Bennett defends Israeli policies from Lauder attack
In Lauder’s article, he accused the Israeli government of making decisions that could threaten future support for the Jewish state from liberal Diaspora Jews and world leaders.
By GIL HOFFMANUpdated: AUGUST 17, 2018 03:51Ronald Lauder (L) and Naftali Bennett (R).(photo credit: SIVAN FARAG/MARC ISRAEL SELLEM)
Diaspora Affairs Minister Naftali Bennett took to the opinion page of The New York Times Thursday to respond to a fierce attack from World Jewish Congress president Ronald Lauder on Israeli policies in the same newspaper earlier this week.In Lauder’s article, he accused the Israeli government of making decisions that could threaten future support for the Jewish state from liberal Diaspora Jews and world leaders. He singled out the Jewish Nation-State Law, the surrogacy law, and the recent questioning of a Conservative rabbi who performed weddings that were not sanctioned by the state.In Lauder’s article, he accused the Israeli government of making decisions that could threaten future support for the Jewish state from liberal Diaspora Jews and world leaders. He singled out the Jewish Nation-State Law, the surrogacy law, and the recent questioning of a Conservative rabbi who performed weddings that were not sanctioned by the state.Lauder wrote that if the present trends continued, young Jews might not support Israel if they see it as discriminating against non-Orthodox Jews, non-Jewish minorities and gays. He warned that they might not want to fight against the BDS movement or support Israel in Washington.“While I normally would happily respect the views of Jews all over the world – as different or as similar as they may be to my own – on this claim I cannot remain silent,” Bennett responded. “Keeping Israel as the Jewish nation-state does not threaten the future of the Jewish people; it safeguards it. Protecting Jewish traditions, just as they safeguarded our people through two millenniums [sic] of exile, is the only way to be sure that Israel can continue to be a strong and vibrant democracy in a very difficult region.”Bennett wrote that while Lauder’s concerns about Israel’s future and its treatment of minorities are unwarranted, the World Jewish Congress leader should be worried about the future of the liberal North American Jewry he claimed to speak for when he wrote his article.“The threat to the future of the Jewish people, what really keeps me up at night, is the mass assimilation of American Jews,” Bennett wrote. “This is not happening among the Orthodox communities. Research clearly shows the statistical decline among the non-Orthodox, unaffiliated Jews. Year after year, census after census, generation after generation, they disappear. This is what threatens the Jewish people. They are deserting their Jewish roots, but not because of political frustration or a lack of love for a country thousands of miles away.”Responding to Lauder’s charge that “Israel’s government appears to be tarnishing the sacred value of equality,” Bennett wrote that as minister of education and a previous minister of the economy, he could attest to Israel’s efforts to ensure equality in education, academia and employment for Israel’s Arab communities. He said the Education Ministry had succeeded in increasing the percentage of Arab students graduating from high school to just a few points below the national average, and that Israel has seen an increase in employment among Arab women.“What many of the Nation State Law’s critics fail to recognize is that its passage comes only after decades of successive rulings by Israel’s judiciary that have ignored the aspirations of those who seek to preserve the Jewish nature of our state,” Bennett wrote. “Our Supreme Court has based its rulings in numerous cases – on issues such as immigration and the extension of Israeli citizenship to Palestinians – on the existing Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty, much to the dismay and despair of many in Israel and abroad who saw these rulings as a direct attack on Israel’s Jewish character. The Nation State Law seeks to balance the scales and ensure that these concerns are considered.”
