Never Waste A Good Crisis

Shift Happens

By Amos Ben Gershom / Government Press Office of Israel

"For decades, Israel has enjoyed robust and growing global integration; now the ride is poised to end. Israelis can either face their loss on the global stage and change course or continue to deflect. But it won't be the same kind of state on the other side" - Dahlia Scheindlin

Recently Robert Reich published an article on Substack concerning the confusion around criticising Isreal and antisematism and how the term has become politicized.

“House Republicans are politicizing and weaponizing antisemitism. They are using supposed antisemitism in education as a means of pursuing their cultural populist agenda, which for years has denigrated universities and public schools. They are also intent on splitting liberal Democrats over the war in Gaza.”

Israel originally was established primarily by secular Jews as a state for stateless Jews after WWII. Its purpose was to be a Jewish state as a rallying point for diaspora from all corners of the globe. At the time Jewish was considered a "race" more than simply a religion. All types of Jews were persecuted collectively regardless of specific national heritage or form of worship.

Fast forward several decades and now Israel is a modern multi-cultural nation comprised of many secular Jews, Christians, Muslims, and other religious affiliations. Israel is an anomaly in a secularized world being a theocracy - a religion-based state. A separation of religion and state is seen as necessary and stabilizing in multi-cultural societies.

It is not simply a coincidence that the current turmoil in the Middle East can be attributed to a clash of two theocracies - Israel and Iran. What could have been a disagreement between two nation-states has erupted into a holy war over the fate of the Holy City of Jerusalem. Religious fanaticism's first casualty is reason and logic. Iran-backed Hamas will sacrifice themselves and the entire population of Gaza as sacred martyrs for a religious cause. This is not about the states of Palestine and Israel but a holy war over the Holy Land, and as such there can be no compromise.

Israel is fighting two wars - one with the Islamists and the other internally with Ultra-Orthodox Jews. The only way to disengage is for Israel to declare itself a secular state and to remove the Star of David from its national flag. Just as the flags of other modern nations have morphed over time, it is now Israel's time to let go of its founding Zionism and embrace a new mandate as a modern secular state open to a multitude of cultures and religions. Until then, any action that the state of Israel takes is construed as a religious act in a region with a long, sad history of holy wars. Until religion is removed from Israeli and Palestinian politics there will be no peace.