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Bernard-Henri Lévy: My two responsibilities regarding Israel

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Published: 5 July 2018

Last updated: 4 March 2024

MY RESPONSIBILITY IS to continue to remind the world that, in general, it takes a few months, as was the case of America after September 11, or a few years, as in France during the Algerian War, for a state of war to create a state of exception and for this state of exception to produce a state of emergency which authorises itself to suspend some of the civil liberties which are the honour of democracies

Yet Israel has been in a state of war, not for several months, nor for several years but for decades, indeed, in reality, and to be completely precise, since the day of its birth, and the laws and pillars of the democracy are still intact.

But I have a second responsibility. And, this second responsibility, it is to directly address to Israel, through all of you and beyond, the anxiety I occasionally feel about our future.

I am concerned when I see, for example, nationalism revived, everywhere in the world, grumbling, shaking and thumping and when I see some Jews in Israel who seem prepared to fall into the trap in which we would become, in the reductive sense that our long existence has contributed to destroy, a nationalist nation.

I am worried when I see technology designing, in the West, but also in Russia, in China, and elsewhere, the contours of a new inhumanity and when I hear Israelis proud, rightly so, to be at the forefront of this innovation but not always completely sure how to turn this into an opportunity for good.

FULL STORY Bernard-Henri Lévy: The honour of Israel (Jerusalem Post)

AND SEE
Why being anti-Diaspora makes sense to the Israeli right (Haaretz)
ANSHEL PFEFFER Netanyahu’s disdain for progressive Jews and the power of the ultra-Orthodox constituency has right-wing ministers running scared

Photo: The National Interest
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