    The Jewish state is a virtual state that is quickly losing all remaining connection to reality.
    This ghost of a state kills people and collects money in America; it continues some nefarious
    existence, like the legal term, ‘estate of the deceased’. Its fields are worked by imported guest-workers,
    guarded by imported Russians and Ethiopians, explained away by the Israeli professors
    who forever lecture in American universities, and by brave generals on the lookout for a big
    kickback from American weapon-makers. Unemployment grows daily, vital services are on
    strike; the tourist industry has collapsed months ago. Hotels are boarded up and other branches
    of the national economy are close to collapse. Israelis buy flats in Florida and Prague, while
    houses in Israel go begging for buyers. Sharon’s desire to punish the Palestinians has the sting of
    punishing one’s own left hand. Palestinians and Israelis are intertwined and integrated, and their
    separation kills the economy of both.

    From far away America, Israel looks like a giant nuclear state, the great ally of the United
    States, a Jewish state that is a source of pride for American Jews. A visitor leaves our shores
    with a strong feeling of our identity and prosperity. Only we, permanent residents, know that it
    is a cardboard sham. Israel is collapsing. Its active citizens emigrate in despair, even as the generals
    complete the destruction of the country. A cruel fate befalls the native Palestinians: a ghost
    kills them, that spiritless body that walks the corridors of Congress and the deserts of the Middle
    East in a zombie-trance.

    For the sake of this spectre, important American Jews squeeze pennies from their employ-ees
    and countrymen, cut down on pensions to the old and on assistance for children, reduce the
    health and education budgets, dry up help to Africa and Latin America, build improbable coalitions
    with notorious racists of the Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell’s kind, demand the destruc-tion
    of Iraq, bless the bombing of Afghani refugees, keep Afro-Americans in their ghettos, undermine
    their host society, make enemies for themselves and for America. These deeds would
    be vile enough even if they accomplished something of value to someone, but they are worse
    because they are useless.

    The Zionist experiment has practically collapsed. It can run for many years to come on life-support,
    brain-dead and vegetating. It can kill some people, maybe even start the next world war.
    But it cannot become alive.

    The Jewish state of Israel is a state of mind, a projection of the American Jewish mind. The
    worries and problems it articulates are American Jewish problems. For Israeli ‘Jews’ there is no
    need for segregation, war, or subjugation of natives. We eat no bagels with lox, speak no Yiddish,
    read no Saul Bellow or Sholom Aleichem, and avoid synagogues. We prefer Arab food and
    Greek music. My neighbourhood has seven pork butchers to a kosher one. Forty per cent of Tel
    Aviv weddings are performed outside of the Jewish framework: young Israelis prefer to go to
    Cyprus to get married, just to avoid contact with Rabbis. Tel Aviv is the gay capital of the Middle
    East, though according to Jewish law, gays should be exterminated. Sometimes I wish that
    our great supporters, American Jews, would give us a stern and sober look and walk away in
    disgust. It is just a case of mistaken identity. We are not what they think we are. We need their
    protection against the Gentiles as much as fish needs a pair of waterproof boots.