Here is why Israel should be supported

Here is why Israel should be supported By Vuk Bačanović Supporting Israel is probably one of the most terrible political sins in most of Bosnia and Herzegovina's left and left-liberal circles. Not to speak of those pro-Islamic people who often overlap with these left and left-liberal circles.

The opinion reads as follows: It is immoral to support a country that has expelled more than half a million of Arabs from its territory in 1948, which continues to spread to the expense of the Palestinians and which, in violation of international conventions, carries out racist forms of discrimination against its remaining Arab citizens . I once held very similar exclusive views, and, to this day, I regard advocating for any “human” migration of population, as an ultimate goal, a deeply antihumanist policy. Nevertheless, in the meantime, I have learnt that in other contexts, any principles can be exploited in the most fertile moralistic hysteria, which, not only does not offer any solutions, but deepens the existing conflicts and additionally complicates the already complicated and hardly solvable political situations. Yes, in the distant 1948, Israel, using the role of the victim in attacking all the Arab states against itself, barely recognized that their failure was used for the purpose of persecution, that is, "voluntary" exile, more than half a million Arabs.

 Just as all - and not only neighboring - Muslim countries used this momentum to expel more than half a million of domicile Jews into newly-created Israel, with the confiscation of all property. And yes, it all happens just after the Holocaust. Once it became clear to every Jew what the maxim "Woe to a nation without a state!" really means. And which I, as a person of partial Jewish origin, have realised mingling for years in various Sarajevo circles. Whatever happened then, that is, in 1948, and which is nothing different from what happened between different Muslim and Christian countries (the most concrete example is Turkey and Greece), is spilt milk which is not worth crying over. That is, there are people who are worth crying over, but this has nothing to do with the interests of specific people who have once and for all changed their homeland a long time ago, whether these people are Arabs, Jews, Greeks, Turks or for example. Christian Syrians. In other words, if we accept the very sad fact that the majority of the surviving Jews, after the Holocaust, have forever left Europe, but also the Arab countries, what is the purpose of useless moralising and apprehension over the past history of Palestine?

There is no doubt that Israel, as every human community, is rife with various hazard, such as nationalistic radicalism and racism, but we do not have an evil eye if we do not notice that it is at the same time, not counting Gaza and the West Coast, a home for a million and a half Arab (almost 20 percent of the total population of the country)? Who have their legal (not imposed) agents in the Israeli paramilitary, access to all the benefits of modern Israeli society, without the obligation to serve the hated Israeli army? Is it, in this sense, morally, not to say normally, for any Jew in the world, to expect that in 1948, as well as any victory of his state and army over an enemy who wants to destroy him and deny him the right to state, he considers basically problematic? And by a group of states that do not own, let alone citizens of other faiths, do not guarantee the rights that are implied in Israel.

Therefore, when the President of the Republika Srpska recommends to the member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina to challenge the Resolution against Trump in proclaiming Jerusalem to the capital of Israel in the General Assembly of the UN, then this is not a step against, but for what is implied as a liberal democracy. Or, at least what in the region resembles the most. In addition, this is not lobbying for any Israel. For example. that by the degree of madmen and religious fanatics from their own ranks, but the one who will provide all its citizens, regardless of their ethnicity and religious affiliation, even more than they currently are. In fact, for those who - for all their problems - provide the only real-political framework for such something. And who teaches us a very important lesson.

That past mistakes and disasters can be repaired. And that the way of their rectification is not even a catastrophic autobiographicalism offered by the hypocritical moralists and cadastremen to the Serbs, nor the creation of a society that will unisonously and admirably admire every fanatics and jingoists because it was on “our” side of history. Israeli President Reuven Rivlin said in 2014 that it is high time Israel is beginning to fulfill its principles of equality and to tackle the epidemic of racism: "Israeli society is sick and our duty is to treat this disease." I can not wait for the President of the Republic of Srpska saying something like that. In this, and in this sense only, Jerusalem is Israel, and the Republic is Serbian.