Benny Gantz, the man directly responsible for the Gaza Massacre of 2014, spoke yesterday (Monday) at the AIPAC yearly conference in Washington. He referenced his participation in the mission for the evacuation of the Jews of Ethiopia. So far, so good.
But when Gantz, who is running for the prime ministership of Israel with the Blue and White party, decided to share that moment with his Israeli supporters, he let slip an inconvenient truth.
“If there is one Jew in danger, anywhere in the world, then our mission is unfinished; today I am telling you the mission is unfinished!” Gantz tweeted in Hebrew.
אם יש יהודי אחד בסכנה; בכל מקום בעולם,
הרי שמשימתנו עדיין לא תמה.
היום אני אומר לכם, שהמשימה עדיין לא תמה! pic.twitter.com/dIKPw3l2uK— בני גנץ – Benny Gantz (@gantzbe) March 26, 2019
Let’s unpack that for a moment.
Datum: Most Jews do not live in Israel.
Datum: Most Jews do not hold Israeli citizenship.
Datum: Gantz (and most Israelis) believe it is the duty of Israel to engage anyone, anywhere, in order to save Jews.
Conclusion: Israel does not recognize the sovereignty of other nations; or, at least, sees that sovereignty as imperfect, as it considers its right to violate it in the case of Jews.
Conclusion: Israel risks Jews not living there by perpetually raising the specter of Jews holding “dual nationality.”
What is Gantz saying? He is saying Jews everywhere belong to a single nation, and that it is the duty of the State of the Jews to save them, wherever they are and whatever the danger.
He is not speaking of the duty of Israel of saving its own citizens, but rather the obligation to violate the sovereignty of any other country in its crusade to save Jews. He explicitly says that Israel owes loyalty to those non-citizens – and implicitly, that they owe loyalty to it.
Most Israelis won’t even see the problem. They are raised thinking of non-Israeli Jews as Jews who have not yet become Israelis. And the law is on their side: All you have to do, if you’re a Jew, to get an Israeli citizenship, is land in Ben Gurion Airport. (Big caveat: the rabbinate of Israel will decide if you’re a Jew or not. Gruesome details here.)
But it ought to trouble Jews living outside Israel to have a rogue state claim semi-sovereignty over them. It’s a very short walk from here to getting diaspora Jews suspected of dual loyalty to their foreign would-be protector. And the practice by Israeli intelligence agencies of using Jews as agents doesn’t help dispel those suspicions.
Gantz runs as a moderate right-winger, Netanyahu without the corruption and the alliance with the Kahanists; his number 2, Yair Lapid, will basically say the same thing regarding Israel and the diaspora Jews; and so have many prime ministers.
Basically, Israel is not a nation in the modern sense. It is an ethno-state. It has explicitly rejected the notion of there being an Israeli nation, and you can’t demand to be recognized in your ID as an Israeli. The government denies you that right: you can’t be an Israeli, only a member of a specific millet (see the link above.) The government will recognize you an as Assyrian, or as a Samaritan; yet it will go to court, and win, denying you the right to be recognized as an Israeli.
Keep that in mind the next time AIPAC or some other hasbarist tries to pull the old con, claiming Israel “shares Western values.” It never did, and indeed, as long as it sees itself as a Jewish country, it cannot.
But Yossi, you’re missing the opportunity this presents to resolve the whole conflict: if we can simply get all the Palestinians to convert to Judaism (I’m sure we can find some progressive rabbis who will help) then Gantz and his crew will swoop in and transport them all to the safety of Israel.
The process for a Jew of getting Israeli citizenship begins weeks and even months before the plane lands in Israel, it includes a letter from a rabbi testifying to your Jewishness.
You can probably land and then start the process in Israel, but I doubt you would start the process at Ben Gurion airport, probably at the Misrad Ha’pnim. Interior Ministry. But it is more dramatic to say, all you have to do is land at the airport.
And of course, Israel extends this protective web to any Jew who murders a Gentile.
How about that Samuel Sheinbein anyway? Looks like Israel maybe should have let the state of Maryland deal with him after all.
Israel does not and never did share what are nowadays regarded as Western values, but Israel’s precursor, the pre-state Zionist movement, DID share many of what were regarded as Western values at the time — in particular, nationalism (even in its fascist form) and colonialism. Otherwise Zionism could never have obtained Western support. A divergence has opened up because ‘the West’ has changed (to some degree) while Zionism/Israel has not.
Gee, Yossi Gurvitz, what exactly is wrong with “dual nationality” or “dual loyalty”? You make it sound as if it’s a terrible thing, but you didn’t explain what the problem is. The overwhelming majority of Diaspora Jews live in countries where there is absolutely no problem having multiple citizenships. The USA, the UK, France, Russia, Argentina and Canada are the first ones that come to mind (and there are many more).
And what on earth is wrong with Israel’s coming into a foreign country to rescue a Jewish community? I understand that it’s a big “no-no” to say anything good about Israel in an anti-Israel website, but surely the rescue of people in plight is a nice trait. When absolutely everything is wrong about Israel, it is rather hard to take your criticism seriously. Anyway, I think it was really fine that the Ethiopian community was brought to Israel, and I think it is a shame that anyone would prefer to have left them there.
You claim that most Jews don’t live in Israel. I don’t know why that is an issue worthy of mention. Anyway, now that you have mentioned the topic, it might not be true. It’s hard to know the number of Jews throughout the world, but it could be that indeed most of them live in Israel. And if the Israeli Jews are not yet the majority of world Jewry, there really isn’t much doubt that they will be within the coming decade or so. Actually, it’s quite amazing. Despite the conflict situation, despite the many UN condemnations and even despite your claim that “Israel is not a nation in the modern sense”, there seems to be something very attractive about her. Maybe it’s the nice weather.