Rabbi Yaakov Shapiro: Zionism Has Nothing to Do with Judaism
Israel’s referring to itself as the “Jewish state” poses a danger to me and my fellow Jews all over the world. It is crucial, when trying to understand Zionism, that it is different than all other nationalisms – and Israel is different than all other countries – in that it claims to represent millions of people all over the world who never were citizens of their country, nor were their family members, nor do they ever plan to be. Israel claims to be the “nation-sate of the Jewish people”; Netanyahu referred to himself as the representative of all Jews; even his opposition leader, Herzog, referred to Netanyahu as the “Prime Minister of all the Jews.” This is insane. I am an American – how does Netanyahu claim to be my leader and Israel my state?
EXTRACTS
Israel is morally obligated to stop this nonsense of calling itself the Jewish state, meaning the state of all Jews, because that’s just a lie, and a harmful one at that.
What is a Jew? What constitutes a Jewish person?
First, let’s start with what a Jew is not. A Jew is not a nationality or a race or an ethnicity or a culture. We have Jews of all races, nationalities, ethnicities, and cultures.
Is Zionism a Jewish invention? What is the role of the Evangelical Protestantism in shaping the Jewish secular thought?
Rabbi Shapiro: No, Zionism is not Jewish in origin. Centuries before Hess or Herzl were born the Evangelicals already created and pursued Zionist ideology. Prof. Yakov Rabkin (History, University of Montreal) got it right in the Glossary of his book “What is Modern Israel,” where he defined Zionism as “Ideology of protestant Christian origin that propounds the assembly of the Jews in Palestine. At the end of the 19th century, a group of activists of Jewish origin in Central Europe established the Zionist political movement etc.” Christian Zionism originated in the late 1500’s, early 1600’s. The Jews never wanted to return to the Holy Land en masse until the Messiah arrives and peace would reign in the world, and the universe would be ruled by a spirit of G-d. The idea that Jews should return, create a political sovereign state there was invented by the Christians. So many aspects of Zionism that we attribute to Jews were actually invented by the Christians. People attribute the idea oat Jews should speak Hebrew to the ultra-Zionist, secular Jew, Ben-Yehuda. It was the idea of the Christian Zionist Benedetto Musolino, who preceded Ben Yehuda. The slogan “a land without a people for a people without a land,” which Abu Mazen recently quoted in the name of Theodor Herzl – that was a mistake – Herzl didn’t say it – it was really said by Israel Zangwill and common among Jewish Zionists at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century – was already used by Christian Zionists such as Lord Shaftesbury and Alexander Keith in the 1840’s before any Zionist ever thought of it.
Phi Beta Iota: Zionism is a toxic, apartheid concept that needs to be put to death. Palestine needs to be restored to the Palestinians, and the current state of Israel reduced to an enclave from Tel Aviv to the sea and perhaps to the North at the same time that Israel is denuclearized and cut off from funding by US taxpayers. Peace is the Middle East is vastly more complex than the infantile toxic concept that Zionist Israel under Big Fat Liar Benjamin Netanyahu promulgates (nuke Iran, let Saudis ravage Yemen, Somalia, Syria less the Golan Heights). Here are the eight elements of a holistic Middle Eastern peace arrangement:
1. Denuclearization of the Middle East including Israel
2. Peace between the Sunnis and the Shi’ites
3. Jerusalem and perhaps Mecca as international cities
4. Restoration of Palestine
5. Creation of a Kurdish Confederacy (no changes to existing national borders)
6. Repatriation of all unemployed Muslims from Europe back to Arabia, and reparations for Iraq
7. Creation of a post-Western post-fossil fuel economy with unlimited desalinated water
8. Creation of a regional Open Source Agency and network with information and engineering bureaus sufficient to create prosperity for all at 10% the cost of the failed Western economic paradigm.
See Especially:
Steele, Robert. “Peace in the Middle East: Denuclearizing Israel, Restoring Palestine, and More,” Russian International Affairs Council, 18 May 2018. PBI Back-Up
Steele, Robert. “Peace in the Middle East: Denuclearizing Israel, Restoring Palestine, and More,” Russian International Affairs Council, 18 May 2018. PBI Back-Up
See Also:
Zionism Strike @ Phi Beta Iota
