Why I am NOT a Christian Zionist. Pt 3.

Following on from my objections in part one and two, I reject Christian Zionism because of its unconditional support for the current Zionist State of Israel. I find this to be objectionable on political grounds as I firmly believe Zionist Israel to be an Apartheid state which is involved in a colonialist mission in the West Bank and Gaza. This colonialist project is fundamentally at odds with International Law and ethically bankrupt, as it is a clear violation of any reasonable concept of human rights. As an occupying force in the West Bank, and the ultimate authority over the “open air prison” that is Gaza, the Zionists have violated every law governing the behaviour of occupying forces as laid out by the United Nations.

Objections to my position usually start with the fact that anyone who believes in democracy should support Israel, as it a democracy: the only democracy in the Middle East. One should note that at the writing of this post, the western world is celebrating the life of Nelson Mandela. Mandela fought against apartheid in South Africa in the name of freedom and democracy for all South Africans. As noted in previous posts, Mandela fundamentally supported the cause of the Palestinian people and identified his struggle with that of the Palestinians. Mandela declared the policies of Israel regarding the Palestinian people as definitely being a form of apartheid. Alan Boesak, a long time South African opponent of apartheid said that the system of oppression in the West Bank and Gaza was worse than the system in South Africa.

The claim that Israel is a democracy needs to be looked at carefully, but even if Israel is a democracy, why does that mean that its treatment of Palestinians is ethically sound? I do not remotely believe that Israel’s violations of International Law and human rights are the worst of any country in the world. But that hardly means that I should therefore support them and not be critical of them! I believe that during World War 2, Italy was not as guilty of human rights violations as Nazi Germany, but that hardly means that I support Mussolini!

As a school teacher, I routinely hear the objection, to my rebuke of a student caught off task, that, “I should be picking on other students, that are involved in greater wrong doing”. This is not an argument from the student that he/she is innocent, but, in 99.9% of cases, is an attempt to evade responsibility by shifting attention away from the issue of the student’s behaviour in the first place. I believe the Zionist state of Israel makes very similar claims. When caught doing what is universally recognised as being against the law, simply finding someone else who is doing something worse and allegedly getting away with it, is not an ethically sound response. Certainly I think it will hold no weight in God’s eyes.

But is Israel a democracy? The answer is yes and no. Mainly no, I believe. The reason for this is that being a democracy goes beyond the simple idea of giving everyone a vote. Democracy is about real power sharing. It’s true that Arabs inside the Zionist State do have the right to vote. The problem is that the state of Israel has been put together in such a way so that it is impossible for Arabs in Israel ever to have real power at the ballet box. Israel accomplished this by firstly expelling hundreds of thousands of Arabs from their homes within the borders of the newly formed state of Israel in 1948. This made sure that Israel now had a majority of Jews within their borders. They now made this majority permanent by enacting laws that basically forbade anyone but Jewish people to migrate to Israel. Hence the Zionists had created their dream of a majority Jewish state that would be owned by Jews in a way that non-Jews could never hope to attain no matter how many generations of their ancestors had lived in the land. The Zionist State is not a state for all its citizens. It is a Jewish state. It conveys rights and privileges to Jews that non-Jews can never have.

It is worth noting that other nations, like Iran for example, have Jewish people as members of their parliament, yet I doubt that anyone would claim that Iran is a democracy.

If Arabs had real political power in Israel to change their situation, I doubt that they would ever need to resort to violent resistance. They would not need to. But with a Zionist State with a permanent majority of Jewish people (at the very least 80%) no real change can ever be made at the ballot box. Israel is a Zionist State and this Zionist ideology is not up for grabs at polling booths in Israel on voting day, it never can be, the type of “democracy” that exists in Israel has seen to that.

CRAIG NIELSEN