Jack Ross went to a Rabbis for Human Rights conference in Washington today and reports that Avraham Burg was asked a question about whether he's a Zionist, and said, he's always tempted to make a joke about this question then stops himself, but that today he was too tired to stop himself: "What makes you a Zionist? Your mother was a Zionist." Loaded/interesting.
Many of Burg's statements were non-Zionist. He said that all the Jewish anti-Zionists prior to partition shared fears that proved true about the effects on Jewish identity of a Jewish nation, a nation like others, in the fallen world. After partition, Burg said, both sides were claimed by their extremist elements. Kidnaped. Stockholm syndrome. (I think this describes my relationship as a young journalist to Marty Peretz, who briefly paid me for work.) Brilliant point. Suggests that it's time for the reasonable to at last make common cause.
Burg was for the two-state solution, because there's no better solution, besides a war between the settlers and Hamas. But to leave it at two states would be shortsighted. Burg spoke of a Mediterranean union…. Reminds me of Saif Ammous's line: How can you be wildly excited by the idea of a kidney-shaped Palestinian state with Gaza on the side? You can't be. No liberal democrat can be.
