Israel’s very soul lies in the balance
September 2, 2024 by Menachem Rosensaft
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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and all the other members of Israel’s security cabinet except for Defence Minister Yoav Gallant have Hersh Goldberg-Polin’s blood and the blood of the other murdered hostages — Eden Yerushalmi, Ori Danino, Alex Lubnov, Carmel Gat, and Almog Sarusi — whose bodies were just recovered, on their hands.
Menachem Rosensaft
Hamas killers shot them, but if Netanyahu and his cohort didn’t actually pull the trigger, they gave the green light to the Hamas murderers to do so. Without question, Netanyahu and his security cabinet sealed the hostages’ fate and knowingly, deliberately signed their death warrant.
Had they not voted for Netanyahu’s latest scheme to thwart a cease-fire and hostage deal, Hersh and the others might have lived and might be alive today.
Netanyahu doesn’t care about the Philadelphi Corridor anymore than he cares about any of the hostages. All he cares about, all he has ever cared about, all he will ever care about is remaining in power and staying out of jail.
Regardless of the cost. Regardless of the lives lost as the direct result of his obscene determination to cling to his prime ministership. He has done so, is doing so, despite the explicit warnings by Israel’s generals and intelligence chiefs that he was condemning the hostages to death. And he has done so, is doing so, despite the assurances given by the same generals and intelligence chiefs that keeping the IDF deployed in the Philadelphi Corridor was not essential to Israel’s security.
But Netanyahu and his fascisti Interior Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich don’t care. Neither do all the other ministers and Knesset members who share their Masada-like zealotry. Indeed, as we all now know with absolute certainty, their goal all along was to scuttle any deal so that they could keep their disastrous coalition in place.
For Diaspora Jews who care about Israel, for Zionists who are committed to Israel’s existence and survival as a Jewish and democratic state, this is a wake-up moment.
The Zionist dream, realized in 1948 with the creation of the State of Israel, was never intended to become the nightmare that Netanyahu has turned it into.
The Zionist dream was meant to enable Jews, in the aftermath of the Holocaust, to achieve national and political self-determination in their ancestral homeland.
Not all Jews, to be sure. But those Jews who chose to build a state of their own. And that state, as envisioned by its Declaration of Independence, was intended to be a simultaneous Jewish and democratic state. It was meant to be predicated on equality for all it’s citizens, Jews and non-Jews, Jews and Arabs, Jews and Muslims, Jews and Christians and Druze.
It was certainly never intended to be an ultranationalist enterprise in which Jewish supremacy would become the order of the day.
And yet that is precisely what Netanyahu, his unctuous justice minister Yariv Levin, Ben-Gvir, and Smotrich have in mind.
The State of Israel was intended to be a reaction against and repudiation of fascism, not the bastardized reimplementation of that ignominious ideology that Netanyahu, Ben-Gvir, Smotrich and their enablers want Israel to become.
At this very moment, David Ben-Gurion, Chaim Weizmann, Moshe Sharett, Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres, and, yes, Menachem Begin and Vladimir Jabotinsky must be rolling over in their graves, aghast and appalled at the desecration of their lives’ work being perpetrated by the unprincipled, amoral sociopath that is Benjamin Netanyahu.
Our moral imperative as Diaspora Jews and as Zionists who love Israel and are committed to Israel is clear.
We must loudly and unequivocally support our Israeli brothers and sisters, our Israeli family and friends, who are battling for Israel’s soul and who want to bring Israel to a screeching halt until Netanyahu and his accomplices and acolytes are either forced out of office or agree to call new elections at the earliest possible moment.
We must raise our voices in support of the families of the hostages, in support of Yair Lapid and Yair Golan and all those who are trying to save Israel from Netanyahu’s ruthless destruction of their country’s essence.
No less than Israel’s soul and the soul of every form of progressive, liberal, egalitarian Zionism rooted in Israel’s Declaration of Independence and Jewish humanistic values are at stake.
Menachem Z. Rosensaft is adjunct professor of law at Cornell Law School and lecturer-in-law at Columbia Law School. He is the author of the forthcoming Burning Psalms: Confronting Adonai after Auschwitz (Ben Yehuda Press, 2025).
At a time when jews and Israelis need to be united in their goal to destroy Hamas and terror evil as the absolute top priority, people like Mr Rosensaft and like minded Lapid are vivid reminders of historical treason events at the core of many upheavals.
Mr Rosensaft should do himself and his ancestry a favour and have a good hard look at himself.
I also think that he hasn’t got many – if any – ‘fans’ for his narrative here, so perhaps not publishing these unproductive, misguided and indeed offensive rants could be considered.
Israel went through a decade series of elections, attempting unsuccessfully to unseat Netanyahu. During the only term when Netanyahu and Likud were voted out of office, and with Biden in the White House, Hamas took the opportunity of planning October 7th. It appears the anti-Bibi brigade now wishes to use Hamas to unseat Netanyahu.
The writer may not agree with their policies, but I have no doubt that Bibi and his cabinet do care. The writer does not put his life on the line by defending Israel, or pay taxes or vote in Israel’s elections, but he still thinks he can pontificate from the University campuses, that will still hate him no less for being Jewish. Let’s just remember that it was Hamas and not the leaders of Israel that murdered the hostages. Time for people outside of Israel to tone down the hateful rhetoric and to direct their outrage to the people who truely do not care about Israel as a Jewish state.
Prof Rosensaft. I am a gentile Zionist from Rural New Zealand. Hamas must be destroyed Lot, stock and Barrel. The philadelphi line must remain Israeli occupied territory or Gaza will never be free if it is handed back to Hamas. If Biden wants his hostages back he should send in the 101st Airborne Division into gaza and help Israeli forces to clean out the strip. So far he has done Nothing to get any hostage out.
John McCormick Chairman Hawkes Bay Provence friends of Israel.
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“Without question, Netanyahu and his security cabinet sealed the hostages’ fate and knowingly, deliberately signed their death warrant….” Wow – what an authority on the facts Rosensaft claims to be…
I question the author’s sanity and whether he is fit to pass such wild opinions that defy logic and clearly indicate a total lack of perspective…
Any lawyer and certainly any law professor shuold know life is never black and white and political comment based upon media reports can never be certain and “without question”
He may strongly dislike Bibi and the Likud but to claim with such conviction that anyone in Israel – in the Knesset – in the military – does not want only the best outcome for the hostages and securirty for Israel is frankly insanely ridiculous ….and downright dangerous!
Absolutely agree with you Phillip , Rosensaft hates Netanyahu and Trump,