Ashamed to be Israeli.

You can read about this story in the dead tree Ha'Aratez or elsewhere. The Knesset has decided to push ahead with legislation that makes it a crime punishable by up to 20 years for illegal infiltrators to cross into Israel. It also threatens anyone who helps them with up to the same amount of jail time.
This is aimed squarely at the refugess from Sudan and elsewhere who try and make it to the only democratic free state in the region. It's aimed at the people who run soup kitchens in Tel Aviv for penniless refugees, the people who help with the language , the people who care. The refugees who survive the experience and make it here will now be severely punished. Doesn't this all sound so familiar? A very clear message back through history. It was a crime to help all those Jews who fled Germany and other countries looking for safety. I'm ashamed to carry an Israeli ID and if this law passes I will find a Darfur refugee in Israel, buy him or her a meal and then turn myself into the police.

A Jewish State or a State for the Jews.

The regular MFA newsletter popped into my in box today and I read it with more interest than normal. Bibi was talking.

Those words with which I opened my speech "the Jewish state" are the same words which constitute the root of the conflict between us and our neighbors, and I am convinced that they also constitute the key to solving this conflict.

The root of the conflict was and remains the refusal to recognize the Jewish people's right to a state of its own in any borders whatsoever in the Land of Israel. Therefore, the key to peace lies in the clear, unequivocal Palestinian recognition of Israel as the state of the Jews.

Hmmm. I have a problem with the above. it's the bit about a "Jewish State" rather than " a state for the Jews". There is a very big difference as Bibi knows well. Perhaps it is timely to recall the Balfour declaration in it's entirety.

"His Majesty's government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country."

See the difference? Mostly the first clause of the Balfour declaration gets quoted, not the second part. So Bibi asks the other inhabitants of Palestine as it was to forget all their hopes, aspirations, promises, treaties , agreements and just silently shuffle off someplace else. Not going to happen. Arab/Palestinian commentators have pointed out that Israel can turn itself into a nation for Seventh-day Adventist as far as they are concerned, The internal makeup of Israel is a matter for the people of Israel and nobody else.

Neglect

I've been neglecting my blog. This is why.