Israel's spectacular suicide

New construction in Judea and Samaria is now proceeding at the highest pace in seven years. If this continues, the Netanyahu-Lapid-Bennett government will put an end to the two-state solution, the Jewish democratic entity, and the Zionist dream.

By Ari Shavit | Jun.13, 2013 | 3:26 AM |

Few people paid attention to the news that during the first quarter of 2013, there were 865 housing starts in the settlements. That was a 176 percent increase over the parallel quarter last year and a 355 percent increase over the fourth quarter of 2012. Although settlers are only four out of every 100 Israelis, of every 100 housing starts this year, 8.5 were in the settlements. While in sovereign Israel the scope of new construction is slowing, new construction in Judea and Samaria is now proceeding at the highest pace in seven years.

The trend is clear: Within a short time the number of settlers will increase dramatically, as will their ability to block any attempt to divide the land. If it continues this way, the Netanyahu-Lapid-Bennett government will put an end to the two-state solution, the Jewish democratic entity, and the Zionist dream.

This is not a question of peace. In the coming years there will be no peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Nor is it a question of total and immediate withdrawal. In the coming years Israel will not be able to hand over the West Bank to the Palestinians in the same hasty way it gave them the Gaza Strip. But it is a question of survival. Will Israel, at the last minute, stop flooding theoccupied territories with settlers? Will the Zionist enterprise retain the option of going back to being a moral enterprise? Will the Jewish state choose life, or become unwittingly dissolved in an occupation that is becoming eternal?

As of now the answers are clear: No, no, and no. The Likud of Danny Danon prefers the Land of Israel over the State of Israel. Naftali Bennett’s Habayit Hayehudi (“The Jewish Home”) is determined to drown the Jewish national home in the swamps of colonial decay. Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid (“There is a future”) is turning out to be the party of opportunistic ambiguity, turning its back on the Zionist future. It’s just as Labor chairman Shelly Yacimovich said last week in the Knesset, that the national camp of Labor-Meretz-Kadima is now sitting in the opposition, while it’s the government of right-right-right that is on the verge of establishing a binational reality that will be irreparable.

From the settlers’ perspective, everything’s fine. Their situation has never been so comfortable. The international community is slowly internalizing the fact that the fundamental problem in the Middle East is not the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but the pathological political culture of the Arab world. The United States and Europe are too tired to confront the intense determination of the heirs of Gush Emunim. Israel can sell a navigation app for a billion dollars at the same time that it has lost its way. Right now there is no power within Israel, nor any power outside Israel, that can force Israel to save itself from its settlers. The most important minister in the government − Housing and Construction Minister Uri Ariel − can continue the momentum that began in the first quarter of the year. The government of no future will allow him to continue to break records in settling Judea and Samaria. While 20 ministers are engaged with all sorts of nonsense, the housing minister is burying Zionism in the hills.

Thus, from the Israelis’ perspective things are not good. They are not good at all. True, soon there will be a budget and soon there will a “sharing of the burden,” and it’s going to be a great summer. The restaurants along the coast will be full and the nightclubs will be full and Tel Aviv will be as lively as ever. But the fact that in 2013 Israelis still haven’t found a sane political party that will protect them sanely from the settlements, means that even as they are partying, they are dying. Even as they are winning, they are committing suicide. This country has, in the past, seen a few group suicides. But never has it seen a suicide so spectacular and so sweet and so unnecessary as the quiet suicide it is committing now.

Living in delusion

Living in delusion

American mediation is not the last chance, but it is the last chance under comfortable circumstances. Israel should realize negotiations are with the Palestinians, not the U.S.

Haaretz Editorial | Jun.05, 2013 | 5:50 AM |

The intensive efforts of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to advance the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations are coming to an end. In Kerry’s speech to the American Jewish Committee’s annual meeting on Monday, he already began to sketch what Israel can expect if it does not come to its senses and seek an agreement with the Palestinians. “[T]he people who think somehow because there is a fence and because there’s been greater security and fewer people hurt are lulling themselves into a delusion that that somehow can be sustained. It cannot be,” Kerry said.

Although his remarks were directed at both Israel and the Palestinians, his warnings − “We’re running out of time ... If we do not succeed now ... we may not get another chance ... the status quo is simply not sustainable,” and if the status quo persists, “Israel will be left to choose between being a Jewish state or a democratic state” − leave no room for doubt: It is Israel that will bear the burden of failure.

The distorted policy Israel has adopted, according to which the negotiations are not between it and the Palestinians, but rather between it and the U.S. administration, shows that Israel is indeed deluding itself.

By these lights the entire negotiating process is nothing but a means of appeasing the last friend Israel has. When the U.S. pressure lets up and Kerry throws up his hands, the danger of a decline in relations will pass, and with it the need to negotiate. Israel, it seems, is also not particularly rattled by the threat of having to choose between its democratic and its Jewish character, nor by Kerry’s broad hint that that Judaism and democracy are not synonymous. The moral understanding of our American friend, that a country cannot be an occupier forever, is far from the understanding of a country celebrating 46 years of occupation in which it has seen redemption of the messianic, delusional variety.

Over the years Israel has become accustomed to phrases like “the last chance for peace,” has managed to avoid almost every “last chance” of this type and has steeled itself against pressures both at home and abroad. This time, too, one can almost sense the satisfaction at Kerry’s failure, with the government relating to him and his mission as a nuisance. American mediation is not the last chance, but it is the last chance under comfortable circumstances − while the West Bank is still quiet, while the Palestinian Authority has not renewed its efforts to obtain recognition for a Palestinian state, while the Arab countries are prepared to support any flexible solution and while the world has still not officially boycotted Israel. A government that ignores these circumstances and the American efforts is putting its citizens at risk.

An Israel against peace is a danger to its citizens

The past few days suggest most members of Israel's new government regard every new initiative for advancing the peace process as a threat that must be repulsed. Such a government is a threat to its citizens.

Haaretz Editorial | May.03, 2013 | 6:04 AM

U.S. President Barack Obama’s efforts to advance the peace process do not end with the shuttle diplomacy of his Secretary of State John Kerry, or with his meetings with the Israelis and Palestinians. The threatening developments in the Middle East, the crisis is Syria and the Iranian threat, require the American president to expand the circle of partners and include the leaders of Arab nations. It turns out that the Arab leadership is not only not indifferent to these efforts − it has never given up on its hope to advance negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, and has never renounced its initiative as formulated in the Arab League decision of 2002. The decision states that in return for a withdrawal from the territories, Arab nations will normalize their relations with Israel and provide Israel with a protective security belt.

In the meeting between Kerry and the heads of the Arab League delegation, the Arab leaders made an important addition: agreement to minor border corrections and the exchange of territory between Israel and the Palestinians. In doing so the Arab League adopted the position of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and provided him with critical support for a limited concession on territory. This came after the Arab League already supported his position on the question of the right of return, when Abbas said: “We must reach a just and agreed upon solution on the question of refugees,” and in doing so subordinated the right of return to the negotiations.

Israel responded with distinct coolness to the new initiative. The prime minister did not even find it necessary to praise this important change in the Arab position, and made do with a general statement that that we must reach an agreement “that will prevent Israel from becoming a binational state, but will provide stability and security.” Only President Shimon Peres and Justice Minister Tzipi Livni adopted the new position and recognized its importance. Other ministers, such as Yair Lapid, who in his platform demanded progress in the peace process, Moshe Ya’alon and Yuval Steinitz, who bears the impressive title of minister for strategic and intelligence affairs, did not respond at all. It seems that in their eyes, every new initiative for advancing the peace process is a threat that must be repulsed.

Israel still insists on holding negotiations on all the core issues at once and rejects Abbas’ demand to negotiate on borders and security issues first. In doing so the government strengthens its rejectionist image at the same time the territories are starting to heat up. Such a government is a threat to its citizens.

It’s Not About the Peace Process, but About Peace as a Value

It’s Not About the Peace Process, but About Peace as a Value

By Rabbi DONNIEL HARTMAN

The peace process has returned to our public and political discourse. With President Obama's visit, coupled with Secretary of State Kerry's fresh enthusiasm, Israeli and Palestinian leaders are being challenged to dust the cobwebs off their negotiation strategies and find ways to renew the conversation about our common future.

Is peace, however, a process or a value? Over the years, under the belief that the other side no longer sees it as a value, Israeli society has followed suit. In a deep way we have relinquished the aspiration for peace, relegating it to the back shelf of messianic dreams and the prayer book. Since we have perceived it as unattainable, instead of living with the pain of unfulfillable yearnings, we have realigned our expectations. And so, peace has become a "process," to be managed, to be spoken about at appropriate times, in particular, when it serves our public relations interests. The maintenance of the process has become an end unto itself.

The beauty of a process lies not only in the immunity it provides from disappointment but also in the lowering of demands that are required of us. We merely have to show that we are negotiating in good faith and are willing to show up and talk at any time and at any place, with no preconditions. The latter is of particular value, as it enhances the chances that the process will continue, God willingly, indefinitely. As long as everything is on the table, the peace process is guaranteed an inexhaustible supply of issues to talk about. As long as we are talking, we are fulfilling our duties to the process.

Truth be told, there is a value underlying the "process," and that is the survival of the State and the security of our citizens. As long as one is committed to the peace process, war is off the table and acts of violence which exceed what is perceived as a tolerable level are condemned. Those who are committed to the process are by definition committed to doing everything in their power to limit such acts. And so, we are committed to the process, for in the unpredictable and volatile Middle East, it provides some comfort and stability and maintenance of a status quo which is an improvement on the alternative.

The Israel whose 65th birthday we are about to celebrate, the Israel which I love, however, never saw the status quo as a goal. While survival and security are certainly values of tremendous worth, they never exhausted the hopes of our people. We come from a tradition in which peace is not a process but a value, a value which far transcends the absence of bloodshed. When our rabbis teach us that all of Torah was given for the sake of peace, they are asking us to reorient our consciousness of ourselves and of our reality.

Peace as a value challenges us to think of the possibilities of what life would be like when we live in harmony with ourselves, others, and our surroundings. It is a life not defined by a zero-sum game consciousness but by the possibilities of win-win. It is when a sum total far exceeds the value of its parts. When we see the other and are open to being enriched by the lessons they can teach us. It is when we enable ourselves to transcend self-interest and to experience the joy and completeness which come from giving. It is when justice for all truly reigns within the land.

Like all values, peace is difficult to attain. The world of realpolitik does not merely question it but attempts to erode its place within our system of values. In a harsh world in which naivete is often dangerous, the value of peace is often undermined. And thus, we give birth to the peace "process."

However, when something is a value, truly a value of such significance that it can be spoken of as the goal of all of Torah, one does not let the exigencies of reality destroy it. The meaning of holding something to be a value is that I shape my world in its light and do not allow the world to shape it. Now, to hold peace as a value does not mean that one is naively innocent and childish. It does not mean that I expect "peace now." It does mean, however, that I want peace now.

As a value whose implementation never ceases to obligate me, I think about it, speak about it, dream about it and constantly ask myself one simple question: What do I have to do today to bring peace closer? The attainment of peace, like a process, requires two sides. However, while a process is by definition a negotiation among parties, peace as a value obligates everyone independently. While the fulfillment of peace is not only dependent on me, the actions of others do not absolve me of my responsibilities. These responsibilities include the ongoing education of my fellow citizens to ensure the immunization of our values in the face of the cynicism potentially promulgated by the "realists." It requires the education of our citizens to prefer the pain of unattained hopes over the short-term comfort of lower expectations and the self-righteous aggrandizement of arguing, "It's not our fault."

It obligates us at the very least to assess all of our actions and ensure that there is nothing that we are doing to hinder its implementation. Only when peace is truly a central value within our national culture, can such an honest assessment occur.

Finally, embedded within the notion of a value is the willingness to reprioritize, to take risks, and to be willing to pay a price not merely for its implementation but also to enhance the chances of its implementation. As a value it is more valuable than other things, and our politics must give expression to this not only in words but in actions.

When peace is a process, acquiescing beforehand to preconditions, confidence-building measures, and pre-commitment to a particular outcome or framework for resolution is unnecessary. The goal of the process itself is precisely to work these things out, hopefully indefinitely or at the very least until blame is placed on the other side, at which time we can freeze the process, to be resumed at an as yet to be determined later date.

When peace is a value, however, we must do a tremendous amount of work first and foremost among ourselves, assessing how it can best be achieved and co-exist with our other values. We are engaged in a never-ending process among ourselves to determine the principles which will shape our policy, a policy founded on the yearning to implement the value. As such, we neither fear confidence-building measures nor preconditions, as long as they are in sync with our principles. To negotiate in good faith is not to come to an empty table but to one in which both sides have done extensive work and can show how their values get translated into policy. These are not concessions that we make to the other but strategies which we are willing to execute to enhance the possibility of implementation of the values which are ours.

We are now 65 years old and can celebrate the gifts of Jewish sovereignty, power, and success. What do we want to celebrate when we are 66? Will we want to give thanks to one more year in which we were able to maintain the status quo, or will we be able to celebrate a year in which our national identity reconnected with its noblest values and aspirations? Will we dare to emerge out of the "process" and embrace the value? It may not make any difference in the status of our relationship with our neighbors, but it will at the very least change who we are and what we do. As for the rest, who knows?

Sayed Kashua complains he can't complain about seder night

What is the proper Arab reaction to the strange prohibitions against eating bread on Passover and driving on Yom Kippur?

By Sayed Kashua | 

I'm so happy that I’m once again stuck in the morning traffic jams. I’m so happy that I’m once again driving my kids to school, that an irritable driver is cursing me out because he isn’t willing to slow down for a split second when I turn right. I’m happy that once again there’s escalation in the south and tension in the north, and that Limor Livnat is still the culture and sports minister. Finally back to routine.

I was very happy to return home after a long and difficult trip of several weeks abroad. I missed the children so much, and was so much looking forward to seeing them that it was very moving when I entered the house that evening. After 10 minutes of hugs, kisses and giving out presents, I took a sleeping pill that my wife bought for overcoming jet lag. It worked wonders and I decided to adopt the method on my future trips.
I slept for an entire night and when I woke up the next morning the kids were at home. “Passover vacation,” said my wife, “did you forget?”

The truth is I had.

“So, what are we doing?” she added. “The children are bored.”

The children are bored is the sentence I heard every morning from the time I landed until the day I went back to the office. The kids are bored, and when they’re bored the older ones can kill each other, and the little one will continue his attempts to commit suicide by jumping off the sofa head first, or by sending his plastic bicycle down the stairs while riding it.

So, on Passover, because the children are bored, we drove to my parents on seder night, and ate stuffed vine leaves. Kids in Tira are also bored. The schools have closed for a vacation of over two weeks, which is called “spring vacation.” What else should they call it? Forced Passover vacation for Arabs?

I know that Passover, or any school vacation, can be very problematic for parents, both Jewish and Arab. But it becomes intolerable when you’re not part of the holiday, and you don’t enjoy any rituals, as boring as they may be, related to the holiday. So for us, instead of Sukkot there is the “winter vacation,” and in the Arab sector it definitely doesn’t mean ski vacations. Plus, as mentioned, there’s spring holiday, during which we don’t exactly frolick on green hills and chase colorful butterflies.

We’re just stuck in a Jewish holiday without the slightest idea of what we’re supposed to do. We don’t even have the right to complain about seder night, or about the annoying aunties. And when it comes to people like us, who live in a Jewish city, we’re stuck with a spring vacation, without bread.

Sometimes I think about the country during Jewish holidays and it strikes me as a place that’s clearly insane. Mainly on Yom Kippur and Passover, when an entire country adopts religious prohibitions. An entire country that can stop traffic because of a divine commandment, an entire country in which supermarkets cover banned foods with plastic sheeting. I might have understood this behavior when it comes to Jews living as a minority in foreign countries, where they try to maintain some kind of identity, a shared destiny and a unique character. There are week-long rituals during which they refrain from eating hametz, and by doing so feel like a chosen − or oppressed − people. Take your pick. But when it comes to an entire country, to a law, to people who have already become the majority, it starts to be somewhat worrisome.

Come to think of it, it is actually the Arabs, as a minority, who should adopt some kind of secret rules to distinguish them from other people a few days a year.
“Listen,” I said to my wife as we sat down to eat hummus in Abu Ghosh, like all the Jews. “We have to find Passover rules for ourselves.”

“What does that mean?” she said, perusing the menu.

“We won’t survive this without certain rules, without special rituals − it’s a nightmare that’s liable to continue for many years to come, and we have to prepare accordingly.”
“By doing what?” asked my wife, when one of the waiters in a blue shirt approached with a notebook to take our order.

“Hummus with ful,” said my daughter.

“With an egg?” asked the waiter.

“We don’t eat eggs during the spring holiday,” I answered the waiter in Arabic, and the children were actually pleased with the idea, smiled, and only my wife made a face and ordered kebab.

“Rules like that,” I said to my wife, “small but meaningful rules in the process of consolidating a people and building a nation.”

The children and I hadn’t eaten eggs for an entire week, and the Passover vacation was not yet over. Before the final day of the holiday, we drove to a Dead Sea hotel that cost us NIS 3,000 for a single night. In the evening we stood in line with Israeli, French and American vacationers; there was no bread, and we didn’t touch any dish containing eggs. The children were even willing to tolerate the idea that they couldn’t eat schnitzel.

In the morning, we tried to find empty seats next to the pool. Although the pool was empty, the seats had been taken by guests who left towels and other items on them and beneath the umbrellas. Despite the oppressive heat the water was freezing, and the air was filled with sand. Aside from the pool or the beach there’s nothing to do at the Dead Sea, so the pool gradually filled up with tourists.

“What’s that? The one with the area code 059,” shouted a short, fat guy next to me to his wife, as he looked at the screen of the cellphone ringing in his hand. “It’s an Arabush [pejorative term for Arab] area code, isn’t it?” he giggled out loud, and I continued to smear the children with sunscreen.

“Dad,” my son whispered to me, glancing at the short, fat guy, and back at me, waiting for me to react.

“Because of that,” I said to my son, as I took a deep breath, “because of people like him, we don’t eat eggs during the spring holiday.”

Patriotism in the service of silencing dissent

When Ambassador Michael Oren says the makers of "The Gatekeepers" are compromising the state’s public relations efforts, his are just the latest words in a worrying trend of trying to quiet anyone who dares to be critical.

By Akiva Eldar and Daniel Bar-Tal | Mar.28, 2013 | 12:40 AM 

This past week, Haaretz reported that Israeli diplomats were having a hard time dealing with the film “The Gatekeepers.” Michael Oren, Israel’s ambassador to the United States, outdid all the others when he claimed that the heads of the Shin Bet who were interviewed for the film compromised the state’s public relations efforts, which he said were "in a kind of war.”

His statements join other similar ones that have been made of late – statements that express one of many symptoms of a dangerous disease that has been attacking Israeli society over the past few years. Other symptoms include increasing delegitmization of the left wing (and the Haredi population as well), with the purpose of silencing legitimate voices in public discourse; Culture Minister Limor Livnat’s call to artists to practice self-censorship; the Education Ministry’s dismissal of civics studies supervisor Adar Cohen because his liberal views were not to the liking of former education minister Gideon Sa’ar; the barring by Israel of Professor Rivka Feldhay from participating in a joint Israeli-German academic conference, apparently for her support for Israeli soldiers who refuse to serve in the Palestinian territories; and the attempts to shut down the Department of Politics and Government at Ben-Gurion University. All these are symptoms of the attempts to suppress free speech in Israeli society.

Oren and those who share his opinion claim that criticism of the leadership’s policy is tantamount to damaging the State of Israel’s standing and harming its interests. For the regime’s spokesmen, their methods, ideology and goals are an inseparable part of the state. Therefore, disagreeing with them is equivalent to harming the state, and critics betray the state’s interests. This approach is reminiscent of the spokesmen of the Chinese regime, who use the same reason to silence criticism from within and exert tight control over the media, cultural works and academia. The approach of Oren and his colleagues must therefore justify regimes that attempt to silence criticism of anti-Semitism in their countries for fear that making such criticism public might damage their countries’ image and interests.

In professional terms, the attempt to create an absolute identity between the method of a particular group and the goals of the state is known as “monopolizing patriotism.” This is done by attaching conditions such as support of the leadership and its policies to the definition of patriotism. That is how people who do not meet those conditions are excluded from the patriotic camp and only those who meet those conditions may be considered patriots. Patriotism is thus transformed into an effective mechanism for shunning entire groups within society that do not agree with the leadership’s policies.
Oren and his ilk do not accept the basic principle that patriots who love their country and their people are allowed to disagree with the political leadership’s vision and policy. They deny the approach that heterogeneity of thought is one of the most obvious and necessary signs of an open and pluralistic society. Not for a moment does it occur to them that perhaps their goals and policy are what is causing damage to the state.

Individuals and groups in society have different opinions, and it is important that these opinions be expressed in the public discourse, in cultural expressions, in textbooks, in classroom discussions. Attempts to restrict free speech and weaken critical discussion – whose intent is actually to repair society – harm democracy and lead the state down the road of becoming a totalitarian regime in which everyone must express an identical opinion. The demand to express full support for the leadership’s methods and refrain from criticism sabotages any attempt to promote a solution to the crisis. Defining the situation as “a kind of war” is a demagogic and manipulative use of words whose purpose is to convince people to support the leadership.

Oren and those like him are dictating to the public what the government believes to be the rules of appropriate behavior. Conservative groups operating on the ground strengthen these messages by keeping track of statements that are made or written and then smearing anyone who expresses opinions that differ from the leadership’s. This is how a political climate is constructed in which people are afraid to express their opinions and where free speech, one of the most prominent characteristics of a democratic society, is restricted.

Daniel Bar-Tal is a professor of political psychology at Tel Aviv University. Akiva Eldar is the political commentator at Al-Monitor.

Pesach and Israel: A Tale of Two Realities?

Pesach and Israel: A Tale of Two Realities?

By Rabbi DONNIEL HARTMAN, president, Hartman institute, Jerusalem

The dramatic story of the Exodus from Egypt involves many players: the Children of Israel, the Egyptians, Moses, Aaron, and Pharaoh. There is, however, only one hero: God. God is the one who brought us down to Egypt, ostensibly as a staging area for the Jewish people whose receipt of their Promised Land was put on hold until the sins of the Canaanite nations reached a divinely calculated tipping point to justify God's expulsion of them (Genesis 15:16). God is also the sole player in the redemption; the role of the Children of Israel is to merely be born as the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and to cry forth out of the suffering of slavery and awaken God to remember God's covenant (Exodus 2:23-25).

It is a story most aptly summarized by the Biblical verse, "The Lord shall do battle for you, and you, you shall keep still." (Exodus 14:14) The centrality of God in this story is carried forth in the Pesach Haggadah in the opening statement of the retelling of the story, "We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt, and the Lord our God took us out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. And if the Holy One, Blessed Be God, had not taken our ancestors out of Egypt, we and our children, and our children's children, would still be enslaved to the Pharaohs in Egypt."

The story of Egypt depicts a vision of history in which God is the sole or primary force and we but passive bystanders whose job it is to watch, remember, and then obey the word of our all-powerful and redeeming God. "I am the Lord your God who took you out of the Land of Egypt, the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods besides me." (Exodus 20:2-3) If we want to change our destiny, it is to the God who shapes history that we must turn our eyes and pray. "Pour out your wrath upon the nations who do not know You, and upon the kingdoms who do not invoke Your name, for they have devoured Jacob and laid waste to his dwelling." (Haggadah)

This vision of history, one which is shaped by an all-powerful, redeeming God, provided profound comfort and hope for powerless people in general and to Jews throughout much of their Diasporic life, in particular. The passivity envisioned was not deemed to be negative, as it was merely descriptive of their current reality, a reality which they believed could only be changed through Divine assistance.

One of the great paradoxes of the Egypt story, however, is that the same story which spawns a religious vision of human passivity in the realm of history generates a religious obligation of extreme activism in the social sphere. "For you were slaves in the Land of Egypt" does not merely serve to direct our eyes to the God in heaven who granted us freedom, but also serves as the foundation for obligating us to treat the poor, the stranger, and the slave with equity, righteousness, and kindness. We are obligated to not merely remember God's salvation and kindness but the experience of powerlessness and degradation which preceded it, and instead of celebrating the powerlessness, we are commanded to recalibrate our consciousness to the reality of freedom and to take responsibility for the society in which we live. We are obligated to remember God's activism not merely as the antidote to our helplessness in confronting the forces of history but as a paradigm to be emulated when we confront injustice in ours.

Pesach thus tells a complex story. On the one hand, it depicts God as the heroic figure, and on the other obligates us to become such a figure.

The essence of the Zionist revolution and the new Jewish ideology that it gifted to Jewish life is an attempt to resolve this complexity. Zionism is not merely a movement of Jewish national sovereignty, but a movement of Jewish ideas which declared war on the Pesach idea that when it comes to history we Jews have only one hero, only one place to turn our eyes – God. Zionism is about harnessing the activism which Jews directed within their community to the world outside our community, outside the ghetto walls.

We the champions of the downtrodden within our midst must also take up and fight against the downtroddenness which characterized our status in the world. We were not going to wait for God to pour forth God's wrath. We were no longer going to wait for a second coming of the Egypt story, and instead we were to strive to become masters of our own fate and destiny. For the Zionist and for the Jews of power and dignity which it spawned worldwide, the Pesach story has become less of a model for the present and more a nostalgic story of our past. We do not merely celebrate our freedom from Egypt but our freedom from the Egypt story and the religious personality that it shapes and envisions.

We must take great care, however, not to liberate ourselves completely from the Egypt story. We are indeed a free, sovereign people who take responsibility for our national destiny. We make a profound error, however, when we envision the goals of Jewish sovereignty merely in terms of shaping and protecting Jewish life within the arena of history, when we limit the purpose of Israel to defending Jews against the Pharaohs and enemies who constantly arise against us.

The story of Egypt obligated us to be sovereign over our society even when we could not be sovereign in history. Now that we are capable of redeeming and protecting ourselves, it would be tragic and indeed ironic if we forgot that we were slaves in Egypt and that the duty of freedom is to create a society of justice, justice for our people and justice for all who live in our midst. It is relatively easy for a people who were saved by an other, to remember that there but for the gift of God go I, and to identify with those of a similar status and embrace a social activist spirit in defense of the needy and downtrodden. It is more difficult for a people who marshaled their own force and genius to build a powerful and vibrant society to avoid the hubris which it can produce, an arrogance which can make one blind to those less successful, to those who could not on their own redeem themselves.

If the story of modern Israel is the antidote to the first part of the story of Egypt, the story of Jewish powerlessness in the face of our foes, then the second part of the story of Egypt, "And remember that you were slaves in the Land of Egypt," is the antidote to the hubris of power which the story of Israel can generate. We are indeed free from the first story, but the second is more relevant than ever and provides a blueprint for the essential challenges of Israel in the years to come.