Zionism remains legitimate, inspiring, relevant, & important to me and to most Jews. And so much more moral than any other 'ism' I could randomly name. A Century ago, Zionism revived pride in the label "Jew" .... today, Jews must revive pride in the label "Zionist". I am so proud to be a Jew & to be called a Zionist. It's a badge I wear with a grin & a huge sense of pride. It is part of who I am, my identity, the girl that is me!
My Zionism is natural, just like it is natural for me to be a girl, a woman & a mother. My Zionism is not measured by the size of my davening list or my charitable donations, by the neighbourhood where I live, my reading matter or by the party I will be voting for. It was born a long time before me, on a snowy street in the camp in Terezin, Czechoslovakia, where my mother stood as a young child and attempted, in vain, to understand why the entire world was trying to kill her. That's my personal connection. Actually Zionism as a movement was born much, much earlier than that. Zionism originated with Ha'Shem. And, the history of Zionism begins in Torah. The History of the Jewish people is in fact the History of Zionism.
The wanderings of Avraham as prompted by Ha'Shem, the exodus & desert trekking of Moshe & the wandering Israelites are examples of Zionism in action. As surely as the 'Zion Fighters' building in the Shomron Sunshine today are examples of Zionist action. Zionism is as old as the Jewish nation & an integral part of what it means to be a 'Jew'.
My favourite definition & indeed description of what Zionism is comes from Rabbi Meir Kahane & I'm going to indulge myself now in his words .....
"Jewish History! That whirlpool of tragedy, drama, and courage, whose richness and color dazzle anyone who plunges into its depths...... Listen, you who begin to believe in inanities and who begin to doubt the legitimacy of a Jewish State. You who weep for the oppressed Arabs and gnash your teeth at the ‘fascist’ Zionists. You who waver in support of Israel and who suggest that she lie down and die. Listen.
You are too young to remember the day. It was a moment in May, the 14th day of that loveliest of months, and they stood in the streets. They, the Jews; they, your people; they, the Zionists. The year was 1948, but to Jews it was 1878. One thousand eight hundred and seventy-eight years since the long exile began. You see, that is how your people count history.
Beholding the old men, and the rapturous women and the glorious youth, one might easily have been moved to consider them the farmers and tailors and housewives and mechanics and students ~ and Auschwitz survivors ~ they claimed to be.
And as they stood, they listened to a proclamation that tolled an end ~ and a beginning ~ of an impossible dream come true. The words entered their ears, filling the minds, choking their throats, gripping their hearts, flooding their eyes ....
“We hereby proclaim the establishment of the Jewish State in Palestine, to be called ‘Medinat Yisroel, ’ the State of Israel…”
And as the last words drifted off into the cloudless mid-eastern skies, the ‘fascists’ of Tel Aviv burst into song, the song. The words were written a mere sixty years earlier; the idea was 1, 878 years old.
Israel came into being because it never came out of being. Israel came back to life because it never died. It was the Jewish State in the days of Joshua; it was the Jewish State when there were Pharaohs; it was the Jewish State when Assyrians and Moabites and Edomites and Philistines and Babylonians and Persians and Hellenes and Romans drifted through history and passed out of it again. It remained Jewish because Jews never left it and there was never a time when Jewish communities did not remain in Zion.
Do you think Theodore Herzl created Zionism? Not so! Zionism came into being the day that Jews went into exile and was nurtured by every religious law and custom. Every Jew who practiced his faith and every Jew who observed his tradition was a Zionist. Herzl was merely a man whose time had come, and Jews simply put into practice the goal and dream and aspirations of two millenia. Had there been no Balfour Decleration ~ there would still have arisen the State of Israel. Had there been no United Nations ~ there would still have come into being a Jewish State" .
I could go on. I won't. You get the point & I won't labour it any further. That brings me back to the chief reason why I am a Zionist. I am a Zionist because I am a Jew, because it seems to me that Zionism is the only meaningful expression of Jewish identity in the modern world, or any world.
I believe that the Jewish people established itself in the Land of Israel, albeit somewhat late. Had it listened to the alarm clock, there would have been no Holocaust & no pandering to Arab claims of 'palestinian' nationhood & 'displacement'. I do not support the 'right' of the 'palestinian' people to self determination because this is a fraud, the brainchild of Yasser Arafat in the 1960's & I will explain this in a separate blog. It does not belong here. Suffice to say for now it is not a valid claim, & believing, apologizing, or rationalizing the lie of displacing a "Pal-est-in-ian" Arab community is not something Zionism has to consider. Frankly, to buy this fabrication of 'Zionists victimizing the Arabs' is to turn history on its head. The UN ratified a partition plan in line with the mandate's original articles for the establishment of the Jewish State, the Zionists accepted it, the Arab leadership rejected it with a genocidal rage and the Mandatory, (the British) refused to carry out their duties to the Jews, who deserved much better than they ever got from their 'protectors'!!!(By Shai Baitel)
"[W]e have handed over the word [Zionism] to those who attack and distort it."
Rebecca Sugar, Birthright Alumni Director on February 1, 2011
A couple of years ag
o I was asked how I would define the Israeli-Arab conflict in one sentence. While rarely caught off-guard I had to think about it and eventually offered that it could be described as a conflict between two national movements over the same piece of land. It is a clash between the Zionist movement, and the Palestinian national movement, as embodied by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Clearly, this is simplified and even simplistic to describe the dispute in one sentence and does not really do justice to complexities and narratives that lie at the heart of the conflict.
o I was asked how I would define the Israeli-Arab conflict in one sentence. While rarely caught off-guard I had to think about it and eventually offered that it could be described as a conflict between two national movements over the same piece of land. It is a clash between the Zionist movement, and the Palestinian national movement, as embodied by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Clearly, this is simplified and even simplistic to describe the dispute in one sentence and does not really do justice to complexities and narratives that lie at the heart of the conflict.
What should be reason of concern to the friends of Israel but also to those who are interested in a dispassionate debate (if this is actually possible) is that Zionism, in the minds of so many is not understood and viewed solely through the Middle East conflict. And with Israel's detractors not getting tired of brandishing the nationalism of the Jews, the dislike and even hatred of Zionism inevitably have formed and colored the term in the political debate. We continue to witness the systematic delegitimization of the State of Israel, and the calling into question of its very existence. So it would have been certainly possible to respond to my curious interlocutor that the Israeli-Arab conflict was about the existence of the State of Israel per se.
Zionism has been and always will be very complex and seems to defy a universally acceptable definition. But I want to state here emphatically: Zionism is a positive and hopeful concept. The seeds of Zionism have led to enormous achievements that should be admired rather than condemned. And Zionism, as described above, it is not the reason for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Zionism is the legitimate aspiration of the Jewish people to live in peace in their own country. At the beginning it was an almost romantic but pained longing for Zion, for Jerusalem and today it is the continuing effort to building the future of Israel. People from all walks of life and political convictions came together to work on the Jewish national project. Zionism was the national project, the impetus, the driving force to create the State of Israel.
The country's founding generation believed in their people's right to flourish in, free from oppression and tyranny, and live in peace, an idea should be familiar to anyone following the news. They build the institutions on which Israel would eventually be based. They formed a functioning democracy, a culture of liberty, freedom of speech, freedom to vote, and economic opportunities. In Israel, the Jewish people could fulfill their potential. And what a potential they have. One wants to shout out, as has been suggested, that Israel should be a model how to build a successful state and productive society. Instead, Israeland Zionism, the driving force behind it come in for unrelenting criticism.
Invariably, the term Zionism is perceived decidedly negative. More often than not it is, at best, ignorance or, at worst, sheer hatred, which drives people to speak of Israel as 'the Zionist regime.' They can't even get themselves to name the country they abhor. Against all odds, Israel has successfully pushed back the repeated attacks of her neighbors. They dared to defend themselves, aggravating the original sin of building their own state in their ancient homeland.
If there was moment in history that would take the price for the vilest and insidious accusation against a country and whole people it would be the notorious United Nations (U.N.) General Assembly Resolution 3379, equating Zionism with racism, which passed in November 1975 by a vote of 72 to 35. In this Resolution the world community, well, a simple majority of the world community declared that "Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination... [and] is a threat to world peace and security." In a pattern that is repeated hundreds of times to this day, the wording was meant to deny Israel's political legitimacy by attacking the moral basis for its existence. If one were to accept the premise of this odious resolution one would have to do away with all nationalisms and aspirations of all people and thereby remove the foundation of today's international order.
Resolution 3379 remained part of the U.N. record (worth an article in itself) until it was repealed in December 1991, following the Madrid Conference, as a goodwill gesture in support of Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts. What a bold and charitable move, one wants to say. At least former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan called Resolution 3379 the low point in Jewish-U.N. relations. He was right.
Fast forward: When Rebecca Sugar, the energetic director Birthright Alumni Director stated at that the detractors of Israel and the Jewish people had been successful in the battle for the hearts and minds when it comes to the perception of Zionism it was a renewed wake-up call, a call to action to reclaim the supremacy -- linguistically speaking -- over its definition and connotations. Her appeal went out to some 500 hundred energized Birthright alumni, who had gathered for a powerful event of Birthright Israel and 30 partnering Jewish -- and Zionist -- organizations.
These alumni are part of a whole generation of eyewitnesses to what is Israel. Therefore they are dynamic multipliers of the fact, surprising to the detractors of Israel, that the country and Zionism are many things. In the words of Sugar "there are some things that it is not. Zionism is not racism and it is not apartheid. These are not simply alternate views or differing perspectives in an ongoing conversation. These are lies, constructed to distort the truth [...] And this is unacceptable." Well said.
Israel's eloquent Acting Consul General Ido Aharoni rightly pointed to the core of the problem: Zionism was defined, examined and communicated through the limited lens of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This process should have been nipped in the bud, so to speak, because it undermines truth. Zionism really is homeland, history, religion, politics, peoplehood, culture, national destiny, self-determination. It is technological, medical, scientific innovation benefiting humankind. It is tradition. Zionism is not only and the heritage but also, and even more importantly, the responsibility for the future.
In fact, all those that have concluded that the historic role of Zionism has ended since the return of the Jewish people to its homeland, have to grasp Zionism as a living concept. As such it serves as smart ammunition - apologies for this metaphor - to effectively counter the campaigns to boycott, to sanction, to delegitimize Israel.
So the challenge is threefold. Lies need to be exposed. Truth needs to be told. And today's Zionists need to continue to build the future of Israel, which creates benefits far beyond her borders. The Jewish people have not exhausted its possibilities and therefore it is imperative to work together on the Zionist project to ensure that its potential is realized not just for the benefit of the Jewish people or Israel but for the benefit of humankind. Zionism is ours. Let's not allow others abuse it. Let's take back Zionism.
HISTORY
Labor Zionism
Closely associated with the left-wing and progressive ideology of A.D. Gordon, Labor Zionists believed that a Jewish state could only be created through the efforts of Jews settling and working the land. The infrastructure of the early State of Israel was a reflection of Labor Zionist values and Labor Zionists dominated the political ranks for decades after the founding of the State.
Revisionist Zionism
Revisionist Zionism’s main political objective was to maintain the historical integrity of the land of Israel and establish a Jewish state with a Jewish majority on both sides of the Jordan River. For this reason, Menachem Begin, Jabotinsky’s successor, opposed the 1947 Partition Plan which divided the Land along the Jordan River. After the state’s establishment, Begin’s Herut Party carried the flag of Revisionism.
Cultural Zionism
Cultural Zionism saw the major threat to Jewish survival in the Modern Era as being the deterioration of Jewish unity and traditional practice. The founder of the movement, Ahad Ha’am believed that the Jewish homeland to be established in Palestine should become a cultural center and source of inspiration for the Jewish people. This would ensure the survival of the Jewish people.
Religious Zionism
Religious Zionism argued that only with a restored national homeland could Jews truly live the life called for by the Torah. In the 1930’s Rav Abraham Kook, considered the greatest thinker of Religious Zionism, encouraged young religious Jews to move to Palestine and settle the land at a time when many Orthodox Jews felt that Zionism was blasphemy. Rav Kook formulated very successful theological responses that portrayed Zionism as a tool that G-d was using to bring the Jews back to their homeland.
Political Zionism
Political Zionism, most closely associated with Theodore Herzl, argued that the “Jewish problem” was first and foremost a political problem and sought a solution through political action and diplomacy. Herzl convened an international Congress of Jews in 1897. This first Zionist Congress adopted a program of political action that called for the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine and created the World Zionist Organization which is still active today.
ZIONISM - An Ancient Ideal
BACK TO ABRAHAM, 2000 BCE The relationship with the land began, as the Jewish people themselves did, four thousand years ago, with Abraham. “Lech lecha meartzecha, memolodetcha...” “Get yourself out of your country, and from your homeland, and from your father's house, to the land that I will show you,” God commands in Genesis 12, verses 1 and 2. “And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great.” The Torah defines a three way relationship between God, the people, and the land. Abram, the first Jew, cannot fully be a Jew, cannot become AbraHAM, until he moves to Eretz Yisrael. Israel is where the Jewish chronicle will unfold, Israel is where God’s covenant with Abraham and the Jewish people is to be fulfilled.
Over the next two thousand years, Israel becomes ground zero for the Jewish people, it is the stage, the focal point, the holy land. Many of the greatest Jewish heroes strut their stuff in their homeland: Joshua the liberator, Deborah the judge, David the poet and warrior, Solomon the sage and builder, Elijah the prophet. The Torah lovingly details the beautiful vessel built to carry around the word of the Lord, the Mishkan or tabernacle. Jewish history climaxes when that transient structure finds a permanent home. The Temple of Solomon, gleaming, majestic, magical, is the jewel in the Jewish crown, a mark of Jewish piety -- and a result of Jewish power in Saul’s and David’s kingdoms.
Many of the 613 mitzvot, commandments, require residency in Israel and service in the Temple to fulfill. The Shalosh Regalim, the three festivals mandating pilgrimages to Jerusalem, the sacred feasts of Pesach (Passover), of Shavuot (Weeks), of Sukkot (Tabernacles), are tied to the land. As agricultural festivals, they celebrate the timetable, the harvests, of the ancient Judean farmer. As walking festivals, they celebrate a particular walk, a pilgrimage, bearing gifts to the Holy Temple in Jerusalem.
“Zion” refers to a specific mountain – during Solomon’s time it may have been the Temple Mount; today it is the mountain just outside the Old City Walls. But “Zion” also became a catchall phrase for Israel, for Jerusalem, capturing the love of the Jewish people for their homeland, their longing for the land when in exile. The Bible mentions the word 154 times, noting most famously after the first Temple was destroyed that we sat by the rivers of Babylon and we remembered Zion.
So when the modern nationalist movement of the Jewish people began, there was a certain logic to call it Zionism, longing for this specific and metaphorical center of redemption, Zion. But these nationalists could have called themselves Judeanists, because Judea was the entire country. Imagine how much less confusing our identities would be today if we were Jews and Judeanists, supporting Judea (as a name for Israel). We would not be building so many walls between Israeli identity, Zionist identity, Jewish identity.
In Shemot, Exodus, Chapter 13 verses 3 to 5, Moses tells the people: “remember this day, in which you came out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage; for by strength of hand the Lord brought you out from this place; no leavened bread shall be eaten. This day you go forth in the month of Aviv (spring). And it shall be when the Lord shall bring you into the land of the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Amorite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite, which He swore unto your fathers to give you, a land flowing with milk and honey, that you shall keep this service in this month.” What a mind-boggling concept. Regardless of what one may think about the origins or accuracy of the Bible, it is quite amazing that we’re still avoiding leavened bread, commemorating an event that took place approximately 3750 years ago! And that the land flowing with milk and honey to which Moses refers is the land today flowing with Maccabee beer and humus.
Facing Reality
Denial is a devious foe. It caters to many agendas, luring us into harmful decisions, blinding us with visions of success and peace.
With Arafat gone, can we hope for a peace agreement with other Arab leaders? We must be brutally honest when weighing both sides, and accept only what reason dictates, regardless of our dreams being crushed. Dreams are for those asleep.
Denial is our own demon. A demon which we must not run from, but approach head-on, and approach it now. Dreaming of peace will not replace a child violently killed by ruthless, homicidal, Arab bombers. There are no such people called “Palestinians”. They are Arabs, and that must be understood clearly. Arafat himself was not born in Palestine.
What causes the numerous and terminally wasteful talks to continue between the Arabs and Israel? I believe there is a conflict in us which stems from two fatal errors; 1) An Arab child cannot become a homicide bomber, 2) Adult bombers can repent. These two tragic mistakes are literally killing us. With some people, there can never be a light at the end of the tunnel. A people who encourage their children to kill themselves and others; a people who kill their own, dragging their bodies in the street; and a people who killed a 5 year old Danielle Shefi, are not human, and cannot be treated as human, nor may their “talks” be trusted. Certainly, when they do nothing to reverse Arafat’s multimedia indoctrination of children into the ranks of homicidal bombers and martyrs.
In His Torah, God commands man to wipe out a city of idolatry, people who harm only themselves. We are also commanded by God to wipe out the murderous Amalekites. God destroyed Sodom. He wiped out the world with the Flood. In all these cases, children were not spared. Ask yourselves, “Is God right or wrong by condemning children?” There is one answer: God created morality, so it is ludicrous for man to oppose God. King Solomon taught, (Ecclesiastes, 5:1) “Don’t be excited (with) your mouth, and do not hasten to bring forth words before God, for God is heaven and you are on Earth, therefore let your words be few”. If you are sympathetic to these children, realize that these child terrorists would not be sympathetic to your children, not even to a carriage-bound infant. They would proudly blow themselves up along with your son and daughter.
Choose who you want to live, and who to die. Israel possesses the ability and the power to correct the problem. Right now, Israel’s inactivity translates into murder. Israel has one decision; follow God’s morality or be killed through passivity. God has tremendous resources, if you would admit His presence and ability. If only Israel would not concede to other influences, but admit His laws as absolute truths, as righteous, as the singular morality.
What is the obstacle? Most human beings cannot synthesize “child” with “suicide bomber” or “martyr”. This conflict stems from something deeper, something more personal. I refer to a specific self-image we all have, as a “caretaker for children”. We enjoy this self-image, and who can deny this sentiment? Not one of us. We all equate children with innocence - those who require our love and defense. What then happens is this; our guilt emerges as we consider an Arab child as a suicide bomber. This guilt causes us to reject that thought, and replace it with a nonsensical notion that there is potential good in these children. Time and time again, we return to “talks”. The correct response is, “There isn’t good in these children”. The proof: the very adults who kill children like Danielle Shefi used to be children themselves. Their corrupt society and religious philosophy trains and traps their Arab youth in this path of violence. More proof: many Arab teenagers blow themselves up. Our rejection of branding adults and children as murderers attributed to the reluctance of European Jews of leaving when they could, and they paid the price.
The Arab Muslim culture is not being changed. Why should we blindly assume that next generation’s “Palestinians” would be any better? What is in place to eradicate the decades of brainwashing? Arafat’s legacy is a group raised from kindergarten with the single goal: kill Jews. They will continue their downward spiral as a people favoring ruthless terrorism, and the obliteration of life. These deviant and cruel animals drench nails in rat-poison, encased in explosives so powerful; they tear through human flesh, as limbs are ripped off bodies. The Arabs will continue to celebrate as more American skyscrapers plunge downward, crushing and burning to death every innocent worker, with no chance to escape and to say goodbye to their loved ones. Their families weep for their loss, for the unimaginable pain suffered, while Arabs burn flags and celebrate their victory over our destruction.
I understand. Entertaining this reality alarms you. You are suddenly faced with a comparison between these violent Arab children, and your own. You ask yourself, “Can my own kids commit such atrocities?” Upon answering a very definite “No”, you then find it difficult to accept that ANY child is capable of such acts. But I warn you; you must set aside your sensitivity for “children” in general. This sensitivity causes you to deny that Hamas and Arab kids can become killers. For decades, this nation brainwashed its youth to live for murder. They live that way. We die that way.
It is so revolting when I hear a foolish reporter equate Israeli defense - (which never targets civilians, certainly not children) - to Arabs who uncork the champagne when a baby has been shot at point blank range. Danielle Shefi, you did not die in vain. You are remembered, and you serve to teach our leaders that time has come to defend life.
These trained Arabs are not going away. This must not be denied. We cannot talk to them. Such talk will never result in changing their evil schemes.
Their offspring are now as vicious as their parents. Even if a minority of Arabs opposes Arafat’s induction of children into the ranks of his cowardly army, we cannot maintain relations with a people who contain any remnant of terror, and certainly not with the Arabs, who breed this philosophy en masse. We must accept this fact and face reality. Complete avoidance with killers and liars must be our first priority.
Closely associated with the left-wing and progressive ideology of A.D. Gordon, Labor Zionists believed that a Jewish state could only be created through the efforts of Jews settling and working the land. The infrastructure of the early State of Israel was a reflection of Labor Zionist values and Labor Zionists dominated the political ranks for decades after the founding of the State.
Revisionist Zionism
Revisionist Zionism’s main political objective was to maintain the historical integrity of the land of Israel and establish a Jewish state with a Jewish majority on both sides of the Jordan River. For this reason, Menachem Begin, Jabotinsky’s successor, opposed the 1947 Partition Plan which divided the Land along the Jordan River. After the state’s establishment, Begin’s Herut Party carried the flag of Revisionism.
Cultural Zionism
Cultural Zionism saw the major threat to Jewish survival in the Modern Era as being the deterioration of Jewish unity and traditional practice. The founder of the movement, Ahad Ha’am believed that the Jewish homeland to be established in Palestine should become a cultural center and source of inspiration for the Jewish people. This would ensure the survival of the Jewish people.
Religious Zionism
Religious Zionism argued that only with a restored national homeland could Jews truly live the life called for by the Torah. In the 1930’s Rav Abraham Kook, considered the greatest thinker of Religious Zionism, encouraged young religious Jews to move to Palestine and settle the land at a time when many Orthodox Jews felt that Zionism was blasphemy. Rav Kook formulated very successful theological responses that portrayed Zionism as a tool that G-d was using to bring the Jews back to their homeland.
Political Zionism
Political Zionism, most closely associated with Theodore Herzl, argued that the “Jewish problem” was first and foremost a political problem and sought a solution through political action and diplomacy. Herzl convened an international Congress of Jews in 1897. This first Zionist Congress adopted a program of political action that called for the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine and created the World Zionist Organization which is still active today.
ZIONISM - An Ancient Ideal
BACK TO ABRAHAM, 2000 BCE The relationship with the land began, as the Jewish people themselves did, four thousand years ago, with Abraham. “Lech lecha meartzecha, memolodetcha...” “Get yourself out of your country, and from your homeland, and from your father's house, to the land that I will show you,” God commands in Genesis 12, verses 1 and 2. “And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great.” The Torah defines a three way relationship between God, the people, and the land. Abram, the first Jew, cannot fully be a Jew, cannot become AbraHAM, until he moves to Eretz Yisrael. Israel is where the Jewish chronicle will unfold, Israel is where God’s covenant with Abraham and the Jewish people is to be fulfilled.
Over the next two thousand years, Israel becomes ground zero for the Jewish people, it is the stage, the focal point, the holy land. Many of the greatest Jewish heroes strut their stuff in their homeland: Joshua the liberator, Deborah the judge, David the poet and warrior, Solomon the sage and builder, Elijah the prophet. The Torah lovingly details the beautiful vessel built to carry around the word of the Lord, the Mishkan or tabernacle. Jewish history climaxes when that transient structure finds a permanent home. The Temple of Solomon, gleaming, majestic, magical, is the jewel in the Jewish crown, a mark of Jewish piety -- and a result of Jewish power in Saul’s and David’s kingdoms.
Many of the 613 mitzvot, commandments, require residency in Israel and service in the Temple to fulfill. The Shalosh Regalim, the three festivals mandating pilgrimages to Jerusalem, the sacred feasts of Pesach (Passover), of Shavuot (Weeks), of Sukkot (Tabernacles), are tied to the land. As agricultural festivals, they celebrate the timetable, the harvests, of the ancient Judean farmer. As walking festivals, they celebrate a particular walk, a pilgrimage, bearing gifts to the Holy Temple in Jerusalem.
“Zion” refers to a specific mountain – during Solomon’s time it may have been the Temple Mount; today it is the mountain just outside the Old City Walls. But “Zion” also became a catchall phrase for Israel, for Jerusalem, capturing the love of the Jewish people for their homeland, their longing for the land when in exile. The Bible mentions the word 154 times, noting most famously after the first Temple was destroyed that we sat by the rivers of Babylon and we remembered Zion.
So when the modern nationalist movement of the Jewish people began, there was a certain logic to call it Zionism, longing for this specific and metaphorical center of redemption, Zion. But these nationalists could have called themselves Judeanists, because Judea was the entire country. Imagine how much less confusing our identities would be today if we were Jews and Judeanists, supporting Judea (as a name for Israel). We would not be building so many walls between Israeli identity, Zionist identity, Jewish identity.
In Shemot, Exodus, Chapter 13 verses 3 to 5, Moses tells the people: “remember this day, in which you came out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage; for by strength of hand the Lord brought you out from this place; no leavened bread shall be eaten. This day you go forth in the month of Aviv (spring). And it shall be when the Lord shall bring you into the land of the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Amorite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite, which He swore unto your fathers to give you, a land flowing with milk and honey, that you shall keep this service in this month.” What a mind-boggling concept. Regardless of what one may think about the origins or accuracy of the Bible, it is quite amazing that we’re still avoiding leavened bread, commemorating an event that took place approximately 3750 years ago! And that the land flowing with milk and honey to which Moses refers is the land today flowing with Maccabee beer and humus.
Rabbi Moshe Ben-Chaim
With Arafat gone, can we hope for a peace agreement with other Arab leaders? We must be brutally honest when weighing both sides, and accept only what reason dictates, regardless of our dreams being crushed. Dreams are for those asleep.
Denial is our own demon. A demon which we must not run from, but approach head-on, and approach it now. Dreaming of peace will not replace a child violently killed by ruthless, homicidal, Arab bombers. There are no such people called “Palestinians”. They are Arabs, and that must be understood clearly. Arafat himself was not born in Palestine.
What causes the numerous and terminally wasteful talks to continue between the Arabs and Israel? I believe there is a conflict in us which stems from two fatal errors; 1) An Arab child cannot become a homicide bomber, 2) Adult bombers can repent. These two tragic mistakes are literally killing us. With some people, there can never be a light at the end of the tunnel. A people who encourage their children to kill themselves and others; a people who kill their own, dragging their bodies in the street; and a people who killed a 5 year old Danielle Shefi, are not human, and cannot be treated as human, nor may their “talks” be trusted. Certainly, when they do nothing to reverse Arafat’s multimedia indoctrination of children into the ranks of homicidal bombers and martyrs.
In His Torah, God commands man to wipe out a city of idolatry, people who harm only themselves. We are also commanded by God to wipe out the murderous Amalekites. God destroyed Sodom. He wiped out the world with the Flood. In all these cases, children were not spared. Ask yourselves, “Is God right or wrong by condemning children?” There is one answer: God created morality, so it is ludicrous for man to oppose God. King Solomon taught, (Ecclesiastes, 5:1) “Don’t be excited (with) your mouth, and do not hasten to bring forth words before God, for God is heaven and you are on Earth, therefore let your words be few”. If you are sympathetic to these children, realize that these child terrorists would not be sympathetic to your children, not even to a carriage-bound infant. They would proudly blow themselves up along with your son and daughter.
Choose who you want to live, and who to die. Israel possesses the ability and the power to correct the problem. Right now, Israel’s inactivity translates into murder. Israel has one decision; follow God’s morality or be killed through passivity. God has tremendous resources, if you would admit His presence and ability. If only Israel would not concede to other influences, but admit His laws as absolute truths, as righteous, as the singular morality.
What is the obstacle? Most human beings cannot synthesize “child” with “suicide bomber” or “martyr”. This conflict stems from something deeper, something more personal. I refer to a specific self-image we all have, as a “caretaker for children”. We enjoy this self-image, and who can deny this sentiment? Not one of us. We all equate children with innocence - those who require our love and defense. What then happens is this; our guilt emerges as we consider an Arab child as a suicide bomber. This guilt causes us to reject that thought, and replace it with a nonsensical notion that there is potential good in these children. Time and time again, we return to “talks”. The correct response is, “There isn’t good in these children”. The proof: the very adults who kill children like Danielle Shefi used to be children themselves. Their corrupt society and religious philosophy trains and traps their Arab youth in this path of violence. More proof: many Arab teenagers blow themselves up. Our rejection of branding adults and children as murderers attributed to the reluctance of European Jews of leaving when they could, and they paid the price.
The Arab Muslim culture is not being changed. Why should we blindly assume that next generation’s “Palestinians” would be any better? What is in place to eradicate the decades of brainwashing? Arafat’s legacy is a group raised from kindergarten with the single goal: kill Jews. They will continue their downward spiral as a people favoring ruthless terrorism, and the obliteration of life. These deviant and cruel animals drench nails in rat-poison, encased in explosives so powerful; they tear through human flesh, as limbs are ripped off bodies. The Arabs will continue to celebrate as more American skyscrapers plunge downward, crushing and burning to death every innocent worker, with no chance to escape and to say goodbye to their loved ones. Their families weep for their loss, for the unimaginable pain suffered, while Arabs burn flags and celebrate their victory over our destruction.
I understand. Entertaining this reality alarms you. You are suddenly faced with a comparison between these violent Arab children, and your own. You ask yourself, “Can my own kids commit such atrocities?” Upon answering a very definite “No”, you then find it difficult to accept that ANY child is capable of such acts. But I warn you; you must set aside your sensitivity for “children” in general. This sensitivity causes you to deny that Hamas and Arab kids can become killers. For decades, this nation brainwashed its youth to live for murder. They live that way. We die that way.
It is so revolting when I hear a foolish reporter equate Israeli defense - (which never targets civilians, certainly not children) - to Arabs who uncork the champagne when a baby has been shot at point blank range. Danielle Shefi, you did not die in vain. You are remembered, and you serve to teach our leaders that time has come to defend life.
These trained Arabs are not going away. This must not be denied. We cannot talk to them. Such talk will never result in changing their evil schemes.
Their offspring are now as vicious as their parents. Even if a minority of Arabs opposes Arafat’s induction of children into the ranks of his cowardly army, we cannot maintain relations with a people who contain any remnant of terror, and certainly not with the Arabs, who breed this philosophy en masse. We must accept this fact and face reality. Complete avoidance with killers and liars must be our first priority.
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