Yoram Hazony

The Jewish State: The Struggle for Israel´s Soul

Yoram Hazony knows how to tell a story. He is not the arrogant intellectual who speaks from his ivory tower. He introduces himself so we know his family background and his personal stand of the Jewish question. The introduction is worth the whole book. There he succintly summarizes the book, points to Israel's troubles, gives names, origins and main developments. Sets the main characters on the scene, and we follow them through the years of Israel's modern making. It's the zionists vs the anti-zionists; the intellectuals (who nevertheless benefit from, and are accomplices of the Israel state they so much decry) vs the common people who want to live free, as Jews. It's a tale that has become widespread over the Western world: the fight to win the minds and hearts of the people on the mass media´s turf. The tactics are detestably simple, but nonetheless they work, in the name of peace and justice the Israelis (Jewish and non-Jewish) are to give themselves up to their Arab neighbors, short of leaving the country or committing suicide directly.

The book is comprehensive in its scope, and I wished it would be a little more succint in some developments that detract from the main story, but it definitely makes its point by not leaving any thread missing. Forceful and convincing.

Martin Buber epitomizes the intellectual anti-zionist from the ivory tower (the Chomsky/hypocrite of the Israeli state). On the other side stand (or stood) the Founders of modern Israel, and above all Ben-Gurion. With the Founders, of course, are the people, fewer every year because, bottom line: common-sense is the least common of the senses when challenged by the deafening noise of the professors and their billionaire friends (e.g. Gore & Soros) and the media. It's sad to the point of upsetting to see how Buber and his clique wouldn't even have the refugees from the Holocaust in Israel when they were stranded in European camps, while the university professors/jet set where safely partying in Tel Aviv.

A last point I want to mention is that the very survival of Israel through all these years is nothing but a miracle, and you don't have to be a theist to see it. Surrounded by enemies within and without, reduced to a tiny territory, a speck in the back of the threatening Arab undemocratic Empire, Israel lives, and flourishes.