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Not all American Jews back Israel

By Khalid Hasan

WASHINGTON: Not all American Jews back Israeli policies, nor are all of them Zionists, as evidenced by a quarter-page advertisement placed in Washington Post Sunday by a group calling itself Jews Against Zionism.

Describing itself as the “silent majority American Jewry”, the group in an open letter to President George Bush expresses its “deep and abiding interest in the suffering of the peoples of the Middle East” and support for the president’s “desire to bring an end to all the bloodshed and violence there”.

The group says the president knows of Jews who support the state of Israel, but may not have heard about the “silent majority of Jews opposed to Zionism” because it remains ignored by the media and steadfast in their loyalty to their rabbis that the ideology of Zionism is in utter opposition to the Jewish religion.

The group writes that ever since the exile of the Jews from Jerusalem 2,000 years ago, “we have been enjoined to be scrupulously loyal to the countries we reside in, and never seek to undertake to establish independent sovereignty in the Holy Land or anywhere throughout the world ... This has been a cornerstone of Jewish morality throughout our history to this very day.”

The open letter states that the Zionist movement rejects all fundamental principles of the Torah and the rabbis, adding, “Jews do not need a state of their own. The very establishment of a ‘Jewish’ state is a grave violation of Jewish tradition and law.” Those who maintain otherwise do not represent the Jewish people in “any way whatsoever” and have “no right to speak in the name of the Jewish people”. The letter goes on to declare, “We deplore acts and policies carried out by those who – misusing the name of Israel – have substituted the ideal of nationalism for the teachings of the holy Torah.” The group calls on President Bush to call the state of Israel not a Jewish but a Zionist state, arguing that “the foundation of its existence is not Judaism but the Zionist ideology.” Israel, they add, endangers the welfare of Jews worldwide by linking Jews and Judaism to the actions of the Zionist state. The group also rejects the Israeli policy of convincing Jews from other countries to move to Israel. “Indeed, hatred of Jews is the very lifeblood and oxygen of the Zionist movement and their state, which stand in total opposition to Judaism,” the advertisement adds.

The open letter concludes with the words of the Biblical prophet Isaiah which, it hopes, will one day be fulfilled, “And they will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. No nation will lift its sword against any other, nor will they learn warfare anymore.”

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