Free Republic

Leftist Israeli author A.B. Yehoshua is saying that Israel should not refer to Hamas as a “terrorist organization” but as an “enemy”. In an opinion piece published in the New Republic magazine, Yehoshua wrote that Israel should give Hamas the status of a “legitimate enemy”. “What accounts for the fact that, after the retreat of Israel from the Gaza Strip, the departure from Israeli settlements and the transfer of authority to Hamas, we continue to characterize Gaza as a terrorist state rather than as an ‘enemy’?” he wrote. “Is it that the expression ‘a regime of terror’ is a stronger...

Mar. 13, 2003 A.B. Yehoshua: Diaspora Judaism isn't the real thing By THE JERUSALEM POST INTERNET STAFF Israeli novelist A.B. Yehoshua said today that living in exile is a "neurotic choice" made by the vast majority of Jews over the centuries, even during eras when moving to the Land of Israel was an option. The exile experience has become a such an "integral condition of Jewish identity," that it isn't likely to disappear, Yehoshua, a prominent essayist and scholar. But he clearly doesn't recommend it. "Diaspora Judaism is masturbation," Yehoshua told editors at The Jerusalem Post. "Here," meaning, in Israel,...