Can Israeli left make peace with Judaism?
Zionist Camp Chairman Avi Gabbay repeated a past statement by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, that the Israeli left has forgotten its connection to Jewishness.
One of the most recognized photos from the Six-Day War documented paratroopers looking with awe at the Western Wall, as it was just liberated on June 7, 1967. Yet it seems that if it were up to Knesset member Omer Bar-Lev of the Zionist Camp, a former senior officer in the Israel Defense Forces and the son of the late Chief of Staff Haim Bar-Lev, this photo would not have become one of the symbols of the most glorious military victory in the history of the State of Israel. On Oct. 31, in a demonstration in Ramat HaSharon, Bar-Lev criticized a visit by the battalion of the Golani Brigade to the Western Wall. As he saw it, this is “religious radicalization,” namely religious coercion, enacted with the taxpayers’ money.
This example illustrates why Avi Gabbay, the chairman of the Zionist Camp, was right when he said on Nov. 13 that the left — or at least parts of it — chooses to forget that it’s Jewish and is sometimes ashamed of it.
