The day after

The following ad from Israeli peace group Gush Shalom is published in today’s Haaretz:

The day after the “disengagement”, we must concentrate on “mending the rift within our people” and “solving the social problem” – this is the theme of a brain-washing campaign that has already started.

But, of course, this is nonsense.

After the Gaza withdrawal, we must concentrate, at once, on the main national task: achieving peace with the Palestinian people and the entire Arab world.

Because, when there is no peace, there will be war: a third intifada that will kill even more people on both sides than the second one.

Such a war will make the “social problem” even more dangerous and will widen the “rift within our people” even more.

– It will devour the resources that are needed for “solving the social problem”.

– It will prevent a “mending of the rift”, because peace will necessitate the evacuation of the West Bank settlements – the very same settlements that the Sharon government, with the participation of the Labor Party, are enlarging now at a frantic pace.

The struggle for peace will be hard.

It will be a confrontation between the State of Israel and the State of the Settlers.

It will be a confrontation between the democratic Israel and a nationalist-messianic Israel.

It will be a struggle for our future.

UPDATE: Avraham Burg is an Israeli and a former politician from a religious background. His latest article is explosive:

“And the Jewish religion – it is enduring so much abuse. So much superciliousness and racism underpin the words, ”˜A Jew does not expel a Jew.’ The belief in the superiority of the genes, the lordship of the nation of lords in the name of God. But a Jew who murders a Jewish prime minister – yes? Because a Jew is only a human being, with weaknesses and with powers. Nothing is innate, nothing is automatic, and even God’s choice of the Jewish people is not guaranteed without a moral commitment and without constant labor toward self-improvement and more humane behaviour. All of this has been shunted aside in favour of the unholy trinity of recent years: racist Judaism resting on violent settlement and protected by a distorted security conception.”

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