Further evidence of this came this week, in the person of World Jewish Congress President Edgar Bronfman. Bronfman is in Israel as part of the WJC’s plenary assembly, and two days ago, he told that assembly from the podium that “settlements on the West Bank that cannot be defended should be dismantled. The Intifadah is going to stay, and we can negotiate endlessly and get nowhere. If there is no peace, Israel should separate from the Palestinians.” He also said that the Israeli presence in Gaza was “a mistake”.
These comments came two days after four Israelis were killed in a terrorist shooting in Hadera. Hadera is a seaside town that was never under dispute, and is a part of Israel according to all international plans, proposals, and ideas. Yet Palestinian terrorists make little distinction between Hadera and Kfar Darom or Neve Tzuf. A Jew is a Jew, regardless whether he lives in Gaza, Samaria, Judea, or the Sharon.
I wonder why Bronfman is insisting that Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria are “indefensible”, why Jewish presence in Gaza is “a mistake”, while not at the same time demanding that Jews abandon Hadera, Netanya, or Tel Aviv to the terrorists. Can it be that Bronfman has bought the line of Yasser Arafat that the Palestinian war against Israel is a war of defense rather than plain, unadulterated terrorism? Can it be that Bronfman considers Palestinian terrorists aiming to kill Jews as real soldiers and IDF troops trying to defend Jewish lives as terrorists? Never, you say. After all, Bronfman is the leader of the World Jewish Congress, the number one representative of the Jewish people to world councils and governments. How could one think that he would support such ideas?
MJ Nurenberger was a professional journalist – writer, editor, and publisher – for more than 50 years. He died in August after having devoted his life to chronicling the achievements and failures of men such as Bronfman. In the 1940s, he joined an effort led by the Irgun to free Jews from Europe and bring them to Israel. The effort was led in America by Peter Bergson, aka Hillel Kook, who also died this summer. The effort was stymied at every turn by Jewish and Zionist Establishment officials, led by Stephen Wise and Nahum Goldmann, who founded the WJC. Nurenberger argues that 1-2 million Jews could have been saved had these Jewish “leaders” cooperated with the initiative rather than worked so arduously against it.
I found it remarkable that such treachery could have been practiced in full knowledge of what was at stake. But what I found even more remarkable is that both Nurenberger and Kook died within a month of each other. Now, perhaps I can understand why.
Both of these heroes struggled against unimaginable opposition to save and defend Jewish lives. Neither deserved to witness the continued ignorance of today’s self-proclaimed Jewish “leaders” when it comes to the defense of the Jewish people. Neither deserved to hear or read the words of Bronfman this week. Sixty years after the Holocaust, Bronfman has the nerve to come to Israel and say that our presence here is “a mistake” and that our places of residence here are “indefensible”. “We must separate,” he says, “from the Palestinians.”
Why?
Jews have come to Israel for the past 120 years specifically because in Israel alone could we defend ourselves. We have come here specifically because this is the one part of the world where our presence is not a mistake – neither a practical one, nor an historical one. We are here because we belong here. Yet we should leave simply because a few terrorists say so?
Edgar Bronfman, representing the same Jewish Establishment that refused to help us separate from our fiercest enemies six decades ago in their homelands, now comes to our own homeland and demands of us that we leave in deference to our enemies’ wishes. He believes that our home is indefensible and that our presence here is “a mistake”.
Did it never occur to Bronfman that the only restraint on our defense is misguided Jewish “leaders” like him who insist on blaming us for being victimized while not lifting any of his powerful fingers to assist us in defeating our enemies?
Perhaps the words of WJC Secretary General Israel Singer this week are more appropriate: “Jewish organizations are poorly equipped and ineffective when it comes to combating the challenges facing the Jewish people today,” began an article in the Jerusalem Post about Singer’s speech.
I believe that Singer is correct. If so, it is largely because of “leaders” such as Bronfman, who are so out of touch with Jewish history, Jewish reality, and the Jewish purpose. When such “leaders” are finally relegated to the dustbin of Jewish history where they belong, the problems cited by Singer will become solvable. Until then, Israel can do without the help of the Jewish Establishment.
Copyright 2001. Yehuda Poch is a writer living in Israel. Reproduction in electronic or print format by permission only.
