"Don't Talk Zionism!"

And then there is world Jewry. Its homeland is the entire world. It belongs to many different nations, has some vague common interests (created by anti-Semites), a religion, many traditions. Large parts of it have a commitment to Israel, a vague one that can easily become more indistinct.

One of the main functions of "Zionism" is to keep this people totally subservient to the interests of Israel's current (and changing) leadership. Without this connection, Israel would have to exist on its own political, economic and military resources, a vastly reduced existence.

The bonds that bound these two entities together (or "welded," according to Yehoshua) are religion and tradition. These days, when Jews all over the world and in Israel are celebrating the same "high holidays," this is very obvious. The bonds are there, created over the centuries, but one may wonder how strong they really are today. How much stronger, if at all, than those between Irish-Americans and Ireland, or Singapore-Chinese and China? In a real test, how would they hold up?

Ironically enough, the most extreme faction of religious Jewry -- both in Jerusalem and in Brooklyn -- rejects Zionism as a sin against God.

THE REAL damage caused by the Zionist mental stranglehold on Israel is that it falsifies Israel's situation in the world.

The official designation of Israel as a "Jewish and democratic state" is an oxymoron. A Jewish state cannot really be democratic, since the definition denies equality to non-Jews, especially Arabs. For the same reason, a democratic state cannot be Jewish. It must belong to all its citizens.

But the problem is more profound. Israel's bonds with world Jewry are infinitely closer than its bonds with its neighbors. One cannot fix one's gaze on New York and also be profoundly interested in what people do in Baghdad, Damascus and Tehran.

Until Damascus and Tehran come so close that one cannot ignore them anymore. Ironically, people in Tehran shout "Death to the Zionist entity!" In the long run, what is happening there is a hundred times more important to our future than the Republican Party in San Francisco.

LET ME be clear: I don't preach Separation, as a small group nicknamed "Canaanites" once advocated. The natural bonds which are real and do not hurt the vital interest of either party -- Israel or World Jewry -- will survive.

But with one condition: that they will not hurt the future of Israel, a future which demands peace and friendship between its citizens and neighbors, or the future of the Jews throughout the world within their own nations.

How does that fit into the Zionist doctrine? Well, if it doesn't, too bad.