Former Knesset speaker declares Zionism over
Former Knesset Speaker Avraham Burg has said that Zionism "expired" with the establishment of the Israeli state in 1948, and that society should move toward citizenship rather than nationalism.
When Avraham Burg, former Knesset speaker and head of the Jewish Agency, attended a meeting of the socialist-inclined Hadash (the Democratic Front for Peace and Equality), he caught many people off guard. But the former Labor Party leader feels that anyone following his work should not be surprised.
“I left Zionism a long time ago,” he told Al-Monitor in a telephone interview. Asked what he thought of Yossi Beilin’s criticism of his stance that Zionism expired a long time ago, Burg said, “If Beilin’s departing point is that Zionism will exist forever, then he is mistaken.”
The kippah-wearing son of Yossi Burg, the founder of the National Religious Party (the forerunner of today’s extreme Jewish Home headed by Naftali Bennett) told Al-Monitor that “Zionism expired” when the State of Israel was established. “In 1948, Israel was secular and socialist; today, in 2015, it is nationalist and capitalist,” he explained.
Burg, one of the founders of Peace Now, said that a total transformation of society is needed. He is very worried about the nationalism that pervades Israeli society and would like to see a change from “tribalism to a citizenship-based society.”
