Zionism – Biblically and Morally bankrupt

Supporters of Zionism are supporters of Colonialism and deniers of Human Rights.

Israeli intellectual Boaz Evron summed up the relationship between Zionism and any Biblical understanding of Jewishness and their relationship to the land of Israel when he said:

“Zionism is indeed the negation of Judaism” .

Professor Amnon Raz-Krakotzkin of Ben-Gurion University is alleged to have once made the sarcastic comment, “Our claim to the land could be put in a nutshell: God does not exist, and He gave us this land.”

Trying to legitimize the colonialist and racist ideology that has dominated the lives of so many Jewish people in the last 100 years, by any type of Biblical means, is a contradiction in terms.

Uriel Zimmer, an Orthodox Jew and former United Nations reporter for several newspapers, states the ultimate goal of Zionism:

“The real aim of Zionism is the one stated innumerable times by the various Zionist thinkers and ideologists from its earliest conception until this day. From the essays of Achad Haam to the speeches of Ben Gurion, we can hear definitions of one goal, in various versions and phrases but with never-changing content: TO CHANGE THE IDENTITY OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE!”

(Zimmer, 1961, p. 14)

Defections from the Zionist camp by some of the worlds greatest thinkers, like Albert Einstein and Bertrand Russell, have inevitably come when the real brutality of the Zionist colonialist project finally showed its true visage.

The famous mathematician and atheistic philosopher, Bertrand Russell, initially embraced Zionism. In 1943, Russell wrote, “The Role of the Jewish State in Creating a Better World”. Calling just before his death in 1970 for ‘an Israeli withdrawal from all the territories occupied in June 1967’, Russell, in a change of heart, particularly deplored the fate of the Palestinians:’ No people anywhere in the world would accept being expelled en masse from their country, how can anyone require the people of Palestine to accept a punishment nobody else would tolerate?’ (Spokesman, no.2 (Nottingham: April 1970), excerpted in Ronald Clark, The Life of Bertrand Russell (New York: 1975, p. 638). (Finkelstein, 2003, p. 200) Second Edition

Anti- Zionist Orthodox Jewish Rabbis, like those from Neturei Karta and other theologically Orthodox Jews like Professor Yakov M. Rabkin of Montreal University, put the Christian supporters of Zionist Israel to shame when they reach beyond the tragedy of the Holocaust and the injustice of Arab terrorist attacks and proclaim with one voice:

“Its (State of Israel’s) cruel treatment of the Palestinian people is against the Creator’s imperative that we deal justly and kindly with all men. To all our Arab and Islamic brethren around the world, let the message go forth today, that your quarrel is not with the Jewish people, the people of the Torah. We stand with you in your suffering. We feel your pain. We are with you. Let there be no more innocent victims, neither Palestinian nor Jew. Let us pray that the Zionist state will, with God’s help, soon become a distant and dismal memory” (cited in Rabkin, 2006, p. 128).

Ruth Blau, wife of a Neturei Karta Rabbi, had this to say only a few days after the ‘67 war was won:

“If the Zionists had even an iota of common sense…,they would invite the Arab states to form, with them, a confederation that would embrace the Palestinians, who thus would recover their rights. Peace should be made when one is strong. Now they, (the Zionists), are strong. But they will not do it, because they are prideful, and will refuse to make the slightest concession. They prefer to put the lives of millions of Jews in jeopardy rather than ever see an Arab as president over such a confederation. By this spectacular, lightning war they imagine they have won. No one can deny that today they are at the height of their power. It is at this point that their downfall will begin. It will not be long before they witness all the problems their conquests will bring. The hatred of the Arabs will deepen, and they will seek revenge. The Zionists now have hundreds of thousands of enemies within their borders. All of us who live here are now in great danger “(cited in Rabkin, 2006, p.121).

No prohibitions exist in the Old Testament regarding the giving of portions of the land of Canaan to non-Jews. The land of Canaan was never meant to be at the disposal of the Jewish people, rather the Jewish people were meant to be at the disposal of God. The land was never theirs, it was always Gods, as revealed by numerous scriptures: King Solomon gave away cities in Galilee to the Phoenicians in order to gain produce he needed for the construction of the Temple.

“The land must not be sold permanently, because the land is mine and you are but aliens and my tenants.” (Lev 25:23)

“And I brought you into a plentiful land, to eat the fruit thereof and the goodness thereof; but when you entered, you defiled My land, and made My heritage an abomination.” Jer 2:7

“And first I will recompense their iniquity and their sin double,because they have polluted My land with the carcasses of their detestable things, and have filled Mine inheritance with their abominations.” Jer 16:18

Scriptures detailing how God in fact has given portions of the land of Canaan to non-Jews are conveniently overlooked by Israels Christian cheer squad.

” Then we turned back and set out toward the desert along the route to the Red Sea, as the LORD had directed me. For a long time we made our way around the hill country of Seir. Then the LORD said to me, “You have made your way around this hill country long enough; now turn north. Give the people these orders: ‘You are about to pass through the territory of your brothers the descendants of Esau, who live in Seir. They will be afraid of you, but be very careful.  Do not provoke them to war, for I will not give you any of their land, not even enough to put your foot on. I have given Esau the hill country of Seir as his own.”” Deut 2:1-5

The region of Seir, is between Mt Horeb and Kadesh Barnea in the Negev. This region was given to the Edomites and the Israelites were forbidden to settle there or to try and expell them. Today’s Zionist government in Israel is trying to colonize the Negev by the forced expulsion of the indigenous Bedouin and is therefore in clear breach of this Biblical statue of God. Don’t hold your breathe waiting for Christian Zionists to demand the literal interpretation of those verses.

Later in the very same chapter of Deuteronomy we see God giving the Israelites further instructions as their wanderings brought them to the region of Moab.

“Then the LORD said to me, “Do not harass the Moabites or provoke them to war, for I will not give you any part of their land. I have given Ar to the descendants of Lot as a possession.”
… When you come to the Ammonites, do not harass them or provoke them to war, for I will not give you possession of any land belonging to the Ammonites. I have given it as a possession to the descendants of Lot.” Deut 2:9,19

This huge piece of land was also off limits to the Israelites even though it sits within the boundaries of the land that God had promised to Abraham. Today, Amman, the capital of Jordan, is named after their ancestors. The point is that the Kingdom of Israel was always more universal than nationalistic.

Their is not one single verse in the Old or New Testaments of the Bible that can be used to justify the dispossession of even one Palestinian Arab. Christian supporters of the Zionist state of Israel can only do so if they either deny the atrocities of Zionist colonialism or justify them on racial grounds. Either way, the Bible is no friend to their twisted moral equations.

References:

Rabkin, Y. (2006). A Threat from Within: A Century of Jewish Opposition to Zionism. Fernwood Publishing: Canada, Zed Books: London.

Zimmer, U. (1961). Torah-Judaism and the State of Israel. Jewish Post Publications, London, England.

Craig Nielsen

ACTION FOR PALESTINE

Let My People Go.

A Chosen People.

A non religious person asked me the other day,” if the Jewish people are a chosen people, what are they chosen to do?” A pretty good question. One that doesn’t have any particular answer from a secular Zionist perspective, but, then again, Zionism never bought into that stuff about Jews being the chosen people of God. If you listen to Christian Zionists, the only thing Jewish people are chosen for is to hurry up and ethnically cleanse Palestine of Arabs so that the rapture can occur and the non-Christian world can finally get whats coming to it! And about time too…Hallelujah!

Two thousand years of the teachings of Torah Judaism give quite a different picture. Orthodox Judaism teaches that being Jewish historically, up until about 1860, was always about being willing to accept the “yoke” of the Torah. That is, being Jewish was a religious identity. An identity that was intimately tied to a person’s ethics, a person’s responsibility to God and humanity. John Hagee’s version of Jewishness is more about an entitlement to real estate than ethics towards the vulnerable and “despised” in society. Rabbi Hillel (1st century BC), when asked what was the essence of the Torah, said “That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbour. That is the whole Torah.” Christian Zionism…far more Zionist than Christian, simply has no understanding of what Jewishness is even remotely about.

The Torah teaches Jewish people that just as God sent Moses to tell Pharaoh to “Let My People Go!”, so God tells Benjamin Netanyahu to not keep the Palestinians captive in their own land. Ex 22:21 “Do not mistreat an alien or oppress him, for you were aliens in Egypt.”

God does not love His chosen people in such a manner that banishes all boundaries, giving license to whatever avarice and self righteousness the Jewish people may wish to indulge in. His covenant with the Jewish people in the Land of Israel has never been revoked. It is because of God’s love for His chosen that He resists the Zionist state of Israel. To endorse the Zionist Government would require a reversal of His very character. Something all Christians say can never happen.

If there ever was a people whose religious heritage should cause them to side with those suffering under the rod of oppression, it should be the Jewish people. If ever there was a people who should never be guilty of oppressing a people living with them in their land, it is the Jewish people. This is why anyone with eyes and ears can see why Boaz Evron said…”Zionism is indeed the negation of Judaism”

It is because the Jewish people are God’s chosen people that God is saying to them, of the Palestinian people, “Let My People Go!” The oppressed of the world are God’s chosen people too, the warnings of the Torah are ignored at our peril. The Jewish people are chosen, chosen to be responsible, not to be free from responsibility toward the Palestinian Arabs who live amongst them.

Craig Nielsen
ACTION FOR PALESTINE