Rabbi Nava Hefetz
17
What would you like international audiences to know about the conflict that you think they don't?
Today I hear more and more, especially among European audiences, statements such as, "The State of Israel shouldn't exist, that it was conceived in sin, that the Jews have no hold on this place, that they shouldn't be here." I know this comes from the guilt they have for throwing the Jews out of Europe and bringing about this situation. Jews have lived here for generations. It was a small community, but even under the Christians, under the Muslim occupation, under the Mamluk occupation, under the Ottoman occupation, Jews have always lived here.1 That's what they'd like to forget. I feel that there is a new type of anti-Semitism in European discourse today: anti-Israel. I'm saying this very firmly: I have no doubt the State of Israel has a large role and is very much to blame for the situation we're in because of the occupation.