Israel Doesn’t Cause Anti-Semitism

The current earl of Balfour, in a letter to the New York Times, recently wrote that Israel’s “increasing inability to address [the Palestinians’] condition, coupled with the expansion into Arab territory [sic] of the Jewish settlements, are major factors in growing anti-Semitism around the world.” Therefore, wrote Lord Roderick Balfour—a descendant of the author of the famous 1917 British declaration favoring “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people”—it is Israel’s duty to “allow the Palestinians their own state” and thus save Jews everywhere from hatred and violence. Alan Dershowitz responds:

Anyone who hates Jews “around the world” because they disagree with the policies of Israel would be ready to hate Jews on the basis of any pretext. . . . To prove the point, let us consider other countries: has there been growing anti-Chinese feelings around the world as the result of China’s occupation of Tibet? Is there growing hatred of Americans of Turkish background because of Turkey’s unwillingness to end the conflict in Cypress? . . . The answer to all of these questions is a resounding no. If Jews are the only group that suffers because of controversial policies by Israel, then the onus lies on the anti-Semites rather than on the nation state of the Jewish people. . . .

Even if it were true that anti-Semitism is increasing as the result of Israeli policies, no Israeli policy should ever be decided based on the reaction of bigots around the world. Anti-Semitism, the oldest of bigotries, will persist so long as it is seen to be justified by apologists like Roderick Balfour. Though Balfour does not explicitly justify anti-Semitism, the entire thrust of his letter is that hatred of Jews is at least understandable in light of Israel’s policies.

Balfour doesn’t say a word about the unwillingness of the Palestinian leadership to accept Israel’s repeated offers of statehood to the Palestinians. . . . Nor does Balfour mention Hamas, Hizballah, and other terrorist groups that constantly threaten Israel, along with Iran’s publicly declared determination to destroy the state that Lord Arthur Balfour helped to create. It’s all Israel’s fault, according to Balfour, and the resulting increase in anti-Semitism is Israel’s fault as well.

Read more at Gatestone

More about: Anti-Semitism, Arthur Balfour, Israel & Zionism, New York Times

It’s Time for Haredi Jews to Become Part of Israel’s Story

Unless the Supreme Court grants an extension from a recent ruling, on Monday the Israeli government will be required to withhold state funds from all yeshivas whose students don’t enlist in the IDF. The issue of draft exemptions for Haredim was already becoming more contentious than ever last year; it grew even more urgent after the beginning of the war, as the army for the first time in decades found itself suffering from a manpower crunch. Yehoshua Pfeffer, a haredi rabbi and writer, argues that haredi opposition to army service has become entirely disconnected from its original rationale:

The old imperative of “those outside of full-time Torah study must go to the army” was all but forgotten. . . . The fact that we do not enlist, all of us, regardless of how deeply we might be immersed in the sea of Torah, brings the wrath of Israeli society upon us, gives a bad name to all of haredi society, and desecrates the Name of Heaven. It might still bring harsh decrees upon the yeshiva world. It is time for us to engage in damage limitation.

In Pfeffer’s analysis, today’s haredi leaders, by declaring that they will fight the draft tooth and nail, are violating the explicit teachings of the very rabbis who created and supported the exemptions. He finds the current attempts by haredi publications to justify the status quo not only unconvincing but insincere. At the heart of the matter, according to Pfeffer, is a lack of haredi identification with Israel as a whole, a lack of feeling that the Israeli story is also the haredi story:

Today, it is high time we changed our tune. The new response to the demand for enlistment needs to state, first and foremost to ourselves, that this is our story. On the one hand, it is crucial to maintain and even strengthen our isolation from secular values and culture. . . . On the other hand, this cultural isolationism must not create alienation from our shared story with our fellow brethren living in the Holy Land. Participation in the army is one crucial element of this belonging.

Read more at Tzarich Iyun

More about: Haredim, IDF, Israeli society