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As we’ve learnt to equate anti-Zionism, or even less drastic critiques of the Jewish state, with anti-Semitism, we’ve come to regard every Jewish opponent of what’s going on in Israel today as a potential, or factual, self-hating Jew - a Jewish anti-Semite.
One of the current candidates for that title is none other than Avraham Burg, an observant Jew, Labour member of Knesset and its former Speaker, past Chairman of the World Zionist Organization and the Jewish Agency, the son of one of the great late leaders of religious Zionism in Israel. In an article that originally appeared in the Israeli daily Yediot Aharonot and has been reprinted in leading newspapers around the world, Burg describes his fear of the end of the Zionist dream.
The latest version I saw was published only a few days ago in the London Daily Telegraph, a paper considered to be pro-Israel. I picked it up via The Jewish Telegraphic Agency, an outfit no less committed to the Jewish State and the Jewish People than any Diaspora Jew who is bound to turn from the article in indignation, or worse. For whenever we get bad news we’re prone to shoot the messenger. That makes Avraham Burg a prime target.
The title of Burg’s article says it all: I fear that the Zionist dream is doomed. It opens in this way:
The Zionist revolution has always rested on two pillars: a just path and an ethical leadership. Neither of these is operative any longer. The Israeli nation today rests on the scaffolding of corruption, and on foundations of oppression and injustice. As such the end of the Zionist enterprise is already on our doorstep. There is a real chance that ours will be the last Zionist generation. There may yet be a Jewish state here, but it will be a different sort, strange and ugly. Settlements
The reference to “the scaffolding of corruption” is, presumably, to the allegations about the business dealings of Prime Minister Sharon and his sons that may end in criminal charges. The reference to “the foundations of oppression and injustice” is clearly to the occupation. It’s the substance of the article: It turns out that the 2,000-year struggle for Jewish survival comes down to a state of settlements, run by an amoral clique of corrupt lawbreakers who are deaf both to their citizens and to their enemies. Burg’s call to the way back to Zionism is the same that has been advocated by the Jewish elites for a long time: to abandon the idea of a “greater Israel” reflected in occupation and annexation in favor of a two-state solution, which would not only create a Palestinian state but also affirm Israel as a Jewish-Zionist-democratic state.
Politicians will tell you that it’s not so simple and many of us, not least in the Diaspora, tend to believe them because, by confirming the status quo, they allow us to have all kinds of illusions about Israel without demanding much more than some financial aid and the odd, carefully choreographed, “mission.”
Of course, many Israelis want to believe it, too. Burg’s father-in-law had translated the article into French so that it could be published in France. As a result, the translator was blackballed from his “modern Orthodox” Synagogue in Jerusalem, for today’s “modern Orthodoxy” tends to side with the ultra-nationalist National Religious Party, a very corrupt version of Burg Senior’s old Mizrachi. Politics
But why do politicians, not only on the extreme right but also over a wide spectrum, mislead us so profoundly? Probably because the present, allegedly corrupt, state favors their own lust for power. They call it realism and pragmatism. A major change in political thinking would expose their incompetence and hypocrisy.
Though a member of Israel’s Labor Party, Burg isn’t less critical of his own colleagues:
Why, then, is the opposition so quiet? Perhaps because some would like to join the government at any price, even the price of participating in the sickness, But while they dither, the forces of good lose hope. The reference may be to the leader of the Labor Party, Shimon Peres, who believes in being inside the proverbial tent and is said to have a remarkably close personal relationship with Prime Minister Sharon. The latter knows that the moment his very right-wing coalition partners will leave his government, Mr. Peres and colleagues will be there to take their seats. But it’s not only Peres. After all, the Labor Party called him back to lead it until the end of next year, because it couldn’t find anybody more suitable. And Labor wasn’t exactly a paragon of ideological integrity and political competence when it was in power.
Of course, Avraham Burg himself isn’t above suspicion of politicking. Nor does his record suggest impeccable judgment and Ben Gurion-style leadership, which the country so desperately needs and which he implicitly advocates, perhaps even with a touch of megalomania. Nevertheless, his challenge to us all to choose between the present situation that takes us into a potential abyss and a return to Zionist values that offers hope must be taken seriously: Israel’s friends abroad – Jewish and non-Jewish alike, presidents and prime ministers, rabbis and lay people – should choose as well. They must reach out and help Israel to navigate toward our national destiny as a light unto the nations and a society of peace, justice and equality.
For obvious reasons I take Burg’s appeal to rabbis to heart and note with sadness that, by and large, it’s not being heeded. Most colleagues I know, or know of, either withdraw from the debate into quibbles about ritual and fantasies about “spirituality,” or they use their pulpits for the most rabid endorsements of Israeli (and American) excesses.
Now as long as that remains the norm, not only Zionism but also Judaism, at least in its liberal sense in which I’ve been reared, is doomed. We cannot allow that to happen. Jerusalem, March 31, 2004
Rabbi Dow Marmur
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