quote:
...[T]oday's Israel is a vibrant multicultural society that tries to break loose of an inherently discriminatory structure reflecting the idea of a Jewish state. Many Jews, including those who lived in Palestine that became Israel, have opposed Zionism. They have also opposed the expulsion of Palestinians, a springboard for the founding of the state of Israel and the source of its continuing fragility.It is therefore dangerously misleading to portray opposition to Israel as intrinsically anti-Semitic. Quite a few religious Jews (some of whom took part in the demonstrations against Israel's recent attack on Lebanon) abhor Zionism and the chronic violence it has engendered. Many non-Jews oppose Israel not because they hate the Jews but because they want to redress the fundamental injustice against the Palestinians. In fact, many Jews, in Israel and elsewhere, fully share this goal.
They believe the only way to stop the incessant violence is to address its root causes — expulsion, dispossession and occupation. By refusing to address this basic injustice, the state of Israel endangers Jews within its borders and in the Diaspora.
[Irving] Cotler rightly reminds us of the value of the Canadian mosaic. By defending the state of Israel as a "Jewish state," i.e. a state that somehow belongs to him, to me and to other Canadian Jews, he puts that delicate mosaic at risk.
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posted 29 August 2006 10:32 PM
