We Need More Jewishness In Israel
Brian of London
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We are used to thinking that the goal of the State of Israel is to achieve peace and that the problems our state faces are security, demographics, Palestinian nationalism, international pressure and economics.
But “peace” cannot be the defined goal of a state. Peace is the result of the proper definition and achievement of the goal. If peace were the goal, it would be easier to achieve it in another place, by surrendering our sovereignty, or by assimilation.
The whole thing should be read but I’ll make a point about Indigenous identity out of it (which also chimes with what I wrote yesterday).
Israel under it’s ongoing “wonky” political leadership has a nebulous goal of peace. Feiglin then explains why chasing security, peace process, demography, international pressure, diplomatic process and trying to appease made up “Palestinian” nationalism gets us nowhere.
“The goal of the Jews in the Land of Israel is to establish a Jewish state there. The goal of the Arabs in the Land of Israel is to prevent the Jews from doing so.” (British Foreign Minister Ernest Bevin, pinpointing the foundation of the conflict in a speech before the UN, 1947). Not much has changed since Bevin’s succinct explanation. There really is no “Palestinian” nationalism. There is the Arab nation, which does not accept Jewish sovereignty over Israel. This is also the reason why a “Palestinian” state has not yet been established and never will be established – despite the fact that no other group has ever received more international aid to create their potential state. The ‘Palestinians’ simply do not want a state. All they want is to prevent Israel from having a sovereign state.
Israel can only ever achieve a temporary ceasefire from Muslims who are bound by Shari’ah to base their actions on two treaties: The Treaty of Hudaybiyya & The Dimma. Permanent, proper peace cannot, be achieved by Israel unilaterally as much as we want it. Chasing a peace granted by Islam will not work.
Then we get to the real meat of the problem:
Simply put, we strive for Israeli-ness instead of Jewishness. As long as our neighbors fight us and do not accept this new Israeli-ness as legitimate, we are thrown again and again to the Jewish-ness from which we started (and fled). That is why we desperately need a peace accord with the Arabs. Not because of security or demographics. We need an agreement with the Arabs at all costs in order to fulfill the dream of Israeli normalcy. The Israeli needs the Arab in order to forget that he is a Jew. (read it all)
If we look at Europe, we see the ongoing secular replacement of a set of national identities with a nebulous multicultural soup. It has primed most of Europe to be invaded both physically and mentally. The EU project, trying to replace strong, real, historical national identities with an invented, central unity is a failure. People are not optimistic enough to have children. The immigration numbers are the elite’s desperate attempt to pay for the collapsing social security and health systems they’ve promised but can’t deliver without a working youth.
This is nothing more or less than a multi-pronged Al Hijra, an invasion. The organisation of a military and ideological force to wage an aggressive war of conquest. It is driven by an ideology of conquest and supremacism with an unrivalled unity of identity. That identity has managed to transcend tribal and familial links across Arabia for 1400 years! It’s a very strong identity put up against an EU populace which has been duped into believing it must tolerate its own slaughter.
I’m so glad I live in a place where our Jewish identity is 4,000+ years strong and getting stronger.
Here’s where I’ll differ from some of the more orthodox, religious, Jewish thinking. I think we can express our Jewishness as indigenous people in a plethora of ways that build out from the Torah but don’t compel all of us to all the ritual observances which firmly secular people want to reject.
We can have a spectrum of Jewishness which the strict Torah observant Jews may turn their noses up at. At one end is just being here in Israel: many people, including myself, consider the act of living on this land a defining act of Jewishness. Some don’t think Tel Aviv is Jewish because it’s busy on a Saturday, but it is because Israel is Jewish.
Even in our dealings with our Arab minority, we can and should be Jewish. We manage to do this already with the Jewish timetable to each week (resting Friday/Saturday and working on Sunday) and the Jewish timetable to the year following Jewish holidays. Christians and Muslims and others can all live comfortably within this system. We don’t restrict access to pork for those who want it: we’re not offended by others having different rules.
What we must not tolerate is inequitable legal systems that disadvantage any of our citizens: equality before an equitable law is so very Jewish It is the most important concept Jews brought into this world! Turning a blind eye to sharia sanctioned poor treatment of women in Islamic family courts must be treated very seriously. It should also be watched carefully with our own Rabbinic courts.
There is a system and a process we can apply here that gives our country a Jewish identity and increases the number of Jews in the world and the security of all Jews. And that’s a system for a Jewish peace process more valuable than chasing external approval from a hostile world.
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Brian of London
