Algemeiner（http://www.algemeiner.com）
(1) Why Israel Must be a Jewish State, 27 November 2014
by Moshe Phillips and Benyamin Korn
Israel’s cabinet has approved legislation to officially define the country as the nation-state of the Jewish people. This timely measure accomplishes several important goals. It will facilitate peace by encouraging the Arab world to accept Israel’s permanence. It will help forge a sense of unity among the famously diverse and contentious Israeli public. And it will not in any way infringe on the rights of Israel’s Arab citizens and other minorities.
The core obstacle to Arab-Israeli peace has always been the refusal of both Arab regimes and the Palestinian Arab leadership to sincerely accept the permanent existence of a Jewish state. The classic study ‘Arab Attitudes to Israel,’ by Proessor Yeshoshafat Harkabi (1921-1994) of Hebrew University, has an entire section called “The Artificiality of Israel.” It describes the widespread conviction among Arab leaders, intellectuals, and journalists that the existence of Israel is an aberration, a violation of the natural order of the world, and a contravention of the will of Allah. Harkabi (who, incidentally, was from the political left) sums up the Arab view: “Israel cannot endure, for justice will win in the end…Israel is fated to disintegrate and disappear.”
That is why formally defining Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people will send an important message to the Arab world that Israel, the Jewish state, is here to stay. If and when the Arabs finally accept this reality, peace will be possible.
The new legislation will also contribute to Israel’s own sense of national cohesion. Forged of immigrants from every corner of the globe and from every political and religious orientation, this “ingathering of exiles” is also notorious for the vehement political, cultural, and religious arguments among its citizens – so fierce are some of these disputes that doomsayers occasionally issue dire warnings of the danger of social violence, or even of an all-out civil war. Especially in difficult times such as now, when Israel is under incessant attack – whether from rockets in Gaza or guns, knives, and firebombs in Jerusalem – it is more important than ever that Israelis reaffirm their common ground. A basic issue on which the overwhelming majority of Israelis can agree is that modern Israel was established to be the nation-state of the Jewish people.
Israel, after all, was not created in order to be a purely secular Western state. It has uniquely Jewish features, and most of its citizens want it that way. The Jewish Sabbath is the official day of rest. The national language is Hebrew. The national culture is permeated with Jewish symbols, history, and memories. An official definition of Israel as a Jewish state is the natural corollary of this national consensus. It will help bind Israel’s people together in a sense of kinship, fraternity, and common national purpose.
None of this will in any way impinge on the rights of Arabs and other minorities who are Israeli citizens. Beginning in the 1970s, some Jewish peace activists began urging Israel to take steps to tone down its Jewish identity. They said it was necessary in order to make Israeli Arabs feel truly equal. They said, for example, that the national anthem, Hatikvah (The Hope), should be changed because its lyrics speak of “the Jewish soul yearning” for the Land of Israel. They said that the Law of Return should be abolished, because it gives Jews alone the privilege of receiving automatic citizenship upon immigrating to Israel.
Well, those who predicted the ever-increasing alienation of Israel’s minorities have been proven wrong. Israeli minorities have made enormous strides in real, practical ways that are far more significant than the anthem or the citizenship law. Today, an Israeli Arab sits on the Supreme Court, Israeli Arabs and Druze serve as Israeli diplomats abroad, a Druze colonel commands an elite division of the Israeli army, and a Bedouin Arab is slated to become one of its tank commanders, another first. An Israeli Arab woman was named Miss Israel – and that was back in 1999. Hatikvah and the Law of Return did not hold them back. And neither will defining Israel as a Jewish state.
To facilitate the chances for peace and to advance the cause of national unity – while continuing to respect the equal rights of non-Jewish Israelis – it’s time to call Israel what it really is, and was always meant to be: the nation-state of the Jewish people.
・Moshe Phillips and Benyamin Korn are members of the board of the Religious Zionists of America.
(2) Why I Will Vote Against France’s Resolution to Recognize Palestine, 28 November 2014
by Frédéric Lefebvre
Because the honor of France is to stand side by side with minorities.
Because the greatness of France is to fight terrorism.
Because the honor of France is to stand side by side with minorities.
Because the greatness of France is to fight terrorism.
Because France’s history should lead us to support democracies.
Can we vote for such a resolution? Isn’t it as much opportunistic as inopportune?
Israel is a minority in the region of the world dominated by Arabic states and by the Muslim religion.
The jewish minority, such as the Christian minority, should have the right to live in peace in the birthplace of monotheist religions.
France should defend this right. France should not shy away from it. France cannot deviate from its history that has always placed it beside minorities.
Even if its duty is to require from the minority itself to also respect the weakest.
Israel is besieged and hit on a daily basis by blind terrorism.
The number of rockets and missiles launched at Israel from Gaza last summer was 3,356.
578 were intercepted.
2648 fell on Israeli territories.
The Miklat (bomb shelters) are part of the daily life of Israeli children. They have more or less time – 15, 20, 30 seconds, 1 minute – depending on the zone they live in, to run, to take shelter and more importantly to not forget to close the door of the Miklat…
Terror is a part of their daily lives.
Terror comes from the sky, but also from underground. Terror tunnels are flourishing.
I know it is politically incorrect to point out this reality. But Israeli children must also be protected.
Innocents on both sides know terror.
Is the force driven by blind terrorism not to be recognized?
Israel is a democracy, the only one in the region, and represents a strong culture of compromise and strength through unity. And this democracy learned how to resist rockets but more importantly, how to reply to gusts of anti-Zionism (and blatant anti-Semitism.)
The hatred towards Jews always grows during a crisis.
The hatred against Israel is enormous.
Shouldn’t the place of France be next to the scapegoat, the minority, the besieged and the democratic?
At least as much as the Palestinian people who legitimately wish to live in peace with recognized boundaries with a legitimate, stable, and democratic government.
This is the reason why I will not vote for this resolution which forgets essential matters.
Because the recognition of a Palestinian state should not occur before there is a partner for peace.
Because we should not recognize a group of leaders that support terrorism.
Because recognizing a Palestinian state goes against the Oslo Accords – a treaty signed by both sides.
Voting yes will only increase extremism and terrorism.
By passing this resolution we are risking the igniting of a fire that could burn the whole region.
I will vote no. Let’s not damage peace.
・Frédéric Lefebvre is a member of the French Parliament representing French citizens in North America (USA and Canada), former entrepreneur and Lawyer.
(3)Don’t Fall Into Spain’s Jew Trap, 26 November 2014
The Spanish parliament recently approved a resolution recognizing a Palestinian State by an overwhelming majority, and with heated debates regarding Israeli “occupation.” The expedited treatment that this resolution received contrasts with the treatment expected for the bill on Spanish citizenship for Sephardi Jews, which should be receiving its final approval at the end of this year.
The bill for the naturalization of Sephardi Jews has been received with great enthusiasm. The historic reparation for the expulsion of the Jews in 1492 is much welcomed by the Jewish community in Spain, which has officially endorsed and praised the new bill. Spanish embassies all over the world, especially in Israel and Brazil, have received more than 40,000 applications for naturalization. Spanish citizenship opens the door to a passport from the European Union, with all its rights. But the law was only approved by the Spanish Council of Ministers last June, and it has now to be submitted to the Spanish parliament.
The new bill, however, presents dubious, even dangerous, features.
The Spanish Government does not expect to amend historical injustices and crimes against Sephardi Jews. Its intentions are directed toward building a favorable opinion among international Jewry. This purpose notwithstanding, the practical goal of the Spanish government is to attract new immigrants with high income and new resources for a nation hit by the economic crisis. For this reason, the Spanish government has tailored a bill in which the requirements for naturalization may include Ashkenazi Jews who possess knowledge of Spanish culture and language.
The new bill requires a Spanish-language test. This test is going to be similar to other tests required for naturalization. One may ask, however: if the new bill represents a historic restitution for the crimes committed in the past, why did the Spanish government have to set up requirements? The language requirement has been strategically designed to interfere with the restitutive nature of the bill. In the end, the Spanish reparation is a poisoned gift that does not treat Sephardi Jews justly.
Indeed, the bill is an example of how restitution to the descendants of Spanish Jews can turn into discrimination against the Jews through the identity wars that plague Spanish politics. In article 1.1, section C, the new bill stipulates as a requirement to citizenship that applicants provide a marriage certificate – ketubah – according to the Castilian traditions. Castilian traditions, however, are not the only Jewish traditions preserved among Sephardi Jews. Spain is an aggregate of historical kingdoms and medieval nations, which include Castile, Aragon and Andalusia. Catalan-Aragonese Jews had different Jewish traditions, and they founded separate communities after the expulsion in 1492. An analogous situation applies to Andalusian Jews, who were under Muslim rule in Southern Spain until the fifteenth century.
The fact that the bill requires a minimum knowledge of the Spanish language also represents a form of discrimination. But, which Spanish language? Castilian, Catalan, Basque, or Galician? In general, Spanish law assumes that the Spanish language is Castilian – the only Spanish language with official recognition at the national level.
The Spanish press has repeatedly stated that Jews have great interest in the bill in order to correct a historic discrimination. In fact, as most of the news on this topic demonstrates, prospective applicants have shown a practical interest in Spanish citizenship. Many Brazilians with Jewish origins as well as Israeli citizens see an opportunity to access the benefits of EU citizenship and its passport, with full working rights within the European Union. Sephardi Jews have, however, not shown an interest in moving back to Spain, a country with strong cultural anti-Semitism.
If Spain had a real interest in restituting the descendants of its historic discrimination, this country would have prepared an inclusive bill, covering not only the Jews, but also the historic Spanish Muslim population, known as the Moriscos or Andalusians, who were expelled in the early seventeenth century.
The Spanish government has clearly articulated why the Jews alone were included in the bill. Juan Bravo, the Spanish Vice-Secretary of Justice, stated this summer: “[The Jews] have preserved the identity traits that recall their Spanish condition; the Moriscos were assimilated into their new cultures after the expulsion. The Moriscos disappeared as a community with a common origin. The new bill is rewarding not the expulsion itself, but the ability to preserve links with Spain and Spanish culture.”
This statement greatly clarifies Spain’s intentions: the new bill is a reward for Sephardi Jews who maintained a hypothetical Spanish culture after the expulsion in 1492. The bill has no restitutive character. There is no reparation, neither for the Jews, nor the Moriscos: the bill rewards Sephardi Jews because they preserved gentile cultural traits in their exile. According to the mentality of the Spanish government, a historic reparation needs to be useful for the sake of national identity – the most important Spanish obsession. The Moriscos still represent a menace to Spanish identity. The Muslims are viewed as fearless invaders who conquered the territory in 711 that Spain constitutes today.
The Jews, in contrast, do not represent a real menace to Spanish identity, even after four centuries of Inquisition, evil representations of the perfidious Jew, and paranoid processes of limpieza de sangre (purity of blood). Anti-Semitism still pervades Spanish society and culture, and anti-Zionism fuels new anti-Semitic demonstrations, as in other European countries. Nonetheless, the affluence of the Jew sets new, practical solutions to self-serving restitution.
Sephardi Jews, as well as Jews in general, must lose the fear of opposing insincere legal restitutions. The bill provides shameful rewards to Jews for preserving gentile cultures that may serve Spain’s nationalistic agendas. Spain is rife with anti-Semitism, and its political institutions threaten Israel’s existence. This is the Spanish trap for the Jew.
［Comment］
•Eric R.
November 26, 2014
Spain is a hopeless sewer of Jew-hatred. First it was the Catholic Church, then the Fascists of Franco, now the left. No matter who runs Spain, no matter where they are on the political spectrum, the country is full of filthy (National) Socialist scum.
The one magnificent exception to this in public life – former PM Jose Maria Aznar.
(4) Maureen Lipman: Why is Ed Miliband Pandering to Anti-Semitism Masking as Anti-Zionism, 26 November 2014
by Maureen Lipman
The following statement from the British Jewish actress Maureen Lipman was read out tonight at a pro-Israel demonstration outside the conference center where Ed Miliband, the leader of Britain’s Labour Party, delivered a speech to the pro-boycott organization “Labour Friends of Palestine and the Middle East.” Ms. Lipman, a leading actress whose credits include the Holocaust film “The Pianist,” has sharply criticized Miliband for his stance on Israel, as previously reported by The Algemeiner.
Tonight Mr Miliband, the leader of the Labour party, my party, will address the audience at a fund-raising Gala for Palestinian solidarity.
Some weeks ago he authorized a three-line whip to endorse a back bench bill to recognize the State of Palestine. There will be wild applause from the unions, who put him in power and cries of ‘Result!’ from the left of his party and the cultural and media zealots – all of whom despise the democratic State of Israel.
Tonight a good deal of money will be raised for the Palestinian cause, which, experience tells us will go towards Hamas’s tunneling back into the heart of Israel, buying more armaments and keeping up the payments on Madam Arafat’s suites in a Paris Hotel.
It is doubtful that it will reach the people whom tonight’s fund-raisers care so much about.
Why are so much of Gaza and the West Bank in such pitiable conditions? Some years ago, my brother, a travel and tourism maven, remarked to Yasser Arafat that one afternoon of Saudi oil money would remove the problem of Palestinian refugee camps.
“But Mr. Lipman,” mused the wily old fox – who incidentally was born in Algeria — “Why would I want to remove the problem? Then I would have no issue to fight.”
If the Palestinians were forced out of their country, what were the borders of that country? Who was its president? What was its language, its currency?
When 850,000 Jews were kicked out of Egypt in 1956, and all their property, businesses and lands confiscated, did any demonstrations to repatriate them take place? Did the UN pass any resolution condemning them? Or did the Jewish people once again accept their loss and move on?
Very recently, Egypt razed 700 Palestinian houses to the ground and closed the borders to restrain Hamas. Where are the anti-Egyptian demonstrations? Can you point me in the direction of the comedians and movie stars who are irate because of that?
If a Palestinian state were recognized, would Jews be allowed to live and work there as Arabs are in Israel? Which, then, would be the Apartheid State? I have Israel on my passport, so I can’t even enter most Middle Eastern countries.
As I wrote in my Standpoint article, many people on the left and right would welcome a Palestinian State, me included.
However….
1) It is UN policy not to negotiate with terrorists. Hamas are still terrorists.
2) A state was offered to and refused by the Arab States in 1937, 1948, 2000 and 2008.
3) The Palestinians have yet to recognize Israel’s right to exist and still extol its destruction in their constitution.
4) It is impractical to recognize a state until its borders are decided – in other words, when negotiations on settlements are completed.
5) If you recognize a state you can then arm it.
Mr. Miliband, in pandering to the left of his party without thinking through these points has shown weakness and lack of forethought – at best – and stupid opportunism at worst. He is vote-seeking and the Jewish vote is one and a half percent only. Our funding is far less important than that of the unions – and the unions have already voted for the new state.
Mr Miliband will be joining the Jon Snow, Alexei Sayle, Miriam Margolyes, Annie Lennox, Penelope Cruz, Xavier Bardem, Roger Waters, Kauffman, Warsi, Tonge brigade – all of who bleed for the Palestinians and refuse to recognize the impossible position that Israel has been placed in for the last six decades… four thousand rockets raining in on a country, countless lives lost, a nation’s psyche altered forever.
Shame on you Ed.
He is a second-generation immigrant Jew, whose father escaped Nazi death camps, and inadvertently or not, he is pandering to the antisemitism masking as anti-Zionism, which is once again sweeping across Europe.
I doubt that Mr. Miliband will get his bacon sandwich at tonight’s ‘do’.
But I hope in time and with reflection, he gets his just desserts.
・Maureen Diane Lipman, CBE (born 10 May 1946) is a British film, theatre and television actress, columnist and comedienne.
(End)
