Zionists, like everyone else, should be brave. What is bravery and what is brave Zionism? Everyone has a different idea.
Daniel Pipes and
Mort Klein tell us to go for "Victory."
Others tell us to "kill the peace process, kill the PA, kill the Roadmap, kill the terrorists." "Kill, Kill, Kill," doesn't sound like the Zionism I know or anything with which I would want to be identified.
Those are some of the milder voices. Some others insist that Israel should blow up Muslim holy places, exile all the Palestinian Arabs and threaten to nuke Mecca. True, these voices are a minority, and for the most part they originate in North America rather than Israel. However, these voices are heard too, and to some people, they represent "Zionism."
Is this bravery?
To be brave, to me, means to do what has to be done, and what is right. Killing this and that, and blowing up holy places of other faiths is not right. It will not endear Israel, the Jews and Zionism to the rest of the world. It will not make peace between Jews and Arabs either. It would be better perhaps if these "brave" Zionists would leave that sort of talk for President Ahmedinejad of Iran and Osama Bin Laden. We are not like them, and we must not become like them.
I stumbled across one
definition of brave Zionism in a letter to the editors of Ha'aretz sent by a Korean. It is not necessarily the entire definition or even an entirely correct defnition of brave Zionism, but it is something to give us pause for thought. This is how some of our friends, themselves a brave people, would like to see us and what they expect of us:
There is more to bravery than strutting the streets with a kippa and an automatic rifle. A brave Zionist is one who sees that the future of the Jews in the Middle East lies in coexistence....
Brave Zionism will flourish. Stupid Zionism has had its day - look where it has led you.
Kim Song Ji
Sanbong Don, South Korea
We can disagree about how to reach coexistence, but we have to understand that it can't be done by talking about nuking Mecca, exiling Palestinian Arabs or killing the peace process. If the peace process has to die because there is really no peace partner, then let the other side do the killing. Let our hand always be extended in peace to those who want it.
That is my view. You are of course invited to differ. If someone can explain what Zionists can gain by claiming that we should kill the the peace process or nuke Mecca, please do so in the comments area of this blog. As far as I know, such claims about the Zionist movement are already made regularly by anti-Zionists and anti-Semites, along with blood libels and similar slanders, so in any case, there is no need to publicize such views further.
Ami Isseroff
Original content is Copyright by the author 2006. Posted at ZioNation-Zionism and Israel Web Log, http://www.zionism-israel.com/log/archives/00000039.html where your intelligent and constructive comments are welcome. Disributed by ZNN list. Subscribe by sending a message to ZNN-subscribe@yahoogroups.com. Please forward by e-mail with this notice, cite this article and link to it. Other uses by permission only.
Replies: 3 Comments
It is rather obvious. Israel should be willing to negotiate with any Palestinian leadership without any prior conditions, and it should make a good faith offer to the Palestinians (Palestinian state based on 67 borders, land exchange, Jerusalem, no refugees). Talking is free, everything else has a price. We shouldn't require the Palestinians to recognize Israel prior to negotiations, nor should be rewarded for empty positive statements. Stopping terrorism should not be a precondition to negotiation, but it should be clear that Israeli security measures and military actions will not stop so long as terrorism, by any group, continues (although Israel should offer to stop its attacks if the Palestinian stop theirs, instead of speaking of dismantling or crushing terrorism). Nor should recognizing Oslo be a precondition for negotiations, but it should be a precondition to movement between Gaza and the West Bank and other forms of cooperation. No confidence building measures, no empty promises, no prior demands.
Micha, Friday, April 21st
And while we "let our hand always be extended in peace to those who want it", who amongst the Hamas/PA is willing to grasp it? The other side is doing the killing, as the article states, while Israel continues to make concessions to further the enemy's intent. While Zionism should continue to advocate peace, it's not wise for it to follow a masochistic path either.
Norman Cohen, Thursday, April 20th
Coexistence is an excellent idea but it takes two to tango. How does one teach an Arab to tango?????
Failing which, what we get is Zen-Zionism: the sound of one hand clapping.
David Zohar, Wednesday, April 19th
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