Jews’ claim irrefutable

Daniel Finklestein declares himself to be a “pragmatic supporter of the State of Israel, believing it necessary for the safety of Jews” (Only a democratic Israel can be a true safe haven for the Jews, 14 April).

This argument is easily demolished by Israel’s enemies, whose riposte is always that the so-called indigenous “Palestinians” should not be made to pay for the crimes of the Nazis.

The prime reason for Israel’s existence is that the Jewish nation was born in the Holy Land, retained a presence there for two thousand years since the Roman conquest, and never stopped yearning to return to Jerusalem during its exile, remembering that only the Jews were ever sovereign in that land.

The Jewish nation’s claim to it is irrefutable, undeniable and was recognised in international law when the Mandate for Palestine document, 1922, declared that “whereas recognition has thereby been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine, and to the grounds for re constituting their national home in that country.”

Israel is the only place that a Jew can fully and meaningfully express his religion, identity and peoplehood, Zionism being the national liberation movement of the Jewish people.

James R Windsor Ilford, Essex

Daniel Finkelstein’s version of democracy with his strong belief in “liberal democratic institutions, rather than populist democracy”, is akin to Henry Ford’s belief in consumer choice — any colour you want as long as it’s black.

How else can one interpret his support for the unparalleled power of a Supreme Court that perpetuates its political bias by self-selecting its Justices from those whose views accord with the liberal elite and which is answerable only to itself.

He ought to be wary of placing too much power in the hands of a so-called enlightened elite. No doubt Alfred Weiner, the “leading opponent of a state, supporting a home in Palestine, but not the creation of a nation” was as shocked as the other assimilated Jewish intelligentsia in Germany to find that those same enlightened liberal elites who read Goethe and played Beethoven were enthusiastic participants in the most bestial crime in human history. Dr Danny Pine London NW3

I was in Israel over Pesach, for the first time in 15 years. I was struck by how Ariel Sharon’s “facts on the ground” have become “facts in the minds”.

The fate of the Palestinians and the possibility of peace are no longer part of the discourse. The notion that the settlements were a necessary security measure — that might be dismantled under a peace agreement — has been forgotten even as a pretence.

Now the debate is whether the Israeli judiciary should be defended from the religious right’s drive towards theocracy.

Israel’s challenges are nuanced and many-sided. But this much seems unambiguous: a messianic state of peace will not arise from provocative fantasies of rebuilding the temple; nor from the appropriation of land while oblivious to the plight of those who had been living there.

It is our duty as diaspora Jews to proclaim this unequivocally.

Dan Susman

London NW5