The Ultimate Contradiction

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bone hand with a democratic demand to allow our enemies to btake from us our state, and on the other wish to build that mag- bnificent Jewish land that will be a haven for the Jewish body and ba home for the soul, we choose Zionism; we choose the Jewish bstate; we choose Judaism.”

bThe Arab Report, a propaganda sheet published by the Arab bInformation Center in the United States, wrote on November 15, b1975: “The essence of the political doctrine of Zionism is the bconcept that Jews are one people and the corollary that Jews bmust have a state of their own. . . . In a country in which there bis a law called the Law of Return, permitting a Jew who has bnever been to Palestine to return, and a policy prohibiting a bPalestinian from actually returning to his home . . . how can a bcountry like that be described as a democracy?”

bHow amusing to read this and then to contemplate such bArab “democracies” as Saudi Arabia, Syria, Jordan, Kuwait, bIraq, Egypt, Algeria, ad infinitum. But that is not really relevant. bThe real issue is whether the Jew will accept the stark reality of bthe ultimate and insoluble contradiction or whether he will bchoose the Jewish state over democracy or fall victim to the bHellenism and guilt born of assimilated Western concepts.

bThe frantic pangs of assimilated conscience bode ill for the bJewish state. In an article for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency b(June 10, 1976), Uzi Benziman wrote: “Israelis nowadays find bthemselves forced to face up to issues which were swept under bthe carpet for many years. . . . Israel was created to enable the bJews to have their own independent state where they would im- bplement the Zionist vision of a restoration of sovereign national blife. But relations between the Arab inhabitants and the Jews bliving in and immigrating to Israel were never sufficiently de- bfined and clarified. . . .

b“The real problem, after all, is rooted in the very definition bof the state as a Jewish country which allows the Arab minority bto have its own life. . . . Relations between Jews and Arabs are bcomplicated because the majority represents a unique entity bthat embodies a religion and a nationhood, while the minority bbelongs to a larger, supranational entity. . . . A new definition of bthe Israeli nation is needed.”

bWhat does Benziman mean by a new definition of the Is- braeli nation? Is he saying that in order to bring peace to Israel, b