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Last update - 16:01 13/07/2009
This is what is wrong with a Jewish state
By Bradley Burston
Tags: Israel News, Bradley Burston 

Click here for more articles by Bradley Burston

JAFFA - Why was this Fourth of July different from all other independence days?

What the world has seen over the past 12 months is a re-definition of patriotism. It derives from a central lesson of the Obama campaign, the Obama victory, and, so far, of the Obama presidency: In true love of country, there is no room for hatred.

Perhaps this is what is so crushing, so profoundly depressing, about the people who have of late taken to redefining patriotism in Israel.

There is no little irony in the circumstance that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu chose Palestinian recognition of Israel as "the national state of the Jewish People" as a central tool in efforts to stave off peace talks and deflect demands for a settlement freeze.

Never, thanks to his government, has the concept of a Jewish state looked worse.

The undercurrent of racism in this year's election campaign was a clear warning. Overtly anti-Israeli Arab legislation and bills aimed at curbing Arab freedom of expression have soiled the concept of a Jewish state to a nadir that Israel's worst, most energetic enemies have never managed to approach.

The outpouring of hatred has since become an equal-opportunity sewer. Radical settlers and immigrants from the former Soviet Union have voiced unabashed, despicable racist attitudes toward a black president of the United States.

Inevitably, fellow Jews in Israel have become targets of the hatred as well. In Jerusalem, Jews who presume to be among the most devout of all adherents to Judaism, think nothing of attacking fellow Jews on the Sabbath with cinder blocks and glass bottles, all in protest over the opening of a parking lot.


Rabbis in the West Bank give Israel's enemies new ammunition week to week, by condoning killings of Palestinians.

And, in a reference to Israeli Arabs, ultra-Orthodox Housing Minister Ariel Atias this month chose the Bar Association, of all venues, to declare that he saw it as "a national duty to prevent the spread of a population that, to say the least, does not love the state of Israel." He went on to explicitly argue for segregation, not only between Jews and Arabs, but between ultra-Orthodox and secular Jews.

Whether all this is done in the service of patriotism or in the service of Jewish tradition, its effect is disservice to both.

Jewish tradition offers its adherents the widest range of choices, from an almost superhuman level of compassion and lovingkindness, to Old Testament admonishments to genocide.

It's up to the individual Jew to choose. And up to the Jewish state.

It's up to a Jewish state to find a way to oppose a Hamas government without resorting to blocking shipments of humanitarian supplies to more than a million innocent people, or arresting peace activists , among them a former U.S. congresswoman and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate trying to bring those supplies to Gaza.

It's up to a Jewish state to recognize when a policy of collective punishment is self-defeating as well as immoral, and to call a halt.

It's up to this Jewish state to redefine patriotism.

Love of country is, at heart, trust in a nation's people, faith in their better nature, esteem for their best hopes, understanding for the magnificence and the distinctiveness and the huge, infinitely shaded cultural palette of their simple humanity. Hatred has no place in this equation.

The choices here are never easy. The kinds of sacrifices which will be necessary to forge a peace with the Palestinians will come at the direct expense of many of the most fervent - if also most recent - ideologies of Orthodox Jewry, beginning with the imperative to settle the West Bank and oppose peacemaking.

The kinds of tolerance and policies which will be needed to deal fairly and humanely with refugees from Africa and with other non-Jews seeking a life in Israel will be difficult to enact and implement.

Yet we cannot call ourselves a moral Jewish state and countenance a situation in which, as in a Sunday edition of the newspaper, a picture of a refugee African boy protesting in Tel Aviv against threatened mass deportations, is placed directly atop an ad welcoming Jewish immigrants from southern Africa and wishing them "a smooth absorption in Israel, your new home."

The election of an African-American to the highest office of the nation which best embodied human equality - and for much too long, rebuffed it - is the kind of impossibility which takes minds and souls and forever alters them.

What sort of impossibility will it take for the Jewish state to place prophetically based compassion over rabbinically sanctioned boorishness and superiority to all those not exactly like us?

Hatred has no place in a Jewish state. And a Jewish state which sanctifies intolerance in the name of tradition or patriotism, will inevitably prove unwelcome not only to non-Jews, but to the Jewish People as well.

____________________


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  1.   Absurd....I hate noone 15:02  |  Jewish State 06/07/09
  2.   The state of the Jewish state 15:21  |  WHG 06/07/09
  3.   What is this nonsense about? 15:25  |  Gene 06/07/09
  4.   Cutie Burston ,you`d never dare to demand Dafur refugees to US 15:29  |  Absolute Sweden 06/07/09
  5.   In a true democracy 15:32  |  Rod 06/07/09
  6.   Bradley you are right 15:34  |  Taly 06/07/09
  7.   No Mention of Creating 100`sK of Palestinian Refugees Wrong! 15:35  |  Monitor 06/07/09
  8.   A Jewish state is what`s wrong 15:39  |  Giora Me`ir 06/07/09
  9.   excellent 16:05  |  Seth 06/07/09
  10.   This is what is wrong with a Jewsih State 16:19  |  Yosef Leibowitz 06/07/09
  11.   Nationalism is that Elephant Bradley 16:20  |  David D 06/07/09
  12.   Inconsistencies 16:20  |  Confused 06/07/09
  13.   McKinney & Maguire devalued credentials 16:29  |  Aharon 06/07/09
  14.   AND AMERICA? 16:40  |  COOCOOCOOCOO 06/07/09
  15.   The problem dear Gene .. 17:18  |  Chanalau, Tova 06/07/09
  16.   Burston-you are the speaker of truth 17:30  |  American 06/07/09
  17.   This Is It! This Means Something! 17:51  |  Yosemite 06/07/09
  18.   Bradley, I don`t always agree with you 17:58  |  Lisa in Chicago 06/07/09
  19.   This started with the Israeli Left 17:59  |  Alison 06/07/09
  20.   Yes, there is cognitive dissonance in juxtaposing a picture of 18:02  |  Diane Mason 06/07/09
  21.   The meassure how good or bad a country is, lies in how 18:08  |  Kris Lazar 06/07/09
  22.   Israel, a work in progress 18:27  |  Witness 06/07/09
  23.   Great article 18:34  |  Dave Duncan 06/07/09
  24.   True speak! 18:43  |  robk 06/07/09
  25.   Another Prescient Article 18:46  |  MB 06/07/09
  26.   A good article but... 18:46  |  Welshman 06/07/09
  27.   This is what is wrong with a Jewish State 19:21  |  Il 06/07/09
  28.   Jewish State 19:28  |  Phillip Cohen 06/07/09
  29.   Number 16 "II" 19:53  |  Yaakov 06/07/09
  30.   Israel as a Jewish State 20:09  |  Sam barsam 06/07/09
  31.   Israel IS a Jewish state, always and forever. Jordan IS Palestin 20:17  |  David 06/07/09
  32.   Racist, nationalist undercurrent 20:21  |  David 06/07/09
  33.   Jewish state 20:46  |  Mitch Cohen 06/07/09
  34.   "Jewish state" needs to be defined. 20:46  |  Shalom 06/07/09
  35.   To Yosef #10 20:47  |  Canderra 06/07/09
  36.   "Even the brightest angel fell!" 21:02  |  ameneyman 06/07/09
  37.   hey bradley, excatly where is jaffa you are reporting from? 21:13  |  jonathan 06/07/09
  38.   everyone saw this comeing. 21:32  |  billy jack 06/07/09
  39.   what happend to Israel? 22:37  |  Tony Silver 06/07/09
  40.   "This is what is wrong with a Jewish state". 23:02  |  Akram Zekaria 06/07/09
  41.   A state like any other 23:16  |  RfaelMoshe 06/07/09
  42.   good article 23:56  |  Arab 06/07/09
  43.   Boker Tov Eliyahu 01:23  |  Sydney 07/07/09
  44.   Morality is out of fashion 02:31  |  Mark Lincoln 07/07/09
  45.   What is wrong with the Jewish state 02:42  |  BruceM 07/07/09
  46.   What is the content of the "Jewish State"? 03:00  |  CHM 07/07/09
  47.   I`m outta here 03:08  |  DavidSanders 07/07/09
  48.   I can`t wait till liberals all die off 03:20  |  DaveTheCanuckiRepub 07/07/09
  49.   Play for keeps 04:02  |  Zac 07/07/09
  50.   What`s wrong with an all-jewish state ? 04:23  |  Feuldeon 07/07/09
  51.   It has already happened DaveTheCanukiRepub 04:48  |  Mark Lincoln 07/07/09
  52.   Not in my name: I don`t hate anybody. 05:17  |  Fortuna Benmayor 07/07/09
  53.   SOUR GRAPES 05:23  |  Steve of Mevaserret 07/07/09
  54.   A metaphor of two Jewish states 05:40  |  allang 07/07/09
  55.   It`s no longer a "Jewish" state. 05:57  |  MIKE 07/07/09
  56.   RE: 37 08:13  |  Eli Wapniarski 07/07/09
  57.   Is there anything wrong with 23 Arab Islamic states? 09:07  |  Hastaroth 07/07/09
  58.   Amen 09:40  |  shtarka 07/07/09
  59.   Thanks for courage to speak truth! 10:12  |  HS 07/07/09
  60.   #41, David Sanders 10:18  |  Cipora Julianna Kohn 07/07/09
  61.   MONITOR How about a million Jews driven from Arab lands 10:19  |  PETER SM 07/07/09
  62.   CHANALAU Problem is noisemakers rusted onto an Israeli website 10:23  |  PETER SM 07/07/09
  63.   Unfair and unbalanced 10:37  |  Shalom Freedman 07/07/09
  64.   A metaphor of two Jewish states 10:41  |  allang 07/07/09
  65.   " Hatred has no place in a Jewish state " 10:58  |  Atilla Karagözoğlu 07/07/09
  66.   Obama`s America 11:01  |  Dan Zwieg 07/07/09
  67.   Israel defines itself by attitude to the `other` 11:08  |  Roo 07/07/09
  68.   ROO attitude to the other.Numerous attempts at peace rejected 11:26  |  PETER SM 07/07/09
  69.   bradley and far too much self examination 11:43  |  vhardman 07/07/09
  70.   PETER SM needs to join a reading circle 11:54  |  Roo 07/07/09
  71.   Religion and race are Jews` downfall. 12:13  |  Michael 07/07/09
  72.   #60 michael as usual with total crap!! 13:27  |  v hardman 07/07/09
  73.   ROO actually "noble savages" are a Brit. fantasy about Arabs 13:39  |  PETER SM 07/07/09
  74.   62 Vicky Hard of Hearing 14:35  |  Michael 07/07/09
  75.   question 14:55  |  patriot 07/07/09
  76.   preachers and judges 15:09  |  patriot 07/07/09
  77.   Much Racism Everywhere Including Israel 15:16  |  Jane 07/07/09
  78.   Racism in Israel 2 15:25  |  Jane 07/07/09
  79.   And BTW - Who Were the Most Ardent US Civil Rights Supporters? 15:45  |  Jane 07/07/09
  80.   They were not Peter 16:27  |  Marilyn 07/07/09
  81.   the same everywhere 17:12  |  oz 07/07/09
  82.   Jane #79 Those Jews... 18:23  |  Roo 07/07/09
  83.   Israel 18:24  |  Madonna 07/07/09
  84.   There is nothing wrong with a Jewish state 18:29  |  Mark B. 07/07/09
  85.   Deciption and cover ups lead to confusion! 19:45  |  Meyer Zeivi 07/07/09
  86.   Wrong path for Jews! 20:44  |  Monir 07/07/09
  87.   its not racism its anti liberal & personality clashes 21:10  |  zionist fovever 07/07/09
  88.   fear,hate,mistrust=evil 22:09  |  oz 07/07/09
  89.   Monir 22:18  |  patriot 07/07/09
  90.   A huge bribe Marilyn 23:05  |  Zelkha 07/07/09
  91.   #80 the remarkable marilyn and first hand history 23:17  |  v hardman 07/07/09
  92.   86 00:55  |  zionist fovever 08/07/09
  93.   Roo to Jane #82: some of those assertions need a little balancing 01:14  |  ivo 08/07/09
  94.   Roo - Not All Israelis are as you describe 02:43  |  Jane 08/07/09
  95.   Mr. Burston... 03:35  |  Heather Czerniak 08/07/09
  96.   To # 3 you ask what is the problem ? read on 03:36  |  justis 08/07/09
  97.   The Jewish State 03:39  |  Yosemite 08/07/09
  98.   For David Sanders # 47 who mentions me. 04:03  |  Fortuna Benmayor 08/07/09
  99.   Problem is need for Jewish self-determination vs. democracy 04:13  |  Lee 08/07/09
  100.   One solution: A federation 04:24  |  Lee 08/07/09
  101.   I agree 04:57  |  Justin White 08/07/09
  102.   # 61 Peter SM 05:03  |  maoriboy 08/07/09
  103.   Jane - racism and it`s nature 05:23  |  Mark Lincoln 08/07/09
  104.   Mr. Burston....good job, you may be interested 05:44  |  Lynn 08/07/09
  105.   What is wrong? I know whats wrong 06:02  |  D. Hussey 08/07/09
  106.   Temple Mount 06:04  |  Richard 08/07/09
  107.   The truth hurts Bradley? 06:31  |  AA 08/07/09
  108.   to #3 08:30  |  johnnie 08/07/09
  109.   The Situation 08:42  |  Brendan 08/07/09
  110.   The Situation 08:42  |  Brendan 08/07/09
  111.   All states based on religion 09:44  |  Chris Linthwaite 08/07/09
  112.   Bradley Burston`s contribution 11:17  |  Marie Mirabeau 08/07/09
  113.   #VHardmanPaulHarris. The real crap... 12:00  |  Maureen Ann 08/07/09
  114.   good attempt 12:04  |  K L 08/07/09
  115.   treatment 12:16  |  danish 08/07/09
  116.   Maureen Ann - reality bites again 12:18  |  Zelkha 08/07/09
  117.   religion and politic 12:36  |  patriot 08/07/09
  118.   Hi Mark Lincoln 14:28  |  Jane 08/07/09
  119.   Danish We loved our Danish volunteers! Also, about schools 14:35  |  Jane 08/07/09
  120.   Chris - All Staes Based on Religion 14:49  |  Jane 08/07/09
  121.   Double standard 15:45  |  NS 08/07/09
  122.   Dear Mark Lincoln 16:23  |  Arik 08/07/09
  123.   ivo 16:46  |  Roo 08/07/09
  124.   Chris Linthwaite #106: that`s an elementary mistake by degrees - 16:58  |  ivo 08/07/09
  125.   The Russian Mafia? 17:41  |  Anonymous 08/07/09
  126.   ivo 18:26  |  Roo 08/07/09
  127.   #63 Just a bitter joke from a german jew 18:56  |  Ardi 08/07/09
  128.   113 19:58  |  zionist forever 08/07/09
  129.   113 19:58  |  zionist forever 08/07/09
  130.   Nobel "Peace" prize laureate 20:27  |  TK 08/07/09
  131.   Why does Israel want everyone to recognize it 20:36  |  Palestinian Prince 08/07/09
  132.   federation is a fancy word for single binational state 20:48  |  95 08/07/09
  133.   He`s right 05:02  |  JLessard 09/07/09
  134.   DENIAL OF JEWISH NATIONALITY 05:55  |  Steve of Mevaserret 09/07/09
  135.   Roo, take the hint about Tosefta as a compliment, if you like - 00:57  |  ivo 10/07/09
  136.   A one-colored state will never survive. 02:09  |  Wade 10/07/09
  137.   To David 21:15  |  Ahmed 10/07/09
  138.   Wade, better 1st learn something about what you`re talking about 02:28  |  ivo 11/07/09
  139.   Chris Linthwaite #111 Build a Straw Man Then Knock It Down 01:33  |  Tim R 12/07/09
  140.   Exactly! 03:42  |  Henrique 12/07/09
  141.   Thanks 09:54  |  Don`t want to say 12/07/09
  142.   BB`s Title: "This is what is wrong with a Jewish state " 11:00  |  Tim R 13/07/09
  143.   this is indeed what is wrong with a jewish state 20:28  |  G. Tarjan 13/07/09
  144.   G. Tarjan #143 23:20  |  Tim R 13/07/09
  145.   G. Tarjan #143 11:49  |  Tim R 14/07/09
  146.   Overlooked facts 12:56  |  US CITIZEN 14/07/09
  147.   #120 Jane 20:59  |  BDS 14/07/09
  148.   This is what is wrong.. Tim R. 11:57  |  G. Tarjan 15/07/09
  149.   The Need for US support is Wrong 16:06  |  michel 15/07/09
  150.   This is what is wrong with teh jewish State 18:53  |  YAMILE MITRANI MS 15/07/09
  151.   G.Tarjan #148 Paranoia? 00:05  |  Tim R 16/07/09
  152.   G. Tarjan #148 More On Paranoia - 2nd Try 23:59  |  Tim R 17/07/09
  153.   nationalism is that elephant Bradley 16:56  |  Bobby Sands 22/07/09
  154.   Bobby Sands #153 Some Nationalisms Are More Equal Than Others? 02:32  |  Tim R 24/07/09
  155.   Well said Bradley 19:40  |  Michel 01/08/09
  156.   steve 134 23:58  |  potobac 08/08/09
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