Thursday, June 07, 2007

Burg: Defining Israel as a Jewish state is the key to its end

From Haaretz:
Last update - 06:41 07/06/2007
Burg: Defining Israel as a Jewish state is the key to its end
By Ari Shavit, Haaretz Correspondent

Avraham Burg, former Knesset speaker and former head of the Jewish Agency says "to define the State of Israel as a Jewish state is the key to its end. A Jewish state is explosive. It's dynamite." In an interview in Haaretz Weekend Magazine, he said that he is in favor of abrogating the Law of Return and calls on everyone who can to obtain a foreign passport.

Burg, who was interviewed on the occasion of the publication of his book "Defeating Hitler" said "the strategic mistake of Zionism was to annul the alternatives. Israeliness has only body; it doesn't have soul."

"Judaism always prepared alternatives," says Burg, who three years after leaving Israeli politics is now a citizen of France and a successful businessman.

"Just as there was something astonishing about German Jewry, in America, too, they created the potential for something astonishing. They created a situation in which the goy can be my father and my mother and my son and my partner," Burg says.

His book ruminates about Israel and Zionism, compares Israel and Germany, harshly criticizes Eichmann's hanging, reflects on Judaism in the age of globalization and remembers his father's house.

Burg said he started his book in mourning for the loss of Israel. "During most of the writing the book's title was 'Hitler Won.' But slowly I discovered the layer of not everything being lost. And I discovered my father as a representative of German Jewry that was ahead of its time. These two themes nourished the book from beginning to end."

Tuesday, June 05, 2007

40 Years Six Day War. (Also Naksa)

So many Events, 40 years, In a week we will be tired of it. Just like in November so many Politicians say they will continue in Rabin's Way and a week later it is forgotten.
I am planning to be at Rabin Square Saturday.

From Wikipedia Naksa Day:
Naksa Day (6 June) commemorates the Naksa ("setback"), the mass displacement and dispossession of Palestinians during and after the 1967 Six-Day War between Israel, Egypt, Jordan and Syria. The first mass displacement, known as the Nakba, took place during and after the 1947-1949 Palestinian Civil War and the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. This exodus is marked on Nakba Day.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naksa_Day