Privy to the Obvious
by Dr. Jerome S. Kaufman
Jul 14, ‘03 / 14 Tammuz 5763
Some of us had the good fortune recently to listen to a highly placed, extremely intelligent, honest, patriotic Israel political figure analyzing the current situation. The interview was supposedly off the record, but, in fact, nothing the official said had not been said by him publicly on many previous occasions. And it all made painful sense.
He spoke of how, over the centuries, Zionists, some religious, some secular, had dedicated their lives to the re-establishment of a Jewish State: a state for the Jewish people; a state to replace the one that had existed prior to the defeat of the Jews by the Romans in 70CE and 135CE. The new state was to finally correct the forced removal of the Jews from their G-d-given land. Zionists wished to end the two thousand years of exile that had resulted in thousands, then millions of atrocities, pogroms, deaths and finally Hitler’s Holocaust, ably assisted by his many European “Willing Executioners.”
The Israeli politician spoke of the original three clear-cut goals of Zionism:
1. The Jewish Homeland was to be a place where Jews were safe from the wanton killings that occurred only because of their Jewish identity.
2. It was their hope that once again having a State would gain Jews legitimacy in the world. It was perhaps naively rationalized that the Jews were hated because they had become a stateless, vagabond people with no international standing.
3. A state would be created where Jews were the recognized majority and thus the natural problems that occur with minority status would automatically disappear.
Then, there were the dedicated Zionists that took their religion seriously and had another caveat in mind. They aspired to the re-born land being a Jewish state wherein the Jewish religion in all its tradition would be respected, acknowledged and diligently practiced by the far greater portion of the population. It would be the Jewish state that G-d had ordained and in which his commandments were to be fulfilled.
The Israeli politician accurately pointed out that none of the above has come to pass. Even taking on all the trappings of a secular, democratic, virtually G-dless state, in an apparent attempt to appease the Gentiles of the world, had not helped. The hatred, somehow euphemistically designated as anti-Semitism, continued and even flourished regardless of this self-effacement.
Further complicating the tragedy, in the eyes of the spokesman, was the fact that Israeli leaders refused to acknowledge these basic failings and completely ignored any attempt to re-direct national goals accordingly. Rather, they took the path of least resistance – weakly applying band-aides responding to mindless public opinion polls.
As to the current state of affairs: The Israeli speaker was honest enough to blame his own people for the latest awful Roadmap as an even more destructive continuation of the Oslo Process. He dispelled as false the notion that it was genuine pressure from the Bush administration that put Israel on this path. Rather, he blamed Israel’s present circumstances on the weakness of the leadership of Ariel Sharon, the weakness of the many leaders of both parties that preceded him and the overall lack of national resolve in a large percentage of the Israeli public.
What was his sad conclusion? As a former Israeli general, his lifelong experience has been that poor leadership and national weakness can only result in the enhancement of the strength and resolve of one’s enemies. Tragically, this can only result in the ultimate defeat of the Jewish State and the subjugation and dispersal once again of the Jewish people. Israel’s vaunted military power will have nothing whatever to do with the final outcome. It will have no bearing whatever if there is a lack of genuine will of the people to survive as a Jewish nation.
Unfortunately, it is the Arabs that have become the Zionists of Israel. They have become the zealots. Israel’s so-called zealots, the settlers, that have had the courage to try and hold the line against the Arab invasion, have been maligned and weakened by their own people. Under these circumstances, there is little doubt that it will be Arab zealotry that prevails. It will be Palestine and not Israel that will extend from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. It will be the Jews that pathetically bemoan their self-administered fate and it will be the Jews that have another sad event to memorialize on the ninth of Av.
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Jerome S. Kaufman is National Secretary of the Zionist Organization of America.