Mr. Herzog,

Compared to the short concise 1977 Likud Platform, your 2013 Labor Platform (about 12 pages long) seems like a Communist “manifesto” – a public declaration of the intentions, policies, and goals of a political party or government.

Four clauses in your Labor platform are so alarming to me, that my spirit could not rest until this second public open letter was written to you. In my view, your platform attempts to overrule and/or nullify most of the 1948 Declaration of Independence – Israel’s Magna Carta, if you will.

To reiterate, on 12.6.14 in a Jerusalem Post article, you said, “I will form the next coalition and lead Israel in a new direction.” In what “new direction” will you lead the House of Jacob/Israel? In an anti-Zionist/anti-Israel/anti-Torah direction that strips away the Jewish People’s “spiritual,” “religious,” and “political” rights to their “National Home”? The four alarming Labor Party platform clauses are stated below:

ALARMING CLAUSE 1:

“The Labor Party places the highest value

on the civil, political, and social rights of Israel’s citizens,

as these were granted to them in the framework

of the Knesset’s Basic Laws and Supreme Court rulings.

These rights are the lifeblood of a just and unified society,

 and they are at the basis of the State of Israel’s existence.”

Firstly, the “framework” of the “basis of the State of Israel’s existence” is anchored in the Declaration of Independence – not in the “Knesset’s Basic Laws and Supreme Court rulings.” Secondly, the . . . “complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants [in Israel] irrespective of religion, race or sex;” and “freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture;” is already guaranteed in Israel’s Declaration. Thirdly, although “Israel’s citizens” include Arabs and Christians, etc., under international mandated sanctions, such “citizens” cannot supplant the sovereign Jewish People’s right “to rebuild” their “National Home” in their “own land.” Eretz Yisrael is the “birthplace” where their “spiritual, religious and political identity was shaped.”

Israel’s Declaration of Independence states, in part:

“ERETZ-ISRAEL [(Hebrew) – The Land of Israel] was the birthplace of the Jewish people. Here their spiritual, religious and political identity was shaped. Here they first attained to statehood, created cultural values of national and universal significance and gave to the world the eternal Book of Books.”  After being forcibly exiled from their land, the people remained faithful to it throughout their Dispersion and never ceased to pray and hope for their return to it and for the restoration in it of their political freedom.” . . . “the Balfour Declaration” . . . reaffirmed in the Mandate of the League of Nations which, in particular, gave international sanction to the historic connection between the Jewish people and Eretz-Israel and to the right of the Jewish people to rebuild its National Home.” “WE EXTEND our hand to all neighboring states and their peoples in an offer of peace and good neighborliness, and appeal to them to establish bonds of cooperation and mutual help with the sovereign Jewish people settled in its own land.”

ALARMING CLAUSE 2:

“The Labor Party will aspire to create dialogue

among all sectors and groups within Israeli society

 in order to reach broad agreement on the guiding

civil and social principles around which the

entire public can unite.”

What “dialogue among all sectors and groups . . . is needed for a “broad agreement” on “civil and social principles”? The Jewish People’s sovereign “National Home” is uniquely “spiritual” and “religious.” If some “public” don’t like stores/businesses in Israel closed on Shabbat/Sabbath, e.g., according to the Law of Moses, – let them leave!

ALARMING CLAUSE 3:

“For the Jewish people, the State of Israel

is a ‘SOVEREIGN SPACE’ in which their children

can fulfill their national identity completely and safely,

and work together with all Israeli citizens to create

a texture of ‘SHARED LIFE’ in every aspect.”

What do you mean the State of Israel is the Jewish People’s “SOVEREIGN SPACE”? Why are you attempting to strip them of their “spiritual, religious, and political” freedom in their “National Home”? What do you mean “all Israeli citizens” must “work together” “to create a texture of “Shared life in every aspect”? Isn’t this a “forced” communal communist concept?

ALARMING CLAUSE 4:

“One of the critical means for ensuring that

agricultural settlements will continue to fulfill

their national mission is a perpetual land lease

 included in the community’s agricultural allotment.  

The farmers’ rights to their land must be enshrined

in a perpetual lease conditioned

on continuing to work the land.”

Isn’t “the community’s agricultural allotment” “enshrined in a perpetual lease” – a communist concept also?

In my view, your anti-Zionist/anti-Israel/anti-Torah Ultra-Leftist Labor Party platform is an anathema to the House of Jacob/Israel. G-d forbid you should become the next prime minister of Israel!

Sincerely,

Ora Yakovi

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(The entire “Israeli Labor party Platform 2013” can be read online in English or Hebrew versions.)