What has happened to Jewish values in Israel?
JVL Introduction
Mondoweiss has published a thorough and positive review of Sylvain Cypel’s The State of Israel vs. The Jews. Cypel, originally from France, believed in a Jewish State and emigrated to Israel where he spent many years.
But his experiences have also made him question whether Israel is good for Jewish people.
His observations include reference to Israel’s: “Total contempt for international law,” the belief that “might makes right,” seeking salvation in the application of force (“and if that doesn’t do the job, apply more force”); and “The wholesale abandonment of “a worldview that characterized Judaism in the modern era, one primarily rooted in a progressive conception of humanity and society,” with only a small, determined minority fighting it all.
So what has happened to the Jewish internationalist values in Jewish religious teachings and, not least because of our history, are so important for many in the diaspora? In what way is Israel a Jewish State?
Cypel recalls and honours Tony Judt’s work published in 2002 (link in article) and questions whether Israel is good for Jews.
His book (366pp) can be ordered through this link The State of Israel vs. the Jews (otherpress.com)
This article was originally published by Mondoweiss on Mon 10 Jan 2022. Read the original here.
The State of Israel vs the Jews’ — important new book chronicles Israel’s spiritual demise
Sylvain Cypel’s “The State of Israel vs. The Jews” shows how bereft of human decency Israelis have become in their treatment of Palestinians, and how much Jewish moral patrimony has been given up in creating, supporting, and tolerating a Jewish State.
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“latching on to the emerging power of the new ethnic and authoritarian currents sweeping the planet”
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Israel has also come to ally itself with the the most anti-democratic states in the Middle East – Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt (just as the US/West has allowed itself to be bribed into anti-democratic policies by the first two in particular). Like these Arab dictatorships, Israel has supported Islamist extremists in countries like Syria, and even backed the murderous military-Islamist regime in Sudan against the current pro-democracy popular uprising there:
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium.HIGHLIGHT-israel-s-man-in-sudan-maneuvers-deftly-among-the-powers-seeking-sway-1.10358033
In my view Israel has never been a democracy for the simple reason that it ethnically cleansed 85 percent of the Indigenous Palestinian population of Israel in 1948. When you read Ilan Pappe’s description of the events of 1948, it becomes clear that the use of terror against the Palestinian civilian population has been an explicit part of the Zionist project for at over 70 years. When in government, the (liberal) Israel Labor Party was an enthusiastic constructor of illegal Jewish only settlements on the West Bank. The only viable long term solution for Israel/Palestine is a secular state in which every citizen (Jews, Muslims, Christians, Druze and Atheists) are treated as equals with equal respect, equal rights, equal safety and equal dignity. I think that eventually Zionism will be seen as a historical dead end that damaged absolutely everyone living in Israel and Palestine, maybe especially Jewish people. Being a bully is not a good spiritual place for anyone to be.
From what I have just read, I realise that there are thousands of Jewish people who are & will be banded together with that “cult Zionism” which has mocked, abused & disrespected what genuine Jews have put up with for hundreds of years.
My fear is that because of Zionists all over the world & their hatred of Arabs,any Arabs….it is pushing the ignorant into another decade of hate, & many European countries have increased their antisemitism with impunity AGAIN!!!
Israel has done this, Netanyahu became good friends with Hungarys leader…WHY?
Israel since it was given, GIVEN a piece of Palestine has built towers just like those in concentration camps to stop Palestinian farmers getting to their farms! 1948 Palestinians were pushed out of their homes & lands, hundreds were killed with their children.
Jewish people experienced all that horror themselves so how can they now do the same thing to others.
Zionism is NOT Judaism….but the hatred from Israels Barbaric behaviour towards Africans & Arabs will be assumed as Jewish when in fact its ZIONISTS belief that they are superior to anyone , & the non white must be removed by horrific means to prevent any contagion of Zionist blood by “infidels “!
This was the whole ideal of the Nazis, Dr.Mengala to ensure purity of blood remained Arian.
Millions of decent Jews are being attacked again because Israel has created this appalling hatred & violence & the supports like the US, CANADA, UK etc who give Israel €€€ €£billions to maintain that strategic position in the Middle East to maintain control.
What the West doesn’t realise is that Israel is ready to attack Iran & drag the rest of the world into a war, all because HATE!
The West has pumped in so much posionous ammunition into Israel EVERYONE WILL NOW SUFFER SADLY.
Doublethink lives on in Israel as a type of psychosis, the necessity of believing the state is a modern democracy which respects human rights, while at the same time knowing that it denies the rights of Palestinians, steals their land and water and subjects them to constant oppression, bombing, dispossession and apartheid. This is not a happy or a peaceful condition. Denial is bad for the soul. Triumphalism is no substitute for the serenity that comes with knowing that one’s state is just and humane.
Israel is the ultimate ‘unJewish’ state. It has stripped the Jewish religion of any morality and it is now a vessel empty of anything but ritual.
The worship of land and might has become a form of idolatory. That is why when Israel is considered the ‘Jew among the nations’ it is so laughable. But when diaspora communities willingly give their support to Israeli atrocities they cannot complain if there is a blowback and ‘antisemitism’
It comes to something when the old saying “If you can’t say something good about someone, don’t say anything” is no longer valid,such sayings have to be overridden or the whole world will be sucked into this awful condition a sort of poison, how sad it is and that it involves the Jewish peoples.
A Jewish ‘homeland’ does not necessarily mean a Jewish state. It can be a Jewish/ Palestinian homeland with equal rights for all.
The alliance of the Zionist Racist Apartheid regime with the ultra-right in Hungary and nationalist politicians such as Modi in India, contradicts the public myths and propaganda. What keeps the Zionist regime afloat is US “aid”. It wont die until the Americans are forced to withdraw their financial and moral support.
I agree with John W. Many Jews, including my grandfather Samuel Eisenstadt went to Palestine to create a Jewish Homeland, not an Israeli Terror State. In terms of the damage Israel has done to diaspora Jews, even before the state was created, Jews who had lived relatively peacefully for hundreds of years in Arab countries became targets. And how well were they received when they got there? When I went to Israel in’67 I was puzzled to hear negative talk of ‘the blacks’. Who were these blacks I thought? you’ve guessed it the same Misrahi Jews whose lives had been so badly disrupted.
The comments posted here sum up my own feeling vey well, and the review itself neatly summarises what has been clear for a long time to all those Jews who oppose Israel’s Zionist enterprise without qualification of reservation.
That makes this book a valuable contribution to the debate about whether or not Israel can claim to actually be a Jewish state, – it can’t – because it is written by a Jew with direct knowledge.
I would wish that Sir Keir Starmer would read this book, and also follow up all the documentation being provided daily of Israel’s crimes; but I suspect that it has now got to the point where his own short-sightedness and opportunism will not allow him to recognise any other account of Israel than Israel’s own account of itself. The news-media is far from blameless in this. How far could Israel go with its current policies if the world was accurately informed of the horrors being visited on Palestine over such a long period of time? But the word is spreading despite the news-media’s
neglect and Israel’s best efforts to justify itself and to demean its opponents. We have to hope that the time will come when Israel is held to account, at the very least, in the court of world opinion.
“Jewish values”? Are they something different from human values? If so, wherein, lie the differences?
Today’s long read in the Guardian (‘In our teens, we dreamed of making peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Then my friend was shot’) presents a moving account of how successive events and governments have carried Israel away from the hopes of the 1990s that friendly dialogue between Palestinians and Israelis could form the basis of a just settlement that recognises the right of Palestinians to live as equals in the land of their ancestors.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/jan/13/peace-middle-east-friend-summer-camp-israel
I too, wonder what Keir Starmer would say if he read and checked this book.
What would or could he say? Together with all the others who are complicit? Not just complicit in publicly denying/ignoring the worst excesses of a right-wing apartheid state. But up to their necks in attacking and purging from the Labour Party anyone who has voiced the slightest doubts, and squeamishness about what happens in Israel/Palestine. Or those ex-members who simply wanted the basic democratic freedom to discuss such issues in a Labour Party meeting. Or perhaps just to “favourite” the thoughts, doubts such and misgivings of others on some social media site.
What wonderful fantasy should anyone imagine?
How about a press conference where Starmer and “Lord” Mann and Hodge and Rayner and Thornberry and the rest; members of the We-Give-Unqualified-Support-to-Zionism Party.
How about a happy ever after fairy tale ending to this story? Imagine these chastened readers sitting dressed in sombre black. All weeping uncontrollably. But between sobs managing to say how much they sincerely and genuinely apologise.
Sincere and genuine, they whisper shamefully, that they’ve all read and reread their now tear-stained copies of the book. But they’ve spent agonised weeks. First angrily shouting and screaming that such lies were sent to them. And then days demanding to know why a panel of tame academics has not disproved every one of these gross falsehoods.
But then appalled and stunned on hearing that yes, some of the book may indeed be truthful. And then much worse. That rather a lot in the book is accurate. And that’s according to the neutral experts they called on to assure them that Sylvain Cypel had put together a 100% mountain of lies. As they desperately wanted it to be.
In real life would any of them be any more honest and candid and principled than Boris Johnson managed when fauxpologising about the parties? Could they bring themselves to say sorry?