"During the recent World Zionist Congress in Jerusalem, Professor Micah Goodman of the Hebrew University presented an illuminating assessment of post-Zionism and anti-Zionism. Goodman observed that the second generation of classic Zionist thinkers -- from the socialist Zionist Yosef Haim Brenner to the cultural Zionist Ahad Ha’Am to the religious Zionist Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook -- envisioned a future Jewish state in Utopian terms.
Utopian thinking offers a fantasy, a hope that all of life’s problems will disappear. Utopianism secularizes messianic expectations for the end of human history and imagines a world devoid of any imperfections.
Yet as noted at the congress by Israeli historian Yaakov Talmon, the danger of Utopian political thinking is that if only the perfect is worthwhile, then anything that is imperfect -- such as the modern-day State of Israel -- is worthless.
Measured against the dream of a Jewish state in which there are no criminals, no corrupt politicians, no unethical soldiers and no political compromises, the real Israel will always fail.
By contrast, other nations are not held to high standards at all."
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