`In the letter, Rothschld explains why the establishment of a Jewish state in the Land of Israel. He writes that he `should view with horror the establishment of a Jewish colony pure and simple; such a colony would be Imperium Imperio; it would be a Ghetto with the prejudice of the Ghetto; it would be a small petty Jewish state, orthodox and illiberal, excluding the Gentile and the Christian.`` (Shulamit Aloni. `Israel is controlled by religious fanaticism`, Haaretz 4 June 2009 http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/shulamit-aloni-israel-is- controlled-by-religious-fanaticism-1.277278)To a child who grew up in a typical left-wing home in Jerusalem in the 1980s and 90s, Aloni was the great leader of the Left. In many ways she formed the left-wing discourse on which we grew up –recognition of the injustices done to the Palestinians and struggle for equal rights for all. And indeed, all the eulogies in recent days that stressed Aloni`s importance to the Israeli Left were justified. She contributed perhaps more than any other politician to the development of the Zionist Left. But therein was her greatest failing as well. Aloni never managed to free herself from the limitations of the `leftist` discourse to which she contributed so greatly. Aloni lamented the state to which Israel had `declined`, as she put it, but despite her humanism, the Teacher of the Zionist Left believed that the Israeli original sin was the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1967. Along with the entire Zionist Left, she did not understand what the Right for its part understood very well: that the source of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was in 1948 and even before; not `the Occupation`.Until her dying days Aloni declared that `We fought in the War of Independence out of a great hope that we would build a `model society` here, that we would make peace with our neighbors, work the land and develop the Jewish genius for the benefit of science, culture and the value of man - every man.` (`Sadly, Israel is no longer democratic`. Haaretz, 1 May 2009. http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/shulamit-aloni-sadly-israel-is- no-longer-democratic-1.275168 ) Aloni invoked Lord Rothschild’s words as a warning of where Israel was headed under the leadership of Binyamin Netanyahu and Avigdor Lieberman, who `are eradicating everything we built, everything we dreamed about and everything we fought for`, in her words.I am greatly indebted to Shulamit Aloni for having laid the foundations on which I could formulate my outlook. And so I regret that she did not take the additional step of understanding that the Declaration of Independence that she praised and the principles of which she yearned for, which would `ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex` was a dead letter from the moment it was written. I regret that she continued to believe that Israel`s basic problem was the occupation of the Territories in 1967, and not the creation of a `National Home for the Jewish People` on the ruins of another nation. And more than anything I regret that she did not understand that the solution was to struggle for a life of equality for all the residents of this land, rather than its division yet again. After her death I went over her writings of recent years in the hope of finding a hint of that understanding. That failed endeavour represented to some extent the hope of that child who had believed in a ground-breaking politician that even in his adulthood, after her death, he could continue to believe in her. And the search stemmed from the hope that if Aloni understood it, her pupils too would understand one day that Lord Rothschild was right, that a Jewish state would be a ghetto with all the prejudices of the ghetto and that in order to create a democratic state there is no alternative but to think of another way. Translated from Hebrew for Occupation Magazine by George MalentLinks to the latest articles in this sectionThe US and nuclear programs in the Middle East How can Israel, Palestine return to a two-state solution?A matter of concrete debate
