The call by the former Knesset speaker asking one million Jews to take Israel to the International Court of Justice is of paramount importance.
His appeal is a textbook example! And must be examined in detail.
It highlights the diversity of Judaism and the idea of being Jewish, and that the State of Israel has retained three elements: land, religion, sovereignty, driven by violent actions and an extremist vision.
They recall what these elements cost Jewish people throughout history and that another line of thought is dominant in the Jewish tradition:
« Yet Judaism has always carried within it another civilisation. A civilisation rooted in introspection, critique, compassion and moral action. The prophet Nathan stood before King David, Israel’s most powerful ruler, and accused him of corruption and bloodshed. Centuries later, the prophet Jeremiah warned the decadent elites of Jerusalem of the impending destruction of the First Temple. In the year 70 CE, Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai fled the city of the zealots and bloodlust, and inaugurated the new alternative Judaism: a faith of worship without a temple, of identity without territory, of strength without domination, and of spiritual authority without political sovereignty. «
« Yes, Hamas has committed heinous crimes against humanity. But none of this justifies Israel's actions in Gaza since then. »
« In our call, we will declare: we will not allow the State of Israel, which systematically inflicts violence upon a civilian population, to speak in our name. We will not accept Judaism being used as a cover for acts of violence. This is not a rejection of our people, it is a defence of its soul. This is not about destroying, but about repairing. »
For a non-Jew, Judaism is a certain idea of transcendence... and that is the point he defends with fervour. And he is right... It was a civil war between Jews that led to the Roman conquest of Judea, and it took a lot of arrogance on the part of the small kingdom of Judah to oppose the Babylonian empire.
Extremists on both sides talk about «from the river to the sea». But in Western opinion, it's antisemitism when Arabs say it, and legitimate when Israelis do.
Remorse and the notion of a people perpetually cast as victims in Western opinion are the levers upon which Israeli governmental violence relies within the public opinion of those countries. Yet, for 1,400 years, it was better to be a Jew in an Islamic land than in a Christian one… and furthermore, those tensions in Christian lands were largely based on a conflict of legitimacy. The Church needed to take its place as the «new people of God». The most violent abuses against Jews took place during the building of European nation-states… precisely when this question of land, religion and sovereignty animated European states. In Asia, Africa or South America, antisemitism never took hold.
Avraham Burg's appeal is imbued with great wisdom. It illustrates the profound crisis running through Israeli society and the Jewish community because of the extremists in power in Israel.
The narrative that made Israel a refuge for Jews was destroyed by Hamas on 7 October 2023. But it is being buried by Netanyahu.
The country must reinvent itself.
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