Noted Historian on Israel’s 70th Birthday: Justice Is on Jewish State’s Side
At 70 years old, the State of Israel has grown up, and might be unrecognizable to those who founded it. From a relatively barren imperial backwater, it has become a flourishing, vibrant and innovative regional leader. From a population of 500,000, it is now home to over 8 million people. From a tiny nation fighting for its life, it has become a military power. And from a socialist-dominated one-party state, it has become a thriving capitalist democracy.
Yet, a leading Israeli historian told The Algemeiner this week, in many ways Israel has not changed at all. Its core national identity as a Jewish state remains as strong as it ever was.
“Obviously Israel has changed,” said Efraim Karsh, the director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies and a professor emeritus of Middle East and Mediterranean Studies at King’s College London. “First of all it has increased in a way no other Western or developed nation has grown over this period. I mean, more than tenfold. Then of course, the different kinds of populations that arrived. Essentially from predominantly European-based Jews to those who arrived from other nations — many were expelled in the Independence War and then immediately afterwards — some expelled in the ’50s, and then in the mid-’60s from North Africa, then later on you have the large Russian immigration, and then of course the Ethiopians.”
“Israel is a melting pot,” Karsh stated, “and on the whole I think it has been a success story. And I think in a way it’s remarkable, because you don’t have many societies, Western or otherwise, absorbing huge populations several times their size and doing it in such a successful way that eventually, with all the difficulties and the grievances of certain communities at certain times, it is relatively a highly equal society.
April 19, 2018 9:21 am
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Netanyahu, Rivlin Reflect on Israel’s 70th Anniversary in Video Messages
JNS.org - In video greetings recorded in English, both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Reuven Rivlin reflected on Israel’s...
“So I think in this respect, yes, Israel has changed,” he continued. “But, on the whole, not for the worse. On the contrary, you have an Israeli identity developing over the time that crystallizes all of the different sections.”
Gerald Steinberg: The Israel Basher
The Wall and the Gate: Israel, Palestine, and the Legal Battle for Human Rights, by Michael SfardPalestinian mayor sparks BDS storm by admitting he works for Israeli company
AIn September 2001, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights held a major conference in Durban, South Africa, ostensibly to mark the end of the apartheid regime. But the event, and particularly an “NGO Forum” attended by 5,000 delegates, was hijacked and turned into what some participants termed an anti-Israel and anti-Semitic carnival. In the final session, the leaders of the NGO Forum announced a plan to transfer the tools used in the anti-apartheid campaign to the dismantling of Israel, declaring the nation-state of the Jewish people guilty of apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and war crimes.
Since Durban, a small but generously funded army of ideologues has sought to implement this strategy, seeking to persuade governments (particularly European) and international institutions, such as the International Criminal Court, to isolate and demonize Israel.
Michael Sfard is among the most energetic, passionate, and articulate warriors on this battlefield. As an Israeli fiercely opposing the policies of his own nation, he automatically gains credibility among some audiences. Over many years, he has waged war in the Israeli courts and, more important, in arenas around the world that specialize in anti-Israel campaigns.
Sfard’s weapon is international law—a nebulous, plastic, and readily manipulated commodity that has the feel and texture of real law (as practiced by lawyers and judges in individual nation-states), without the constitutional backbone.
His book The Wall and the Gate is a polemic, and there are no shades of gray or self-doubt. At no point does Sfard ponder complexities and contradictions, such as the absence of universality or reciprocity—two essential dimensions of any legitimate legal system. Thus, he glosses over the daily human-rights violations and war crimes committed by his “clients,” as he paternalistically refers to Palestinians, repeating the standard victimization myths. His references to the horrors of terror that have taken so many Israeli lives are minor and parenthetical. For example, in condemning the Israeli separation barrier that has prevented many terrorist attacks, he says, “there will come a day, maybe when the conflict is over, when Palestinians will be unable to escape the duty to reckon with some of their organizations tactics.”
The mayor of the West Bank Christian town of Beit Jala, near Bethlehem, on Wednesday dropped a bombshell by admitting that he also works as a sales representative for Tnuva, the Israeli food processing cooperative specializing in milk and dairy products.
Nicola Khamis made the admission during an interview with the Palestinian Wattan TV.
The mayor’s revelation drew strong condemnations, and many satirical remarks, from a large number of Palestinians on social media.
Several Palestinians pointed out that the mayor’s revelation was a severe blow to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement (BDS), which has long been spearheading a worldwide campaign to promote various forms of boycott against Israel.
“Some say that the reason behind the recent decline in your popularity is attributed to the fact that in addition to your job as mayor, you are also the representative of the Israeli company Tnuva in the [Bethlehem] area. What is your response to this claim?” Khamis was asked.