Speak for yourself, A.B. Yehoshua

From JPost, May. 10, 2006 , by URI DAN:

Author A.B. Yehoshua did not hesitate to determine in a lecture he gave in Washington last week that he is a real Jew because he lives in Israel, whereas Jews living in the United States cannot lead genuinely Jewish lives.

In the arrogant and overweeningly pretentious harangue before the centennial symposium of the American Jewish Committee, Yehoshua added, "Judaism outside Israel has no future. If you do not live in Israel [...] your Jewish identity has no meaning at all."

Of course Yehoshua's American Jewish hosts, among whom were some genuine intellectuals, were thoroughly offended by Yehoshua's gall: How dare Yehoshua purport to be a better Jew than they are? Others wondered aloud if Yehoshua wasn't perhaps expressing what the majority of Israelis were thinking.

Fortunately, he was not. This is not the first time that Avraham B. Yehoshua has held forth and spouted utter nonsense in public.... I have followed Yehoshua's posturing - invariably in a woefully wrong, even dangerous, direction - as Israel's national conscience.

Twenty years ago, the PLO under Yasser Arafat tried to organize a sensational cruise involving a Palestinian "refugee ship" that would land on Israel's shores ... to demonstrate their unwavering demand to return hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees to Israel - which if accepted would spell the end of the Jewish state. NATURALLY, A number of leftist Israelis offered to assist Arafat ...One of the members of that group was Avraham B. Yehoshua ...

...Later.... A.B. Yehoshua was of course among those who blindly and rapturously supported the Oslo agreements with Arafat ... We all know what happened as a result: over 1,500 people killed in Israel, over 5,000 injured, with IDF soldiers engaged in a ceaseless war in the West Bank for the past five years to stem the terrible onslaught of terror generated by the Oslo agreements.

That is why I am not surprised at the stupidity of Yehoshua's remarks in Washington, in particular at a time when the Jewish state needs, more than ever, to shore up and strengthen its ties with American Jewry...