June 22- On two critics of Israel, Burg and LeBor

I've been practicing, but it's hard.

Here's a sample. “Heil Hi....” See? I can't do it, not even in print. I'll try again. “Heil Hit...”. Nope, still can't.

And why would I even try? Because I've just finished reading a lengthy interview in a recent Haaretz magazine. The subject was Avrum Burg, 52, former Speaker of the Knesset, former chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel, one time candidate for Labor Party leader. You might think that such a person would be an advocate of Israel. Well, he is—much as Vidkun Quisling advocated for Norway.

According to Burg, The Law of Return “is the mirror image of Hitler.” The interviewer, Ari Shavit comments: “In your book we are not only victims of the Nazis... we are almost Judeo-Nazis... You do not actually say that Israel is Nazi Germany, but you come very close. You say that Israel is pre-Nazi Germany. Israel is Germany up to the Nazis.” Burg doesn't disagree. “Yes,” he says, and then explains: Israel has “a great sense of national insult; a feeling that the world has rejected us; unexplained losses in wars. And, as a result, the centrality of militarism in our identity.” His proof is the way Arabs are treated, the separation fence and other defensive measures. He compares the occupation of the West Bank to Hitler's Anschulss (the forced 1938 union with Austria). He doesn't like the comparison to Nazism, though, a term he says is extremely charged, but accepts the comparison to “National-Socialists” to me a distinction without a difference.

If he's right, we Zionists are proto-Nazis, which is why I, an avowed card-carrying Zionist, am practicing my Sieg Heils. But wait! What if Burg is wrong? What if we are not sliding down the slippery slope to a fascistic State of Israel. (Burg says we are already there—Q: Are you concerned about a fascist debacle in Israel? A: I think it is already here.) What if we are surprised when the Knesset doesn't “prohibit sexual relations with Arabs.” What if Burg is wrong and the Jews don't “use administrative means to prevent Arabs from employing Jewish cleaning ladies and workers... like the Nuremberg Laws”? He predicts, he states with the authority of the zealot, that “all this will happen and is already happening!” But, but, but, if we don't start treating Arabs as untermenschen sometime soon I'll have wasted all my goose stepping practice—and it wasn't easy to learn to goose step. Have you ever tried it? Gevalt. My thighs were killing me.

Burg's sense of honor does not distract him. When he was denied a pension for his chairmanship of the Jewish Agency because of his attacks on it (the pension is for NIS 200,000 annually—just shy of $50,000—plus a chauffeur driven limousine) he sued saying he's been deprived of a basic right. Although he's taken French citizenship he appears to want to be Labor's candidate for prime minister. That'll happen when I learn to ejaculate the words that began this column.

In a similar, though less obnoxious, vein Adam LeBor, in the Times (June 18), argues that Hatikvah should be changed, just a wee bit. Instead of referring to “nefesh Yehudi” (Jewish soul) the anthem should speak of “nefesh Israeli” (Israeli soul). This he contends would allow Christians, Arabs, Russians etc who are Israeli citizens to have a sense of inclusion in the Israeli state. “Updating 'Hatikvah' could be the start of a psychic shift among the country's Arab and Jewish citizens about what it means to be Israeli.”

LeBor is obviously whistling Dixie. No matter how conciliatory the Jews of Israel are, by changing the national symbols all they will accomplish is to water down their resolution to survive. About a fifth of the population is Arab. To my knowledge none are fleeing to Syria, but shall we put a crescent moon and star in the center of the Mogen David on the flag to keep them? And if the one wee change is made what shall we do with these lines? “Our hope is not yet lost, The hope of two thousand years, To be a free nation in our own land”? LeBor's proposal is a prescription for suicide. It will not be seen as an attempt at reconciliation, but as appeasement, as were withdrawal from Lebanon and the Gaza with nothing to show in return. Israel is the Jewish state, open to others to live in. Or to move from.