Zionism’s Priority: Defend and Advance the Jewish People
“In his article “How is Zionism different from other forms of nationalism?” Sean Lee argues that Israel is an “ethno-religious democracy” that must be opposed by universal liberals. I accept that there is a fundamental incompatibility between universal liberalism and Zionism, although I don’t agree that the gaps are as vast as they’re often made out to be. Leaving that aside, though, let’s work on the assumption that the continued existence of a Jewish State is irreconcilable with universal liberal values.
The raison d’être of the State of Israel is the defense and advancement of the Jewish people. For a Zionist, when universal liberal values conflict with this raison d’être, the latter must prevail. Though these conflicts do exist, they are not terribly widespread. Even Lee acknowledges that “Many of the inequalities…are not unique to Israel. If we look at education rates of young Arabs in France or Hispanics and Blacks in the US, we’ll find similar inequalities in situation and even opportunity [sic]. Likewise, for infrastructure.” He goes on to claim that what singles Israel out are its inequalities of citizenship, but doesn’t really go into specifics, aside from the poorly chosen example of military service. In choosing that example, he ignores the ongoing efforts to encourage more Israeli-Palestinians to do national service (efforts which have been predictably opposed by anti-Zionists).” Read the rest at +972 blog.
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‘The raison d’être of the State of Israel is the defense and advancement of the Jewish people.’
For my part, I’d say it is the fact that, for most Christian and Islamic history i.e. the histories of the societies in which most Jews lived, Jews were regarded, and treated, as a people exiled and dispossessed, for their sins, specifically, Jesus and the prophets.
Which a result that, in the 19th and 20th centuries, most Jews were expelled from Old World Christendom and Islam, or from this world.
C’est tout. Palestinian Christians and Muslims were part of those anti-Jewish regimes, to a greater or less degree; not absolute strangers or aliens to them, and benefited from them: from the birth of their national/nationalist movement, they sought, +at best+, to keep Jews to the tiny numbers in the land imperial Christianity and Islam decreed; thence to expel or eliminate them.
It’s no good claiming a Jewish right or return minus a Palestinian Arab Muslim and Christian right of return to Israel is discriminatory: the whole conflict arose precisely because Palestinian Arab Muslims and Christians RESISTED Jews coming to live in the land in above the few to which the former felt entitled and accustomed.
By and large, that RESISTANCE has not substantially changed: allowing Israel’s existence or mere right to exist, for now, is a mealy-mouthed, grudging accommodation with reality, not an acknowledgment that most Jews who became Israeli had a right to come in the first place. It is scarce better than a truce or hudna, to which BDS’s goal is a direct counter-part, in arguable lockstep with such as a Hamas and extreme Palestinian Arab Muslim and Christian, but anti-Jewish, nationalists.
The Balfour Declaration, League of Nations Mandate and UNSCOP are all premised on some kind of Jewish right of return. If you claim to accept international law but reject that premise, on which it is established, you at best accord with the law’s letter, while violating its spirit.
That should be of concern to any Christian who claims a Christ-eyed view of the conflict. Especially since that the Jews are/are to be a people exiled and dispossessed has been normative Christianity from its inception.