Archive for February 10th, 2015

Feb 10 2015

Former Knesset speaker declares Zionism over

Published by under Articles,Palestinian politics

AlMonitor

By Daoud Kuttab

When Avraham Burg, former Knesset speaker and head of the Jewish Agency, attended a meeting of the socialist-inclined Hadash (the Democratic Front for Peace and Equality), he caught many people off guard. But the former Labor Party leader feels that anyone following his work should not be surprised.

“I left Zionism a long time ago,” he told Al-Monitor in a telephone interview. Asked what he thought of Yossi Beilin’s criticism of his stance that Zionism expired a long time ago, Burg said, “If Beilin’s departing point is that Zionism will exist forever, then he is mistaken.”

The kippah-wearing son of Yossi Burg, the founder of the National Religious Party (the forerunner of today’s extreme Jewish Home headed by Naftali Bennett) told Al-Monitor that “Zionism expired” when the State of Israel was established. “In 1948, Israel was secular and socialist; today, in 2015, it is nationalist and capitalist,” he explained.

Burg, one of the founders of Peace Now, said that a total transformation of society is needed. He is very worried about the nationalism that pervades Israeli society and would like to see a change from “tribalism to a citizenship-based society.”

Burg is a strong advocate of equality, which he believes is the key to change and is needed on both the ethnic and the gender levels. For that reason, Burg told Al-Monitor that he is not very happy with the joint Arab list that Hadash will compete for in the Israeli elections. The only Jewish person on the list, expected to yield 12-15 mandates, is Dov Khenin, considered by the Israeli Democracy Institute the best parliamentarian in 2012. Khenin is No. 8, and only two women join him in safe spots on the list. Continue Reading »

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