OPINION: Hurling accusations does a disservice to Israel and our community
Gary Mond, chairman of the National Jewish Assembly, attempts to calm a Jewish community unsettled by the recent Israeli election.
Whatever one’s political views on Israel might be, Jewish News editor Richard Ferrer’s opinion piece published yesterday was important because it set out clearly what is now a huge issue of division within our community. Indeed, with specific regard to Israel-related matters, I don’t think there has ever been such a schism among UK Jewry since the modern state of Israel was founded.
This situation has been caused by the recent Israeli election result being unsettling for many in the diaspora, especially those on the political left.
Yet this is simply a democratic decision by Israel’s electorate and it sets a very bad precedent for anyone to condemn an election outcome in any country, let alone where the complainants are Jews and the country being criticised is Israel.
The diaspora do not have votes, nor should they have them, as they do not live in Israel. Indeed, the votes of the Arab communities in Israel, some 30% of whom apparently voted for Jewish rather than Arab parties (and even some Arab citizens voted, quite incredibly, for security reasons for the Religious Zionists) matter, those of Jews outside Israel do not.
We should also be aware that world leaders, including US president Joe Biden, have said they will judge the Netanyahu government on what it does rather than on who its ministers are. While I might well disagree with the points that Biden emphasises, it is nevertheless the mature way to address the matter.
Turning to the substantive points that Richard makes, first, he seems to accept that Israelis vote for “hawks like Benjamin Netanyahu” for reasons of having “neighbours from hell”. This is at least partly right, and the most probable reason people vote for him, namely security, is also a reason – as Jerusalem’s Deputy Mayor Fleur Hassan-Nahoum wrote about in the Jewish News recently – why, in recent elections, they voted for Ben-Gvir, Smotrich and Maoz.
Moreover, it should be emphasised, that, although only 11% (about 500,000 people) voted for the Religious Zionists, about half the electorate voted for the components of the likely coalition – and will have known that, in voting for one of those parties, they were in all probability giving their assent to a government including Religious Zionists without specifically voting for them. This helps to illustrate the level of acceptance in Israel that the Religious Zionists possess.
Second, Richard notes that the Religious Zionists are not “liberally-minded democrats”. So what? Neither are many conservative-leaning citizens in countries all over the world. Cancelling the Religious Zionists, as a group, is of itself anti-democratic and there are many who, although they do not support the views of Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, accept them as a legitimate part of the world of political debate.
Israel’s President Herzog severely criticised the Board of Deputies for its disgraceful attack on Bezalel Smotrich when the latter visited the UK.
Third, Richard contends that the coming to power of the Religious Zionists undermines all that most British Jews hold dear about the Jewish state.
Well, what exactly do we hold dear? For me, it is the belief that, at long last after almost 2,000 years, Jews have finally returned to our ancestral homeland. Additionally, it is the understanding that there is at least one place in the world where Jews will always be welcome and the knowledge that, if modern Israel had been created just 15 years earlier, millions of Jews, including those from my own family, would almost certainly not have perished in the Holocaust. Israel is in the blood of many Jews and this is not affected adversely by the Religious Zionists.
Fourth, Richard writes that Jews who refuse to criticise Israel ask “If diaspora Jews don’t stand up for Israel, who will?” No, we don’t. We know about the massive inroads that J Street (in the USA) and Yachad and Na’amod (in the UK) have made in terms of turning the diaspora against Israel. We know too that Israel at the end of the day can only rely on itself to survive and prosper, and friends in the diaspora can often be fair-weathered ones.
A final, and hopefully constructive point. My own view is that there is everything to be gained, and nothing to be lost, by dialogue. This was intimated by Israel’s President Herzog who, earlier this year, severely criticised the Board of Deputies for its disgraceful attack on Bezalel Smotrich when the latter visited the UK.
Herzog added that he would like to see political debate between Smotrich and his political detractors. What, exactly, is wrong with that? Whatever one thinks of the Religious Zionist agenda, I believe that it is in the interest of the fabric of our community to get ourselves away from the politics of hurling insulting expressions and cancelling those whose views with which we do not agree, and try instead to engender a healthy and frank exchange of views.
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