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| Zionism falsely accused |
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| Written by Rabbi Charles Emanuel | |
| Saturday, 09 March 2002 | |
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Sermon given at North Western Reform Synagogue, London, England
***image1:right***Sometimes, even I as an American am amazed at what occurs in the United States in the name of justice. I read recently a true story of a North Carolina lawyer who purchased a box of very rare and expensive cigars then insured them against fire among other things. Within a month, having smoked his entire stock-pile of these great cigars and without yet having made even his first premium payment on the policy, the lawyer filed a claim against the insurance company. In his claim, the lawyer stated that the cigars were lost “in a series of small fires.” The insurance company refused to pay, citing the obvious reason: that the man had consumed the cigars in the normal fashion. The lawyer sued....and won! In delivering the ruling the judge agreed with the insurance company that the claim was frivolous. The Judge stated, nevertheless, that the lawyer held a policy from the company in which it had accepted that the cigars were insurable and also guaranteed that it would insure them against fire, without defining what is considered to be “unacceptable fire,” and the company was, therefore, obligated to pay the claim. Rather than endure a lengthy and costly appeal process, the insurance company accepted the ruling and paid $15,000.00 to the lawyer for his loss of the rare cigars lost in the “fires.” But that is not where the story ends. After the lawyer cashed the check, the insurance company had him arrested on 24 counts of arson! With his own insurance claim and testimony from the previous case being used against him, the lawyer was convicted of intentionally burning his insured property and was sentenced to 24 months in jail and a $24,000.00 fine. Last Wednesday an equally ridiculous situation occurred. The Student Union of the University of Manchester voted once again on a motion that equated Zionism with racism. While it did not pass, it should be noted that this was only because it needed a 2/3 vote; it did receive a majority vote, 391 for, 349 against, and 21 abstentions. Unfortunately, this is not the first time we have heard this ridiculous accusation. In United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3379 voted on November 10, 1975, that this august body “most severely condemned Zionism as a threat to world peace and security and called upon all countries to oppose this racist and imperalist ideology,” and declared “that Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination.” But the resolution equating Zionism with racism, in reality, had very little impact and, on December 16, 1991, the UN resolution equating Zionism with racism was rescinded. Last year, however, this charge was brought up again. At The U.N. Conference on Racism held in Durban, South Africa last September a group of third world nations tried to hijack the conference by including discussions about whether Zionism in Israel, seen by Arabs as the Jewish state's ongoing effort to repress Palestinians, amounts to racism. In their deliberations, other regimes such as Saddam Hussein’s Iraq or the Taliban were not similarly targeted, nor was there any real condemnation of Palestinian terrorism. The resolution did not pass but for political not ideological reasons: the United States threatened to walk out of the conference if the motion was even brought to the Conference. At times, we Jews think that everyone hates us, but, as the old saying goes, “Just because we’re paranoid doesn’t mean we don’t have real enemies.” The Durban conference and world events that include the terrorist attacks in the United States on 11 September provide us with the evidence that Israel does indeed have enemies who seem to find pleasure in focusing on the misdeeds of the Jewish people, both real and imagined, to the exclusion of all others. “Zionism,” we are told, “is racism.” I will not insult your intelligence this morning by declaring that Zionism is not racism. Such an accusation does not even warrant a response. As President George Bush, senior, stated in an address to the United Nations on September 23, 1991, “Zionism . . . is the idea that led to the creation of a home for the Jewish people. . . . To equate Zionism with the intolerable sin of racism is to twist history and forget the terrible plight of Jews in World War II and indeed throughout history.” It might be worthwhile, however, for me to explain to you why, in my opinion, Zionism is not racism. First of all, Zionism is not racism because the Jewish people is not a race. As one can easily see in Israel, Jews come from many countries and many races. Since the Jewish people do not constitute a race, a political philosophy designed to protect that people cannot be said to be, by definition, racist. Second, Zionism is not racism because it is a peaceful and legal liberation movement for the Jewish people, recognised by the majority of the world in November 1947 by the same organization, the UN, that labelled it racist in 1975. Jews have prayed for a return to Zion since the destruction of the Second Temple and the dispersion of our people in 70 C.E. In 19th Century Europe, however, the Jewish people achieved unprecedented freedom and many believed that a return to Israel was no longer necessary or even desirable, for they believed that they had found true freedom in Europe or America. Then, towards the end of the 1800’s, anti-Semitism reared its ugly head again. Europe was not the Promised Land. A Jewish State was conceived as a way that the Jewish people could live in the world as equals with others. The need for this Jewish State became even more apparent after Hitler came to power in the 1930s. The 19th Century had proved to the world that enlightenment would not bring an end to anti-Semitism. The Holocaust proved that our Jewish people could not be safe in this world without a free and secure independent Jewish state. No other nation in the world could or would guarantee the Jewish people. Liberating and saving the life of one’s own people by democratic and legal means is not racism. Finally, Zionism is not racism, because Israel is a democracy, the only real democracy in the region. That brings with it, however, the disadvantages as well as the advantages of a democracy. Israel was founded as a paradox. As a Jewish State, it has a responsibility to preserve the unique Jewish character of Israel and to secure the survival of our people. To do that, it has to maintain a solid Jewish majority. As a democracy, however, all citizens of Israel have the right to vote. By definition, therefore, Israeli Arabs are full citizens of Israel. But, if we are honest, we must acknowledge that while there may be Arabs in Israel’s Parliament, Arab-Israelis are second class citizens. Public housing for Arabs is inferior to public housing for Jews. Jewish schools are superior. Infrastructure, from roads to sewers, is better in Jewish areas. Israel has a long way to go in its treatment of its non-Jewish citizens. Because Israel is a free country, however, these inequalities and others are detailed in the Israeli press, examined by Israeli courts, and debated by Israeli society. Some Israeli reservists recently, as you have probably read, openly refused to serve in the West Bank. Israel, like every nation, could be better than it is. We Reform Jews have a number of disagreements with the current Israeli government, and with its predecessors, which we express very openly. We have consistently opposed the addition and growth of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and, even after the most horrendous of Palestinian terror attacks which have tragically affected members of our own community have questioned the intensity of Israeli military reprisals. We urge the Israeli government to do everything in its power to return to the negotiating table so as to bring peace to the region. But we do so out of love and out of a commitment to Israel’s ongoing survival and its prosperity. We are Zionists and proud to be so. We love and support Israel and because of that, want Israel to be better than it is, living up to the high standard expected of a Jewish State. It should also be mentioned that the early Zionists supported the establishment of a Palestinian State. In 1947, when the United Nations voted to create Israel, it also voted to create an Arab State. The Zionists accepted this compromise solution. The Arabs did not and declared war. In the summer of 2000, that two-state compromise was again offered by Israeli Prime Minister Barak, with the support of President Clinton. Tragically, Chairman Arafat declined. In the past 1 1/2 years since that solution was rejected by the Palestinians, even with the terrorism taking so many innocent Israeli lives, Israeli support for a Palestinian State still remains as Israel accepts in principle the national hopes and dreams of the Palestinian people, although the details are still to be worked out . Today one hopes that the Palestinian people will ultimately accept the compromise and will agree to live in their own nation, at peace, alongside the Jewish people in the State of Israel. That is why the Saudi initiative for the Middle East is, at least, a step in the right direction. The initiative conceived by Crown Prince Abdullah - which has yet to be formally presented - proposes normalisation between the Jewish state and the Arab world in exchange for a full Israeli withdrawal from the territories it has occupied since the 1967 war. It is hoped that the Arab summit in Beirut on March 27 will seriously consider the idea. It is safe to assume that no Israeli government could or should accept complete withdrawal and a compromise such as the one put on the table in Camp David will be necessary. For that reason, a great deal of hard work will be required on both sides. Propaganda seeking victories such as wrongly calling Zionism racist is, at best, counter productive and probably much worse. A solution has to be found. Too many people on both sides are being killed and maimed. But that solution has to be a realistic one which, rather than ignoring the facts, understands and appreciates them. This week's parashah, Ki Tisa, contains a story with which most of us are familiar - the breaking of the first set of tablets by Moses. After the event, however, we might well start to wonder about what happened to the broken pieces of the tablets of the Covenant . One midrash states that God gave those broken chips of the tablets to Moses for safekeeping. Building on this idea, another midrash states that two arks journeyed with Israel in the wilderness - one in which the Torah was kept and one in which the tablets broken by Moses were kept. A third midrash states that the broken pieces of the tablets and the whole second set of tablets were placed side by side in one ark, not two. It is clear that the rabbis were unable to simply forget about the “broken tablets,” of the Covenant. They insisted on giving the broken pieces not only value but also importance. There are a great deal of broken pieces of trust and understanding on both sides. Equally, on both sides some of those pieces are based on real complaints while many are based on misunderstanding and a blatant distortion of the truth. If the world wants true peace, it will not be able to ignore those pieces. Zionism, in truth, is a messianic dream. For centuries, the Jewish people believed that the return to Zion would come only with God’s redemption in the coming of the Messiah. Then the early Zionists, seemingly accepting the adage that God helps those who help themselves, took a first step to redemption: a State of Israel in a pre-Messianic world. We may still dream of a world without divisions of race or nation, color or creed, but we do not live in that world at the present time. Until the Messianic Age arrives, the State of Israel and Zionism, the political philosophy that created and maintains that state as a Jewish State, are central to the survival for the Jewish people, and entirely non-negotiable. The vote in Manchester did not pass. Again reason prevailed. But that does not mean, of course, that someone in another important forum will make the same ridiculous accusation. We who want peace in the Middle East, and that should include all of us, must continue to work so that reason and not distortion prevail in this most noble and worthy endeavor. To give us the moral strength necessary, we might reflect on the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr who wrote, “...You declare, my friend, that you do not hate the Jews, you are merely 'anti-Zionist.' And I say, let the truth ring forth from the high mountain tops, let it echo through the valleys of God's green earth: When people criticize Zionism, they mean Jews -- this is God's own truth... All men of good will exult in the fulfillment of God's promise, that his People should return in joy to rebuild their plundered land. This is Zionism, nothing more, nothing less... And what is anti-Zionist? It is the denial to the Jewish people of a fundamental right that we justly claim for the people of Africa and freely accord all other nations of the Globe. It is discrimination against Jews, my friend, because they are Jews. In short, it is anti-Semitism... Let my words echo in the depths of your soul: When people criticize Zionism, they mean Jews -- make no mistake about it.” (From “This I Believe: Selections from the Writings of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. “ (New York, 1971), pp. 234-235. Trackback(0)
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