2 No. 69 JUSTICE s I write these lines, the State of Israel is marking its 75th anniversary. The creation of the State of Israel was nothing short of a miracle. For 2,000 years, since being exiled from its Homeland, the Jewish people have suffered unparalleled persecution, which reached its climax in the Shoah (the Holocaust) in which 6 million Jews were murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators. No lesser miracle has been the success of the State of Israel during the last 75 years, a story of the ingathering of the Jewish people from around the world, and a series of achievements in the areas of science and technology, economic development and culture that are among the greatest in the world. A few weeks ago, I participated in the events marking the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. My late mother, Ita Linzen (née Wiseman), like my children's maternal grandmother Yenina Bard (née Bergzam – may she continue to enjoy many more healthy years), survived the Warsaw Ghetto and the Shoah. The comparison could not be more startling between the depths of suffering of our people 80 years ago and the establishment of the sovereign State of Israel in the historical homeland of the Jewish people. Today the Jewish people (even those living in the Diaspora) have the strong support of the State of Israel, the State of the Jewish people. Yet Israeli society is deeply divided. Jews against nonJews, religious against secular, Ashkenazi against Sephardi. These divisions are compounded by a deep political divide between Right and Left, which reached its climax in recent months in light of the initiative of the Government and the ruling coalition to bring about fundamental changes to the judicial system in Israel. This latest issue has brought the masses out into the streets, week after week, for many months. We, as an Organization that champions human rights, support the buttressing of democracy in the State of Israel, the independence of the judiciary, and the protection of rights of the individual citizen. Without wavering from these principles, we nevertheless believe that the only way to solve the current disagreement is through dialogue between the feuding parties. Therefore we welcome and support the dialogue that is taking place under the auspices of President Isaac Herzog. We must never forget that with all the problems that are affecting Israeli society at this time, the external threat to the State of Israel and to Jewish people around the world has not diminished. We have witnessed an upsurge in antisemitic acts, and we are particularly disturbed by the increase of antisemitic activity in the U.S., the intensifying efforts to delegitimize the State of Israel (see, for example, the recent application to the ICJ on behalf of the United Nations in the matter of the “Continuing Occupation”), and of course the physical threats in the form of increased terror activity both within Israel and from external enemies, especially Iran. Our Organization is firm in its resolve to fight with all the means available to it (primarily legal means) in all types of forums. We act in the courts of the relevant jurisdictions, in the courts of the European Union and in the international courts at the Hague. As long as there are legal means to meet any of these challenges, the IJL will find ways to meet these challenges. That is our raison d'être. June 23, 2023 President’s Message A Meir Linzen Photo: Ami Erlich
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