Avraham ("Avrum") Burg, former Speaker of the Knesset and a long-time peace activist, is passionately concerned that the type of war being carried out against Palestinians in Gaza may also destroy the Jewish soul. Yet it is precisely this moment which offers Jewish civilization a chance to throw off the alien invasion of “brutal power, racial supremacy, and political isolation.” His article today posted to his Substack, “Israel’s Perversion of Judaism Makes Necessary a ‘Global Jewish Peace Camp,"’ is a moral call to arms, worthy of extensive excerpts, as well as widespread circulation. He writes:
“The Jewish world stands today before one of the most difficult moral questions in its history. For generations the Jewish people were victims of oppression, expulsion, and the denial of rights. Out of that experience of suffering they gave humanity one of its greatest moral gifts: the understanding that there are boundaries that must never be crossed, and that every human being is born with dignity and rights that cannot be taken away. From this consciousness, and in the shadow of the twentieth century’s lessons, came the recognition that every nation has the right to self determination. Out of that belief the State of Israel was born, not only as a historical correction but as an expression of the universal idea that all peoples deserve to live in freedom, dignity, and security.
“Yet the very principle that justified Israel’s creation now calls it to account. The right of self determination does not include the right to deny another people’s identity, nor to erase its existence. A state that rules another nation in the name of liberty for itself alone undermines the moral foundation on which it stands.”
