In the Jerusalem Post of 4 May 2012 Martin Sherman, in a piece titled “Haaretz vs the Jews” castigates the Left for running an “unambiguous campaign for the conversion of Israel from the 'nation state of the Jews' to 'a state of all its citizens.' But the one surely does not preclude the other. The choice is not between a Zionist Greater Israel and a post-Zionist state denuded of its Jewish identity. I remind Martin Sherman of Israel’s Declaration of Independence which, while unequivocally endorsing “the right of the Jewish people to national rebirth in its own country”, states:
The State of Israel will … foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants… it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture.
Israel can and must retain its identity as the nation state of the Jewish people. But this is entirely compatible with the aspiration of the founding fathers to respect the rights of minorities and to strive for equality on every level for all the country's citizens.
A letter from me to this effect appears in the Jerusalem Post of 8 May 2012.
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