Learn about the history of the Palestinian struggle for freedom, equality and justice by exploring major events in the history of their oppression on this day of the year.
3 June
PROMINENT FIGURE URGES ALL ISRAELI TO GET SECOND PASSPORT
On this day in 2007, Avraham Burg called on all Israelis to obtain foreign citizenship if possible. Burg himself had acquired French citizenship in 2004, as part of his campaign in Israel calling "on everyone who can to obtain a foreign passport." He said in the same interview that "to define the State of Israel as a Jewish state is the key to its end”. Avraham Burg is an Israeli author, politician and businessman who has been a member of the Knesset and Chair of both the Jewish Agency and the World Zionist Organisation.
شخصية بارزة تحث جميع الإسرائيليين على الحصول على جواز سفر ثان
3 يونيو
في مثل هذا اليوم من عام 2007 ، دعا أبراهام بورغ جميع الإسرائيليين للحصول على الجنسية الأجنبية إن أمكن. قد حصل بورغ نفسه على الجنسية الفرنسية في عام 2004 ، وكجزء من حملته في إسرائيل دعى "كل من يستطيع الحصول على جواز سفر أجنبي ان يفعل". وقال في نفس المقابلة إن "تعريف دولة إسرائيل كدولة يهودية هو مفتاح نهايتها". أبراهام بورغ هو كاتب إسرائيلي وسياسي ورجل أعمال وكان عضوًا في الكنيست ورئيس كل من الوكالة اليهوديه والمنظمة الصهيونية العالمية.
Avraham Burg's father was a Cabinet minister for nearly four decades, serving under Prime Ministers from David Ben-Gurion to Shimon Peres. Burg was elected to the Knesset in 1999 and was elected Speaker of the Knesset, a position he held until early 2003. In this capacity he served as interim President of Israel for 20 days, from 12 July until 1 August 2000. Burg has also been leader of the World Zionist Organization and the Jewish Agency for Israel.
In a 2007 book, Burg warned that an increasingly large and ardent sector of Israeli society disdained political democracy. He describes the country in its current state as Holocaust-obsessed, militaristic, xenophobic, and, like Germany in the nineteen-thirties, vulnerable to an extremist minority.
In September 2003, Burg wrote
"A state lacking justice cannot survive. More and more Israelis are coming to understand this as they ask their children where they expect to live in 25 years. Children who are honest admit, to their parents' shock, that they do not know. The countdown to the end of Israeli society has begun."
"When Shavit [an Israeli journalist] asked Burg if he recommended that all Israelis acquire a second passport, Burg replied, “Whoever can”. Israeli philosopher and founder of the Peace Now group, Avishai Margalit, “For the so-called head of the Zionist movement to say all this - to say, ‘Get another passport for your kids,’ it’s like the Pope giving sex tips.”
A 2008 "survey by the Jerusalem-based Menachem Begin Heritage Center found that 59% of Israelis had approached or intended to approach a foreign embassy to ask for citizenship and a passport...The most obvious reason is that, like the shnorr, you can’t easily get the Diaspora out of the Jews. Two or three generations in Israel are apparently not always enough to implant roots where few existed for two millennia...Despite the aspirations of Zionism to create a safe haven for the world’s Jews, Israel is hardly the safest place in the world. Can we blame Israeli parents for wanting their children to have another option, an insurance policy,
The Times of Israel reported that 27% of those asked said they wanted dual citizenship because they were worried about the long-term future of the State of Israel.
4-minute video: why do so many Israelis speak English (and other languages) like native speakers?