Of course, in reality hardly a day passes without some Israeli officials declaring that the genocide-promoting Iranian theocracy is not just Israel’s problem but the world’s and should be dealt with by the international community acting in unison. When, to Burg’s declaring Israel “dead and spiritually,” Shavit points out that on the contrary, “It has energy and vibrancy and diversity and productivity,” Burg has no coherent response. Equally mindless are Burg’s claims that the Jews of Israel have withdrawn from the wider world, when in fact Israel is more engaged worldwide in positive, charitable, life-promoting efforts than any other country certainly of its size, and more so than the great majority of larger nations.
One can often hear in Burg’s biased claims against Israel echoes of other voices. For example, he is hardly unique when he attacks the Law of Return as representative of Israel’s supposed racism or, in Burg’s own words, as “the mirror image of Hitler.” The mean-spirited absurdity of such a claim, especially from someone who worships Europe, should be obvious. European states that give similar immigration and citizenship preference to those with ethnic ties to the dominant population include Denmark, Italy, Germany, Greece, Poland and Ireland among others. Moreover, the legitimacy of state policies of preferential repatriation was affirmed by the Council of Europe in 2001.
But part of the explanation for why Burg is so comfortable with claims against Israel that are divorced from reality is that the details he offers are secondary to him, mere corollaries to an underlying thesis that he embraces as an act of faith.
It is a thesis that has a long pedigree, predating the 1967 war and even the founding of the state: The assertion by some Jews that the Zionist enterprise is an affront to genuine Jewish spirituality; that it entails an abandonment of that spirituality for the narrow, materialistic, coarse path of nationalism. Or, in Burg’s words, “Israeliness has only a body; it doesn’t have a soul.”
Burg, like others who promote this thesis, seeks to claim for himself a spiritual superiority, a high standard of ethical conduct by which he measures Israel and finds it falling woefully short. Yet his words and actions reveal something very different – what can perhaps best be characterized as an anti-spiritual idolatry.
This is not meant as a reference to Burg’s materialistic excesses, to what Shavit describes as his “problematic” business dealings or to his suing the Jewish Agency, after he had left his post there, for the right to have the perpetual services of a chauffeured limousine paid for by the agency – behavior which, Shavit points out, “the judge found disgraceful.”
No; it is Burg’s embrace of that dark, dishonest and hypocritical anti-Israel thesis that represents an “anti-spiritual idolatry.” It is anti-spiritual because, while it talks of ethical, moral precepts, it abandons any such principles in its judging of Israel and of the wider world; and it is idolatrous because it ultimately derives its faux morality from the claims and demands of Israel’s – and the Jews’ – enemies.
Again, Burg’s thesis has a long, dark pedigree. Its origins lie in Europe’s besiegement of its Jews and in maladaptive Jewish responses. Within populations under chronic siege, some will inevitably embrace the indictments of their attackers in the hope that by doing so and reforming accordingly they will appease their enemies and win relief. The history of Diaspora Jewry is replete with episodes of Jews taking to heart the defamations of their tormenters. Indeed, there has probably never been an accusation against Jews, however bigoted and absurd, that has not had its Jewish endorsers.
