It seems to us that while the Jewish entitlement to the land of Israel transcends the Holocaust, the Jewish experience during that tragic time is the most solid of foundations for these “national rights.” Jews plainly needed a place to where they had an automatic right to return. And it doesn’t seem at all inappropriate that a people who were targeted for eradication should have a designated place proudly set aside for the symbols of their existence.
Moreover, consider the situation in perhaps the world’s most emblematic democracy. Here in the United States, we pride ourselves in our constitutional requirement of the separation of church and state, yet it cannot be denied that our standard societal practices are driven by America’s Christian heritage. Workday and academic and professional testing scheduling is built around Sunday as the day of rest, and there is nothing approaching the concept of absolute prohibition on work on the Sabbath and holy days that we Jews observe. There are no rules about limitations on autopsies like we have. Nor is there anything approaching our community’s need for prompt burial after death.
The key, though, is that in America our laws, in large measure, acknowledge that we are entitled to a reasonable accommodation of our religious needs. Similarly, Mr. Netanyahu has said that any new legislation would not compromise the rights of non-Jewish Israeli citizens – and as even the Times noted, this is something insisted on by Israel’s courts and laws.
Finally, Israeli Arabs and other critics of the proposed legislation should consider such realities as the inability of Jews to even set foot on Saudi Arabian soil, the prohibition against Jews becoming citizens of Jordan, and the declaration of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas that no Jews will be allowed to live in a Palestinian state.