The piece has been pub­lished in The Aus­tralian Jew­ish News by ECAJ co-CEO Alex Ryvchin.

For those of us who advo­cate for Israel in the Dias­po­ra, the ques­tion of “why” we do what we do rarely aris­es.

Why do we defend a coun­try in which we do not live? Why are we pre­pared to bear the online abuse and real-world threats such a life path entails? Few pon­der these ques­tions because that com­pul­sion, that deter­mi­na­tion to defend Israel is so instinc­tive that it hard­ly requires ratio­nal expla­na­tion.

When Philippe Petit crossed between the twin tow­ers in New York on a high­wire unteth­ered, the ques­tion every jour­nal­ist asked him as he was bun­dled into a police car after com­plet­ing his feat was “why? Why did you do it?” Petit replied, “why? There is no why.”

For us, the “why” is equal­ly eva­sive and equal­ly self-evi­dent. But these ques­tions need to be asked so that we may under­stand how to appeal to new gen­er­a­tions and how we can become more effec­tive in what we do.

When we defend Israel, we are in effect defend­ing our­selves. Israel is an inescapable com­po­nent of mod­ern Jew­ish iden­ti­ty. It is not only the con­cept of indi­gene­ity and his­tor­i­cal and litur­gi­cal links that bind us. It is the real­i­ty that Israel was con­sti­tut­ed to pre­serve Jew­ish life and safe­guard and enlarge those things that are dis­tinct­ly Jew­ish, and which are peri­od­i­cal­ly expunged from the Dias­po­ra. Israel is every Jew’s exit strat­e­gy. And if it is not, it ought to be. There is also the fact that Israel is home to more Jews than any oth­er coun­try and as demo­graph­ic trends show, it will con­tin­ue to grow as the Dias­po­ra con­tracts. The notion of Jew­ish sol­i­dar­i­ty and mutu­al respon­si­bil­i­ty is a pro­found­ly ingrained one and this com­pels us to care deeply for the fate of the largest Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty in the world.

Defend­ing Israel, its right to peace and secu­ri­ty and to freely engage with the world, also means defend­ing an idea. It is the idea that dis­persed, colonised peo­ples can be free; that they can sur­vive in exile and one day return to recon­sti­tute their nation­al home. It is the idea that mul­ti-faith, mul­ti-eth­nic rep­re­sen­ta­tive democ­ra­cy can sur­vive in the Mid­dle East. It is the idea that a lost lan­guage can be revived. That a dec­i­mat­ed peo­ple can be made whole again.

These ideas are wor­thy of defence as any imag­in­able. Yet ideas can be dis­card­ed or super­seded. This is why it is nec­es­sary to under­stand that Israel is more than an abstract bun­dle of ideas. It is a peo­ple and a land. A peo­ple of astound­ing diver­si­ty, defined by enter­prise, gen­eros­i­ty and for­ti­tude. The idea is wor­thy, but its peo­ple are wor­thi­er still.

This is also a peo­ple that lives with a bur­den that no oth­er nation has to bear. The threat of ter­ror­ism on its streets; the spec­tre of war orches­trat­ed by a regime intent on its anni­hi­la­tion; and coor­di­nat­ed cam­paigns in the West to black­en its name, turn pub­lic opin­ion against it, there­by under­min­ing its abil­i­ty to func­tion and exist.

The land of Israel, cul­ti­vat­ed and enriched by the toil and sac­ri­fice of its peo­ple is utter­ly mes­mer­ic. The city of Jerusalem exists on a high­er plane to all world­ly pos­ses­sions. It has a seren­i­ty that replen­ish­es the soul and an ener­gy that brings on pecu­liar moods in rapid sequence. I write this from a bal­cony in Jaf­fa over­look­ing the Tel Aviv sky­line and the Mediter­ranean Sea with the bell tow­er of St Peter’s Church at my right shoul­der emit­ting its chimes with an unnerv­ing fre­quen­cy.

I need not cat­a­logue the cor­nu­copia of sacred hills and val­leys, archae­o­log­i­cal splen­dours, crum­bling forts, bib­li­cal relics, shuks and wadis of which this coun­try is com­posed. Israel is the most spec­tac­u­lar 22,000 square metres on Earth and I would glad­ly raise my fists to any­one who would beg to dif­fer. It is a land that is holy and promised which is why tran­quil anonymi­ty has nev­er accom­pa­nied it.

It is because of the sin­gu­lar enchant­ment of this land and its peo­ple that the great­est tool of advo­ca­cy at our dis­pos­al is to bring peo­ple here. No one leaves Israel unchanged. This is why the anti-Israel move­ment has relent­less­ly sought to smear and dis­cred­it organ­ised trips to Israel from Birthright to polit­i­cal del­e­ga­tions. They know that once peo­ple are shown Israel, there is noth­ing left to tell.

It is also why it is essen­tial that advo­cates for Israel take every oppor­tu­ni­ty to come here. Com­ing to Israel deep­ens the bond and affirms what is at stake and what we have the priv­i­lege of defend­ing – a land that is ours by right not suf­fer­ance and a peo­ple that inspire us to be bet­ter, strive hard­er and fight until the last breath.