From Ynet News, 12/8/08,by Martin Sherman:
If Israel is not Zionist, it won’t be Jewish; if it’s not Jewish it won’t be democratic
... it takes only the most elementary analytical skill to identify the glaring flaw in the logic of post–Zionist positions which - allegedly in the name of enlightened liberal values - call for the conversion of Israel from a "Jewish State" to a "state of all its citizens."
It requires no extraordinary intellect to grasp the fact that should such a change indeed take place, the resulting realities would in fact be the exact antithesis of the values invoked for making it.
Indeed, it is not difficult to foresee the inevitable chain of events that such a move would trigger.
...should Israel be re-defined as a "state of all its citizens...” ...there will neither be rhyme nor reason why any Jew ...would choose to live their life in a "non-Jewish Israel" rather than in any other "state of all its citizens" where the rigors of daily life are less demanding and less stressful....
Accordingly, not only would there be a dramatic increase in the number of Jews who leave the country ... There would be no mass "aliyah" ...
... there would be little grounds for preventing the massive influx of migrants from neighboring lands from pouring into the country – whether to fulfill the "right of return" or merely to make a better living – since, initially, the chances of finding a more lucrative livelihood would still be higher here rather than there.
Inevitably, these processes will bring about a continual erosion of the Jewish population. As the composition of the population in the land becomes similar to that in the other states of the region, there is no reason to suppose that the realities that prevails in it will not also become similar to those prevailing in those states – including the level of economic development, standard of living and lifestyle, status of women, nature of the regime, and the liberties it allows those living under it.
It is difficult to imagine that even the post-Zionists, with their bias and selective view of the world, are unaware of the fact that that in the entire Arab world - from Casablanca to Kuwait - there is no semblance of any "liberal democratic state in the Western mode" for which they allegedly yearn with such passion.
...all those genuinely desirous of "liberal democratic state in the Western mode" in this neck of the woods must recognize a basic inescapable truth: If Israel is not Zionist, it will not be Jewish; if it is not Jewish it will not be democratic.
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