That quote's the headline in Haaretz today, the word from a leader of the rightwing National Union party, which is negotiating with Likud/Netanyahu to form a government.
This is the one issue I have with the good people at Support Israeli Democracy, who are collecting mostly-Jewish American signatures to urge Netanyahu not to make a coalition with Avigdor Lieberman of the racist Yisroel Beitenu party. Well, if Netanyahu makes a coalition with National Union, and Kadima and Labor, too, and yet it is more "Jewish and Zionist" than the government that gave us colonies on the West Bank and the slaughter in Gaza, what progress has Israel made toward a just peace? None.
I believe that because of Israeli intransigence on the idea of a viable Palestinian state (let alone a "viable" state with a tunnel connecting the two parts; how would you like to live in such a state?), some day this site and Support Israeli Democracy will be engaged in the same struggle. We will be urging Israel to become a state of its citizens, and not a Jewish, Zionist state. We will be urging people to join Hadash or another Arab party–which have always been excluded from governing coalitions, including in the landmark year of 1999, to disastrous effect.
We will be offering Israel the American exceptionalist claim, that all men are created equal. And who knows, maybe we will have Obama on our side too.
