In the debate surrounding A.B. Yehoshua's speech to the delegates at the American Jewish Committee convention, I would like to clarify a number of facts before taking a stance.

1. There is no more exile; there is a Diaspora. Every Jew can leave his country if he so chooses, can immigrate somewhere else, and can certainly come to Israel under the Law of Return and become an Israeli citizen. Equally, he has the right to remain where he is, with his citizenship and his community.

2. As long as he lives in the United States or in any other sovereign country, and is a citizen of that country, his obligations as a citizen are to his country, its laws and the community in which he lives, just as the obligations of every Israeli citizen are to the state, its laws and all that this implies.

3. Our connection to global Jewry and its connection to us is a historical and sentimental connection, an ethnic connection and a religious connection, with all the contexts of the land of Zion and Jerusalem.

We are "one people" in the sense of "folk" or "peoplehood," but not in the sense of "nation," which has to do with citizenship and sovereignty. Thus, for example, American citizens of Irish origin are connected to the Catholic religion and the Irish people, just like American Jews have connections with Israel and the Jewish people with respect to ethnicity and culture.

4. The Jews elsewhere in the world live in Jewish communities and preserve Jewish traditions not because of any law or coercion (like here, for example) but out of an awareness of belonging, that is to say, by choice.

5. The Jews of the United States were full partners in the struggle to bring Soviet and Ethiopian Jewry to Israel, and in funding the absorption of the big immigration waves. This came out of full solidarity with the Jewish people and the State of Israel.

6. However, there is a big difference between them and us. We are living a sovereign life as Jews not through voluntary organizations but rather as full citizens: the Hebrew language, the culture here, the knowledge of the Bible in its original language, and the celebration of the Jewish holidays as holidays of citizens in their own country and in the proper season. When we pray for rain, this is a prayer of need; we have no huge rivers and no Niagara Falls. There, they pray for rain for reasons of tradition and religion and perhaps, since the establishment of the state, for us.

As a conscious atheist, I would not willingly take upon myself rabbinic rule over my life as a citizen, and certainly not as a woman. However, I am glad that the rhythm of my life is determined by the Sabbath and Jewish holidays - determined by the country's laws, historical and cultural meaning, and solidarity with generations past and with all Jews, and not by religious coercion.

7. The sovereignty of the people and its connection to its past, its land and its culture is of supreme importance. Here, there is no duality of identity like that among Jews abroad. I am an Israeli without hyphens. Israel is the father of the nation. In all the prayers throughout the generations and in their season, the plea is for the return of Israel to its land. Here the Arab is in the minority and he is an Arab-Israeli, which is to say he lives in a duality like Jews abroad. He deserves rights just like those of any Jewish citizen of the United States, and should be given the same rights as any Israeli Jew.

8. The Declaration of Independence opens with the direct connection between the Jewish people and its country, where its "spiritual, religious and political identity was shaped." The formative declaration of the state also declares that it "will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel."

With respect to observing "Jewish values" - such as human dignity and freedom; no discrimination on the basis of religion, race or sex; mutual aid and assistance for the subjects of discrimination; and making peace - it is very doubtful that we are more "Jewish" than the Jews of other countries. There they have proven themselves more than we have. Here there is scorn and ridicule for the "other," including the immigrant whose mother is not Jewish. Here rights are not applied equally, and there are many racist elements, both in practice and in law.

Here we say that the Druze, who serve in the Israel Defense Forces in the most difficult of roles, are our "blood brothers," but we have not invested in them one-tenth of what has been invested in Jewish settlers in the territories who break the law and hate the other.

The destruction, the killing, the robbery and the humiliation we impose on the Palestinian population as a collective are contrary to international covenants and the "Jewish values" of which we boast. Of what is happening among us now, the Prophet Isaiah said then: "Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no place, that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth!" (Isaiah 5:8). They block wells, chop down trees, destroy greenhouses and turn every village and town into a detention camp. In light of all this we have no right to boast of our Judaism as superior to the Judaism in other countries.

To sum up, everyone has the right to determine what kind of Jew he wants to be: religious, secular, Reform, Conservative, Orthodox, enlightened and humanist, or arrogant hater of the gentiles and the others. Whether or not he belongs to a congregation or the Zionist movement, he knows that he is Jewish, he follows what is happening in Israel and to Jews in other places, and as long as he attends A.B. Yehoshua's lectures, it means that he has not assimilated and does not want to disengage. He, there, is different from Yehoshua and from me because he is a sovereign citizen of the United States and we are sovereign citizens of Israel.

The Jews in other countries do not need to feel guilty for being there, and we must not consider ourselves superior to them, just as Israel must not be the Vatican of the Jewish people. We the Israelis must build a more moral society here in accordance with the values of which we boast unjustly. It is worth investing the effort, the anger and the love in building our society and our country, in which Jews are sovereign, in an enlightened democratic and moral Jewish spirit.

Shulamit Aloni is a former minister and an Israel Prize recipient.