Jewish perspective: What Zionism is all about? [Archives:2003/667/Letters to the Editor]
Josh Merl
[email protected]
What Hassan Al-Haifi said is so upsetting. He doesn't even know what a Zionist is. According to Judaism, the small country of Israel was given to the Jewish People by our God, Elo-him, which Islam shares the same root (Alef Lamed). Israel doesn't want to hurt anyone, but if the Palestinians in Israel were to just stop the violence and blowing themselves up in busses full of people, they would already have a state called Palestine by now, and the Israelis and Palestinians would be living in peace by now just like the Israeli Jews and Israeli Muslims (which Israel has many of). Israel accepts Arabs. They didn't have to, but they did. They learn about Islam, they learn Arabic (It's even the second official language in Israel). Israel has a large Arab population which gets along fine with all of the Jews. But the Arabs never seem to want to accept the tiny Israel which you call an empire. Arabs dominate a huge portion of the world and outnumber the Jews by the millions. So I think that it's wrong for you Anti-Zionists to say things like that. Anti-Zionism is Anti-Semitism, because a Zionist is one who believes that the existence of a Jewish State is important, and that it should be in the location described in the Torah which was given by God to the Jewish people. This is a major part of our religion. For thousands of years we have dreamed of returning home, but all of a sudden when we get our dream, Arabs for the most part have no respect for us.
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