Wednesday, October 30, 2013
Drying up Ideological Wellsprings of Arab – Israeli Conflict
By Nicola Nasser*
Gradually,
awareness that de-Zionization of the US and European foreign policy as well as
the internal policies of the State of Israel has become a prerequisite for
peace in the Middle East is steadily taking roots in Israeli and world public opinion
and consciousness.
However this
awareness has yet to wait for drying up the Zionist ideological wellsprings of
the Arab – Israeli conflict and translating it into real politics by de-Zionization
of Israel
In his article published by Foreign Policy on
last October 25, James Traub quoted US President Barak Obama in a speech last
May, “announcing
a re-formulation of the war on terror,” as saying: “We cannot use force
everywhere that a radical ideology takes root;” the only alternative to
“perpetual war” is a sustained effort to reduce “the wellsprings of extremism.”
The
“wellsprings” of “perpetual wars” and “extremism” in the Middle
East during most of the past twentieth century until now could
easily be detected in the unholy combination of real politics and the “radical ideology”
of the secular - turned - religious Zionism.
This
combination made it possible and seemingly ethical for Americans and Europeans
to accept and justify the unethical displacement of the indigenous Arab people
of Palestine
US
and European continued attachment to the Zionist ideology lies at the heart of
their treatment of Israel, the offspring of this ideology, as one of their top
“vital interests” in the Middle East, which is an attachment that in turn lies
at the heart of anti-Americanism and other forms of Arab conflicts with the
“west.”
The
safe haven of the “new world” in America
was a timely and practical solution for Europeans to get rid of and solve their
“Jewish Question;” it now absorbs more Jews than Israel
The
communists offered their own solution; it materialized in the Jewish autonomous
“Oblast” first ever republic in the Russian Birobidzhan, close to the border of
the former Soviet Union with China, which was home to some three million Jews
before some one third of them immigrated to Israel following the collapse of
the communist empire.
The
nation states basing citizenship on the rule of law is now the rule of the day
in Europe , where Jews enjoy full
constitutional religious, civil, political and all the other rights enjoyed by
their compatriots.
There
is no more a “Jewish Question” in Europe in
particular or in the west in general. If such a question still persists there
it is one related to the disproportionate influence of Jewish citizens on the
decision makers in the political, financial and media arenas.
Nonetheless,
the Zionist propaganda in Israel
and abroad is still fervently inciting that Jews are an endangered species
outside Israel , soliciting
Jewish immigration, encouraging dual citizenship and binational loyalty among
them and considering all Jews outside Israel
Writing
in the http://www.huffingtonpost.com
on September 6 last year, Hanan Ashrawi, a Palestinian leader and elected
parliamentarian, quoted Shlomo Hillel, a
government minister and an active Zionist from Iraq Iraq
Consequently,
the “Jewish Question” moved ironically to the very Arab safe haven to which the
oppressed European Jews fled with their lives to survive the culture of
inquisition in Medieval Europe. The largest Jewish minority among Arabs in Morocco
This
Arab safe haven was turned by the Zionist ideology into a hell of wars,
instability, ongoing conflict and home of a revived “Jewish Question” since
Israel was artificially created 65 years ago in the heart of the Arab world,
where Jews used previously to be a prosperous minority in every one of the capitals
of the 22 Arab states except Jordan.
Zionism
justifies the creation of Israel in Palestine by two basic controversial
arguments: That God promised the land to Jews no matter what would happen to
its Arab inhabitants who was there long before Joshua and his army crossed
River Jordan to destroy Jericho and kill every man, woman, child and animal by
“God’s command.”
On
November 2, 1917, British Foreign Secretary then, Lord Balfour, acted as the self
– appointed messenger of God’s will to issue a modern God’s promise to Jews to
have a “homeland” in Palestine
The
modern justification of the Holocaust does not care that another people, namely
Arab Palestinians, pay the price for a crime they did not commit.
Ironic
but informative as well is the fact that Zionism was not originally a Jewish
product.
According
to the author of “Christian Zionism: Road-map to
Armageddon?” (InterVarsity Press, 2004) Revd. Dr. Stephen Sizer,
writing in the Middle East Monitor on last August 1, “The origins of the movement can be
traced to the early 19th century when a group of eccentric British Christian
leaders began to lobby for Jewish restoration to Palestine as a necessary
precondition for the return of Christ… Christian Zionism therefore preceded
Jewish Zionism by more than 50 years. Some of Theodore Herzl’s strongest
advocates were Christian clergy.” Dr. Sizer headlined his
article, “Christian
Zionism: The Heresy that Undermines Middle East
Peace.”
He, together with
the Heads of Churches in Jerusalem: The Latin Patriarch Michel Sabbah,
Archbishop Swerios Malki Mourad of the Syrian Orthodox, the Episcopal Church
Bishop Riah Abu El-Assal and the Evangelical Lutheran Church Bishop Munib
Younan issued in 2006 and signed the Jerusalem Declaration on Christian Zionism,
which concluded: “We categorically reject Christian Zionist doctrines as a
false teaching that corrupts the biblical message of love, justice and
reconciliation.”
The Zionist
narrative was challenged by Israel
Shlomo Sand’s trilogy
- - “The Invention of the Jewish People,” “The Invention of the Land of Israel
The fact that the
secular Zionism was not popular among the world religious Jewry in the early
stages of the movement and that it is an ideology still opposed by a strong
Jewish minority is a fact Zionists are keen to smokescreen.
“The UN avenue” in Haifa, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv was renamed "The
Zionism avenue" in response to the adoption by the United
Nations General
Assembly (UNGA) of Resolution 3379 on November 10, 1975, which determined
that “Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination;” it was
revoked by the UNGA resolution 46/86 in 1991; the ongoing Israeli Zionist
ideology and practices render its repeal a premature step that should be
reconsidered to reinstate it.
The world community as represented by the United Nations, by adopting
resolution 181 of 1947 dividing Palestine between its indigenous Arab
Palestinians and the invading aliens of the Zionist settlers played in the
hands of Christian and Jewish Zionism to commit an historical mistake that
doomed peace in the Middle East as an elusive humanitarian hope for a long time
to come.
Jews were an integral part of the region’s history and social fabric
until Zionism cut this fact short. Only the prerequisite of de-Zionization of Israel
* Nicola Nasser is a
veteran Arab journalist based in Birzeit, West Bank of the Israeli-occupied
Palestinian territories. nassernicola@ymail.com
