Great Neck hears upbeat view of Israel’s future

Deputy Speaker of the Knesset and member of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committees Yoni Chetboun spoke optimistically about Israel and its problems at the Great Neck Synagogue last Sunday.

He related that eight years ago, during the Second Lebanon War, he was serving in the Israeli Defense Forces in the Golani Brigade that was fighting Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, in a small town called Bint Jbeil. He recalled that there was shooting all around him and his company when his commander, Major Roi Klein, saw a grenade that was about to explode, and covered it with his body to save the lives of his soldiers. At that point, Chetboun was some distance away from the grenade but was informed over his radio that Major Klein was mortally wounded. He led six of his soldiers across an open field, in great danger and under fire, to retrieve Klein’s body.

After he left the Army, Chetboun, a Religious Zionist, advocated for the right of Jews to live in the land of Israel and the maintenance of Jewish values in the Jewish state.

Of the Arab Israeli conflict, he stated that it was not a question of territory but an ideological conflict. As such, it cannot be solved by simply drawing boundaries. However, he stated that this is not Israel’s most discussed problem at this time. Most of the current debates in the Knesset are over questions of Jewish identity —  the role of Judaism in the state.

For example, he cited many bills that have been put forward over the issue of civil marriage and other religious issues, in which he favors the status quo. Like a young child who is only interested in his physical well-being and then grows up to question who he is, Israel is a young state that has come of age and is now not simply interested in economic issues and securing a healthy life for its citizens, but now has come to question the very nature of the Jewish state and how it shall be realized.