A Basic History of Zionism and its Relation to Judaism

[Rootsie]

Reprinted from:    http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4549.htm
by Hanna Braun, London

First Published: September 2001: In order to understand the circumstances that led to the birth of Zionism I shall sketch an outline of the history of Judaism and the Jews.

Since biblical times Jewish communities lived in Arab lands, in Persia, India, East and North Africa and indeed in Palestine. With the destruction of the Temple and the final fall of their state in 70 AD many Jews were taken out of Judea and hence to Rome and the Diaspora. Many poorer Judeans, however (such as subsistence farmers), were able to stay in Palestine. (Some of them had converted to Christianity and were one of the earliest Christian groups.) Modern research suggests that when Islam arrived in the area in 633 AD many of these Jews converted and that they form a considerable part of today's Palestinians. These various communities were on the whole well integrated into their respective societies and did not experience the persecutions that later became so prevalent in Europe. In Palestine, for instance, Muslims repeatedly protected their Jewish neighbours from marauding crusaders; in one instance at least, Jews fought alongside Muslims to try and prevent crusaders from landing at Haifa's port, and Salah al-Dinl-din, after re-conquering Jerusalem from the crusaders, invited the Jews back into the city.

The Jews in Spain under Moorish rule flourished and experienced a renaissance mirroring that of the great Islamic civilisation and culture at the time. As Christianity spread from the north of Spain, Jews were again protected by Muslim rulers until the fall of Granada - the last Moorish kingdom to pass into Christian hands - when both Jews and Muslims were expelled at the end of the 15th century (Jews in 1492 and Muslims 10 years later). Most of the Jews from the Iberian peninsula settled in North Africa and the lands under Ottoman rule, including Palestine, and continued their peaceful co-existence with Muslims in those countries. The bulk of Portuguese "converted" Jews (these were forced conversions and such Jews were called Marranos, i.e. pigs, by Jews who had fled or who preferred to die for their faith) settled in Amsterdam, presumably because they had long established trading connections in that city. In 1655 they were invited to Britain by Oliver Cromwell. Most of them were glad to resettle since at the time the Netherlands had just freed itself from the Spanish yoke and the shadow of the dreaded inquisition was still uncomfortably close.

The fate of Jewry in European countries was very different: persecutions, killings and burnings were widespread and Jews were forced to live in closed ghettos, particularly in the Russian Empire, where they were confined to the "Pale of Jewish" (?) settlement, an area which consisted of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Byelarus or White Russia. Anyone who wished to move outside these borders needed special permission. However, by the mid-19th century some of the more progressive Jewish communities had established themselves in the big cities of St. Petersburg, Moscow and Kiev.

In central and western Europe religious tolerance, followed by the granting of full citizen rights and emancipation, came relatively early, in the wake of general liberalization. However, Russian rulers remained opposed to any liberalization, including religious tolerance and emancipation, and as late as 1881 Tsar Alexander the third initiated a series of particularly vicious pogroms to divert unrest amongst the population, at a time when Britain, for instance, boasted of a Jewish prime minister.

Total segregation was not always imposed from outside, however; frequently it was enforced from within by highly authoritarian rabbis who exercised absolute power over their congregations, often including the right to life and the imposition of the death penalty. Thus it was a major decision for anyone to leave these congregations and to look for a broader education (known as "enlightenment"). In eastern Europe enlightenment was a relatively late phenomenon and it found expression initially in the mid-19th century, in a revival of Hebrew language and literature and in the modern idea of Jews seeing themselves as a people.

This distinction between a people and a religion was of course disapproved of by the Orthodox Jews, who still today regard Hebrew as a sacred language to be used solely for prayers and religious studies and the Jewish people and religion as indivisible. The concept of the Jews as people closely mirrored the relatively new European idea of a homogeneous nation state. An exception to this was the socialist "Bund" organisation whose members rejected nationalism and later Zionism.

Some of these early proto-Zionists, calling themselves "Hovevei Zion" (Lovers of Zion), started the first settlements in Palestine in the 1870's, and a larger number of immigrants followed after the Russian pogroms of 1881-82. These settlers distinguished themselves by their deliberate segregation from the indigenous population and their contempt for local customs and traditions. This naturally aroused suspicion and hostility in the locals. This exclusivity was largely based on a sense of superiority common to Europeans of the time, who believed they were the only advanced and truly civilised society and in true colonial fashion looked down on "natives" or ignored them altogether. However, beyond that there was also a particular sense of superiority of Jews towards all non-Jews. This belief in innate Jewish superiority had a long tradition in religious Jewish thinking, central to which was the notion of the Jews as God's chosen people. Moshe Ben Maimon (Maimonides) had been an exponent of this theory and quite often thinkers with a more humane outlook, e.g. Spinoza, were excommunicated. The accepted thinking in the religious communities was that Jews must on no account mix with gentiles for fear of being contaminated and corrupted by them. This notion was so deeply ingrained that it quite possibly still affected, albeit subconsciously, those Jews who had left the townships and had become educated and enlightened. Thus the early settlers from eastern Europe transferred the "Stettl" (townlet) mentality of segregation to Palestine, with the added belief in the nobility of manual labour and in particular soil cultivation. In this they had been influenced by Tolstoy and his writings.

The "father" of political Zionism, Theodore Herzl (1860-1904), came from a totally different perspective. Dr. Herzl was a Viennese, emancipated, secular journalist who was sent by his editor to Paris in 1894 to cover the Dreyfus affair. Dreyfus had been a captain in the French Army who was falsely accused and convicted of treason (although he was acquitted and completely cleared some years later). The case brought to light the strength of a strong streak of anti-Semitism prevalent in the upper echelons of the French Army and in the French press, with profound repercussions in emancipated Jewish circles. Herzl himself despaired of the whole idea of emancipation and integration and felt that the only solution to anti-Semitism lay in a Jewish Homeland. To that end he approached various diplomats and notables, including the Ottoman Sultan, but mainly European rulers, the great colonial powers of the time, and was rewarded for his efforts by being offered Argentina or Uganda by the British as possible Jewish Homelands.

Herzl would have been quite happy with either of these countries, but when the first Zionist Congress was convened in Basle in 1897, he came up against Eastern European Jewry, by far the greatest majority of participants, who, although broadly emancipated and enlightened, would not accept any homeland other than the land of Zion. Not only had some of them already settled in Palestine, there were strong remnants of the religious/sentimental notion of a pilgrimage and possibly burial in the Holy Land. The last toast in the Passover ceremony is "Next year in Jerusalem"; although this was a religious rather than a national aspiration, it was common amongst the Orthodox communities to purchase a handful of soil purporting to come from the Holy Land to be placed under the deceased's head. (Orthodox Jews at that time completely rejected any Jewish political movement and did not attend the congress.)

Herzl was quick to realise that unless he accepted the "Land of Zion", i.e. Palestinian option, he would have hardly any adherents. Thus the Zionist movement started with a small section of Jewish society who saw the solution to anti-Semitism in a return to its "roots" and in a renewal of a Jewish people in the land of their ancestors. In his famous book "Der Judenstaat" (The State of the Jews) Herzl wrote that the Jews and their state will constitute "a rampart of Europe against Asia, of civilisation against barbarism," and again regarding the local population, "We shall endeavour to encourage the poverty-stricken population to cross the border by securing work for it in the countries it passes through, while denying it work in our own country. The process of expropriation and displacement must be carried out prudently and discreetly--Let (the landowners) sell us their land at exorbitant prices. We shall sell nothing back to them."

Max Nordau, an early Zionist, visited Palestine and was so horrified that the country was already populated that he burst out in front of Herzl: "But we are committing a grave injustice!" Some years later, in 1913, a prominent Zionist thinker and writer, Ahad Ha'am (one of the people), wrote: "What are our brothers doing? They were slaves in the land of their exile. Suddenly they found themselves faced with boundless freedom ... and they behave in a hostile and cruel manner towards the Arabs, trampling on their rights without the least justification ... even bragging about this behaviour." But the dismay of Nordau and others at the injustices to, and total lack of recognition of, the indigenous population was silenced and indeed edited out of Jewish history and other books, as was some of Herzl's writing. The Zionist slogan of "a land without people for a people without land" prevailed and within a matter of a few years the immigrants became "sons of the land" (Bnei Ha'aretz), whereas the inhabitants became the aliens and foreigners.

Following renewed efforts and lobbying after Herzl's death, the Balfour Declaration in 1917, which granted Zionists a Jewish Homeland in Palestine, set the official seal of approval on their aspirations. Protests and representations by local Arab leaders were brushed aside. Lord Balfour wrote in 1919: "In Palestine, we do not even propose to consult the inhabitants of the country. (Zionism's) immediate needs and hopes for the future are much more important than the desires and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who presently inhabit Palestine."

Settlements grew slowly for a long time, but the systematic buying up of land, frequently from absentee landlords, which left tenant farmers homeless, contributed to the first Palestinian uprising in 1921-22 and other outbursts of hostilities. The worst was a massacre of some 65 Jews in Hebron in 1929, after orthodox Jews from Eastern Europe had founded a "Yeshiva" (a religious study centre) in the town and had aroused the suspicions and hostility of the indigenous population, who prior to this had lived in peace and harmony for hundreds of years with their non-European Jewish neighbours. Another contributing factor to growing Arab hostility was the Zionists' policy of not employing Arabs or buying their produce.

For many years Zionism remained a minority movement of mainly Eastern European Jews, excluding the whole religious establishment, most central and western European Jews and, last but not least, all non-European Jews who, unbeknown to Herzl and his co-founders, form the majority of us. These communities were ignored by early Zionists, who had little interest in their aspirations until the establishment of the state of Israel after the "independence" war of 1948-9. After this the new state unleashed a massive propaganda campaign to induce the Sephardi and Oriental Jews to "ascend" to the land of their ancestors, mainly for demographic reasons--in 1948 only about one third of the population and about 6% of the land were Jews or in Jewish hands--but also as cannon fodder. This also happened in the 1980's with the Jews of Ethiopia. However, upon arrival these non-European newcomers were treated very much as inferior second-class citizens. This European dominance is still prevalent in modern Israel where, for example, the national anthem speaks about Jewish longing for the East towards Zion, whereas for many of the non-European communities Palestine lies to the West. Sadly, this has led to some groups of Sephardi (non-European) or Oriental Jews becoming extreme right-wing chauvinists, so as to "prove" their credentials.

Immigration ("Aliyah"--ascent in Zionist parlance) took off in seriously large numbers with the rise of Hitler, who initially declared himself quite sympathetic to Zionism, as had other right-wing anti-Semites before him. New Jewish settlements mushroomed, leading to a bitter and prolonged Palestinian uprising from 1936 till 1939, when it was crushed by the British mandatory powers. But it was not until the end of the 2nd World War and the foundation of the state of Israel in 1948 that Zionism started to win the hearts and minds of the majority of Jewish society. Since that time we have witnessed an increasing and deliberate confluence of Judaism and Zionism, to the extent that today it is widely regarded as treason and self-hate for a Jew to criticise the state, let alone Zionism.

In my view, this development was almost inevitable given the preconception of an exclusive Jewish state. Could we realistically conceive of a France purely for the French? England only for the English? (Unless, of course we belong to the National Front or similar groups.) In a post-colonial world the notion is completely unacceptable and ridiculous. How then, can Israel and the majority of its citizens justify their claim and yet remain convinced that theirs is a modern, democratic society? The last resort, when all logical justifications fail, is that God has promised the land to his people, namely us. (This rather begs the question of where this leaves a non-believing Jew.) I have found over the years, and particularly in the last 30 or so years, that the numbers of young people wearing the skullcap and generally observing at least some of the religious laws has increased dramatically, and I believe this is no coincidence.

The religious establishment has gone along with the general flow and has, indeed, profited from it. Since the late 50's there has also been a notable and frightening change in the Orthodox community, which led to the establishment in 1974 of the "Gush Emunim" (the block of the faithful), initiated by Rabbi Tsvi Yehuda Kook the younger. This is the fundamentalist movement which believes in accepting the state of Israel and striving to make it entirely and exclusively Jewish. Prior to this time Orthodox Jewry played no important role in politics except in pressuring successive governments to introduce more Jewish religious regulations into state law. The ultra-orthodox group "Neturei Karta" (the landless) has never recognised the state of Israel, and its members are exempt from army service.

Although Gush Emunim is small in numbers, it wields disproportionate influence since successive Israeli governments covertly (and sometimes almost overtly) have endorsed its aspirations. Gush Emunim's followers have been allocated to special army units so as to enable them to observe Jewish religious laws and rituals in every detail (although even in the regular army only Kosher food is served and the Sabbath is observed as far as possible). These units have a reputation as dedicated, crack troops. What is less well known but silently condoned is their refusal to give medical aid or even drive wounded persons to the hospital on the Sabbath unless they are Jews.

In my view this is an extremely short-sighted and dangerous road, leading in the end to a fundamentalist theocracy much like that of the Taliban in Afghanistan. The fundamentalists' belief is that the Messianic age is already upon us and that any obstacles to a total elimination of any non-Jews in the promised land, i.e. the whole of what was Palestine including the Holy Mount, is God's punishment for sinful Jews, namely all those who are westernised and secular. This fully exonerates, and indeed sanctifies, a man like Baruch Goldstein who murdered 29 Palestinians praying in the Ibrahimi mosque, as well as the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. Like the Hamas movement, which was initially encouraged by Israel's secret services, this is another genie which, having been let out of the bottle, can no longer be controlled.

It seems a bitter irony that a movement that initially saw itself as progressive, liberal and secular should find itself in an alliance with, and held to ransom by, the most illiberal reactionary forces. In my view this was inevitable from its inception although the founders, and most of us (including even people like myself, growing up in Palestine in the thirties), did not foresee this and certainly would not have wished it.

Nowadays the deliberate blurring of the distinction between Zionism and Judaism, which includes a rewriting of ancient as well as modern history, is exploited to stifle any criticism of Israel's policies and actions, however extreme and inhuman they may be. This, incidentally, also plays directly into anti-Semitic prejudices by equating Israeli arrogance, brutality and complete denial of basic human rights to non-Jews with general Jewish characteristics.

Zionism has now assumed the all-embracing mantle of righteousness. It claims to represent and to speak for all Jews and has adopted the slogan of "my country right or wrong." The West tolerates Israel's continuous breaches of human rights--violations that it would not tolerate if perpetrated by any other country. Few Western states and not many Jews dare take a stand against Israel, particularly as many of the former still feel a sense of unease and guilt about the holocaust which Zionist Jews inside and outside Israel have exploited in what to me seems an almost obscene manner. In the USA, the Jewish Zionist lobby is still strong enough to keep successive governments on board. Moreover, the USA regards Israel as an important strategic ally in its fight against Middle Eastern "rogue" states which have supplanted the Soviet Union as the great satanic enemy of the free world.

I fear that unless and until Israel is judged by the same criteria as other modern states, this is unlikely to change. It is the duty of all Jews with a sense of justice and a conscience to speak out against the falsifications of history by the Zionist lobby, and the dangerous misconceptions it has led the West to accept.


Hanna Braun, London, September 2001

Bibliography:

Israel Shahak, Jewish History, Jewish Religion

Israel Shahak, Fundamental Judaism in Israel

Ilan Halevi, A History of the Jews, Ancient and Modern

Michael Prior (ed.), Western Scholarship and the History of Palestine

[three_sixty]

"It seems a bitter irony that a movement that initially saw itself as progressive, liberal and secular"

umm, did I miss something? does the author mean "progressive, liberal and secular" like the Americans do with the founding of the United States(which also hinged on superiority complex and indigenous genocide and displacement?)

[Rootsie]

reprinted from:  http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_19792.shtml
Melanie Phillips: Confusion of Religion, Race and Politics
By Robert Thompson

During the afternoon of Sunday 9th October 2005, I listened with growing apprehension to a programme on BBC Radio 4 on the Community Security Trust, which hides behind that innocuous title an organisation ostensibly set up to provide protection for Jewish events in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (to give it its full title - I shall hereinafter call it simply the U.K.).
 
During this programme, remarks were made by Melanie Phillips, who is apparently a senior journalist on the "Daily Mail", a right-wing populist newspaper published in London.   By populist, I mean a paper, which from having seen it from time to time over the years I would categorise as being aimed at those who wish to be entertained rather than informed and who like an "easy read".
 
She said that anyone who questioned the right of the "state of Israel" to exist was guilty of anti-semitism.   Obviously, she has a strange idea of what a semite might be, and would probably be shocked to learn that the vast majority of semites speak Arabic, whereas comparatively minute minorities speak other languages, such as Hebrew, Aramaic or Maltese.
 
However, this is not intended to question her use of language, because in the context she was obviously using the expression "anti-semitic" as a euphemism for anti-Jewish, and we should first examine the history of the Zionist state.
 
For many centuries, from the time of the disastrous Crusades in the Middle Ages, Palestine was administered principally by Muslim rulers, during which time it effectively belonged to the part of the Ottoman Empire administered from Damascus.
 
About half-way through the First World War, in 1916 the British Empire and France entered into the infamous Sykes-Picot Pact whereby they planned to carve up the Arab lands in the Near and Middle East between themselves once they had won the war against the Ottoman Empire.   Under this plan, the British Empire would keep its control over Egypt, Aden and the Arab emirates in the Arabo-Persian Gulf and extend its territories by taking over what we came to know as Palestine, Transjordan, and Iraq.   France was to be allowed to take charge of Syria and the Lebanon, which latter was to be extended at the expense of the traditional main area of Syria.
 
This Pact is still looked upon in the Near and Middle East, not only by Arabs, but also by their Eastern neighbours in Iran, as a betrayal of their hopes of nationhood, which hopes had incited them to fight on the side of the British Empire and France to help destroy the Ottoman Empire.
 
This Pact was followed in the following year by the proclamation by the British War Cabinet, with the most honourable exception of opposition by its only Jewish member, of the Balfour Declaration whereby it was made clear that the British government looked with favour on the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine.   This was in answer to pressures, close to blackmail, exerted by such Zionists as Chaim Weizmann, since it was believed that they could help or hinder the British war effort against the German Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Ottoman Empire.
 
Theodor Herzl, the Hungarian founder of Zionism, had previously sought permission for such a "national home" from the Sultan in Istanbul, and had even been decorated by him for having promised to bring Zionist financial support to the Ottoman Empire.
 
Both these approaches by the Zionists overlooked, and one can only assume that this was deliberate, the fact that the province of Palestine was the home of a large population almost all of whom were Arabs, mainly Muslim but with a very substantial Christian minority, whose ancestors had lived there for many centuries, and many of whom must have been direct descendants of the population living there before the Jewish diaspora when the Romans destroyed the Temple at Jerusalem.   In other words, the Zionists were backing both sides with a view to stealing the lands and homes of the Palestinians.
 
Like many other Christians, I feel that France and, above all, the U.K. should, as heirs to their respective governments in 1916 and 1917, express their shame at their actions on those occasions.   They betrayed the trust of the Arab peoples and resentment at this betrayal is still very much alive throughout the Arab world.   Between the two World Wars, a number of Zionists moved to Palestine, and settled either in new towns, the largest being Tel Aviv, just outside Jaffa, or in farming communities.
 
After they had sabotaged the war effort of the British Empire during the Second World War, extremist Zionists either from Europe or from those already settled in Palestine joined together in terrorist gangs, such as Irgun Zvai Leumi, the Stern Gang and Haganah, and started a terror campaign against the Arab population
 
Events occurred far away from there in Nazi occupied Europe, where the Nazis took Herzl at his word and, applying literally his statements that "Jews" should and could only be loyal to Zionism, used those who satisfied Herzl's definition of what was a "Jew" as scapegoats for the defeat of the German Empire in the First World War.   It was a hideous slide from that idea that every supposed Jew was a traitor to treating all such as sub-human and disposable.   It must be made clear that a large number of those who were classified by Herzl and the Nazis as "Jews" did not have any meaningful link with Judaism.   The teachings of Herzl and other Zionists led to the birth of the idea of the "secular Jew".   This where we can see a break in any link between true Judaism, a religion which we should all respect, and Zionism, which is merely a form of theft with violence of lands and homes from an innocent people.   Melanie Phillips seems totally to ignore this distinction.
 
After the fall of Nazism, the Zionists increased their attacks on both the British administration in Palestine and on the indigenous people, using assassination as a favoured means of terrorising both.
 
This reached its paroxysm in the murderous clearance of parts of Palestine, and the United Nations, with complete disregard for basic provisions in its own Charter, proposed a plan for the partition of Palestine into three parts, one Jewish, one Arab and then an international zone to include Jerusalem and other places of religious interest to every genuine Jew, every genuine Christian and every genuine Muslim.
 
This plan did not satisfy either justice which would have implied the full protection of the rights of the indigenous population nor the overweaning ambitions of the Zionists who wished to set up a supposedly "Jewish" state.   The terrorist gangs then stepped up even further their clearance of Arab villages and towns.   In reaction to this, the armies of Arab neighbours tried to come to the aid of their Arab brothers and sisters, but the massively superior arms of the invaders meant that they were by 1948 pushed back to the armistice line which has come to be known as the "Green Line" and which became the frontier of the newly declared "state of Israel".   The list of ethnically cleansed villages during this period is long and sad.
 
Without bringing the story of this land fully up to date, we can see clearly that this artificial implanted "state" is that which, according to Melanie Phillips, has a right to exist.   I fully disagree with her, and, as a lawyer, I challenge her to justify in international law the existence of this "state of Israel".    I also challenge her to justify her contention that any person who shares my view that Palestine should be a country where there is no discrimination on the grounds of any supposed link with a specific religion is thereby anti-Semitic.

[three_sixty]

http://www.nkusa.org/activities/speeches/bham022603.cfm

Israel, Judaism and Zionism
Talk By: Rabbi Ahron Cohen at Birmingham University, England
26th February ‘03
 
My friends, it is an honour to have the opportunity of talking to you today.

I and my colleagues of Neturei Karta attend occasions such as this because we feel that we have both a religious and humanitarian duty to publicize our message as much as possible. So I hope and pray that with the Creator’s help my words and our discussions here today may be correct and true in their content and conclusions.
 
As you have already been told, I am an orthodox Jew (that is a Jew who endeavours to live his life completely in accordance with the Jewish religion). I am involved in ecclesiastical duties within the Jewish Community and am particularly involved in educating our youth and in helping them to achieve healthy and correct attitudes. It is therefore of particular interest to me to be able to talk to you, a student body, today.

I have been asked to talk to you about Judaism and Zionism. This subject is of course tremendously relevant in the light of the current situation in Palestine, where you have - let’s face it - one side, the Zionists (who are also Jews), wishing to impose a ‘sectarian’ State over the heads of an indigenous population, the Palestinians. A confrontation which has resulted in horrific bloodshed and brutality with no end in sight unless there is a very radical change.

My qualification to talk on this subject is by virtue of my being one of many orthodox Jews who absolutely sympathise with the Palestinian cause, and we protest vehemently against the terrible wrongs being perpetrated against the Palestinian People by the Zionist illegitimate regime in Palestine.

The spearhead group among us who are involved actively in this matter on a regular basis are called Neturei Karta, which can be loosely translated as Guardians of the Faith. We are not a separate party or organisation but basically a philosophy representative of a large section of orthodox Jewry.

Let me firstly state quite categorically that Judaism and Zionism are incompatible. They are diametrically opposed.

The question must surely arise in the minds of many of you here today that there appears to be a paradox. After all everyone knows that Zionists are Jews and that Zionism is for the benefit of Jews. The Palestinians are the enemies of the Zionists. How come then that I, a Jew, can sympathise with the Palestinian cause.

I would like to try to answer this question and to revert to the subject of my talk - Judaism and Zionism - on two levels, religious belief and humanitarianism. Bearing in mind that to be humanitarian is also a basic religious requirement.

Firstly from a Jewish religious belief point of view. One has to take a look at some aspects of the history of the Jewish people and at their basic belief in the Al-mighty’s control of our destiny and what the Al-mighty wants of us. All as set out in our Religious teachings, our Toira, and as taught to us through the generations by our great religious leaders. Against this we also have to look at the history of Zionism, how it developed, what are its aims.

Our religion is for us a total way of life. Showing us how to live a life in the service of the Al-mighty. It affects every aspect of our life from the cradle to the grave. We are taught that it was revealed to us by Divine Revelation, as described in the Bible, some three and a half thousand years ago, and that is when the Jewish People came in to being. All of our religious requirements, practical and philosophical, are set out in the Torah which comprises the Bible (the old testament) and a vast code of Oral Teaching handed down to us through the generations.

As mentioned, our religion is a total way of life covering every aspect of our life. One area of our religion is that subject to certain conditions is that we will be given a land, the Holy Land, now known as Palestine, in which to live and carry out various parts of our service of the Al-mighty.

Now, before I go any further, I wish to point out something which is very basic to understanding the difference between Judaism and Zionism and that is that the orthodox Jewish concept of nationhood is very different to the concept of nationhood held by most peoples. Most peoples understand a nation to be a specific people living in a specific land. The land is essential for the identity of the nation. They may or may not have a religion, but the religion is immaterial to the national identity. The orthodox Jewish concept of nationhood however, is a specific people with a specific religion. It is the religion that establishes the national identity. They may or may not have a land, the land is immaterial to the Jewish national identity.

This is borne out by the fact that the Jewish nation has been without a land for 2000 years, but as long as they retained their religion they retained their identity.

Now I mentioned earlier that we were given a land but under certain conditions. The conditions were basically that we had to maintain the highest of moral, ethical and religious standards. The Jewish People did have the land for approximately the first one thousand five hundred years of their existence. However, regretfully, the conditions were not fulfilled to the required degree and the Jews were exiled from their land. For the last two thousand years or so the Jewish people have been in a state of exile decreed by the A-lmighty because they did not maintain the standards expected of them. This state of exile is the situation that exists right up to the present day. It is a basic part of our belief to accept willingly the Heavenly decree of exile and not to try and fight against it or to end it by our own hands. To do so would constitute a rebellion against the wishes of the A-lmighty.

In practical terms, although we have maintained our Jewish identity by virtue of our attachment to our religion, never the less exile for us means firstly that Jews must be loyal subjects of the countries in which they live and not attempt to rule over the established indigenous populations of those countries.

Secondly, that we may not attempt to set up a State of our own in Palestine.
This would apply even if the land would be unoccupied and it certainly applies when, as is the case, there is an existing indigenous population. This prohibition is a basic part of our teaching and we are forsworn not to contravene it and we are warned of the dire consequences of doing so.

It follows, therefore, that Jews have no right to rule today in Palestine.

Now let us consider the Zionist movement. This was founded approximately 100 years ago mostly by secular people who were discarding their religion but still retained what they considered as the stigma of being Jews in exile. They considered that our state of exile was due to our own subservient attitude - ‘the Golus (exile) mentality’ - and not by Divine Decree. They wanted to throw off the constraints of exile and to try and establish a new form of Jewish identity. Not religion based but land based. It was based on a typical, emotion driven, secular nationalistic aim, similar to that of most other nations. Their policy had as its centre pin the aim of setting up a Jewish State in Palestine. But they were forging a new kind of Jew. In fact not a Jew at all- a Zionist.

This Zionist movement was a complete abandonment of our religious teachings and faith - in general - and in particular an abandonment of our approach to our state of exile and our attitude to the peoples among whom we live.

The practical outcome of Zionism in the form of the State known as ‘Israel’ is completely alien to Judaism and the Jewish Faith. The very name “Israel” which originally meant what are known as the Children of Israel i.e. the Jewish People was usurped by the Zionists. For this reason many orthodox Jews avoid referring to the Zionist State by the name ’Israel’.

The ideology of Zionism is not to rely on divine providence but to take the law into ones own hands and to try to force the outcome in the form of a State. This is completely contrary to the approach to the matter of exile which our Toira requires us to adopt, as handed down to us by our great religious teachers.

I have spoken till now from the religious belief point of view. But let us consider the humanitarian point of view (and to do so is also a religious requirement as I mentioned earlier).The Zionist ideology was and is to force the aim of a State irrespective of the cost in life and property to anyone who stands in the way. The Palestinians stood in the way. We have a fact that in order to achieve an ill conceived nationalistic ambition, a shocking contravention of natural justice was committed by the Zionists in setting up an illegitimate regime in Palestine completely against the wishes of the established population, the Palestinians, which inevitably had to be based on loss of life, killing and stealing.

Most Orthodox Jews accept the Neturei Karta view to the extent that they do not agree in principle to the existence of the Zionist State and would not ‘shed a tear‘ if it came to an end. There are however a range of opinions as to how to deal with the fact that for the time being the Zionist State exists. These opinions range from positive cooperation to pragmatic acceptance to total opposition in every way. The latter being the Neturei Karta approach.

There was and is however, an additional Zionist phenomenon which confuses the picture. That is the Religious Zionists. These are people who claim to be faithful to the Jewish Religion but they have been influenced by the Zionist secular nationalistic philosophy and have added a new dimension to Judaism - Zionism, the aim of setting up now and expanding a Jewish state in Palestine. This they try to fulfil with great fervour. (I call it Judaism-plus) They claim that this is inherent in the Jewish religion. But the fact is as explained earlier that this is absolutely contrary to the teachings of our great religious teachers.

Furthermore, from a humanitarian point of view, their ideology too was and is to force their aim irrespective of the cost in life and property to anyone who stands in the way. The Palestinians are standing in the way. This is all the more shocking as it is done in the name of religion. Whereas in reality there is a totally contrary requirement of our religion and that is to treat all peoples with compassion.

To sum up. According to the Torah and Jewish faith, the present Palestinian > Arab claim to rule in Palestine is right and just. The Zionist claim is wrong and criminal. Our attitude to Israel is that the whole concept is flawed and illegitimate.

We have another problem and that is that the Zionists have made themselves to appear as the representatives and spokespeople of all Jews thus, with their actions, arousing animosity against the Jews. Those who harbour this animosity are accused of anti-Semitism. However, what has to be made abundantly clear is that Zionism is not Judaism. Zionists cannot speak in the name of Jews. Zionists may have been born as Jews, but to be a Jew also requires adherence to the Jewish belief and religion. So what becomes abundantly clear is that opposition to Zionism and its crimes does not imply hatred of Jews or ‘anti-Semitism‘. On the contrary Zionism itself and its deeds are the biggest threat to Jews and Judaism.

The strife between Arab and Jew in Palestine only began when the first Zionist pioneers came to Palestine with the express aim of forming a State over the heads of the indigenous Arab population. That strife has continued until this very day and has cost and continues to cost thousands and thousands of lives. The oppression, abuse and murder in Palestine is a tragedy not only for the Palestinians but for the Jewish people as well. And is in fact part of the dire consequences of which we are warned if we transgress our religious requirement not to rebel against our exile.

I wish to add that the connection between Muslims and Jews goes right back into ancient history. Mostly the relationship was friendly and mutually beneficial. Historically, the situation frequently was that when Jews were being persecuted in Europe they found refuge in the various Muslim countries. Our attitude to Muslims and Arabs can only be one of friendliness and respect.

I would like to finish with the following words. We want to tell the world, especially our Muslim neighbours, that there is no hatred or animosity between Jew and Muslim. We wish to live together as friends and neighbours as we have done mostly over hundreds even thousands of years in all the Arab countries. It was only the advent of the Zionists and Zionism which upset this age old relationship.

We consider the Palestinians as the people with the right to govern in Palestine.

The Zionist State known as “Israel” is a regime that has no right to exist. Its continuing existence is the underlying cause of the strife in Palestine. 33. We pray for a solution to the terrible and tragic impasse that exists. Hopefully based on results brought about by moral, political and economic pressures imposed by the nations of the world.

We pray for an end to bloodshed and an end to the suffering of all innocent people - Jew and non-Jew alike - worldwide.

We are waiting for the annulment of Zionism and the dismantling of the Zionist regime, which will bring about an end to the suffering of the Palestinian people. We would welcome the opportunity to dwell in peace in the holy land under a rule which is entirely in accordance with the wishes and aspirations of the Palestinian People.

May we soon merit the time when all mankind will be at peace with each other.
 
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[three_sixty]

"Israelis claim that they are the chosen people, the elect of God, and find a biblical justification for their racism and Zionist exclusivity," says Ronnie Kasrils, South Africa's intelligence minister and Jewish co-author of a petition that was circulated amongst South African Jewry protesting at the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory.

"This is just like the Afrikaners of apartheid South Africa, who also had the biblical notion that the land was their God-given right. Like the Zionists who claimed that Palestine in the 1940s was 'a land without people for a people without land', so the Afrikaner settlers spread the myth that there were no black people in South Africa when they first settled in the 17th century. They conquered by force of arms and terror and the provocation of a series of bloody colonial wars of conquest."

Anti-semitism lingered, but within a few years of the Nationalists assuming power in 1948, many Jewish South Africans found common purpose with the rest of the white community. "We were white and even though the Afrikaner was no friend of ours, he was still white," says Krausz. "The Jew in South Africa sided with the Afrikaners, not so much out of sympathy, but out of fear sided against the blacks. I came to this country in 1946 and all you could hear from Jews was 'the blacks this and the blacks that'. And I said to them, 'You know, I've heard exactly the same from the Nazis about you.' The laws were reminiscent of the Nuremberg laws. Separate entrances; 'Reserved for whites' here; 'Not for Jews' there."

source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0%2C%2C1704037%2C00.html