Iran's president is not alone in wanting to wipe Israel off the map. A group of academics and journalists are eradicating Israel — not with nuclear weapons but with ink and paper. On bookshelves in the West, you can see quite a number of books that wipe Israel off the map, and it is almost impossible to find any book — apart from Alan Dershowitz's writings — which refute their arguments.

These books are not attacking the occupation, but the very idea of a Jewish state. "Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews," by former BBC foreign correspondent Alan Hunt, is a lengthy — 600 pages in the first volume — diatribe against Zionism, the Balfour Declaration and the idea of a Jewish state in Palestine.

Jacqueline Rose's "The Question of Zion" and John Rose's "Myths of Zionism" are two similar attacks against Zionism. Professor Tony Judt of New York University also wiped Israel off the map in the New York Review of Books in October 2003 by writing that "Israel is an anachronism" and by proposing that it be replaced by a binational state.

Perhaps following Judt's lead, Ilan Pappe of Haifa University eradicates Israel in his French L'Essentiel article with his hopes that the return of the Palestinian refugees will give rise to "one unitary secular and democratic state" which would replace Israel. Naturally, Pappe surmises, the Jews will live happily ever after as a minority in a secular democracy — of which there are so many in the Middle East.

Madame Tussaud's wax museum in London — so Israeli visitors tell me — also wipes Israel off its display. Four Arab leaders — Yasser Arafat, Saddam Hussein, Moammar Khadafy and King Hussein of Jordan — are exhibited but not one Israeli leader.

There are also those who do not advocate eradicating Israel, but work to remove any shred of justification for supporting the Jewish state. Adding to the long list of Israeli academics who vilify their country is Daniel Dor of Tel Aviv University, author of "Suppressing the Guilt." The source of guilt, of course, is Israel's actions in the West Bank and the suppressors are the Israeli media, who conceal the truth from their readers.

Indeed, these and similar attacks on Israel have reached such force that Josef Joffe, editor and publisher of the German Die Zeit was led to write an article titled "A World without Israel" for the February 2005 issue of Foreign Policy. The article explains that the disappearance of Israel will not solve the world's problems. Suicide bombers and hate of America will not disappear with the elimination of Israel.

It is significant to note that this question is asked only about Israel. Nobody writes an article called "A World without Syria" or without Iran.

In all this diatribe, many things remain unexplained. Why shouldn't the Jewish people enjoy the right to self-determination? Why should this right be granted to the Sudanese people and not to the Jews? Why is it so preposterous that there should be one state in which Hebrew is the official language and Jewish holidays are official days of rest? Did not the Jewish people show national solidarity with their state? Did not the Jews of Israel show a determination to withstand war, terror, boycott and siege directed at them?

The learned chorus does not even attempt to tackle these questions. Their attacks against Zionism are compulsive, non-academic, full of half-baked truths and barely disguised hysteria. Indeed, Israel-bashers use a style that is very similar to the language used by anti-Semites, that Israel is inferior and should not enjoy the rights accorded to other peoples. Formerly it was the Jewish person, now it is the Jewish state. The Nazi refrain was "the Jews are our disaster"; now, the Jewish state is being portrayed as the world's disaster.

Consequently, all these eradicators should realize that the writings that wipe Israel off the map will, in turn, be erased — from our history, consciences or from any influence. Let the Judts, the Pappes, the Roses and Hunts go on; their writings will eventually wind up in the where they deserve.




Amnon Rubinstein is the founder of Israel's Shinui party and a writer for the Jerusalem Post, where this column previously appeared.