A RACE, NOT A RELIGION:

Their visit could help destroy Israel? Seriously? Are we living in a comic book universe, in which these women have previously unknown superpowers that would allow them to destroy a sovereign state?

Rather, let us ask ourselves: how would classic Zionism deal with this issue?

Whatever else Zionism is, it is about a historically disempowered people who have empowered themselves to make their own decisions, to build their land, and to defend themselves.

At the first Zionist Congress in 1897, Max Nordau, the prophet of "muscular Judaism," proclaimed:

"The emancipated Jew is insecure in his relations with his fellow man, timid with strangers, and suspicious even of the secret feelings of his friends. His best powers are dissipated in suppressing and destroying, or at least in the difficult task of concealing his true character...He has become a cripple within, and a counterfeit person without, so that like everything unreal, he is ridiculous and hateful to all men of high standards.

This was Nordau's critique of exile.

The Jew was emancipated, yes - socially and culturally.

But galut, the diaspora, had created within us a timidity, a suspicion of the other, a suppression of our true identity.

Nordau is turning over in his grave.

How timid Israel looks. How (uselessly) suspicious Israel looks. How cringing and hapless and hopeless we look - like shtetl Jews waiting for the next (diplomatic) pogrom.

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