A NATION LIKE ANY OTHER
The Jewish connection with Israel did not begin with Zionism, a word coined in the 1890’s. It goes back four thousand years. Judaism – twice as old as Chrisianity, three times as old as Islam – was the call to Abraham’s descendants to create a society of freedom, justice and compassion. A society involves a land, a home, somewhere where the “children of Israel” form the majority and can create a culture, an economy, and a political system in accordance with their values. That land was, and is, Israel. Jews never left Israel voluntarily. They never relinquished their rights. They returned whenever they could: in the days of Moses, then again after the Babylonian exile, then again in generation after generation. There was a large community there in the sixteenth century. There are places, especially in the Galilee, where they never left at all. The Balfour Declaration in 1917, ratified in 1922 by the League of Nations, endorsed the Jews right to their land - hopefully ending the...