Israel

Former Knesset Speaker/Jewish Agency Director Calls for End to Jewish Nature of Israel

Haaretz reports:

Avraham Burg, former Knesset speaker and former head of the Jewish Agency says “to define the State of Israel as a Jewish state is the key to its end. A Jewish state is explosive. It’s dynamite.” In an interview in Haaretz Weekend Magazine, he said that he is in favor of abrogating the Law of Return and calls on everyone who can to obtain a foreign passport.
Burg, who was interviewed on the occasion of the publication of his book “Defeating Hitler” said “the strategic mistake of Zionism was to annul the alternatives. Israeliness has only body; it doesn’t have soul.”

Full story. (c/o David G.)

13 thoughts on “Former Knesset Speaker/Jewish Agency Director Calls for End to Jewish Nature of Israel

  1. Very interesting. It has been quite fascinating to watch Burg’s thinking on Israel and Zionism shift over time. Its nice to see a former israeli official recognize the contradictions in crafting a liberal democracy tied to a ethnic nationalism.

  2. Burg is one disgusting little anti Israeli. The interesting question is what pathology causes this condition – is it the accumulation of centuries of anti semitism, absorbed like the monster in Alien, which then takes over the host? Or perhaps it’s a result of reading the anti-Israeli press like the NY Times, the Guardian, and Haaretz, ones perception of reality becomes distorted. Just once I would like to see the denizens of the left critique Iran because it murdered thousands of Bahai’s, or Saudi Arabia or Jordan because its citizens can’t be Jews or Christians. Ah well, I’ve got my frum comrades whose hearts are always in the right place.

  3. Foreign passport? I can’t believe it. Bad enough people like him listened to the “Jews out of Europe” graffiti, now he wants to listen to the “Jews out of Israel” graffiti!
    Following graffiti is a great way to act the Wandering Jew.

  4. what an absurd and self defeating theory.
    once you void the state of it’s jewishness, then it’s israel which is the construct. it’s on the basis of it’s jewish lineage that israel has purpose. an israel that does not act as a homeland for the jews, with an open door for the diaspora serves absolutely no purpose to anyone.
    next they’ll argue that the reason anti-semitism exists in the world is because jews exist, so the best way to fight anti-semitism, is to fight against judaism.

  5. Burg has prioritized Judaism and Humanism over and above the demands of secular nationalism. Good for him! I hope his words are needed.

  6. an israel that does not act as a homeland for the jews, with an open door for the diaspora serves absolutely no purpose to anyone.
    That’s like saying that a US that does not ask for the huddled masses yearning to breath free – which it most certainly does not, anymore – serves no purpose. That’s neither true nor fair: its home to many people. THat’s its purpose. Hey, that’s the purpose of all countries: to provide defence, education, welfare, medicine and sewage.

  7. Amit: wouldn’t it be nice if Israel was satisfied just being a good homeland for… Israelis? Now _that’s_ a messianic vision!

  8. PJ – sense as that makes, I don’t see why Burg says Israelis should reach for foreign passports. That doesn’t say anything about Israel as a homeland for Israelis; quite the opposite.

  9. Mobius, I think your headline really sells this item short. Very short. Burg is just another ex-politician flogging a book – the Hebrew version of the interview garnered well over 1000 talkbacks – one of the first points out the fact that it’s great publicity for what is apparantly a well thought out deeply felt book. In this respect he is similar to Al Gore – both left politics because they were disillusioned by the world of the soundbite. Only Gore seems to be doing good things since then, Burg, on the other hand, has been just digging himself in deeper.

  10. Burg is a traitor and his father would be rolling in his grave. Fortunately most Jewish Israelies destest Burg and don’t share his view!
    His views are similar to Tony Judt from New York University.

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