From the Art of Marcus Gray

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Talking about Athens and Jerusalem by Gilad Atzmon

Talking about Athens and Jerusalem in Athens by Gilad Atzmon

Wednesday, May 19, 2010 at 10:21PM
Gilad Atzmon in Analysis, Ideology, Jewish Power, Jewishness, Philosophy, Zionism, identity

On the eve of the Gaza Flotilla Mission. A talk given in Kyttaro Athens 19.5.10 

• There is often a noticeable discrepancy between what one claims to be and what one actually is.

• Hegel taught us that our self-perception is a fragile and evolving amalgam of the way we like to see ourselves  and the way we are mirrored by others.

• I, for instance, tend to regard myself as a Jazz saxophonist.  My self-image is inherently dependent on the willingness of others to listen to me and to buy my music. My vision of myself as a writer is again subject to other people’s reactions to my thoughts and ideas. It seems that man is not exactly an island. We live amongst others and are shaped by a process of mirroring.

• In terms of Jewish history, we can detect a real dilemma here concerning this mirroring.  As much as Jews tend to regard themselves (traditionally) as a chosen people, they have been largely confused by other people’s dismissal of their ‘greatness’.

• Zionism intended to amend this dilemma. It promised to reinvent the Jew as a proud authentic, ethical, universal, productive, organic, humble and civilised human being.

• If Athens stands for universalism and inclusive ideologies and Jerusalem stands for tribal and exclusive thinking, Zionism was a promise to introduce Athens to the Jerusalemite.

• The Zionist Jew was supposed to eventually look into the mirror with pride.

• Zionism may have been, at one stage, a genuine attempt to bring this about. However, it was doomed to fail. It was set into a conflict with the indigenous Palestinian population. It was inspired by Biblical plunderous ideology. It was unethical to the bone. Zionism is, practically speaking, a repetition of a Biblical sin.

• As much as the Israelis insisted on presenting themselves as moral beings celebrating their national revival project, millions of uprooted Palestinians were there to remind us all that the  notion of an ethical ‘new Zionist Jew’ was mere spin.

• As much as we can recall seeing white phosphorous pouring over UN shelters, as much as we witnessed babies being slaughtered, as much as we continue to witness Gaza transformed into the biggest jail in the history of humanity, the Israelis also see it all by themselves. But far more concerning for them is the fact that they see themselves being watched by the rest of us.

• They see themselves mirrored as modern day evil by our gaze.

• Lacan teaches us that ‘unconsciousness is the discourse of the other’. Unconsciousness is the fear of becoming the subject of a public discourse. From a Lacanian perspective, the fear of impotence should be realised as the threat of being established as ‘sexually malfunctioning’ instead of just failing in bed.

• Similarly, the Israeli collective unconsciousness can be grasped as the fear of being perceived as a collective murderous society rather than the obvious concern about being involved in the murderous act itself.

• This fear has matured along the years into a unique form of Israeli collective neurosis. In fact, when Zionists blame you for being an anti Semite, they basically express a deep unease with the fact that you have managed to see through them.

• As things stand, the discrepancy between ‘what the Israeli claims to be’ and ‘what the Israeli happens to be for real’ has already grown into an unbridgeable abyss.

• Consequently, the gap between Athens and Jerusalem is more noticeable than ever.

• Since 1948, the Israelis and Zionist insisted on portraying Israel as nation amongst nations. However, after the 2006 Lebanon campaign and the 2009 Gaza massacre, such an effort is in vain.

• The deceptive attempt to portray the Jewish state as an ordinary society is doomed to fail.

• The current, hawkish Israeli government is fully aware of all this. They know about the unbridgeable gap between Athens and Jerusalem. They are familiar with the unavoidable neurosis, but they also know how to resolve it. As we can see, Israel has given up on Athens.

• Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman does realise that for Israel to survive as the ‘Jews only state’, the demographic threat posed by Palestinians must be resolved once and for all.

• Israel is preparing itself for a second Nakba. For those who do not realise, the ethnic cleansing currently taking place in Jerusalem is part of this sinister program. Israel also insists on maintaining its status as the region’s only nuclear power. It is willing to take the risk of an attack on Iran.

• As we have known for more than a while, Israel is the biggest threat to world peace.

• Israel also realises that it won’t be able to fulfil its missions with American support.

• Israel is willing to, at least momentarily, run into conflict with the entire West.

• In political terms, Israel’s behaviour is totally unpredictable.

• The history of Western civilisation can be realised as a continuous battle between Athens and Jerusalem. Between the universal and the tribal. Between the ethical and the plunderer.

• Our assets known as humanism are all associated with Athens. Interestingly enough, the Jews who contributed to humanism, such as Jesus, Spinoza and Marx  and many others, were people who opened their hearts to the Athenian philosophy. Jesus, Spinoza and  Marx broke away from Jerusalem.

• To stand up against Israel is to fight against the invasion of Jerusalem. To stand up against Israel is to fight for the revival of Athens. Bearing all this in mind, it is not that surprising to find the Greek people at the forefront of the Palestinian solidarity movement. 

• Accordingly, the coming Gaza Flotilla Mission is not just a humanitarian mission. It is actually there to remind us of what humanism is all about. It is there to remind us of what Athens stands for.

Article originally appeared on Gilad Atzmon (http://www.gilad.co.uk/).

THE TRAGIC DAY OF AL-NAKBA

THE TRAGIC DAY OF AL-NAKBA MAY 15, 2010 LONDON

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THE TRAGIC DAY OF AL-NAKBA A Statement of Solidarity with the Palestinian people for Al-Nakba Commemorations By: Neturei Karta International, Jews United Against Zionism May 15 – London May the Creator’s blessings be upon you, our dear brethren, the long suffering Palestinian people. We, of Neturei Karta International, salute you from Jerusalem, New York, London and around the world. As many of you already know the Zionist movement has been opposed by observant Orthodox Jews from its inception. Zionism’s first advocates were atheists, men who rejected and betrayed their own Jewish faith. Orthodox Jews have always believed that it is a Divine decree that the Jewish people are to remain in exile as loyal citizens to their host nations until the Almighty will choose to redeem all of mankind. Thus, it matters naught to us if the Zionist state be religious or secular, whether it be of the right or of the left. Whatever form it should adopt, Torah True Jewry throughout the world including in the Holy Land itself, will never recognize its existence. A large number of Jews who live in the Holy Land refuse to accept any government monies and do not participate in the electoral process, and of course reject to serve in the occupying military forces. Further we see the ongoing oppression and humiliation for decades of the Palestinian people, especially what is happening recently through it’s criminal leaders as a monstrous evil. The Torah calls upon us to deal justly with all People. The Torah calls upon us to exhibit kindness and loyalty to all, especially with the people of the lands in which we reside throughout our exile. Thus, it is inevitably the true Jewish position to sympathize with the plight of the persecuted and the downtrodden. It is unthinkable to us that the Jewish people should ever appear as the bully, the persecutor or the dispossessor. And, in fact, it is only those Zionist Jews estranged from their own true faith and confused by the incessant propaganda of the last 62 years who are responsible for the current suffering. Throughout the world there are untold numbers of believing Jews who are horrified by the Zionists criminal and racist treatment of the Palestinians. These Jews regard Israeli Independence Day as one of the greatest tragedies in Jewish history. Many fast and recite special prayers on that day.  Even though the Zionist propaganda machine portrays to the world that they are representing the Jewish people as a whole, thank G-D true believing Jews succeeded on numerous occasions to remove the mask, the cover-up of this unthinkable falsification. Recently a delegation of Neturei Karta international visited the besiege Gaza, as a part of the Viva Palastina convoy, headed by H.E. the honorable MP Gorge Galloway, to deliver medical aid and to convey the message of solidarity with the suffering people of Gaza, from many Jewish communities worldwide.  We seek the return of all the land, of course including Al-Quds, to Palestinian rule.  We seek the return of all Palestinian refugees to their rightful land.  We seek the immediate cessation of Israeli settlements expansion. We seek the immediate dismantling of the apartheid wall. And finally, we seek the immediate speedy and peaceful dismantlement of the entire Zionist State. We seek to live in the land of Palestine as anti Zionist Jews. To reside as loyal and peaceful Palestinian citizens, in peace and harmony with our Muslim Brethren. Just as our ancestors lived in Palestine for centuries, before the usurpations of this tragic century. May the Creator grant that this memorial day of Nakba should be the last one, the current occupying State should end speedily and peacefully in our days, and again the Jew and Muslim may yet live joyfully in harmony and peace under Palestinian sovereignty throughout the Holy Land. May we merit in the near future, to the day when all humankind will recognize and serve the One G-D together in harmony, AMAN. Neturei Karta International. www.nkuk.org

NETUREI KARTA-PROTEST AGAINST THE ZIONIST ORGANIZATION "NEFESH B'NEFESH"

PROTEST AGAINST THE ZIONIST ORGANIZATION "NEFESH B'NEFESH" JANUARY 19, 2010 MANCHESTER, ENGLAND

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DEMONSTRATION DESPITE THREATS & INTIMIDATION Manchester, England January 18, 2010 The Zionist so-called "Jewish Agency" has been active for past decades bringing masses of immigrants to their "state of Israel" with the purpose of creating a Zionist majority within the land over the Palestinian population. Leading Orthodox Jewish Rabbis and communities throughout the world have opposed the Zionist philosophy, the existence of the "state of Israel " and the Zionist efforts to promote mass immigration. Since its inception the goal of Zionism has been to transform Judaism from a religion into a nationalism, void of Godliness. The work of the so-called "Jewish Agency" over the years has been to uproot religion from untold thousands of Jewish souls while promoting oppression against the indigenous Palestinian people. Besides this, the basic concept of Zionism is contrary to Judaism because Jews are in exile by a divine decree and are strictly forbidden to create a their own sovereign state.This would be forbidden even in an uninhabited land but when this was created in an inhabited land by oppressing and killing the indigenous population of Palestine it simply compounded the sin many fold. Recently, an organization called "Nefesh B'Nefesh", a branch the so-called "Jewish Agency", began making inroads into the Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods in the guise of honesty and holiness. Anti-Zionist Orthodox Jews worldwide are outraged when these activities are taking place within the Orthodox Jewish communities. Many Jewish communities have shown its strong opposition to these activities and managed to prevent these groups from infiltrating their Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods. Last week these activists scheduled an event in London. When the local Rabbis realized the essence of the scheduled event, they demanded of the owners of the venue that it be cancelled. Here in Manchester these agents scheduled another event for tomorrow, Tuesday, January 19, 2010 in one of the local Jewish Synagogues. Once the Rabbi of the Synagogue learned what this was about he demanded the event be cancelled. Despite many threats of financial and legal retaliation the board remained strong in their decision. With no shame the agents decided not to respect the Rabbis decision and to hold their event on the streets outside the Synagogue. Despite past personal attacks against anti-Zionist Rabbis and layman, and in the face of the tremendous threats and intimidation the anti-Zionist Orthodox Jews will nevertheless gather in protest of this shameful event.

NETUREI KARTA-SUPPORT TO ISRAEL IS NO FAVOR TO THE JEWISH PEOPLE

SUPPORT TO ISRAEL IS NO FAVOR TO THE JEWISH PEOPLE JANUARY 18, 2010 BERLIN, GERMANY

Support to Israel is no favor to Jewish People Jewish Rabbis to protest Israeli government visit to Berlin Berlin, Germany - January 17, 2010 In regards to the upcoming visit of the government of Israel to the government of Germany tomorrow, January 18, 2010 to negotiate the acquisition of weapons and armament, Mr. Reuven Cabelman, an anti Zionist Orthodox Jewish activist, said last night in a meeting, that: "with all due respect to the German Government for their willingness to help Jews, still Jewish Orthodox Rabbis worldwide find it important to clarify that help or assistance for Israel is no favor for Jews, but a tragedy for the Jewish people and for the Jewish Religion”. Cabelman stated that: "The Zionist movement attempts to transform Judaism from a religion into base nationalism void of faith in the Almighty." He explained: "According to Jewish religion Jews are presently in a divinely decreed exile since the destruction of the second Temple some 2000 years ago and are strictly forbidden to create their own sovereign national country.  This would be forbidden even in an uninhabited land, but when this happens in an inhabited land by oppressing, murdering, and stealing from its indigenous inhabitants, this compounds the crime many times over.” He added: "Orthodox Jews true to the Torah worldwide are deeply pained when Israel uses weapons of destruction against innocent civilians, men, women and children.  To commit there crimes in name of the Jewish people and in the name of the Jewish religion is even more painful.” Mr. Cabelman continued to explain that: "Jews lived for generations in peace and harmony in Muslim lands, including Palestine.  Jews are thankful for that.  The current conflict only began close to 100 years ago, with the establishment of the relatively new Zionist philosophy.  Helping Israel, unfortunately, exacerbates the conflict and promotes anti-Semitism worldwide, which is certainly not a favor for Jews.” "Therefore”, he announced that „Orthodox Rabbis representing Jewish communities worldwide will participate in a demonstration in front of the government buildings in Berlin, Germany to express the Jewish sorrow against the Zionist heretic criminals and to clarify that the state of Israel does not represent the Jewish people and certainly not the Jewish religion.” He concluded by expressing that: "We hope and pray to the Almighty for the speedy and peaceful dismantlement of the entire state of Israel when at that time Jews will once again be able to coexist with their Arab neighbors under a one Palestinian government over the entire land as we lived for centuries prior to Zionism." The demonstration will take place on: Date: Monday, January 18, 2010 Time:  1pm – 3pm [13h to 15h] Place: Molwitzbrücke, opposite of the chancellor office, near the Swiss embassy. For more information go to English – German, or visit www.nkusa.org About Neturei Karta International: - END – UNTERSTUETZUNG „ISRAELS” IST KEIN VORTEIL FUER DAS JUEDISCHE VOLK! Juedische orthodoxe Rabbis protestieren gegen Israel-Staatsbesuch in Berlin Zum Besuch des Israelischen Regierung am heutigen 18. Januar bei der Deutschen Bundesregierung um ueber Waffenlieferungen zu verhandeln, hat Herr Reuven Cabelman, anti-zionistischer Aktivist, gestern an einer Versammlung erklaert:             „Mit dem noetigen Respekt gegenueber der Deutschen Bundesregierung, welche dem Juedishen Volk mit den geplanten Waffenlieferungen helfen will, fuehlen wir aber fuer wichtig, als orthodoxe Juedische Rabbiner den Standpunkt der juedischen Religion zu erklaeren, dass Waffenlieferung an den Zionistischen Staat dem Volk Israel nicht hilft, sondern als Tragoedie fuer das Juedische Volk und die Juedische Religion zu betrachten ist.” Cabelman sagt: „Die Zionistische Bewegung ist seit ca. 100 Jahren dauernd damit beschaeftigt, dem Juedischen Volks ein neues Gesicht von „Nationalismus” und Sekularismus, hinwewg von Gott und seiner Thorah, aufzuzwingen.” Er erklaerte: „Laut der Juedischen Religion sind Juden derzeit in einem von Gott ueber sie vor ca. 2000 Jahren verhaengten Exil, wo sie verharren muessen, bis Er sie davon wieder erloest. – Es ist ihnen strengstens untersagt, einen eigenen Staat zu gruenden, nirgendwo auf der Welt, und schon gar nicht in Palaestina.” Er sagte weiter: „Es ist ein tiefer Schmerz fuer orthodoxe Juden, wenn Israel eigekaufte Waffen benuetzt um damit unschuldige Menschen, Frauen und Kinder umzubringen, und um den Raub des Landes Palaestina damit zu befestigen. Tragisch ist, dass sie dies alles im Namen der Juedischen Religion tun, was eine Faelschung ist.” Cabelman erklaert ferner: „Juden haben Generationen in Frieden und Harmonie in Muslimischen Laendern gelebt. – Der Konflikt begann erst seit ca. 100 Jahren mit der von den Zionisten begonnenen Besitznahme Palaestinas. Die Zionisen dabei zu unterstuetzen ist somit keine Hilfe fuer das Juedische Volk, sondern das Gegenteil hiervon.” „Deshalb”, erklaert Cabelman abschliessend, „nehmen heute in Berlin orthodoxe Rabbis als Vertreter Juedischer Gemeinden aus aller Welt an einer Demonstration gegen die Zionistischen kriminellen Heretiker und Voelkermoerder, und machen klar, dass diese in keiner Weise das Juedische Volk vertreten vertreten.” Er schloss mit den Worten: „Wir hoffen und beten fuer rasche friedliche und totale Aufloesung des Staates Israel, wenn endlich Juden wieder, in einem Palaestinensischen Staa, mit ihren Arabischen und Muslimischen Freunden wie ehedem in bester und friedlichen Nachbarschaft, zusammen leben werden.” http://www.nkusa.org/activities/Demonstrations/20100118.cfm

NETUREI KARTA ON THE MIDDLE-EAST PROBLEM

NETUREI KARTA HAS A SOLUTION  TO THE MIDDLE-EAST PROBLEM

The world has suffered for decades from the unsolvable "Middle East and Palestine issue". Why hasn't anyone managed to solve the problem yet? The root of the problem: The Palestinians want back the land that was robbed from them in 1948.The Israelis do not want to return it, claiming that it was "lawfully granted to them by the United Nations". The existence of a "Jewish State" is a historical mistake, and it is an injustice that increasing numbers of people are no longer willing to accept. The Zionist "government" has forfeited its right to exist. There is actually no longer a state, but only a "problem". An unsolvable Middle East problem, which threatens the entire world with destruction. The danger resulting from this problem may lead to the greatest catastrophe in human history, if we do not intervene. The problem can only be solved peacefully and permanently, in our opinion, through the following simple steps: 1) The State of "Israel" must be dissolved. The UN decision of 1947 to partition Palestine and create the State of Israel must be recognized as a mistake, and undone. 2) The Palestinian people must take full sovereignty over the entire land of Palestine. 3) Jews who already live in Palestine may remain in the country under Palestinian rule, and may request that the Palestinians grant them equal citizenship. 4) Implementation: The UN should prepare laws that regulate the execution of the above process so that it should be as equitable, humane and painless as possible. A sufficiently long time must be allotted for the process to take place. We have reached the point at which Jews and Arabs seem to have in common only their pent-up hatred against each other and longing for revenge. But they must try from now on to live together in mutual respect. *** This solution seems, at first glance, revolutionary, sensational, perhaps even utopian. But it is the only solution that affords a real prospect of success and a way out of this otherwise insolvable crisis.  All other "plans" and "solutions" lead nowhere. Let's look at the exceptional advantages that will be achieved by following the above plan: 1. The continuing threats posed to the world from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Iran's nuclear threat, Israel's nuclear threat, Israel's threat to bomb Iran and more will be removed from the world. 2. The oppression of the Palestinian people at the hands of the "State of Israel" will come to an end. Human dignity and livelihood will be restored to them once again. 3. The global threat of rising anti-Semitism, wanted and coldly calculated by the Zionists from their inception, will come to an end, since its main cause is the atrocities currently perpetrated by the Zionists against their Arab "subjects". 4. The astronomical sums spent by the U.S. and other countries each year to support and arm the Israeli state will become available for use to implement peace in the region. 5. Many countries, most notably the U.S., will become free from the powerful Zionist Lobby. These countries will be free to make their own decisions as to what best serves their interests, without having to depend on the goodwill and consent of the lobby. * * * The political background and motivation of this plan is simple, logical, and self-evident. But even from the religious Jewish perspective, this plan is logical and compelling. In fact, from this perspective no other solution is possible or conceivable. Consider the following remarks on religious Jewish thought: Religious Judaism and the Land of Israel Two thousand years ago, the Jews were sent into exile by God's decree, where they must remain until they are redeemed by God, as He has assured them through the prophets. The idea of a return to the country prematurely, without divine redemption, is wrong. In view of this, the Land of Israel belongs to those who have lived there for hundreds of years: the Palestinians. The idea of a premature return was first conceived of by the Zionists, who at the beginning were a small Godless group, completely rejected by mainstream Jewry. They forced their plan upon the Jewish world through years of political maneuvering. Their slogan was that the Jewish people would finally stop waiting for divine salvation. "It is now time to take our destiny into our own hands," they said. "We must forget our past; we must leave behind the Divine message and the ancient role of the Jewish people in the world. Israel, the people of the Bible, must be transformed into a secular nation." The majority of the Jewish people resisted this idea vehemently and wanted to know nothing of the Zionists' solution and their Zionist state. Thus Zionism went forward in the face of the strong opposition of the vast majority of Jews. Anti-Semitism and the Holocaust  The level of anti-Semitism in the world has now reached such proportions as we have known only in the years immediately before the outbreak of World War II. It is fueled by the Zionist atrocities against the Palestinian population. Eighty years ago, anti-Semitism was instigated and fanned by the Zionists. They cleverly organized defamation campaigns against the Jews of Europe, with the aim of causing the ground to burn under their feet, so that they should feel the need to flee and take refuge in the new "Jewish State ". It worked then, and it works again today. We look at today's Zionist activity in consternation, yet the Zionists tell the world that it is a duty and an honor to support their movement in any way. Whoever is negligent in this duty or, worse yet, exposes something about the Zionists, is branded an 'anti-Semite'. For this purpose, the Zionists have built a global lobby which, especially armed with the Holocaust card, is able to stifle any attempted criticism of Israel. How the "Israeli state" was Founded  After the great destruction of the Jews in Europe, the Jews were rootless and bleeding. For the most part, they succumbed to the thoughts and plans of the Zionists and willingly followed them into their so-called Promised Land. Only a small part, in particular the faithfully religious affiliated Jews, did not follow and have remained to this day bitter enemies of their idea and their state. The international community, out of compassion and a sense of duty, perhaps even a sense of guilt, agreed to the idea of a refuge and permanent homeland for the broken and uprooted Jewish people. For this the international community deserves recognition, praise and gratitude. The idea to use Palestine for this homeland seemed right and logical at the time, and was implemented in the historic UN decision of 1947. But this decision brought with it an equally historic injustice: the country was simply robbed from the Palestinian residents, who had been there over a thousand years. They abandoned their homes, and Jews settled there instead. The "State of Israel" was born! Wrongly. And wrongly, it is still standing today, after over 60 years. The Turning Point  The time has come when the "Zionist redemption" has suffered shipwreck, and the historical error of the Jewish people and the world community must be reversed. The former global enthusiasm about the creation of the "Jewish State" is no longer there. It has dissolved into thin air. The dream has become a nightmare. More and more people feel unease and opposition to the continued atrocities of the Zionist movement, today "the State of Israel." The truth - that "anti-Zionism" does not equal "anti-Semitism" - is beginning to surface. Zionism is not Judaism, and Judaism is not Zionism. On the contrary, the two concepts stand in stark contrast to each other! The Zionists, now in the dress of the "State of Israel", are not entitled to represent the Jewish people. Nobody has assigned them to this role; they have taken it on their own. Today, fewer and fewer people believe in this fiction. More and more people understand that the whole Middle East, thanks to the existence of the State of Israel, has become one big explosive powder keg, which can ignite at any time and plunge the entire world into the abyss. At the same time people are also beginning to understand, that by dissolving this State that does not belong in this region at all, the situation in the Middle East will finally stabilize. This solution should actually be undertaken by the Jews who live there themselves, once they understand that it is a sin to break loose from a divinely-imposed exile, and that the way to repent of that sin is to go back to living in exile. However, the Israeli population is far from coming to such a recognition. The majority of the population is firmly rooted in fanatically-held beliefs that they live in the utopia of "redemption", and that they have returned to the land of their fathers. Meanwhile, however, their state represents a quickly growing threat in its region of the world, threatening  to plunge the world into an inferno. * * * That our solution is, for the most part, "religiously motivated" is not surprising: Whether we want to admit it or not, the people of Israel since time immemorial have been the people of God and nothing else. We are not "a nation like all nations"; we have received our laws and life goals from God on Mount Sinai, and we have faithfully adhered to and always upheld them. That is, until about one hundred years, when the great catastrophe, the Zionist movement, arose with the aim of transforming the Jewish people into a nation like all nations. They said: "We have no connection with God, no connection with Sinai. But by staying strong, together, we will solve our problems ourselves! We will have one country, one state, one army, one language, and everything a country needs. " And that is unfortunately what they did. Today, after a hundred years of Zionism, we are facing a big mess. God has begun to show us that there is no escape from Him. The Zionists may have raised an insurrection against Him, but He will never accept it. He has been watching on the side for a long time, but it seems obvious that now He is manipulating world events to lead His people back to where He has always wanted it, and still wants it. Therefore, the solution to this problem is not only politically motivated, but also religiously motivated. Either it will be implemented by man, or by God himself. This solution can only come about if there is pressure from the outside. The world, especially the UN, the U.S. and the EU, have the duty and the power to carry it out. It is a political solution, but also a divine duty. Because, again, it is God who declares that the Zionist redemption of His people is not acceptable, and that His people must continue to live uninterrupted in exile, waiting for divine salvation. Redemption can only be left in the hands of the one God, and He will carry it out justly, according to His will. There is no other way to redeem the Jewish people. God will do exactly what He intends to do with His world. Israel will be redeemed by Him (not by the "State of Israel"), and the whole world will recognize God's kingdom. The "redemption" is not reserved only for the people of Israel. God will redeem all of mankind. Peace will prevail all over the world. Every nation, every country and everyone will recognize God's regime and live in everlasting peace and satisfaction. Now we are being given a unique, perhaps last chance to end the Zionist state on our own initiative, because if we do not, God will do it - the same God who sent His people into exile. He wants His people redeemed not by the Zionists but by Him alone, as He has repeatedly announced through the prophets. There is no getting around God's plan. Therefore, let us have the insight to put the solution into action under all circumstances. There is no time to lose! Neturei Karta International – www.nkusa.org – January 2010/Teves 5770

ORTHODOX JEWS PROTEST AGAINST ZIONIST GOVERNMENT-17 MAY 2010

ORTHODOX JEWS PROTEST AGAINST ZIONIST GOVERNMENT AND ITS DESTRUCTION OF A CEMETERY 17 MAY 2010 - NEW YORK, LONDON, MONTREAL

May 17, 2010 - New York Thousands of Orthodox Jews demonstrated yesterday May 17, 2010 in front of the Israeli embassies in New York City, Montreal and London, against the Zionist government's destruction of an ancient Jewish cemetery in the city of Ashkelon. The Zionist government has proceeded with plans to enlarge the Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon by destroying an ancient cemetery.  Thirty graves, identified by experts as Jewish graves from the Second Temple era, were evacuated by archaeologists. Beginning Saturday night, the government began bulldozing the entire lot, which certainly contains countless more graves. "According to the Torah, Jews are currently in exile and are not permitted to have a state of their own. Therefore, Orthodox Jews who believe in the Torah never took part in the Zionist movement and its state. This is the reason for the bitter irony that the state calling itself Jewish is run by people who deny all of Judaism's basic principles," said Rabbi Elchonon Beck, a spokesman for Neturei Karta International. "One of those principles is the immortality of the soul, its reward and punishment after death, and the eventual resurrection of body and soul together. That is why we are commanded to treat human remains with the greatest respect. It is forbidden to move bones, and it is an even greater offense to grind them in the blades of a tractor. We are appalled by the actions of the state calling itself Israel, which lacks the decency and respect for human dignity that most countries of the world practice." "Furthermore, there are Jewish cemeteries in other countries that are in danger of destruction. When we appeal to those governments to save our cemeteries, why should they listen when they see that the so-called Jewish state has no problem with destroying its cemeteries? "This wicked act is just another link in the chain of violence and murder perpetrated by the Zionists, against Orthodox Jews and Arabs alike, ever since their founding. The Zionists destroyed hundreds of Arab villages, stealing their land and expelling the inhabitants to neighboring lands. These refugees have already spent 62 years living in tents under wretched conditions. The Zionists also killed very many innocent people who stood in their way, and for 62 years running they have oppressed the Arab population living under their government. "The Zionists want to put an end to Jewish religious observance. They arrest religious Jews and keep them in prison, or use other brutal methods - even murder - against anyone who stands up against them. The fact that they desecrate that which is holy to Jews, and the fact that they treat Orthodox Jews brutally, is the greatest proof that 1) they do not represent the Torah; 2) they do not represent Orthodox Jews; 3) their goal is not the wellbeing of Jews, only their own political aspirations. They attempt to transform Judaism, a religious concept, into a nationalist concept, empty of Torah and dedication to the Almighty - which have always been the outstanding qualities of the Jewish people. After all this, they have the nerve to call themselves "Israel" and base their claims to the land on the Torah - they same Torah that they so proudly desecrate! "They use the Almighty's promise of the Holy Land, and at the same time they laugh in His face and violate His law. The Almighty commanded us to go into exile, and with three oaths forbade us to create our own country before the coming of the messiah, when the redemption of the world will take place and all mankind will willingly worship the One G-d. "Torah Jewry and all authentic rabbis of the world have fought against Zionism since its founding day. Torah Jews will never recognize Zionist sovereignty over the Holy Land. "Zionists arrogantly claim that they have created a safe haven for the Jewish people, but their actions have brought about just the opposite: through their provocations against the strongest countries of the world and their leaders, they have brought the Jewish people into terrible danger. They have aroused anti-Semitism on a new scale everywhere, especially among peoples who throughout history have been hospitable to the Jews. "True authentic Jews remain loyal to the Almighty and His Torah, and accept the decree of exile lovingly, knowing that it is for our own good. We are loyal to the governments under which we live, and we do not provoke them or do anything against their interest. "The only solution to the Middle East problem is the peaceful dismantlement of the Zionist state as soon as possible. The entire land must be given back to its original inhabitants, the Palestinians, and only then will Jews and Arabs be able to live side by side in peace under a Palestinian government, as they lived in peace together for many generations in all the Arab lands. May we merit the redemption through the messiah, soon in our days, amen." In the Holy Land, at least 30 Orthodox demonstrators were arrested late Saturday and Sunday as they protested the bulldozing of the construction site. Police tackled protesters who attempted to climb fences and stop work. Police also sprayed protestors with a type of gas, causing them to faint on the spot. Meanwhile, in Jerusalem, demonstrators blocked roads and set fire to garbage bins late Saturday night in anger at the Zionists' disrespect for human remains. Plans for the new wing of the hospital, which is to serve as an emergency room, have been in the making for more than three years. When the ancient graves were discovered, which experts identified by their shape and style as Jewish graves from the Second Temple era, Orthodox Jewish groups asked that the emergency room be built in a different place. Engineers proposed several alternative plans, none of which the government adopted. Yaakov Litzman, Deputy Minister of Health in the Zionist government, told Rabbi Dovid Shmidel, head of Asra Kadisha, an organization to save ancient cemeteries, that in reality the government cannot afford to build the emergency room. "They will probably not build it now in any case," he said. "They are only bulldozing the area in order to create facts on the ground and put the opposition of the religious community behind them." Aside from today's demonstration in Montreal, demonstrations were held at 2:00 PM yesterday and today in front of the Israeli Consulate in New York City. Other demonstrations were in London, England and Montreal, Quebec Canada

Are Israeli Policies Entrenching Anti-Semitism Worldwide?

Are Israeli Policies Entrenching Anti-Semitism Worldwide?

by Tony Klug

 http://www.tikkun.org/article.php/may2010klug

Even posing the question is painful, for after all the suffering anti-Semitism has caused the Jewish people over the centuries, the last thing we need or deserve is to have it become a permanent state of affairs. Nonetheless, the proposition that the State of Israel, which was conceived as a way of normalizing relations between Jews and all other peoples, might instead be normalizing anti-Semitism is not one we can simply close our eyes to in the forlorn hope that it will go away of its own accord.

I realize I may be stepping near the knuckle here. As Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest might have said, "To take on one controversial topic may be regarded as a misfortune; to combine two controversial topics looks like carelessness." However, to my mind, the two topics (Israeli policies and anti-Semitism) are not separate and unrelated but ineluctably converging—an inference I draw reluctantly from my forty years of engagement on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian divide. I believe that the danger signals are flashing and that it is important to be candid about these matters at these uncertain times. 

The Other Alleged Culprits

Our starting point—regrettably not a controversial one—is that there has been a disturbing rise of anti-Jewish sentiment around the world in recent years. Reports of this rise may occasionally be exaggerated or distorted, but they are not invented out of thin air. But why has this come about?

Some say it is the fault of extremist Muslims, or of large-scale Muslim immigration to Europe and other Western countries, or even of Islam itself and its holy book, the Qur'an. Others widen the net of fault to blame "spineless" Western governments and their smug, predominantly Christian populations who, they say, have always harbored anti-Semitic feelings anyway. Yet others accuse human rights groups of betraying their mission and developing—along with almost the entire NGO sector, the mass media, the trade unions, and the universities—an almost exclusive obsession about Israel, the "stand-in collective Jew."

Finally, there are the alleged "self-hating Jews"—Jews accused of being ashamed of their origins and of turning their backs on their people in order to ingratiate themselves to others. The accusation is facile and commonly offensive, as many Jews who are on its receiving end—a constantly expanding number, apparently—draw largely on such traditional Jewish values as justice, peace, truth, human dignity, and rightful treatment of the stranger ("for you were strangers in the land of Egypt") for their inspiration. These values—with which I am quite familiar as they were daily drilled into me at the orthodox Jewish school I attended between the ages of five and eighteen—are trashed virtually every time the "self-hating" accusation is leveled. In most cases, the accusation (whatever it is supposed to mean exactly) is made not because there is any basis for it, but because it meets the self-serving purpose of enabling the accuser to deflect mounting inconvenient realities.

A novel recent addition to those labeled as members of the "self-hating" community are the Israeli government officials responsible for overseeing Prime Minister Netanyahu's partial construction freeze, whom disgruntled West Bank settlers have greeted as "anti-Semites."

Altogether, this adds up to a large number of people supposedly out of step. With so many alleged anti-Semites around, is it any wonder there are Jews who feel paranoid? But, then again, are we not primed to see ourselves as the perennial victims when, at the annual Seder table, we recite the passage from the Pesach Haggadah that warns, "Not just one alone has risen against us to destroy us, but in every generation they rise against us to destroy us"? If we take this adage to heart—as a statement as much about the present and future as about the past—are not all the above groups just bit players merely acting out their scripted parts?

It's not that there is nothing to any of this. Indeed, the Jews have had more than their fair share of adversity since time immemorial, and there are still plenty of authentic anti-Semites around, doubtless rather enjoying the moment. But maybe some introspection on our part is also warranted. Is it possible that we ourselves have in some way contributed in recent times to the overt rise in Jewish unpopularity? It's a tricky question, as minority groups throughout history have habitually been accused of causing the prejudice from which they suffer, a slur the browbeaten Jews of Europe, among others, stoically endured over many generations. Yet, again, in the contemporary reality, it's a question we cannot simply shield ourselves from on the back of a convenient, if often legitimate, principle.

Definition Creep: Are We Changing the Meaning of "Anti-Semitism"?

If by anti-Semitism we mean an irrational hatred of Jews, or an underlying prejudice or contempt for all things Jewish, can there be such a thing as an antipathy to Jews or Jewish causes that is not irrational—even if some Jews find it upsetting? The answer would be "no, never" only if we define antagonism to virtually any Jewish endeavor—let's say Jewish schools in the educational sphere—as necessarily a form of "anti-Semitism." Such a generalization would clearly be stretching the meaning of the term too far.

In the political arena, pertinent examples could range from disparaging the policies and practices of the Israeli government, through contesting Zionism as a political ideology, to questioning the legitimacy of a Jewish state. Such challenges, in particular the latter two, are bound to make many supporters of Israel feel uncomfortable, even outraged. That's understandable, but are the critics necessarily driven by anti-Semitism? To corral them into this fold by slapping on the prefix "new"—as in "new anti-Semitism"—is not only simplistic and muddling, but it also risks trivializing past Jewish suffering, as well as genuine instances of anti-Semitism today, and it generally debases the currency.

Not only this, but many Jews, religiously observant or secular, within Israel and without, would suddenly find themselves on the wrong side of this "definition creep." So too, retrospectively, would past luminaries of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, leading figures of which, prior to the establishment of the Israeli state, were outspokenly anti-Zionist. Should they therefore now be deemed anti-Semitic, or newly anti-Semitic?

As with any phenomenon, stretching the definition of anti-Semitism is bound to make it appear more prevalent than it really is by inflating the figures and expanding the fear factor. More ominously, it can obscure the real situation. Worse still, it can pervert it, as we saw in November last year when certain Zionist circles in Britain courted two far-Right members of the European Parliament, one from Poland and the other from Latvia, who had been accused of blatant neo-Nazi associations in the past and of distinct anti-Semitic proclivities more recently. This tendency was again in evidence the following month when two right-wing Hungarian politicians, who had made very disparaging comments about their country's Jews, participated in the annual Global Forum to Combat Anti-Semitism in Jerusalem, sponsored by the Israeli Foreign Ministry. There was a time when Jews and official Jewish bodies would not go near such people with a bargepole. However, their records as "friends of the Jews" have been defended partly on the ground that their political parties can be relied on to take Israel's side on resolutions at the European Parliament. (Why they do this is a matter of debate, although it may have something to do with many modern-day fascists apparently hating Muslims more than they hate Jews and seeing them as the greater threat.)

There may be a parallel here with the posture of the chairman of the far-Right British National Party, Nick Griffin, who, when he appeared on BBC Television's Question Time in October 2009, disavowed his anti-Semitic past by claiming that his party was "the only political party which, in the clashes between Israel and Gaza, stood full square behind Israel's right to deal with Hamas terrorists." In all of these cases, professed support for Israel or Israeli actions is employed to relieve the charge of anti-Semitism, even by an avid anti-Semite with a record of Holocaust denial.

Among Israel's most impassioned partisans on the other side of the Atlantic are members of the ardently pro-Zionist, evangelical Christian Right in the United States. For them,aliyah (immigration of Jews to the holy land) should not let up until every Jew lives in Israel, and settlement building in "Judea and Samaria" should not cease until the entire West Bank is colonized by the Jewish people. Then the conditions would be right for the "rapture," at which point all Jews would have to choose between conversion to the true faith of Christianity or perishing forthwith. Ultimately—quite literally—this creed is deeply anti-Semitic. But its purveyors are sought out and serenaded by many of the influential pro-Zionist Jewish lobbies in America and by the Israeli government. They are, after all, through their ostensible support for even the most outrageous Israeli policies, proven "friends of the Jews."

To summarize, it now seems that it is the stance that groups and individuals take toward the Israeli state and the policies of its government of the day, that is becoming, bit by bit, the standard by which anti-Semitism is measured and assessed, steadily replacing the former gold standard of enmity toward the Jews qua Jews. Traditional anti-Semites are no longer—necessarily—anti-Semites. They may even be regarded as philo-Semites. Their place has been taken by people who have no quarrel with Jews qua Jews but do have a problem with the behavior and the policies of the political leadership in Israel, particularly with regard to its actions in occupied Palestinian territory. Some of them may even have a problem with the whole idea of a Jewish state. They, in this worldview, are fast becoming the new anti-Semites.

Unquestionably Genuine Anti-Semitism

None of the above is to say that anti-Zionism or hostility to Israel is not sometimes used as a cover for anti-Semitism or, in some cases, that it does not spring from similar impulses, whether on the part of the far Right or the far Left or elements in between. This was the blatant motive of the neo-Nazi National Front, a forerunner of the British National Party, when it latched on to the "anti-Zionist" crusade in the 1970s, using all the familiar anti-Semitic imagery and gobbledegook. A similar motive was quite transparent when the Polish Communist government launched a campaign against so-called Zionists in the wake of the 1967 Arab-Israeli war that robbed many of the comparatively few remaining Polish Jews of their livelihood and party membership and coerced thousands of them into leaving the country, to settle—not in Israel in most cases—but in Scandinavia!

Nor is it to say that it is not absurd to see a clutch of despotic human rights abusers sitting in sanctimonious judgment of a nation that, despite its own serial transgressions, is not in their league. One only has to leaf through the range of reports produced by such illustrious organizations as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch to gain an idea of the scale of the tyranny elsewhere.

And it is certainly not to say that we should not be concerned about the propensity of some anti-Zionist jargon to propagate, wittingly or inadvertently, many of the familiar, sinister anti-Semitic tropes, such as Jewish power, Jewish money, Jewish control of the media and governments, Jewish vengeance, or even the idea of Jews as child-murderers.

Now that Jews Are in Power in One Country ...

While all this is deeply troubling, the concern should not cause us to lose a sense of proportion: the "objective" situation of the shtetl Jew in Mittel Europe in past centuries—when anti-Semitism was often official state policy and authentic blood libels were common currency—and the "objective" situation of the modern-day state of Israel, bear no resemblance to one another. In this respect, Zionism has succeeded in spades. But many Zionism-adherents seem not to have noticed.

The Jewish reality has changed dramatically since the end of World War II, with the establishment of a Jewish state and the entrenchment of equal citizenship rights in most if not all countries that Jews inhabit. Whichever way you look at it, there simply is no comparison in reality between past trumped-up accusations of abusive power leveled against a downtrodden, defenseless community that time and again was made to pay a heavy price for these baseless smears, and the current accusations of improper use of power against an advanced, nuclear-armed state which, for the past forty-two years, has enforced a harsh military rule over the lives of another downtrodden, dispossessed people, while relentlessly colonizing their remaining land.

Drawing parallels is treacherous territory, and I normally keep off it. But if there is any sort of parallel with the Mittel Europe of centuries past, the more compelling one is not between the subjugated Jew of then and the powerful, occupying state of Israel today but between the Jew of then and the occupied Palestinian of now. This is the parallel that much of international public opinion instinctively perceives, and it goes a long way to explaining the global switch of sympathy. To the extent that the Jewish world remains in denial, it is dislocating itself from the rest of the world.

And, whether we like it or not, and whatever our personal views may be, as Jews we are all implicated in Israel's actions, good or bad. While the audacious claims of successive Israeli governments to speak on behalf of Jews the world over may highlight the association—Prime Minister Olmert, for example, opined that Israel's ferocious war with Lebanon in 2006 was "a war that is fought by all the Jews"—the general perception is rife even without the explicit claim.

Herein, I believe, lies the key to the conspicuous increase in anti-Jewish sentiment in a range of countries, most strikingly among Arabs and Muslims. What has triggered it is no more of a mystery than what lies behind the simultaneous upsurge in anti-Muslim and anti-Arab feeling among Jews. It's the conflict, stupid. More particularly, it's the Occupation. And at the core of the Occupation is the invasive settlement project and the whole hideous infrastructure—segregational and intensely oppressive—that has proliferated on its back.

What If the Jewish State Had Been a Hindu or Buddhist State?

Shorn of the hysteria, and with exceptions, a lot of the opposition to Israel's actions has little or nothing to do with it being a Jewish state. Had it been a Hindu or a Buddhist state, for example, the Palestinians would have been no less embittered if the state in question had dispossessed them and then proceeded to dispossess them further. And it would still have attracted the opprobrium of people around the world, plenty of Jews included, who held a commitment to basic justice and fairness and the right to self-determination—the very attributes that, at an earlier point in time, underpinned widespread sympathy for a Jewish state.

Moreover, if Hindu or Buddhist diaspora communities ostentatiously demonstrated from far-away lands their solidarity with a militarily powerful, modern Hindu or Buddhist state which, albeit under horrendous provocation, eschewed the diplomatic path and mercilessly pounded—to international revulsion—an impoverished, entrapped people, from land, sea and air, causing widespread death and destruction, it would hardly be surprising if such communities found themselves on the receiving end of rising negative sentiment in the countries they inhabited.

The Hindu/Buddhist diaspora communities themselves—parading ostensibly under a banner of wanting peace for everyone—would doubtless see it all very differently and express their indignation at the very idea that they were condoning human rights abuses or that they were in denial about them. Accordingly, any manifestations of hostility toward them could only be explained in terms of inveterate anti-Hinduism or deep-seated anti-Buddhism. But such cognitive dissonance would not be to their benefit. On the contrary, its most likely consequence over time would be a self-fulfilling prophecy, deepening the antagonism toward them. This is where the real danger lies.

A Malfunctioning Moral Compass

Deepening antagonism from global onlookers is not the only danger. The diaspora associated with the occupying state may also be in danger of losing its moral direction. There may be some individuals who know that the latest military assault is merely the most recent in a rolling sequence of onslaughts that have pounded towns and villages in neighboring countries and in the occupied territories in preceding years, but who find themselves barely batting an eyelid at the widespread devastation. They have become inured to it. Some may go further still and celebrate the carnage, taking leave of their moral compass altogether. One of the problems with occupation regimes is that, irrespective of their national identity or religious or other affiliation, they tend to brutalize the occupier as well as the occupied.

The processes at work are not hard to fathom. If there is one cast-iron law of history, it is probably that occupations and other forms of colonial rule are sooner or later resisted, and when that point comes, the occupier has a straightforward choice between leaving and allowing the native population to exercise its independence and self-determination—or staying. When the time came, Israel made the disastrous decision to stay. The rest was predictable.

As the Palestinians stepped up their resistance, Israel stepped up its colonization of their territory and the harshness of its retaliation—if only to keep order. The charge of "brutal occupier," while plainly unjustified in the earlier years, turned out to be prophetic. In consequence, the moral appeal of Israel's case started to weaken, alongside the fading memory of the Nazi Holocaust. While the country's level of international support began to drain away, it simultaneously firmed up in the organized Jewish diaspora, through a form of heightened tribal solidarity. The sharpening polarization increasingly isolated Jewish opinion and led to a steady upsurge in anti-Jewish feeling.

I say all this was predictable because, in essence—although in the future conditional tense—I first mapped out this very sequence in a Fabian pamphlet in the mid-1970s, a relatively calm period in the Palestinian territories. But it wasn't intended as a prediction, as I felt sure that Israel, in its own self-interest, would have the good sense to leave the occupied territories in the near future and help foster a Palestinian state. It was more of a hypothetical warning of what might happen in the decades ahead in the unlikely event that Israel failed to come to terms with the imperative of withdrawal. Unfortunately, Israel lost its way and the scenario I described thirty-five years ago has since played itself out.

At the time of my writing, there were fewer than 5,000 settlers in the territories captured by Israel in the 1967 war. Today, there are around 500,000. Israel appears more entrenched in the West Bank—the principal focus of Palestinian national aspirations—than ever, and organized Jewish diaspora opinion behind Israel and its policies seems more solid than ever. As the Palestinians despair of a two-state solution—and as Israelis despair, too, but for somewhat different reasons—the prospects of a fair and workable peace settlement are fast fading. In the absence of a plausible alternative, the conflict is on the verge of becoming unresolvable and of transforming itself into a state of perpetual strife, with potentially dire international consequences, not least, I fear, for Jews around the world.

The downward trajectory of the situation has been brought into focus recently by the Goldstone Report on the war in Gaza and by Israel's usual "there's-nothing-to-it" response to that report. More ominously, it has been sharpened by the growing worldwide BDS campaign—a call for boycott, divestment, and sanctions against Israel—which, despite the occasional Pyrrhic "pro-Israel victory" that every time seems to excite the U.K.'s Jewish Chronicle and other Jewish media to no end, we can be sure will continue to gather steam for as long as the Occupation lasts. How big a step is it from boycotting Israeli goods to boycotting shops that stock such goods? And guess which shops this will mostly affect? The battle lines are already being sketched out.

The Mantras of Self-Justification ... and Self-Delusion

How, one may ask, does a reputedly intelligent people, with traditionally strong humanistic values, manage constantly to delude itself about what is going on, what lies in store and what needs to be done? And how has it allowed the Jewish Star of David, and by implication the Jewish religion and Jewish people, to become associated in the eyes of growing numbers of people with repression?

One answer is that, over the years, a blanket of self-justifying stories and catchphrases that we tell ourselves and everyone else time and again, ad nauseam, has smothered the art of rational thought. Many of the mantras will be familiar:

"We are the only democracy in the Middle East. We have the most moral army in the world. The Palestinians spurned our generous offer—as always, with violence. We have the right to defend ourselves. There is no peace partner. The Arabs have always rejected us and always will. Palestinian terrorism. Arab terrorism. Muslim terrorism. Anti-Semitism. New anti-Semitism. Blood libels. Self-hating Jews. Islamo-fascism. Security, security, security. Everyone else is naïve, naïve, naïve. We have no alternative." And the list goes on. It is worth noting, however, that one formerly popular slogan, "the most liberal occupation of all time," is rarely heard these days.

Again, it's not that there is nothing to any of these catchphrases or the stories that underpin them—although many of them do not stand up well to scrutiny—but they are constantly wheeled out, in a spirit of injured innocence, to deflect any substantive criticism of Israeli actions.

The analogy with the hypothetical Hindu and Buddhist states can be taken only so far. It breaks down once an explanation for the ostensibly wicked ways of the "nation of usurpers and occupiers" is sought by delving into their scriptures, belief systems, history, or supposed genetic makeup. In the Jewish case, this does not require much original or detailed research for, possibly uniquely, there, waiting in the wings, is a pernicious time-tested ideology—that of full-blown anti-Semitism—with all the answers, simplistic and absurd though they may be. It is at this point that anti-Jewish sentiment tips portentously into something far more sinister. Hinduism and Buddhism, whatever their own issues, have nothing to compare with this.

I make none of the above observations with relish. There was a time in my life when I sang from the regulation Jewish pro-Zionist song sheet and defended Israel's corner at the local, national, and international student levels, first as an active member of the Jewish Society at the University of Birmingham, then, more diplomatically—and I believe fairly—as student union president during the seminal 1967 Arab-Israeli war that spilled over onto campuses up and down the country, and later as deputy president of the British National Union of Students, responsible for international affairs during a distinctly hot phase of the cold war, in which the Middle East conflict played a starring role. I believed then, as I do now, in the essential justice of Israel's underlying cause and backed its right to self-determination and independence, free of threat—not always to my political or personal advantage. The Jews had suffered enough over many generations and deserved their own place, if that's what many of them wanted.

I was struck, as others have been, by Lord Byron's lament in 1815, when the worst tragedies to face the Jewish people still lay a distance ahead and several decades before Theodor Herzl, the founder of political Zionism, was a twinkle in anyone's eye. Byron wrote: "The wild dove hath her nest, the fox his cave, / Mankind their country, Israel but the grave!" By "Israel," of course, he meant the Jewish people.

But, in the attempt, more than a century later, to rectify the Jewish calamity, a second people paid a heavy price. The ill-fated Palestinians—the knock-on victims of Nazi atrocities, whose original felony was simply to be in the way of another distressed people's frantic survival stratagem—have also suffered enough and are no less worthy of their place in the sun. If they don't get it soon, the Israelis, for sure, will never be left in peace to enjoy theirs. In this respect, each holds the key to the other's destiny.

The passionate arguments deployed in bygone days—that Israel was not expansionist, that it desperately yearned for peace, that it was eager to withdraw from the occupied territories, that it would guarantee everyone access to their religious sites, that it was a good friend of the Palestinians, that it did everything it possibly could to avoid civilian casualties, and so on—have all been exposed, one by one.

It's not that these arguments were necessarily false from the very beginning. But little by little they were usurped by the triumphalist mood that infiltrated the country and swept the Jewish world following the Six-Day War and the hubris the resounding victory gave rise to. Such characteristics are of course not unique to Israel. They are common to conquering powers and have frequently led to their eventual downfall.

The Immutable Terms of Any Deal

So what may be done?

By far the preferable—and simplest—path would be a public declaration of a swift, authentic change of Israeli policy that heralded a genuine commitment to ending the Occupation, pulling out of the West Bank, sharing Jerusalem, ending the siege of Gaza, and living peacefully and in mutual respect alongside a sovereign Palestinian state broadly along the pre-June 1967 borders, albeit with agreed, equitable land exchanges. Nothing less than this will ever do, no matter which Palestinians are on the other side of the bargaining table or which government is in power in Israel or indeed the United States. These are the immutable terms of any deal, and Israeli leaders' occasional and hollow claims to be extending a hand in peace to the Arab world are no substitute. Absent the above commitments, they are worthless platitudes.

An Israeli declaration along the lines I have outlined, if sincere, could radically transform the regional and international political atmosphere, just as the Oslo Accords did in the 1990s. Almost overnight, Israel moved from semi-pariah to semi-hero. Its leaders, together with the Palestinian leader, were awarded the Nobel peace prize. Shimon Peres, then the Israeli foreign minister, was spoken of as a possible future UN Secretary General. One country after another, including from the Arab and Muslim worlds, lined up to establish or re-establish relations with and visit the Jewish state. As the optimism, in subsequent years, gave way to gloom and doom, it is easy to forget the uplifting mood of that time.

Today, sixteen disappointing years later, the reaction to a fresh initiative may not be quite so dramatic, but a firm Israeli commitment along the lines described would give the Palestinians—as well as the Israelis—something tangible to hope for. It could be the vital trigger everyone is waiting for to spark off a fresh momentum.

If they had any sense, Jewish diaspora communities would use such influence as they have with the Israeli government to encourage it to adopt such a policy and simultaneously align themselves with apposite international moves to this end—if not from conviction then at least on the grounds of prudent self-protection.

And Failing That ... Jews Must Protest

In the more likely, if regrettable, event that the current Israeli government will commit itself to no such thing, what should Jewish diaspora communities do? I believe they would be well advised to take a deep breath and reconsider their habitual reflexive responses, which are in part responsible for the mess we are in. No one would expect them to waver from their uncompromising support for the genuine welfare of the Israeli state and people, and I do not propose this. But, with precisely this welfare in mind, it is beyond time for them to distance themselves from the expansionist policies of the Israeli government, its belligerent approach to problem-solving in the region, and its propensity to infringe Palestinian human rights, periodically on a massive scale.

Some Jewish groups and many individual Jews are already doing this, to the consternation of certain voluble self-appointed guardians of the Jewish good. However, in the main, these dissenting Jews are, I believe, helping to lower the temperature of anti-Jewish feeling.

To state the obvious, not everyone will agree with all the arguments expounded here. That is their prerogative. But this is not a purely academic discussion. The price of getting it wrong could be high. To those who hold that Israel is not "in occupation" of the West Bank at all, but that it has "liberated" the biblical Judea and Samaria, more worldly considerations may matter little. This is a voice that has grown louder over the years, and it is not susceptible to reasoned argument. Nor does it concern itself, in a serious way, with such secular anxieties as anti-Semitism.

But there is another camp that is seriously concerned about anti-Semitism. Indeed, it is convinced that anti-Semitism is the principal underlying cause of the conflict, and—with the full force of the self-fulfilling prophecy behind it—interprets any manifestation of ill feeling toward Jews, or even toward Israel, as compelling proof of this conviction. It is "Jew-hatred," they say, that continues to keep the conflict going and prevents Israel from leaving the West Bank. Movement toward a peace settlement will be possible only once the Arab and Muslim worlds, they argue, have purged their anti-Semitism—doubtless a worthy goal but one with an almost limitlessly extendable bar and a certain cart-before-the-horse quality to it.

In the end, this argument is both an excuse and a recipe for sustaining the status quo, continuing the colonization of the West Bank, the building of exclusive roads, the construction of the monstrous separation barrier, the destruction or confiscation of Palestinian homes, and, in general, the encroachment on and encirclement of the remaining space of the putative Palestinian state.

Through cheap and inappropriate usage, the charge of anti-Semitism has become so debased—in particular when it is directed at the dispossessed Palestinians themselves and at others for whom universal justice and human rights are genuinely paramount—that a strange and dreadful thing is starting to happen: the charge of anti-Semitism is gradually being transformed in the minds of many from a mark of shame to a badge of honor. This is quite an achievement.

But not everything is so bleak. In the White House, there is a president who is learning his trade but who seems to have the right instincts. Intellectually, emotionally, and politically, he is committed to solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the near future on the only basis that, for the last forty years at least, makes any sense: two states for two peoples. The twenty-seven-nation European Union, to Israel's predictable ire, has recently reiterated the same policy in very clear terms, laying emphasis on the need for Jerusalem to be the shared capital of both states.

The Arab Peace Initiative of 2002, which calls for full peace and normalization of relations with Israel in exchange for withdrawal from the territories captured in 1967—an offer that would have had Israelis dancing in the street not so long ago—remains on the table, with the support of the twenty-two-nation Arab League and the endorsement of the fifty-six-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, in a speech in June 2009, uttered, for Likud, the hitherto forbidden phrase "a Palestinian state," even if he hedged it with strict preconditions. The PLO, too, still remains committed to the two-state policy it adopted in 1988, and even Hamas has indicated its preparedness to do a deal based on the pre-June 1967 borders.

So, it seems, many of the pieces are in place. But they are no more than the bare bones of a comprehensive solution and will amount to little without a deft international strategy that responds to the urgent needs of the moment, coupled with an effective enforcement mechanism. Sponsoring indirect or even direct negotiations between inherently unequal parties in the first instance is decidedly not that strategy. What is required now is an end to sham processes and a shift of focus directly to the endgame.

We are on the cusp. It could go this way or that. Hard decisions will have to be made. In the next year or so, we'll all have a better idea of where we stand and what to look forward to. Much will depend on President Obama's grit and strategic sense. One thing's for certain, though. Whatever happens, there will be profound repercussions, good or bad, for Jews qua Jews around the world. So if we can have any influence on the decisions, let's try to make sure they are rational, sound, and responsible, for much rides on them—not just for Israel and the Palestinians, but for all of us.