A response to Louise Adler from a Zionist humanitarian

Louise Adler’s piece in The Age and Sydney Morning Herald ('These are the things I've learnt you can't ask about Israel', 21 September) demonstrates convincingly the truth of her opening admission that she ‘is no foreign policy expert’. But she certainly claims to be extraordinarily perceptive.

Adler was immediately able to recognise the ‘entrenched racism [and] anti-democratic’ character of the ‘Zionist project’ upon landing at Ben Gurion Airport in 1972. This realisation came to her because she perceived that Middle Eastern Jews (not European Jews) were the mere baggage handlers and Palestinians (presumably Arab Israeli citizens) cleaned the toilets. Apparently, the airport had only one toilet and Adler had developed facial recognition capacity before the concept existed.

Adler’s analysis is said to flow from her standing as a human being. But it is not only ahistorical, it is entirely lacking in any understanding of the many forms of Zionism.

Adler acknowledges that the core of Zionism is support for the existence of a safe, secure and peaceful Jewish state. At first blush it is difficult to comprehend how someone professing Jewish identity can express surprise – indeed dismay – that so many Jews feel a strong emotional attachment to Israel for religious, historical, cultural or familial reasons. There is, however, an explanation for her bewilderment.

Adler is utterly unable to grasp that one can be a Zionist yet contend for a Jewish AND democratic Israel that respects and promotes the dignity and human rights of all its citizens. This is the position of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Jewish Israelis.

It is also the position of some local organisations. The New Israel Fund, for example, does not limit itself to pained rhetoric, but provides material support to organisations and projects within Israel and the Occupied Territories fighting to protect the human rights of non-Jewish Israeli and Palestinians.

Adler also cannot grasp that one can be a Zionist and:

Adler says she supports the rights of Palestinians to self-determination, sovereignty and their own state. The logic of her position is that Israel is an illegitimate, inherently racist state that does not deserve to exist and therefore should be replaced by a ‘sovereign’ Palestinian state. Yet she lacks the courage to say so.

Finally, Adler’s attempt to equate the horrors of Gaza with the experiences of the Warsaw Ghetto is not only offensive but disgusting. One can plausibly argue that the IDF has exercised excessive force in Gaza and perhaps committed some war crimes during the course of the war.

But the invasion occurred and continues as a direct response to a hideous massacre (including rape) and kidnapping of innocents by a genocidal and ruthless fighting force explicitly committed to the destruction of Israel. The Warsaw Ghetto was an unspeakably horrific prelude to the immaculately organised transportation and annihilation of every man, woman and child in the Ghetto, together with three million other Jewish Poles.

Adler may not be an antisemite, but the comparison she makes with Nazi Germany will be music to the ears of every antisemite.