Jewish "guilt feelings" endanger Israel

Jewish "guilt feelings" endanger Israel

Jewish "guilt feelings" endanger Israel

More than any other people, more than any other people, we Jews have elevated the feeling of guilt to the level of an art. There are always liberal Jews who instinctively feel guilty about everything - whether they had anything to do with it or not. This is a very interesting type of pathology, worthy of a doctorate in abnormal psychology, and which calls for some kind of national psychiatrist. Indeed, this gnawing feeling of guilt is what underlies the ideological disintegration of Israel today, a process that endangers the very existence of the Jewish state.

"We are occupiers; the occupation corrupts; above all, we are guilty!" Here is the poor Arab living in the West Bank and the other "occupied territories," the barren land trampled under the boots of the Jewish occupation army; here are the occupied territories of 1967 that became the "main obstacle to peace" because of Israeli refusal; here is the racism and hidden fascism that stand at the heart of Zionism, which discriminates favorably against Jews in the entity called the Jewish state.

What could make Jews in Israel forget the massacre of Jews by Arabs in 1944, 1945, and 1949? And why, in their intellectual opinion, did it even happen? Could it be that the murder of 67 Jews in Hebron, 60 years ago, was caused by Arab anger over the occupied territories of 1967? And when more than 500 Jews were massacred in Arab pogroms between 1936 and 1938, was the Israeli refusal to return the territories occupied in 1967 the root of the problem? And when the Arabs rejected the UN partition proposal in 1947, which would have created a ridiculously tiny Jewish state and an Arab state that might have been called "Palestine" - was it the Six-Day War in 1967 that was the root of their decision to try to destroy the 600,000 Jews in the land? What motivates Jewish liberals to side with the Arab position on any issue? What makes them constantly deal with the "occupied territories" of '67? Don't they know that the Arabs also see all of the 1947 borders as "occupied territory," including the Jewish cities and towns within the Green Line? Don't they understand that from the Arab perspective, Tel Aviv and Haifa and the golf course in Caesarea and all the kibbutzim of the enlightened left are also "occupied"?

It is clear that Israel's humanists and moralists know this, and this is precisely the problem. Deep in their hearts and minds, leftists and those with liberal leanings are filled with the fear that the Arab is right, that the Jew did not have the right to come to "Palestine" where there was an Arab majority, and turn it into a Jewish state. The terrible ghosts of Jewish guilt gnaw at the tormented soul of the Jewish liberal, who believes that the Jews may indeed be occupiers and colonialists. The secular liberal Jew torments himself every day, because, in addition to his personal guilt, he lacks the courage to give up his kibbutz in favor of the oppressed Arab. He wallows in the gnawing feelings of guilt, which soon turn into self-hatred. Thus, a situation is created in which he is forced to side with the Arab position on every issue, out of the pathetic hope of earning a crumb of forgiveness from the Arab. He must fight for their right to receive back part of the "stolen" land, so that he himself can continue to hold on to his share of the "stolen." An unfortunate creature indeed, and also an extremely dangerous one: he seeks to commit national suicide, and drag us all after him.

Here before you is a Jew who does not feel a shred of guilt for choosing to live, for winning, and for telling the world that gave us universal blessings like the Crusades, the Inquisitions, pogroms, and Auschwitz: Never again - and who cares what you think! Guilt? Why not. There is no such thing as "Palestine." This is the Land of Israel. It belongs to the people of Israel who received it from their Father in Heaven, and in which they have lived for 3,000 years. It belongs to the people of Israel, who, unlike the Arab people, do not have 22 states, but only one: the Land of Israel. Guilt? Only the sick suffer from it. For Jews, the moral imperative is to live and secure a home for the Jewish people, so that we not only emerge from exile but also bring exile - with all its distortions - out of ourselves. Faith in God and an outstretched Jewish arm - this is the Jewish way.

2 Nissan 5789. First translated by Michal Levin and broadcast by Nadia Matar on Channel 7 in Nissan 5789. Published in English under the title: The Guilt of Jews Threatens Israel. New York Times, April

7, 1989, p. 31 (Op-ed page). Reprinted in Kahane Magazine, May-June 1989, p. 43