Will There Ever Be Peace in Israel?
"When we speak about the Army of Jerusalem and the Battle of the Promise of the Hereafter, we are not talking about liberating our land alone. We believe in what our Prophet Muhammad said: 'Allah drew the ends of the world near one another for my sake, and I have seen its eastern and western ends. The dominion of my nation would reach those ends that have been drawn near me.'
"The entire 510million square kilometres of Planet Earth will come under [a system] where there is no injustice, no oppression, no treachery, no Zionism, no treacherous Christianity, and no killings and crimes, like those being committed against the Palestinians, and against the Arabs in all the Arab countries – in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and other countries." (Mahmoud Al-Zahar, Senior Hamas Official, December 2022)
Even on a good day, Islam is slow-motion fanaticism. The rest of the time, it's the real thing. Judaism, on the other hand, is racial supremacy dressed up as a religion. Put the two together and what did anybody think was going to happen?
ReplyDeleteBroad, sweeping statement, Bell. Some secular Zionists, perhaps, but all of Judaism?!
DeleteThis is a very nuanced question, and it obviously varies to a great degree depending with who you are dealing, but on the broad front, essentially, yes. I'm not saying every Jew is a committed racist, but in its essence as a religion, it effectively imparts the notion that there is one particular people superior to all others with entitlements others don't have. This is an aspect of Judaism which has been heavily downplayed in Catholic circles over the past sixty years, but it hasn't gone away. As far as I can see, all the concessions have been on the Catholic side. And I notice Jack has not objected to my thumbnail sketch of Islam...
DeleteThat's because you're correct about Islamic extremists - again not all Muslims..
DeleteJack is correct. Not all Muslims are bombers and extremists. However, while the numbers quoted here are highly contestable, the general point, I think, is valid.
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Z_RAbOJcu0
Where we can agree is that both Islam (a corruption of Judaism and Christianity) and Judaism (now fulfilled in Christ) are waiting for a Messiah that will usher in an essentially worldly kingdom. The former believes its role is conquest; the latter doesn't.
Delete
Delete@Jack, my answer to your question is in two parts. The first part is the answer I would have given last week, before the present war broke out.
The UN General Assembly formally voted in favour of the partition of Palestine on 29 November 1947. A few weeks earlier, a private meeting had taken place in London between Abdel Rahman Azzam, the first secretary-general of the Arab League, and two senior officials in the Zionist movement, David Horowitz and Abba Eban. There is a brief account of this meeting in Efraim Karsh’s book, Palestine Betrayed. At one point, Azzam told them:
“We once had Spain, and we lost Spain, and we have become accustomed to not having Spain. We once had Persia, and we lost Persia, and we have become accustomed to not having Persia. Whether at any point we shall become accustomed to not having a part of Palestine, I cannot say.”
Just in the last few years, the Arab world was giving strong indications that it had finally, seventy years later, “become accustomed to not having a part of Palestine.” The UAE had led the way, followed by one or two other Gulf states and Morocco. Egypt had already “become accustomed,” albeit with serious misgivings, since as long ago as the Sadat period. Now Saudi Arabia was seriously negotiating the terms on which it would exchange ambassadors with Israel. That would have a been a strong indication that Israel had at last gained acceptance among its Arab neighbours, while still postponing the Palestinian question to an unspecified future date.
That brings us to the second part of my answer. In recent years Iran has been attempting to replace Saudi Arabia as the regional superpower. Despite the official denials, there can surely be little doubt that Hamas launched its attack on Israel last Saturday on direct orders from Ayatollah Khamenei. Consequently, we’ll now have to wait for the dust to settle before anyone will be in a position to judge what change, if any, this latest war has made to the prospects for peaceful coexistence in the Middle East.
Good answer, Ray. Most pundits seem to believe the Arab world will now unite against Israel and that Hamas' action were intended to derail the emerging detente between Saudi Arabia and Israel.
DeleteYes, there can be no doubt that that was the intention. However, I think it's too early to predict that Iran and its puppet regime in Gaza will certainly achieve their aim. If Saudi Arabia changes its mind about exchanging ambassadors with Israel, that would amount to confessing that it's too weak to stand up to Iranian pressure. No Saudi prince, I think, would be happy to stand up in public and say, "Look at me. I'm a weakling."
DeleteIf Judaism is 'racial supremacy dressed up as a religion', I wonder what that makes Christianity? If the root is rotten, what of the branches?
Delete'If the root is holy, so are the branches. And if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive tree, were grafted in among them, and with them became a partaker of the root and fatness of the olive tree, do not boast against the branches. But if you do boast, remember that you do not support the root, but the root supports you.'
One rather thinks the Parable of the Wedding Banquet answers that. However, HJ's father considered himself a faithful follower of (perfected) Judaism when he converted to Catholicism and often expressed deep reservations about modern rabbinic Judaism and about the State (and state) of Israel. The quote below from Harry Hagopian probably encapsulates his views - although he (and HJ) would argue strongly that Israel, as an established nation state, is entitled to rid herself of the Hamas thugs and murders.
DeleteWas a two-state settlement ever viable given Israel's biblical claim to the land of Israel and the deep animosity/hatred of Islam towards her and her Christian allies? History is answering that question for us.
@Lain -- what you appear to be forgetting is that Judaism was a much wider church in Gospel times than it became later. It's an almost universal modern fallacy to equate rabbinical Judaism with with Hebrew and Israelite history, as though the two were synonymous, an unbroken thread running from the time of Abraham to the present day. In fact, what we call "Judaism" today was created artificially after the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD, be it at the putative Council of Jamnia (which probably never happened), or more slowly over several decades by survivors of the Roman destruction of Jerusalem. In either event, it was the product of a very narrow group of Jews, most likely Pharisees, who certainly held racially supremacist views. Christianity stems from an older tradition within Judaism. It's too long and involved to get into here, but essentially, it's a question of supercessionism. The Church has superseded Israel as the chosen nation. The good news is that anyone can join. It's not racially based. All are welcome. Well, obviously not trads, but as a general rule...
DeleteFulfillment Supersessionism ... although ,i>"Pope Francis’ position is too unclear to be capable of interpretation."
DeleteGood article here.
Supersessionism and dual covenantism are completely incompatible doctrines. Supersessionism is not a formal doctrine of the Catholic Church, but it is essentially a foundational assumption. Catholicism just doesn't work without it. This has become an increasing issue within the Church because our hierarchy, as they drift further into apostasy, are embracing dual covenantism, most noticeable recently with Bishop Robert Barron's interview with Jewish broadcaster Ben Shapiro where Barron called the Church "the privileged route" to Heaven, implying there's another.
DeleteThank you, I'm well aware of the difference between ancient, Second Temple and Rabbinic Judaism. None of which justifies your sweeping racial stereotyping or absolves Christianity of the same claims (and creedal exclusivism can be just as ugly as being racially exclusive) - unless you wish to deny that there is no continuity at all between modern and ancient Judaism, or that pre-modern Judaism was not predominantly an ethnically exclusive religion. Much antisemitism has originated from the Christian tendency to forget that Israel is the 'root'.
DeleteAnd well done for inserting Catholic traditionalist grievances into a discussion about terrorism and Israel. When one only has a hammer...
At some point, you're going to have to decide whether you politics come first or your theology.
DeleteInteresting insights here:
ReplyDeleteThe Way Out is Through: Peace Must Start with the End of Hamas
Israel is now taking steps to defend itself against the threat of attacks by Iranian-backed terrorist groups operating in four countries in the Middle East: Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and groups in Syria and Iraq.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-767646
Good article. It will be interesting to see how Moscow responds. Particularly if Iran is attacked. Which frankly it needs to be for Israel's response to be credible.
DeleteThe times have just got a lot more dangerous.
I see that Scotland has seemed itself again. It occurred to me that in reality Scotland doesn't actually have a law against hate speech, it has a law of compelled speech. How otherwise can that Green MSP not be interviewed by the police, at the least
ReplyDeleteI missed that. Who is this unnamed Green MSP, and what did she or he say?
Deletehttps://www.gbnews.com/politics/msp-s-ashamed-as-scottish-parliament-refuses-to-fly-israeli-flag-after-vile-comments
DeleteThank you, Clive. It’s reassuring to know that Ayatollah Khamenei and his satellite terrorist outfits can count on the loyal support of at least one MSP in the Green Party.
DeleteThe behaviour of some leftist politicians over the last few days really does expose the lie of hate speech.
Delete... and the priorities of our police forces.
DeleteI see stories alleging that Wembley has refused to light up its arch in Israel's colours (despite having done so for atrocities before, including Ukraine) out of fear of reprisals from certainly commutes.
DeleteCertain communities. Sigh.
DeleteBH, Again shamed not seemed.
ReplyDeleteAn alternative view:
ReplyDeleteUS opinion divided amid battle for narrative over Hamas attack on Israel
It's interesting that opinion is so divided on this in the US. For many years, I've been aware that opinion ON THE GROUND in the US is much more divided than their media ever let on, but the fact that it's starting to break through into the mainstream could be a game changer. I've also found the below the line comments in the Daily Mail -- notwithstanding that they're heavily moderated -- are much less gung-ho, foursquare behind Israel than one would expect of the readership of such a paper. I've got a feeling that the blind, unquestioning support of the state of Israel which has been prevalent most of my lifetime in the circles of power and influence in the west is on the wane. Whatever you think of the situation in the Holy Land, on a broader front, that may be a good sign. It indicates, I think, that people are reverting in ever greater numbers to a more traditionalist worldview that the west is not the world's policeman and social worker all in one, that they're no longer prepared to be bullied into the support of regimes they have serious doubts about because of trigger-word name calling like "anti-Semite", whenever they don't feel like backing whatever it is Jerusalem demands of them this week. I hope that attitude continues and spreads. If it takes hold, the ramifications on other areas of public policy -- like dealing with mass migration, for instance -- could be huge.
DeleteThis was written in 2014 and published on the Catholic Church's Bishops Conference for England and Wales by Dr Harry Hagopian, Middle East North Africa Consultant:
ReplyDeleteI am angry! In fact, I am quite livid these days! But apart from my festering anger, let alone mounting frustration, I am also deeply sad for all the deaths, injuries, human and physical rubble, as well as fear and trauma that have together permeated the psyches of Palestinians and Israelis alike. And within all my primitive feelings, I would highlight Albert Einstein’s focus on stupidity that is one basis for most human actions.
Operation Protective Edge: here is a new military initiative that has fired up many Israelis, infuriated many Palestinians, left the Arab leaders once more in tatters of nonchalance or fragmentation and challenged the moral fibre of the West in terms of its support or opposition to this campaign. It seems to me that the popular streets alone have been clear in their reactions with huge demonstrations worldwide. But is it, as Einstein posits, fear or stupidity?
Writers, analysts, intellectuals and journalists alike have been expressing their opinions about the pros and cons of the Israeli punitive attacks on Gaza. Is it because of the abduction and murder of the three teenagers although we still have no clue of the culprits? Is it because of the rockets that flew over many Israeli cities and caused panic and a rush to shelters? Or could it be those labyrinthine tunnels that have been the economic backbone of the Gazan elites?
Or is it another bold – in my lexicon perilous – attempt by PM Netanyahu’s government to try and quash Hamas once and for all? Perhaps Hamas itself wishes to re-inflame the situation in an attempt to regain its shattered credibility and coerce Egypt to re-open the Rafah crossing as a necessary lifeline?
Even a majority of the Israeli ‘Left’ such as the David Grossman, Tom Segev, Amos Oz or Avraham B Yehoshua have spoken out one way or another in favour of attacking Hamas. Mind you, there have also been consistent voices like Ilan Pappé, Shlomo Sand, Norman Finklestein and – in another higher world I am sure – the late philosopher Yeshayahou Leibowitz arguing against this war.
But let me be clear that the answer does not lie in another military strike against Gaza that kills hundreds of civilians on beaches and in hospitals as much as in hideaways and on the battleground, wreaks havoc, puts paid to all arguments about proportionality as I understand them from my law years and then concludes balefully with a ceasefire that is not unlike previous documents. Human beings will die painfully, anger will create more radicalism and extreme positions will become more entrenched on all sides, with treachery or confusion abounding – until the next round.
The core problem is not stricto sensu one of tunnels, rockets or abducted teenagers. It is one of occupation under International law and the illegal acquisition of land. Until such time as Israel renounces its messianic let alone expansionist tendencies and decides to return the occupied Palestinian territories, there can be no peace. In fact, there will be no peace no matter the palliative solutions, soothing compromises, frequent flyer miles – or even Tony Blair’s omnipresence. The Palestinian being cannot be unmade to disappear: so will Israel give the land back to its owners according to well-established parameters that are in most diplomatic drawers and stop hiding behind illegal settlements and millennia-old biblical exegeses to justify oppressing and colonising another people?
Why is it that when I read this
ReplyDeletehttps://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12622079/Israeli-military-says-babies-beheaded-coroner-confirmed-died-IDF-spokesman-says-hard-believe-Hamas-perform-barbaric-act.html
I think of this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCEes64D3_w
Call me cynical, indeed, call me full of cr*p. Maybe I'm wrong and Israel's enemies really are this bestial, but whenever I hear a story like this I get the unmistakable sensation of a key being inserted up my posterior and somebody winding it.
That's a question only you can answer.
DeleteCardinal Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, has designated next Tuesday, October 17, as a day of prayer and fasting for peace in the Holy Land. His announcement, posted yesterday on the LPJ website (link below), reads in part:
ReplyDelete"Once again we find ourselves in the midst of a political and military crisis. We have suddenly been catapulted into a sea of unprecedented violence. The hatred, which we have unfortunately already been experiencing for too long, will increase even more, and the ensuing spiral of violence will create more destruction. Everything seems to speak of death. ...
"We ask that on Tuesday, October 17, everyone hold a day of fasting, abstinence, and prayer. Let us organize prayer times with Eucharistic adoration and with the recitation of the Rosary to Our Blessed Virgin Mary. Although most probably in many parts of our dioceses circumstances will not permit large gatherings, it is possible to organize simple and sober common moments of prayer in parishes, religious communities, and families."
https://www.lpj.org/posts/a-day-of-fasting-and-prayer.html
Thanks for this link and information.
DeleteMore from the same site. Fr. Gabriel Romanelli is the parish priest of the Holy Family parish in Gaza City. He went to Rome for the September 30 consistory and is now, I believe, stuck in Bethlehem, unable to get back into the Gaza Strip. In this interview he passes on what he has learnt from phone calls to his parish staff.
Deletehttps://www.lpj.org/posts/the-state-of-our-parish-in-gaza-amidst-the-war.html
Neanderthal Éireannach says:
ReplyDeleteI take issue with Bell’s assertion that “Judaism, on the other hand, is racial supremacy dressed up as a religion.” Modern ideas of racial supremacy are very different from the way people thought in 1000 BC, which was an age of tribal warfare.
Indeed, you cannot derive Hitler’s “Aryan supremacy” ideas from German anti-Semitism. As G.K.Chesterton says in “The Well and the Shallows” (1935):
«Luther was subject to irrational convulsions of rage, in one of which he tore out the Epistle of St. James from the Bible, because St. James exalts the importance of good works. But I shudder to imagine into what sort of epileptic convulsion he would have fallen if anybody had told him to tear out the Epistles of St. Paul, because St. Paul was not an Aryan. Luther, if possible, rather exaggerated the weakness of humanity, but at least it was the weakness of all humanity. John Knox achieved that queer Puritan paradox, of combining the same concentrated invocation of Christ with an inhuman horror and loathing for all the signs and forms and traditions generally characteristic of Christians. He combined, in the way that puzzles us so much, the adoration of the Cross with the abomination of the Crucifix. But at least John Knox would have exploded like dynamite, if anybody had asked him to adore the Swastika. All this new Nordic nonsense would seem to have nothing whatever to do with Protestant theology; or rather to be completely contrary to it. No one is more sincerely glad than we are to know that some of the German Protestants are still most consistent and courageous Christians; and that a definite number of the Lutherans still have some sort of remote connection with Luther. But, taking the development simply as an historical development, as a part of the science and philosophy of history, it is obvious by this time that the hollow places that were once tilled with the foaming fanaticism of the first Reformation doctrines are now filled with a foaming fanaticism of a totally different kind. Those who are rebelling like Luther are rebelling against Luther.»