On the other hand, a word of caution would seem appropriate against attempts to push too far the idea of partnership between Israel and the diaspora in the organizational sense. There are functions of Jewish life and matters on its public agenda which lie outside the purview of Israeli affairs, such as most of the tasks assumed by the World Jewish Congress in defending Jewish rights in the diaspora and giving advice and assistance to communities in need. Inasmuch as there are points of contact between the respective spheres of activity of Israel’s government and the World Jewish Congress, coordination is certainly possible. What is important in this regard is the prevention of unnecessary overlapping. Yet in this case, the World Jewish Congress at least remains an independent body, bearing complete and sole responsibility for its work. A far more significant problem of coordination arises in the case of the World Zionist Organization, which is involved in vital activities in Israel itself and, in conjunction with Israel, in the diaspora. Here a system of the closest possible collaboration is indispensable. But there are fields of activity which are the exclusive prerogative of the State of Israel. In these, its government, as an instrument of national sovereignty, must be free to act entirely on its own. What has already been said about the need to maintain contacts and take into account diaspora viewpoints may apply here, but the setting up of any machinery or organizational framework for regular and mandatory consultation or coordination in such matters between a government and any outside body is liable to be fraught with complications.

Rather than taking to undue lengths the concept of partnership between Israel and the diaspora as between two distinct and separate entities, of which each moves, as it were, within its own orbit, it would seem preferable to encourage the idea of an overall Jewish unity, which centers around the State of Israel and takes fully into account the conditions and necessities of Jewish life in the diaspora. Within the broad framework and in the true spirit of such comprehensive unity, Israel must be relied upon to exercise its prerogatives of statehood in a manner most conducive to the common good of the Jewish people.

 

As the second aspect of the Israel-diaspora relationship, I would like to suggest the problem of Israel’s obligations with respect to the precarious position of Jewish minorities in certain parts of the world. It must be, and it is indeed, a fundamental principle of Israeli foreign policy not to interfere in the internal affairs of Jewish communities abroad or in the normal relations between the Jewish citizens of various countries and their respective governments. Quite naturally, however, the government of Israel cannot remain indifferent in the face of deliberate anti-Jewish discrimination, the denial to Jews of elementary opportunities for communal and cultural life, the setting up of impenetrable barriers between Jews and the State of Israel, and the prohibition of their emigration to Israel. Concern for the right of free exchange with the Jewish communities of the diaspora and insistence on the freedom of Jews from anywhere in the world to settle in Israel are among the basic foundations of Israel’s foreign policy. As regards the ban on emigration, some of the newly independent Arab countries are cases in point. Regarding the whole list of restrictions mentioned above, I am referring to most of the Communist countries.

Israel would wish for nothing better than to remain neutral with respect to international rivalries that do not directly affect it. But it cannot stay neutral in the face of a menace to the most vital interests of the Jewish people and to the very survival of a Jewish community. Israel scrupulously refrains from any interference in the internal affairs of any state and is anxious to maintain friendly relations with all states regardless of their internal regimes. Yet it cannot help differentiating between regimes which ensure the freedom of Jewish life and those which deny it. In a free democracy, as a byproduct of the protection of basic liberties of individuals and groups, the Jews are free to organize and express themselves, to foster their religious and cultural values, to maintain contacts with other Jewish communities, to visit and settle in Israel. Democracy does not ensure that Jews will take advantage of all these freedoms, but it makes their exercise possible and secure. Above all, though it does not ensure the preservation of the unity of the Jewish people around the world, it definitely enables it. It is up to the Communist regimes, primarily the Soviet Union, to prove that they can also offer similar freedoms and enable the cultivation of the same values. But the fact is that they are unwilling to do so. It goes without saying that Israel cannot expect any regime to change itself to suit the needs of free Jewish life. Yet it cannot but condemn those policies which result in the steady asphyxiation of Jewish life, in the paralysis and atomization of a Jewish community, and in its complete severance from the main body of the Jewish people and from Israel. Over the barriers so ruthlessly erected, Israel salutes those masses of Jews who yearn to make Israel their home and who in their cruel isolation and dreary solitude provide a living testimony of their Jewish loyalty, of the astonishing vitality and tenacity of their people, of its irrepressible substance, of its ultimate invincibility.

 

As a third aspect of the relationship between Israel and the Jewish people, I would like to propose the contemporary political and social significance of Israel’s existence and accomplishments as a state—its significance for both the Jews and the peoples among whom they live.

On the face of it, Israel still constitutes a small fraction of the Jewish people. Even after the catastrophic reduction of the total number of Jews by the European Holocaust, on the one hand, and the striking increase of Israel’s population on the other, Israel accounts for just over 16 percent of the total Jewish population today. Absolute figures have their absolute merit, and the fact that the number of Jews already settled in Israel is nearing the two-million mark is in itself a tremendous achievement and a revolutionary transformation.

But what primarily matters about the Jews of Israel is not only how many they are, but what they represent, in status and in structure. Here it must be pointed out that the difference between the Jewish people and other peoples who have diasporas lies not merely in the fact that in the case of the latter the majority lives in its mother country and the minority is outside it, whereas with the Jews the reverse is the case. The outstanding difference is in the inner connectedness of the Jewish people, which, emotionally, welds the mother country and the far-flung and far more numerous diaspora into one whole. The inner cohesion, the sense of belonging, the feeling of interdependence, in brief the consciousness of a shared identity, are all quite unusual in the case of the Jewish people. The difference is not one of degree but one of kind.

First of all, Israel is a state. The full measure of the swift transformation of Jewish destiny in our time, from tragedy to triumph, is encompassed in that simple and elementary statement of fact. Through the emergence of an independent Israel the Jewish people as a whole has ceased to be a “stateless person.” Not citizenship in the Jewish state, of course, but the dignity of Jewish statehood has been conferred upon all Jews. They themselves and the world around them are now aware that they are sons and daughters of a people capable of leading a national life, with all its privileges and responsibilities, and, above all, with all its honor.

Second, Israel is the only independent, fully Jewish society in the world. The fact that it includes an Arab minority on a footing of complete civic and cultural equality does not in the least detract from its overwhelmingly and emphatically Jewish character. Being only a fraction of the Jewish people—the composition of which, historically speaking, is purely accidental—it is rightly taken to be a representative cross-section of the people as a whole. As a result, whatever the people of Israel has accomplished in terms of political statesmanship, economic development, linguistic and cultural creativity, scientific progress, and military valor redounds to the credit of all Jews, for it reveals the possibilities latent in all of them. Israel’s record of creating a state, and of defending and maintaining it against all odds, reveals what Jews as Jews can accomplish by a collective, self-reliant effort, if given a chance to pull together and provide for their own salvation. Conversely, Israel’s weaknesses, shortcomings, and failures are similarly liable to work to the discredit of the entire people.

This being the case, there arises yet another element of mutual responsibility. It is up to Jews everywhere, for the sake of their own standing, to do everything in their power to provide for Israel’s success and prevent its failure. Similarly, it is incumbent upon Israel to maintain a high degree of awareness of the diaspora by always bearing in mind the implications of what it does, or fails to do, for the Jewish people as a whole. The reflection of Israel’s record on the good name of the Jewish people should never cease to be a vital consideration.