Unspoken questions wind their way through the national conversation. Where are we going? What can we expect in the future? Will we survive? How can we prepare? Anxiety is increased by omens in the sky and the weather. In myth and religion we hope to find promises and instructions. We hope to rediscover our foundations. But we also find lamentations. We are not children who deny the possibility of destruction and death. Not now. The worst is already upon us. We’ve seen families swept away in the flood and burned in the fire. Let’s face the future like wise men and women. Let’s sit down together like elders of the tribe. Let’s mourn what is lost and love what remains.
Reading Time: 4minutesLearning How to Keep Christmas
Now that Gaza as been destroyed and her people are starving and dying of infection and disease, our conversation can’t help but change. We no longer feel we are talking to fellow beings when we address our elected officials. And anyway, there is nothing left of the world we hoped to save. Both physical infrastructure and human life have been destroyed. For survivors in Gaza and their sympathizers, the mental and spiritual wounds will never go away. And now we are hearing that there will be no Christmas for Bethlehem. After everything that has happened, Christmas has been shrouded by the misery of Gaza. My prayer is that this realization will shake our world view. Maybe it will even teach us what it really means to keep Christmas.
I wrote previously that the time has come to prepare for the next life. I said Gaza reminds us that Death comes for everyone. Today, Americans see this possibility more clearly when our own government ignores our cries for mercy. We feel we are kin to the Palestinians more than to the political establishment. But I’ve discovered that we need to clear a theological path so that they can walk beside us.
I became aware of this need by watching this video by Dr. Ali Ataie on religious Zionism. I explained in a previous article that Morris Jastrow was sympathetic to a certain kind of religious Zionism. But there is another version that Jastrow would have considered heretical. In his video, Dr. Ataie explains this second type of religious Zionism. However, the part of the video I want to talk about is near the end. It has to do with his concern about the nature of the Judeo-Christian God. This concern is especially relevant today because of Netanyahu’s use of Old Testament passages to justify the destruction of Gaza.
If I understand him correctly I think he is presenting questions that he can’t avoid asking. He is trying to understand a concept that is necessary to his own faith.
How do Muslims understand the Jewish and Christian God?
The Christians say they believe in the God of Abraham, but then they say that the genocidal God of Deuteronomy 20 is not Christian. He is the Jewish God. This is not satisfactory.
Dr. Ataie mentions the word Perichoresis. According to Cambridge Core,
‘Perichoresis (perichoresis, circumincessio) is a theological term which describes the ‘necessary being-in-one-another or circumincession of the three divine Persons of the Trinity because of the single divine essence, the eternal procession of the Son from the Father and of the Spirit from the Father and (through) the Son, and the fact that the three Persons are distinguished solely by the relations of opposition between them.’
I think the Cambridge article attempts to explain away any confusion, but I’m not sure it was successful. According to Dr. Ataie Muslims have a difference of opinion with the anti-Zionist Jews who describe the problem as a mistaken definition. The anti-Zionist Jews claim that the Zionist Jews got the meaning wrong. I think it is understandable if this doesn’t provide much comfort when bombs are falling.
Genesis 1:28 has similar genocidal language. Some try to explain this away by saying that it only applies to the generation of Moses. Others claim it never actually happened. But Ataie argues that current beliefs matter. And they really do matter in Palestine today. All things considered, it’s hard to argue with him.
Concerning the Christian concept of God, Ataie is also aware that the Logos became Jesus of Nazareth. Or is is it more correct to say the Logos is Jesus of Nazareth? I haven’t studied this concept, and I’m not sure it would help if I had.
Logos theology is a theology of presence without division. It is a way of unification, of which the incarnation is the greatest visible example.
If someone had asked me these questions a week ago, I would have cited Jastrow. He said the Prophets ushered in a new conception of religion that cut the bond between religion and nationality. As a result, religion became the concern of the individual and not the group. As for the nature of God, the Prophets announced that pleasing Yahweh would now depend on each individual’s obedience to certain principles, as opposed to the group’s obedience. In this way, the national Yahweh was transformed into a universal Jehovah.
Jastrow calls this new religious concept the religion of the Prophets and explains that this process happened in phases. Judaism emerged out of Hebrew nationalism only after the destruction of the Jewish state.
Does this answer Dr. Ataie’s questions? Because now I have some questions of my own.
Where was God in all of this? Or who was God? Unless I’ve missed something, it’s not clear if God himself changed or the Hebrews merely changed their view of God.
These questions don’t shake my sense of the God I pray to, but I’m not being bombed by a crazed tribal deity. And I’m not Arab or Muslim. Does this description of God make more sense to a Western reader than it would to an Arab reader?
Hopefully, theologians can help us deal with these questions. It’s important because unless we can establish a common base of understanding and trust, nothing we say will be helpful.
Morris Jastrow1 wrote in 1919 that Israel is a ‘glorified ghetto’. When you think about it, the conditions of Jewish life before the Enlightenment have been perfectly reproduced in Palestine. It’s no wonder the Israelis and their allies are cracking up. Political Zionism is an anachronism.
This implies that Israel is commanded to wage a holy war of extermination against Amalek (Deut. 25:12–19), for in the early days “the wars of Israel” and the “wars of the Lord” were synonymous expressions (cf., e.g., Judg. 5:23).
But, unfortunately for Netanyahu, even his supporters did not buy his analogy. His supporters don’t necessarily object to the carnage, just the rhetoric. They worry that announcing a holy war is not a good look for him. But his use of a story from ancient Israel to justify his war reveals the central mistake of the Zionists.
Zionism does not understand the Hebrew Prophets or Jesus
The use of the Old Testament in this way reveals that Zionism is a movement out of place and time. According to Morris Jastrow, this movement ignores what was accomplished by the Hebrew Prophets and Jesus. Jastrow calls Jesus the successor of the Prophets.
Political Zionism is an anachronism
Jastrow had sympathy for religious and economic Zionism. But as a political measure, Zionism was an anachronism. However, the political aspect has dominated since 1897. (p. 31) The only way the Zionists could have pulled this off is by ignoring or denying the religious aspect.
The Prophets: From Ancient Israel to Judaism
If Christians and Jews understood how the Old and New Testament fit together they would reject Zionism immediately. But instead, they are led by dramatic verses taken out of context, such as the story of Amalek. In fact, the Zionist movement itself is out of context.
The Zionists seem unaware that the Prophets made major changes in the religion of ancient Israel. These changes are recorded in the Old Testament. The central concept that resulted from their teachings had to do with nationality and citizenship.
Antiquity interpreted religion in terms of nationality. The basis of nationality and citizenship was a nation’s language and gods. This influenced the organization of religion, including the ancient Hebrew religion.
The Hebrews had a national deity, whom they called Yahweh. He was their protector within the boundaries of their own territory. Within those borders, they were the chosen people of Yahweh. The groups around them were no different. They had been chosen by some other god.
What was the message of the Prophets?
However, for the Hebrews the ancient concept of religion changed with the rise of the Prophets. The Prophets taught that Yahweh is unlike other gods. His concern is conditioned on the obedience of his followers to certain principles. These principles involved ethical distinctions between right and wrong.
But, this was not a theoretical lesson on ethics. The Prophets announced that Yahweh had rejected his people because of the oppression of the poor by the rich, the injustice in the courts of justice, and rampant crime. They said Yahweh would punish the people for their sins unless they would mend their ways.
The Prophet Amos was the first to preach this message. He was followed by Hosea, who made the same prophecy. Then came Isaiah. Isaiah emphasized that sacrifices and tribute are an abomination to Yahweh, and that he does not want his worshippers to defile his holy place by coming there with unclean hands.
These teachings represented a new (religious) language. Their significance lay in the emphasis on the conduct of the individual as the test of religion. From this point onward, the group was considered to represent an entity composed of individuals.
In this process, the national Yahweh was transformed into a universal Jehovah. In other words, Judaism made its first appearance at that time. Judaism is a religion based on a monotheistic conception of divine government, which makes the conduct of the individual the test of religious life. But this transformation would soon be tested.
The effect of the Babylonian exile
Hebrew nationalism was made extinct after a Babylonian monarch, Nebuchadnezzar, destroyed the Jewish state. As a result, the Hebrew religion changed. It came to worship a God who was no longer tribal and confined to a specific territory. It worshipped a God who was universal, a God who was concerned for all mankind. The experience of exile and the new understanding of God that accompanied the exiles cut the bond between religion and nationality. The transformation into Judaism was complete.
It is a fact of the utmost significance that the great contribution of the Jews to the world’s spiritual treasure was made not while the national life was flourishing, but as it was ebbing away. The Prophets with their revolutionary doctrines made their appearance when the northern Kingdom was beginning to show symptoms of decline, and the movement reached its height after this kingdom had disappeared and the national existence of the southern Kingdom was threatened. The religion of the Prophets is the swan song of ancient Hebraism, and the example of a people flourishing without a national background had to be furnished to the world in order to bring the new conception of religion to fruition, which divorced religion from nationality and made it solely the expression of the individual’s aspiration for the higher life and for communion with the source of all being. The ancient Hebrews disappeared. It was the Jews, as we should call the people after the Babylonian Exile, who survived, and they survived despite the fact that they never recovered their national independence in the full sense of the word.
Jastrow, p. 38
The theocratic state
Judaism changed the people from a political to a religious unit. However, this process proved to be too much for the masses and they yearned to go back to their nationalistic ways. Jastrow defines what they were going through as the ‘wrenching of the political from the religious life’. He thought the strange phenomenon of a Prophet who is also a Priest was a response to this difficulty. But it was a step backward.
The Prophet-Priest Ezra created a new code. Ezra’s code was combined with the two earlier codes in Exodus and the Book of Deuteronomy. This framework of early traditions and tribal experiences became the Pentateuch. The Pentateuch served as the basis of religious life. It also recognized the solidarity of the Jews as a political unit. The result was that Israel was so dominated by the priestly ideal that a theocratic state came to be.
The ministry of Jesus
Second Isaiah and the other ‘writing’ Prophets after the Babylonian exile opposed this development because the theocratic state led the Jews to focus on national aspirations.
Beginning with Amos, the Prophets before the exile had envisioned a time when the Jewish people would set an example for the world to worship the ‘supreme Author of all being‘. But the theocratic state reattached the religion to what remained of the national life. This was the situation Jesus confronted in his lifetime.
The universal Jehovah had not entirely put aside the rule of the tribal Yahweh. Yahweh was still viewed as the special protector of His chosen people by the side of His traits as the God of universal scope. The crisis came in the days of Jesus, who, as the successor of the Hebrew Prophets, drew the logical conclusion from their premises and substituted for the national ideal that of the ‘Kingdom of God…Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s’. By such a single saying Jesus broke definitely with all nationalistic aims, which even during the period of Roman control, strict and complete as it was, the Jews did not entirely abandon.
Jastrow, pp. 41-42
According to Jastrow, it is an error to suppose that the Jews rejected the religious teachings of Jesus. They could not have rejected his teachings. Jesus taught in the same spirit as their own Prophets. What they rejected was Jesus’s uncompromising insistence that religion was a matter between the individual and his conscience. They were prevented from accepting this idea both by their own traditions and attitudes and by the religious concepts that surrounded them.
When St. Paul came to give the doctrinal setting to the teachings of Jesus, and to interpret the meaning of his life with its tragic end, he laid the chief emphasis on the salvation of the individual through the acceptance of the belief in Jesus. The sins of the world were washed away through the blood of Jesus as a vicarious offering for mankind. Every individual was offered the opportunity of securing salvation for his soul by accepting Jesus as his saviour…
Jastrow p. 45
Did something similar happen to Christianity?
However, Jastrow also identifies a continuing tendency to connect religion and nationality among Christians. He blames this on the Church’s ‘Zionistic temptation’ to become allied with Rome. I hesitate to bring this up because of the fear that some denominations will feel justified in their criticism of Catholicism. But it’s important to remember that many Protestant denominations built forts around their own theology. If I’m not misunderstanding Jastrow, I think this Zionistic tendency can be interpreted differently.
It could be argued that it was the Roman emperors who first legalized Christianity and then made it the official religion of the Roman Empire. If the Church fathers agreed to this, perhaps they mistook it as a universalistic alliance. Jastrow does say (p. 45) that this alliance appeared in a form that at first appeared international.
Conclusion
This article demonstrates that political Zionism is anachronistic. Christian and Jewish Zionists are trying to carry out a scenario that no longer exists, and can’t be defended in the scriptures. In fact, they are going in the opposite direction to what their own Prophets intended. If we look again at Netanyahu’s use of the story of Amalek as justification for bombing Gaza, it becomes clear that a tribal Israel ruled by a nationalistic God is a thing of the past. The wars of Israel and the wars of the Lord are no longer synonymous. Israel’s God became a universal God when the Israelite nation was destroyed and the people were carried away to Babylon. Then Jesus, as the successor to the Prophets, reinforced the Prophetic teachings.
Christianity, as we have seen, broke at its foundation with Jewish nationalism. It definitely cut the thread that bound religion to the limitations inherent in associating religion with the group.
Jastrow p. 44
Next it will be necessary to understand the difference between the religious practice of Christian Zionists, orthodox Christians and Jews.
Morris Jastrow Jr. Ph.D, LL.D, Zionism and the future of Palestine: the Fallacies and Dangers of Political Zionism, The Macmillan Company, NY, 1999 ↩︎
I recently wrote about Morris Jastrow‘s 1919 book about Zionism. In the last century, events have transpired with no relation to the understanding he tried to convey. The result is that in spite of his efforts, Zionism has prospered. But, as I read his words, I am certain that his voice still matters. Jastrow’s book is an important source for defeating Zionism.
Relgious belief or geopolitical maneuvering?
Readers may think Jastrow’s approach is too simple, that it merely deals with mistaken notions which led Jews to accept Zionism. Some prefer to focus on manipulation by Western imperialists. In my opinion, geopolitical maneuvering is important, but it should not be the first priority. I suspect changes in Jewish religious beliefs are central to the success of Zionism.
I’m not implying that we should be led by Jastrow alone. But his experience and education provide important information about the changes that took place in European and American Judaism in the late nineteenth and early 20th century. This is important because we may be seeing the effects of these changes today.
However, an important misunderstanding about his religious views might distract from his usefulness. Therefore, before I talk about Jastrow’s book I will share my understanding of where he stood in relation to changes taking place in Judaism in his lifetime. I’m not an expert on this period of Jewish history, so I’m using an article that explains this relationship. I encourage the reader to check the article for accuracy.
Did Jastrow repudiate traditional Judaism?
A key aspect of Jastrow’s development, his relationship to Judaism, was misunderstood in his lifetime. According to Wikipedia, Jastrow repudiated traditional Judaism in 1886. But the The New York Times article cited by Wikipedia might be misleading, especially for gentile readers.
The two most important factors in Morris’s experience were rising anti-Semitism in Russia, the U.S., and Germany, and the situation of liberal Judaism in America. Jastrow took issue with the influences on his religion during this period. Both Morris Jastrow, Jr. and his father, Marcus Jastrow, held similar opinions on this. Marcus, who had a PhD from Halle and was the rabbi of Philadelphia’s Rodef Shalom congregation, defended Judaism from both uncritical adherence to tradition, and extreme radicalism. Therefore, the NYT article is misleading when it says Morris Jastrow Jr. repudiated traditional Judaism.
Morris Jastrow’s education and professional background
In 1881, Jastrow earned a baccalaureate from the University of Pennsylvania. Then he sailed for Breslau to attend its Jewish theological seminary. His plan was to return to the United States after completing his education. Then he would prepare to take the place of his father.
When Morris returned to Philadelphia, he began a rabbinical apprenticeship, but it only lasted for a year. One Sabbath, he gave the final sermon to his congregation. This is the speech mentioned by the NYT. According to this account, it was a long and pessimistic speech.
He did not say in the speech what he would do next. But it turned out he had already accepted a professorship in Semitics at the University of Pennsylvania.
This would not have been a surprise to his father. His reasons had to do with the forces he had encountered in Europe and America, and the role of Jews and Jewish learning in the late 19th century university.
Jastrow’s response to secularization
The process of secularization influenced several Jewish scholars in Jastrow’s generation. Some moved away from liberal Judaism, but for Jastrow, religious considerations were central in his choices. Leaving the rabbinate did not mean he would disengage with religion.
Careful parental nurturing, a combination of an American and a European education, an apprenticeship under their father’s supervision, all helped cultivate a generation which would complete the evolution of an alternative to Orthodoxy and indifference.
Wechsler, Harold S. “Pulpit or Professoriate: The Case of Morris Jastrow.” American Jewish History, vol. 74, no. 4, 1985, pp. 338–55. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/23882681. Accessed 3 Dec. 2023.
Jewish life in the late 19th century
During the late 19th century, Western institutions of education did not admit Jews. Applicants were required to be members of a denomination. In addition, religious instruction was limited to dogma. But in Jastrow’s lifetime, these institutions were undergoing a process of liberalization. Many Jews were being offered academic positions in this period.
This was a critical time in world Jewry. But there were differences between American and European liberalization. In America, Jewish life was congregational. In Europe it was communal. This meant that America was more open to liberal Judaism than Europe.
The political situation
The political situation also influenced Judaism. Increasing nationalism was one of Jastrow’s concerns. On the one hand, he couldn’t understand how people could give up their right to popular government or recognize anyone as superior due to birth position. He could not identify at all with the German brand of nationalism. At the same time, he thought nationalism was a healthy corrective for German materialism.
Jastrow also had a conflicting interpretation of Treitschke’s claim that the ‘Jews are our misfortune’. Jastrow himself blamed the German Jews for a type of materialism that he observed during his stay in Europe. Therefore, he attributed Treitschke’s criticism to a lack of patriotism and idealism among German Jews. However, he also disagreed with the German idealists who identified German Jewry with Judaism. In his opinion, there was a drastic contrast between the Jewish Religion and the Jews in Germany.
Jastrow also disapproved of the Jewish pursuit of the professions for the purpose of material gains, honor, influence and power. His own conception of idealism was that the only legitimate rewards for the professional are the benefits to mankind.
Due to his experiences and observations in Europe, Jastrow concluded ‘that Germany will not be the land whence Jewish thought and Jewish enthusiasm for and attachment to the Jewish religion will spring‘. For a while, he was more optimistic about America. It all depended on the quality of Jewish leadership.
But during his years in Europe this outlook changed. He was especially concerned about the rise in America of Isaac Mayer Wise. When Wise finally ‘cast his lot’ with the organized Reform movement and assumed its leadership, Reform’s universalism became the outlook of one faction, and American Jewry was permanently divided. Unity became impossible.
The competing influence of Isaac Mayer Wise
Before Jastrow left for Europe, Isaac Mayer Wise organized a domestic seminary for the education of American rabbis. Jastrow’s father had criticized Wise’s extreme liberalism and considered his personality inappropriate for leading America’s only seminary. It was partly due to Wise’s influence in America that Jastrow’s father sent him abroad for his education.
When Jastrow Jr. returned home, he volunteered his services as a lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania. This gave him a year to think about his future. By the end of the year, he had decided to leave the rabbinate. In the speech reported by the NYT, he shared with his congregation his observations about the rising generation of American Jews.
Reading Time: 4minutesThe Dictatorship of Christian Zionism
If you’ve wondered during the last twenty years at the overheated rhetoric of both Israel and the Western powers, Dr. Stephan Sizer will connect the dots in a video entitled The Historical Roots of Christian Zionism, It’s Theological Basis and Political Agenda. According to Sizer, Christian Zionism is the culprit behind the militant turn. Christian Zionism explains everything.
What do I mean by everything? From the policies of the George W. Bush administration to the current crisis in Israel and Palestine, the relationship between Israel and the United States has remained important. Also in this period, the Middle East and the rest of the world have criticized U.S. policies. Muslims are painted as the enemy, and there is a reckless drive for war with Iran.
Definition and influence of Christian Zionism
Christian Zionism is a movement within Protestant Christianity that views the modern State of Israel as the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy. It follows that we owe it unconditional economic, moral, political and theological support.
The Christian version of Zionism began 50 years before the Jewish version. It is a political effort for the most part. But the theological agenda is also important, and far more troubling. Two of the most frightening talking points are the idea of using nuclear weapons on Palestine and going to war with Iran. These can both be explained by the theological influence of Christian Zionism.
The theological and political agenda
The theology of Christian Zionism is tied to a literal interpretation of the Bible. But it is as if the birth of Jesus is irrelevant. Key beliefs include the belief that Jerusalem will be the capital of Zion, that the temple will be rebuilt in Jerusalem, and an antipathy to Arabs and Muslims. There is also the belief that the final battle is immanent. This accounts for the similarities in warlike rhetoric and racist hate speech in American administrations.
Politically, the Jewish Zionists are aware that they depend on Christian Zionists to influence politicians and pay the bills.
History of Christian Zionism
Zionism began with the Puritan movement and the consequences of the Protestant Reformation. The Puritan worldview included the belief that the Jewish people had a place in God’s purposes. Specifically, Puritans believed the Jews would come to faith in Jesus and be returned to Palestine to become a Christian nation. The main proponents were George Whitefield and Jonathan Edwards.
In 1808, the London Jew Society was formed as part of the Restoration Movement. Its purpose was to relieve the suffering of Jews, especially in East London, and to identify Jewish communities around the world. They believed Jews and Gentiles would be one people of God.
This view was dominant in Evangelicalism, but this changed with the rise of the French empire. Napoleon was the first ruler in 2,000 years to promise the Jews a homeland. Napoleon called himself King of Kings. However, his detractors called him ‘the anti-Christ’. The return of the Jews to Palestine was part of his strategy for world domination.
Napoleon was not successful with his campaign in Palestine, but his proclamation led to millenarian hopes among certain nonconformist circles in England. From a political point of view, it marked the beginning of a renewed interest of the Western Powers in Palestine as occupying an important international position.
The Albury Circle
According to Sizer, the Albury Circle developed the idea that God had a separate purpose for the Jewish people, apart from the Church. For them, Britain’s Manifest Destiny included controlling the Middle East and assisting the Jews’ return to Palestine. They believed the Jews would then assist Britain in colonial endeavors.
John Darby and The Brethren fashioned these ideas into Dispensationalism. This sect taught that the Church and Israel were separate people. The Church represents God’s heavenly people, and the Jews represent God’s earthly people. This is now the dominant theology of U.S. Evangelicals, Fundamentalists and Pentecostals. These groups are now underwriting financial and political support for the Zionist Lobby, and are a major obstacle to peace in the Middle East.
Britain had ulterior motives
Britain did not deliver on its promises to the Zionists because of its secret agreement with the French to divide the Middle East between them. They actually left a written record of this intention, including their admission that they didn’t think it was necessary to consult the Palestinians. However, this agreement did not come to pass either, and eventually the British tried to solve the ‘problem’ by partitioning Palestine equally between Palestinians and Zionists. Because the Palestinians’ proposed share would be half of what they already had, they rejected the plan. The Zionists accepted it.
Zionist presidents
The Rev. Jerry Falwell had come from a tradition that was intolerant of Jews, but he changed his view toward Israel after meeting Menachem Begin in Jerusalem. This was the beginning of a coalition between the Christian and Zionist right, overseen by Falwell.
Sizer calls Jimmy Carter ‘the first born again president. However, when Falwell co-founded the Moral Majority in 1979, one of his chief aims was to defeat Carter. Falwell argued that Carter was on the wrong side of abortion, homosexuality and prayer in public schools. Carter was also the only U.S. president to identify Israeli apartheid.
However, most U.S. administrations since 1948 have been supportive of the Zionist agenda. They include those of Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Ford, Nixon, Reagan, Bush Jr., Obama, Trump, and Biden. The last president to challenge the Israel lobby was Bush Sr.
Five parties are involved in the carnage in the Middle East. They are Israel, the United States and her allies, the Zionists, AIPAC and Hamas. It’s no surprise that it’s complicated. All of the parties have real reasons for being there, however in some cases the real reasons are not stated outright. I believe this is largely due to the long history of the Jewish people and the way they were shaped by their experiences. Many factors have gone into the present turmoil, but there are two sides to every story. Peace is the only choice for Palestine and Israel.
Reason not the need
Israel’s stated claim to ownership of Palestine is based on the Old Testament story of Abraham. It is supported in this claim by Christian Zionists. This biblical gift of Palestine to Israel has been debunked by both Jewish rabbis and Christian theologians. (See also: Stephen Sizer on Christian Zionism) However, it is true that there was a desperate struggle by Zionists to relocate Jews to Palestine, and this desperation was as real as it gets. As King Lear said to his daughters,
“O, reason not the need! Our basest beggars are in the poorest thing superfluous. Allow not nature more than nature needs...” (King Lear Act II. Scene IV. Line 264.)
The British mandate restricts immigration
One cause of desperation in Palestine was British immigration restrictions and the Mandate’s perceived indifference to the immigrants’ safety. The Israeli’s got their way in the end. From at least one point of view, this was unfortunate. Increased immigration resulted in regrettable changes to the Jewish population in Palestine. However, the events leading to this wave of immigration were unfortunate as well.
Jews were living in Palestine before the Zionists arrived, but they were religious communities who spent their time studying. They did not participate in farming or trade. They were supported by Jews in the diaspora. Today, both Israelis and supportive politicians play on biblical promises to the Jews as Israel’s reason for being, but Zionism has always been a secular project. I believe this fiction has begun to work against them, mostly because it hides their real reasons for immigrating to Palestine. And mistrust of the outside world prevents them from saying what needs to be said.
From a religious to a secular society
The secular movement has been blamed for Israel’s more recent history. According to Wikipedia, Zionism didn’t exist in Palestine before 1882. The term Yishuv refers to the Jews living in Palestine before that time. The Old Yishuv residents were religious Jews, living mainly in Jerusalem, Safed, Tiberias, and Hebron. There were smaller communities in Jaffa, Haifa, Peki’in, Acre, Nablus, Shfaram, and until 1779, in Gaza. In the final centuries before modern Zionism, a large part of the Old Yishuv spent their time studying the Torah. But Israel changed from a religious to a secular society.
The term ‘New Yishuv’ refers to those who adopted a new approach, based on economic independence and various national ideologies, rather than strictly religious reasons for settling in the ‘Holy Land’.
These were the Zionists. The first New Yishuv immigrants began building homes outside the Old City walls of Jerusalem in the 1860s, followed soon after by the founders of the moshava ofPetah Tikva. Growth was in full swing during the First Aliyah of 1882. Neighborhoods and villages were founded from that year until the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. The Zionist aliyah and the New Yishuv, were more socialist-leaning and secular, emphasizing labor and self-sufficiency.
The Haganah
In the British Mandate for Palestine, the Haganah was a paramilitary force founded in 1920 to protect the Yishuv. Although it was an underground organization until 1947, it was the main Zionist military organization. It remained so until the 1948 Israeli Declaration of Independence and then integrated into the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF).
The Haganah took many forms over the years, but its activities were moderate until after World War II. The Zionists were prepared to fight anyone and everyone to establish their new homeland. After the War, when the British refused to remove their restrictions on immigration, the Haganah led an insurgency against the British Mandate in Palestine.
Poland supports Zionism as a way to get rid of the Jews
Sadly, much of the help they did receive, for example from the Polish government, was motivated by the wish to get rid of them. The Second Polish Republic supported a Jewish state in Palestine to aid in ridding itself of its Jewish population during the interwar period. The Poles provided military training and weapons to Zionist military groups, including Haganah. Eventually, the British pressured the Polish government to stop the deliveries.
The United States recognized Israel immediately after the Israeli Declaration of Independence. However, for two decades, it was not Israel’s strongest ally and did not offer the diplomatic cover it does today. When Israel invaded Egypt with the British and French during the 1956 Suez crisis, Washington joined Moscow at the United Nations to force Israel and its allies to withdraw. For many years, US aid to Israel was limited to loans to buy food through the economic hardship in the years after independence.
But Israel did have at least one strong ally. Prior to 1967, Israel’s primary foreign ally was France, which supplied almost all of its major weapons including planes, tanks and ships as well as building the nuclear plant from which it developed atomic weapons.
The U.S. alliance
It wasn’t until Israel’s victory and occupation of Gaza that Washington decided Arab nations had moved into the Soviet camp. The U.S. increased weapons sales to the Jewish state, including Phantom jet fighters. President Johnson committed the US to maintaining Israel’s “qualitative military edge” and opened the door to decades of weapons sales. This helped build the Israeli military into the strongest force in the Middle East.
Can we tell the truth? Can we listen to the truth?
In the process, the Zionists continued to cite a religious history that was no longer important to them. In fact, it seems they told as many stories as they needed to gain sympathy from a world that had already shown itself to be unsympathetic. Many have recognized that the enforced isolation and abuse of the Jewish people for 2,000 years caused them to share certain physical and personality characteristics, including shrewdness and a sense of mistrust. It shouldn’t be surprising that they took these traits with them when it was time for them to make their way in an unfriendly world.
However, as sympathetic as we may be to Israel, Palestine is about to disappear in 25 miles of smoke and fire. This focus on Israel is important not only for Israel’s well-being, but for the well-being of her neighbors.
Israel can’t be expected to disappear. But it can’t continue to live in an unfriendly world either. Our world has structure. Some, if not all, of that structure rests on shared history, shared beliefs, mutual love and sympathy. To corrupt those things is to destroy the society you claim to love. There, I said ‘the society you claim to love’. This is the language of mistrust. Are we prepared to tell the truth? Can we listen to the truth?
Israel’s challenge
Israel’s biggest challenge at this time is to learn how to live peacefully in Palestine. At this time, the Israelis have succeeded in earning the world’s hatred, so they will have to take the first step. But if I’m right, their history and experience will forbid it. They will need the help of their allies. There is no way around this requirement. If the United States is pressuring Israeli policies, the U.S. must back off. And Israel must be encouraged and helped to earn the trust of the Palestinians. But this won’t happen until there is a just distribution of land and resources. And a just distribution won’t be possible until the settlers and the present Israeli government get out of the way.
In addition to a responsible government, we need people with the proper training to help in this process. I’m not only talking about diplomats. I’m talking about people who understand the human soul.
Reading Time: 4minutesOur choices are limited if we can only talk about what we can realistically do. But if we’re talking theory, anything is possible. Since I’m in charge of my own theoretical world, I’ll offer some solutions. This is a challenge to politics as usual.
Start With the Environment and its Social Effects
I’ll start with solutions to environmental problems. The particular environmental goal will guide any changes in politics and economics. After the environment, social effects will be the next criterion in decision-making.
We have 50 years to do something about the oceans. Every continent contributes to the problem of pollution, much of it from industrial farming, so ideally every country would have to participate. I propose dividing industrial farms, which also contribute to global warming, into smaller, sustainable operations. Start with the farms that drain into major river systems. This would decrease the amount of chemical fertilizers flowing into the ocean and begin to address the problem of dead zones.
A Double Benefit: Improve the Environment and Strengthen Communities
It would also create the potential for using these sustainable farms as the nucleus of a different kind of community. Such communities would have to develop over time as the underlying political theory is discovered. They should be conceived as centers of a vibrant life—not oppressive sloughs of despair that the youth can’t wait to escape. They would have to offer opportunity; they would have to inspire and challenge all members.
Make the Government More Accessible
In the United States, we could consider creating another governing center in the middle of the country, specifically to serve this new type of grassroots community organization. This is not as a replacement for Washington—it could interact with Washington D.C. For example, it could facilitate the development of candidates for national office, as well as local delegates.
Competition: Art, Industry, the Birth Rate, Agriculture, Ect.
The critics might say that if one country breaks up commercial farms it would cease to be competitive with other countries. Or if everyone does, we couldn’t feed the world. First, we don’t feed the world now. Second, this isn’t necessarily true. First, consider the subject of competition. Pre-war France experienced a time of political and military turmoil. In this period, the French suddenly discovered that their birth rate was much lower than Germany and Great Britain. Then a series of European furniture exhibitions made them realize they were falling behind their neighbors in the decorative arts by limiting themselves to traditional French designs and methods. The French government created policies were to remedy this situation.[mfn] [/mfn][mfn]David Cottington, Cubism in the Shadow of War: The Avant-Garde and Politics in Paris 1905-1914, Yale University Press, 1998.[/mfn] The goal was to make France more competitive. But was competition with Germany and Great Britain good for the French people?
Healthy Versus Unhealthy Competition
We have to develop criteria for healthy versus unhealthy competition. For example, maybe challenging French furniture makers was healthy, while French leaders could have decided against the manipulation of the birth rate for ideological, political, economic, or military reasons. Agricultural policy also affects family life. Is it a good idea to base agricultural policy on competition with other countries? If small family farms are inefficient, what should replace them? Should agricultural policy serve the national economy or should it help to foster healthy communities?
Limit Unhealthy Competition
What if we put limits on unhealthy competition? I’m not talking isolationism. I’m talking about the kind of limits that make it possible to solve domestic problems like dead zones in the ocean. Because of its social and environmental implications, we could start by eliminating the pro-natalist nonsense, followed by trade agreements—at least the worst aspects of them. The medieval guilds limited competition among their own members and it was effective until some hotshot broke the rules and ruined it for everyone else. This is the same idea only on a global scale.
If you are screaming ‘Nooo!’ then maybe you don’t understand how serious the world’s problems are. Or maybe these ideas threaten your own privilege. On the contrary, what we’re doing now is stupid and it threatens all of us. We are on a precipice. But ideologues who tell other people what to do and who have no intention of doing it themselves look down their noses and ask where all these needy people came from. In this way they prove they are unfit to wield authority of any kind, and yet there they remain.
Global Awareness
Iran has drained its lakes through climate change, dams, drought, and inefficient irrigation. In parts of India, half the population is homeless. Half of India’s population defecates on the ground. Worse, even the feces that ends up in the sewage system is untreated. India is awash in antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Babies are born with these germs and they often can’t be cured. Further, the crowded conditions make it more likely they’ll pass on their infections. It should be no surprise that some of those germs are coming here. And of course, there is evidence of America’s contribution to the problem, both from oil spills and farming, in the Gulf of Mexico.
Women should be able to control their own fertility. In fact, the relationship between mother and child should be understood as the essential human relationship, and therefore as the basis of all other relationships. This would guard against artificiality and indifference in a community’s social relations.
I’m aware that my solutions are radical but in my opinion, they don’t have much competition at this time. First, we have the Democrats who can’t seem to come to terms with the demise of Marxism. It’s not clear what they’re doing in this election cycle—maybe pretending to be different from the Republicans for the sake of appearances. As for the Republicans, they are becoming famous for serving shady interest rather than the interests of their own people. Incredibly, they don’t even try to hide it any more. But it’s probably remarkable that either party can still come up with a coherent platform at all. Both are operating on old ideas that were never established on firm ground in the first place, so it shouldn’t be surprising that they function more like political religions than rational approaches to the world’s problems.
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