Dennis Altman: On Israel, Zionism and being Jewish ‘The deliberate conflation of antisemitism and hostility to Israel,
https://x.com/MaryKostakidis/status/1980752711563010053
Dennis Altman: On Israel, Zionism and being Jewish
‘The deliberate conflation of antisemitism and hostility to Israel, which is evident in the speeches of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and statements by major Jewish organisations, means it is not surprising that many people elide what are two quite different identities, namely that of being Jewish and that of being Israeli..
On the day the hostages were returned to Israel, an ABC news report covering a celebration in Melbourne’s Jewish community referred to “the Jewish Diaspora”. They could have been echoing Netanyahu, whose pronouncements often assume that all Jews not living in Israel are somehow part of the Israeli state..
As a Jew, I feel deeply disturbed by these assumptions. The one time I visited Israel it felt to me like a foreign country, and I was embarrassed by the reality that while I could claim citizenship, this was denied to Palestinians who had been forced from their homes by the creation and expansion of Israel..
Over the past two years, I have felt more Jewish but also less connected to Israel, a country that is based upon an ethnonationalist ethos that runs against the best humanist traditions of Judaism. No wonder that leaders such as Viktor Orban [Hungary] or Narendra Modi [India] are staunch supporters of Israel, given their own commitment to a patriotism based upon religious and ethnic homogeneity.
posted by Satish Sharma at
10:34
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