Beyond the polemics of the Palestinian land issue, what Sydney Kaye (Cape Points, December 14) missed in my letter (Cape Points, December 10) was that Israel will always remain a unique case. After centuries of pogroms and the Holocaust in Europe, should Israeli’s not be especially sensitive to issues of human rights and suffering than other nations? Can Israel, which claims to be a unique democratic safe haven in the Middle East, turn a blind eye to trafficking and the sexual enslavement of Jewish women and foreigners? Is this not prohibited by the Torah? If Israel is to exist as a Jewish homeland, should the Torah not influence policy? In my opinion most Zionist prefers to discuss Israel as a historic paradigm but seldom within a religious context. Consequently any Zionist is permitted the right of return {Aaliya} even if such Zionist has no spiritual connection or relationship to Judaism.
Daniel Silver in “A History of Judaism”, states that God ordered Abraham to leave his ancestral land in Ur an important Sumerian city-state near the mouth of the Euphrates in Mesopotamia {modern Iraq}. Silver also suggests that the title deed to Canaan-Palestine-Israel was promised to Abraham by the biblical God on several conditions. For example, those who live in the Holy Land must continually worship and obey the divine laws of the God of Abraham. These conditions implied that should the covenant be broken “all deals were off” as living in the Holy Land was divinely understood to be a privilege and not a right. If this was the original contract, why are secular and extremist Zionists dominating Israeli politics and public life? By allowing corruption to flourish in the Holy Land, are Zionists not defaulting on the contract as established by God and Abraham? Since Jews have been displaced from the Holy land historically because of defiance and corruption, against God, could the Palestinian intifada {resistance} be interpreted as a divine punishment?
While Sydney Kaye is correct about other societies that are failing to prevent trafficking, what he needs to consider, is that, unlike Zionists, none of these states claim a divine historical right to the Holy Land. Sydney should consider the future of inter-faith dialogue and its role towards establishing a world free of violence. His obsessive defence of Israel at all cost has limited his viewpoint to that of a Zionist apologist. I suggest that Sydney considers promoting the celestial and intrinsic values of Judaism so that people of all faiths can share in the divine origins of Abraham’s original message.
Cllr Yagyah Adams
Cape Muslim Congress