FORMER ISRAELI Knesset Speaker Avrum Burg discussed “Zionism, Israel and Human Rights” at the Rabbis for Human Rights Second North American Conference on Judaism and Human Rights, held Dec. 7 at the Adas Israel Congregation in Washington, DC.
Burg’s family has long championed the Zionist cause within Israel, he said, but he now feels compelled to question the movement’s present course. His recent book, The Holocaust is Over, We Must Rise from its Ashes—which he originally planned to title Hitler Won—caused a great deal of debate in Israel. He warned his audience that he was about to open a “Jewish Pandora’s box.”
“Zionism is a fantastic idea which created changes in the very existence of the Jewish people,” Burg told his audience, “but we cannot ignore some basic fundamental assumptions that did not work well.” One was that the early Zionists were a people without a land who settled a land without a people. It was arrogant for Zionists not to see the others, Burg said, and that mindset must be changed—the sooner the better.
According to Burg, Zionists were looking for a land of choice, but as a result of the Holocaust the land was seen as a shelter. “And within a shelter, especially of battered people, you behave differently,” he pointed out. Now that the state of Israel is established and prospering, Burg believes Israeli Jews need to change their collective attitude as a nation. “We can go out of the shelter and explore some other territory. We can be confident without the shelter,” he maintained.
Remarking on the eight-year U.S. occupation of Iraq and Israel’s 40-year occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Burg asked, “Do I hide in this reality, or do I try to offer an alternative?” Burg’s alternative has three components. For him, “never again” does not mean for just the Jewish community, allowing the rest of the world to suffer. “A people who 60 years ago were the victims of the universe must prevent the victimization of anyone who needs them,” he argued, “whether in Gaza, Darfur or the inner city of Detroit.”
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http://www.wrmea.com/archives/March_2009/0903057b.html
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