Around the year 1900 there was a wave of refugees from the anti-Semitism in Russia. Later there were refugees from nazism.
When Israel was established, the refugees came from the Arab countries. They too were chased with threats and use of violence. More Jews have escaped from Arab countries than the number of the so-called Palestinian refugees, Arabs that fled in the other direction and who we hear about all the time.
Smaller groups of Jewish refugees have arrived since then: From Argentina, Ethiopia, Poland and other communist countries. More than one million have arrived after 1989 from the previous Soviet Union. Israel was the only real alternative for many of these. This is also the case today, as the Western countries generally are closed for refugees and those who seek asylum.
All solutions have been attempted
In the last two thousand years the Jews have attempted all possible other solutions other than having their own country. They have lived in ghettos, with walls around them, for centuries. They have been poor and they have been rich. They have dressed in unique clothes and they have dressed like their neighbors. They have taken their religion seriously and they have lived their lives with no regard for their faith. It did not matter what they did, they have been discriminated against and persecuted.
In Germany just before Hitler took over the power, there were only a few Jews who had any particular relationship to either the religious or the national part of Jewishness. It was the same in Soviet Union. Many of the Jews that arrived from that country had practically no knowledge of the history and uniqueness of the Jewish people, and they have not had any particular feeling of nationhood. But they had been persecuted, because one or several of their grandparents were Jewish.
Israel is the only alternative
The only realistic alternative for the Jews today is to have their own state in Israel. All other solutions have been tried, but it has been proven that they do not work. Even though there has been a core of conscious Jews who have fought for a Jewish state, it would not have been possible for these Jews to carry this out if Jews had only come to Israel for idealistic reasons. It is first and foremost hatred against Jews and persecutions that have brought about the Israel that we have today.
History, some will say God, has dealt the Israelis a role in which they are held captive, and in which they do not see that they could have done, or are able to do, differently, at least not in the main outline.
The article is from a radio manuscript from the early 1990’s. It was published on our Norwegian website 30th of April 2003.
See also the article: The Jews have rights to the land
