Thursday, June 7, 2007

Avrum Burg Comes Through

A must-read http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/867986.html

Let's hope that Haaretz translates the entire interview.

Well, I knew it would happen sooner or later...Avrum Burg, a past Secretary General of the Jewish Agency and Speaker of the Israeli Knesset, has given up on Israel and Political Zionism. Why? Well, partly because he is Jewish, and as the sign in Meah Shearim says, "Judaism and (Political) Zionism are diametrically opposed." Mostly because he realizes that the problem with Israel is not the Arabs but Israel itself. The Jewish people have are suffering from a collective Holocaust trauma.

Oh, sure, he is not a deep thinker, and he has a tendency to say the sort of outrageous things that I said in the previous paragraph. But all his critics should ask a certain question -- here is a guy who grew up Israeli, served in the IDF, achieved high position -- and he has had enough.

Why?

Or to put it another way -- show me a single person in another (non-communist) Western country who achieved high political office and then slammed the door on his country, without betraying it.

If Burg were just another blankety-blank ("self-hating Jew," "traitor," etc.) you could easily dismiss him, right?

But if you can't give me another example, maybe the problem is not with him.

It's with Israel.

1 comment:

Jonathan Mark said...

I can name three Western leaders who were far, far worse than Burg.

Aaron Burr. Marshall Petain. The Duke of Windsor.

Burr killed Alexander Hamilton and spied for the British. Petain died in jail for collaboration.

The Duke of Windsor wished his own people ill, which at least Burg does not.

When you have a Jewish state, you have all of the problems of other states, including traitorous or unreliable leaders.