No subject

orld. The Zionist identification of a people with a state is incompatible w=
ith the real position of most Jews as freely chosen citizens of other count=
ries. Long before Roman times, Jews formed widely dispersed religious, cult=
ural and ethnic groups whose commonality was not based on geography or poli=
tics. Only their spiritual practices were centred on Palestine.=20

Some Jews saw in political Zionism a vulgarization of Jewish Messianic trad=
ition that would debase Jewish moral life. The Russian-Jewish writer and "s=
piritual Zionist" Ahad Ha'am, who emigrated to Palestine, was one of the fi=
rst to recognize the ethical costs of a project to establish a Jewish state=
 at the expense of the indigenous Arabs. "If this be the Messiah coming," h=
e wrote in the first years of the last century, "then I don't want to see h=
im arrive."=20

Zionist theory denied the legitimate presence of an emerging, indigenous na=
tion in Palestine. Zionist practice ensured its dispossession and exile. "W=
e may be a people without a home," said a disillusioned German Zionist in 1=
925, "but alas, there is not a country without a people. . . . Palestine ha=
s an existing population of 700,000, a people who have lived there for cent=
uries and rightfully consider the country as their fatherland and homeland.=
"=20

Ahad Ha'am's dark prophecy of an anti-Messianic future has been fully reali=
zed. My medical friend and colleague Philip Berger would be appalled if he =
saw with his own eyes, as I have, the disastrous humanitarian and health co=
nsequences of a policy that grants settlers from New York six times as much=
 fresh water per capita as native Palestinians.=20

Human-rights lawyer Clayton Ruby would be outraged to witness the proceedin=
gs of military courts where tortured Arabs are accused, convicted and sente=
nced without the right to know the evidence against them.=20

Unionist Jeff Rose would be shocked at policies that de facto make Palestin=
ian labour groups illegal, exposing their organizers to the threat of incar=
ceration.=20

It owes nothing to anti-Semitism that Israel is the subject of more critica=
l scrutiny than are the neighbouring Arab autarchies, dictatorships and pse=
udo-democracies. No one mistakes the true nature of those regimes. No credi=
ble voices are raised in their defence, nor do the abhorrent=20
Palestinian suicide bombings have any serious apologists. Only Israel's rel=
entless and ultimately self-destructive expansionism, militarism and state =
violence find many supporters.=20

The Palestinians continue to be disenfranchised, dispossessed and humiliate=
d. Mr. Rose, Dr. Berger and Mr. Ruby, were they to drop their self-generate=
d fear of leftist anti-Semitism, would be inspired by the words of the Isra=
eli officer who chose this week to join dozens of his comrades in jail rath=
er than serve in an army of brutal occupation: "I will do my time in a visi=
ble prison for a few months for refusing to enlist in Israel's academy for =
prison guards: the IDF, Israel's 'Defense Forces' which have been imprisoni=
ng an entire people for 35 years."=20

Gabor Mat=C3=A9 is a Vancouver physician and writer.=20