What is actually at the heart of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict? Ofra Yeshua-Lyth, in a book that is as hard hitting as it is entertaining, makes the case that at the center of it all lays the religious nature of the Zionist movement beneath its modern-secular veneer. She uses the stories of her grandmothers - women who immigrated to Palestine in the early days of Zionism from Yemen and Russia with high hopes, courage and grace - as well as other stories - to illustrate the implications of the Zionist failure to separate religion and State. While the Western world agonizes over Muslim fundamentalism in the Middle East, hardly any attention has been given to the Israeli adaptation of Judaism, which at its most extreme abhors any form of cohabitation with non-Jews.With the creation of the state of Israel, the self-segregating mode of life exercised by generations of Diaspora Orthodox Jews was adopted into a highly militarized political entity in the Middle East, doomed to generate apartheid and bloody conflict from day one. The Case for a Secular New Jerusalem addresses a wide range of observations about Israeli society, paying special attention to the metamorphosis undergone by Israeli Jews who emigrated from Arab countries and their descendants. While they were expected to fulfill the labor-intensive positions in industry and agriculture previously held by Palestinian Arabs, the Arab Jews were at the same time encouraged to disown their Arab characteristics in favor of Jewish solidarity. Although often resentful of their counterparts, the descendants of Eastern European immigrants, most descendants of the Arab-Jews of Israel equally adhere to Jewish self-segregating principles. United by self-inflicted isolation and anxiety, Israeli Jews display an ever-growing tendency for an uncompromising, ultra-nationalistic and self-defeating political state of mind. While criticizing Jewish Israelis, with emphasis on the so-called secular, liberal, academic and intellectual elite, the text also portrays them as victims of their erroneous loyalty to an archaic dogma. The sentimental brainwashing starts for the male babies at an extremely early age with the ritual male circumcision which is performed with the full consent of their mothers. Branded at one week old they are thus initiated into their venerable faith, and find it almost impossible later to alienate themselves from an ideology that tells them they should serve the goals of a unique, endangered community. If this uniqueness decrees that they should benefit from the perks of colonial privileges, why should they object? Yeshua-Lyth grew up in this culture, unaware, like most Israeli Jews, of the extent that religion in her native country was allowed to override human rights and civil liberties for Jews (women in particular) and non-Jews alike. She presently rejects the chase after the fictional "Two State Solution" because it merely legitimizes a form of government that discriminates against whole sections of its inhabitants. Instead, a process of democratizing and secularizing should put an end to the "Jewish State" regime that we know today, and turn the occupation of Palestine - both within the 1948 and 1967 borders - into a bad, sad memory. The vision of "One Secular and Democratic State" should be a happy one for all who live between the Mediterranean and Jordan River because, as this author puts it, "The human variety populating the areas under the control of the Israeli State is still capable of shaking off the unfair rules of the game imposed on it by a confused and inefficient legal code, riddled with inner contradictions."
About the Author: Ofra Yeshua-Lyth is a veteran Israeli journalist, i.e. correspondent of the Israeli daily Maariv in Washington and in Germany. She later started a media consulting firm, and is active on a variety of social and political issues in Israel. This book was first published in Hebrew by Nimrod Books, 2004, second updated edition by Maariv Publishers, 2011.