What does Israel represent for you?
Israel is a country in which I do not recognize myself. It represents nothing to me, neither concretely — for example as a place where I would like to spend a holiday — nor symbolically, as the place that once sheltered a Jewish “nation,” or as the place where the Jews ought to be gathered together… And least of all, finally, as a mystical land where the dead will be resurrected, where the Temple will be rebuilt, where the messiah will come, and so on. Besides, I do not see what makes the values of this country; they perhaps exist, but I do not perceive them. Its sole function, in sum, is to be the country of the Jews. That is important; one cannot brush this dimension aside with a wave of the hand.
Is it an important element of your identity?
Israel plays strictly no constitutive role in my identity. Apparently.
Have the last two years changed this relationship? If so, how?
My distance, including political distance, with regard to this country has only deepened, only widened. I absolutely condemn the conquest of the territories acquired in June 1967, including East Jerusalem, which Israel ought to give back unconditionally, unilaterally.
What are your affective relations with Israel?
None.
Does Israel have a place in your life, in your work, and which?
None.
What would change in your life if Israel disappeared?
Apparently nothing; in reality, everything.
Let me explain. One day, some years ago, when I was making this sort of remark to a friend, she pointed out to me that I would not be what I am, including as a Jew, if Israel did not exist, with its army and its claim to defend the Jews, all the Jews. That made me think. I had to face the evidence: what she was telling me there was entirely true. A Jew of the diaspora, today, can call himself indifferent to Israel, and even not care a jot about being Jewish. Now, he can do this, and be that kind of Jew, precisely because the State of Israel exists, and exists strongly. So, here it is:
- The State of Israel is in itself foreign to me, and I wholly condemn its policy toward Palestine.
- The State of Israel is vital for every Jew, including for the a-Zionist Jew that I am. The right to contradict oneself is a human right, is it not?