My mother is of Jewish heritage, which would have entitled me to repatriate to Israel had I exercised that option at an earlier time. Her second husband, my step-father, was a secular Jew, and most of my closest childhood friends were Jewish. Yet these close ties to the Jewish community, and my admiration for many facets of Jewish culture, would still be inadequate to shield me from charges of anti-Semitism should I become a vocal critic of Israel's apartheid policies.

" Founding a modern state on a single ethnic or religious identity in a territory that is ethnically and religiously diverse leads inexorably either to politics of exclusion (think of the 139-square-mile prison camp that Gaza has become) or to wholesale ethnic cleansing." Indeed. So, would that be the nation which is composed of 76% Jews and 20% Arabs, or the one which, immediately after its founding in 1948, made itself 100% Jew-free, at the expense of approximately 100,000 Jews ... More »

Israel needs to abandon the "Greater Israel" fantasy, and accept the pre-1967 borders as final boundaries (subject to minor revisions). Israel should accept the Saudi peace plan and get out of the West Bank and the Golan Heights. If some of the illegal settlers want to remain behind, that would perhaps be possible, if only on a leasehold basis.

Where in the twenty first century is there a State in which Jews can live as equals among equals? Tolerance is the worst form of bigotry. Trust is submission. Only mutual acts of respect for the individual will establish a lasting peace. This is not possible while political corruption is the order of religious and secular authority. All people want the same things for their families and their future. The madness of Iron age warfare and seventh century politics has no place in modern ... More »

The author is right, speaking against a zionist state has been blasphemy. And his vision of a secular state is the only thing that is fair.