The End of Israel
Judaism is a religion, not a race. Jews have no more exclusive right to the Holy Land than Christians, say, or Rastafarians. There are black Jews, middle eastern Jews, white western Jews, mixed-race Jews, even Palestinian Jews. You can convert. People have converted, many times. Whole tribes who were previously not Jews elected to become Jews. For the women it’s easy. For the men, slightly less so, but still doable. You have to be willing to put up with a certain amount of discomfort for a while. (I’m wincing slightly as I think of this.)
Likewise, the Bible is symbolic, not literal. It is myth, not history. There probably never was a King David or a King Solomon. There probably never was a Moses, or an Abraham. If any of these characters ever existed, they have been mythologised: like Hercules, or Jason and the Argonauts. Biblical stories are not facts, but they do tell us certain truths. They carry hidden messages. They are parables, allegories, metaphors. The promises contained in them have to be understood spiritually. God was not offering his people a piece of real estate, but a state of mind. The promised land should be understood figuratively, as something that is yearned for, hoped for, wished for, longed for, in the deepest recesses of the soul, but never fought for, never killed for.
To be a Jew you have to follow the Torah. The Torah specifically prohibits a number of actions. You shall not kill. You shall not steal. You shall not covet. You shall not bear false witness. God’s promises are conditional. If you do any of these things you are not a Jew. The promises are made null and void by the breaking of the Law. Therefore the people of Israel (most of them) are not Jews. They break the Law every day.
They are Zionists. Zionism is a political ideology. It takes the politics of domination and conquest and dresses it up in religious clothing. Most of the early Zionists were atheists. They did not believe in God, and yet they laid claim to the land of Israel as promised to them by God.
Zionism is a settler colonial project aimed at stealing the land from the indigenous population, many of whom have deep historical roots going back centuries, if not millennia. The Palestinians are the descendants of Canaanites, Philistines, Israelites, Jews, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Crusaders: all the people who have criss-crossed this strip of land, at the crossroads of the world between Egypt and the Fertile Crescent, and left their DNA behind. They are a semitic people, speaking Arabic, one of a nest of semitic languages that defines the population group. Zionism aims at removing those original people, and replacing them with settlers. It is a supremacist ideology. Zionists believe they are superior to other people. They see other people – specifically Palestinians – as inferior, less than human. “Human animals,” as Yoav Gallant, the Israeli Defence Minister called them.
Many settlers have dual nationality: that is, they already have homelands of their own. They are from all over the world – North America, South America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia, everywhere but Israel – but the Israeli “Law of Return” allows them to settle in Israel, while Palestinians, born in Palestine, but driven from the land in one of the many pogroms, have no such right.
BDS
People say that the Israel-Palestine conflict is complex and intractable, and it is difficult, but the solution lies within the world’s grasp. Israel only exists because of the military backing of the West. Once the West removes its backing, Israel will fall. This is why we should do our best to undermine Western support for Israel, to question governmental and institutional investment in Israel, to enact BDS: Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions. BDS brought down apartheid South Africa. It will bring down apartheid Israel too.
States do not have a right to exist. People have a right to exist. Afrikaner rule in South Africa is no more. The Soviet Union is no more. Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, South Vietnam, East Germany: many states have fallen in the last century. They have been nullified by history. The people are still there, but their identity has changed. The same will happen to Israel. Israel is the illegitimate bastard child of American Imperialism, inserted into the Middle East to control the world’s supply of oil, and to keep the nearby states in check. Its days are numbered. It has proved itself to be violently anti-social in its nature. We should no more allow a psychopathic state to exist than we would allow a society of paedophiles to start recruiting members.
All terrorist groups need to be disbanded. That includes the IDF, one of the greatest terrorist armies in the world. An international force with the full authorisation of the United Nations should be brought in to take their place. There can only be a one-state solution. Israelis with dual nationality can elect to return to their homes, or remain in Palestine as law abiding citizens, subject to the democratic rule of the majority. The Law of Return should be revoked and Palestinians granted the right of return. There should be freedom of religion and all peoples who lay claim to the various covenants of the region should be allowed to worship: Jew, Samaritan, Druze, Gnostic, Mandaean, Yazidi, Christian, Alawite, Sufi, Ismaili, Sunni, Shia. No religion should be allowed to dominate another. Everyone should be free to worship, whomsoever and howsoever they choose.
Quite how any of this can happen is another thing. The confusion between the idea of the promised land as a piece of real estate, and the Holy Land as a state of mind, is one that bedevils us all. You cannot, ultimately, own anything. We are all passing strangers upon this earth, free to drink in its delights while we are here, but then gone and forgotten, blown away like dust in the wind. We should savour every moment, every passing beauty – every shaft of sunlight through the trees, every bird’s call, every breath of air that stirs the leaves – but know that we cannot hold on to any of it. Its secret is in the moment, a wealth deeper and more enriching than all the gold in Fort Knox, and yet as insubstantial as the breeze. This where the Holy Land truly lies, not in substance, but in feeling: not in property but in what we give away, freely, from the generosity of our hearts.
https://www.eldaddruks.studio/https://www.splicetoday.com/politics-and-media/the-end-of-israel
