Dr. Mordechai Kedar, a Middle East expert, responded on a podcast to threats by those who oppose the judicial reform that they will leave Israel if it passes.
"The whole day, you see the term 'relocation.' What is relocation? It's as if I'm here only so long as it's comfortable for me and good for me. I have no emotional attachment to the land here," Dr. Kedar said.
Comparing the situation to the love between a man and a woman, he added, "You don't tell someone who you love, 'I'm with you only so long as you make me a cup of coffee in the morning' - or I'll do relocation to someone else. Because if what's holding you here is love for her, then you love her with the coffee or without the coffee. That is love which is not dependent on anything," referencing the Talmudic Sages in Ethics of the Fathers, chap 5 pp.16.
Daniel Dushi, the podcaster to whom Dr. Kedar was speaking, asked him, "So that's how you feel towards the State of Israel?"
Dr. Kedar responded, "Certainly. The moment someone tells me, 'If the country isn't exactly as I want, it will turn into a dictatorship' - which by the way is nonsense - 'I will move to Canada or move to Europe' - that means that the love is dependent on something. When that something disappears, the love disappears."
On the issue of refusal to serve in the IDF in protest of the judicial reform, Dr. Kedar said, "I am a person who serves in the reserves - despite the fact that I am almost 71 years old. They asked me, so I volunteered for the reserves. I am in the reserves regardless of the government, regardless of who the commander is and what he wants or does not want. So long as the IDF calls me - I will go."