SHLOMO BEN-AMI: On questions of anti-Semitism? Well, Israel is the result of the Jewish catastrophe. There is no doubt about it. If there were no Jewish catastrophe, there would not be a state of Israel. And I think that during the first years of — or before the creation of the state, especially for the figure of Ben-Gurion, the Jewish catastrophe needed to be enlisted for the cause of the creation of the state.
It's out of the transcript of a 2005 debate between Norman Finkelstein and Former Israeli Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami.
My Zionist approach is Jabotinskyian and Yair Stern. The Jewish state is justified and legitimate because we are jewish and the Jewish people's notmal existence demands a state and the sovereignty that goes with it. That demand is predicated on Jewish reilgion, Jewish history and Jewish normality. The need for a state is the same if there is quiet or catastrophe.
The Left in Zionism couldn't accept that. It had to be because of socialism and then because of the post-Shoah reality. They called Jabotinsky's Zionism "catastrophic", to chide him for being too excited about antisemitism.
Now, Ben-Ami, as before him, have turned the argument on its head.
As we used to say, we have to "thank" Hitler for giving us a reason to have a state otherwise no one would have been convinced - or rather, the Left-wing in Zionism could not come up with a good reason for statehood.
What a Shlomo Ben-Ami shame.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment