Forget "promised land," it's "promised planet," says Gilad Atzmon

[yankeedoodle]

"We are witnessing a clear shift in Zionist discourse from the 'promised land' to the 'promised planet,'" says Gilad Atzmon.       

MECHANICALLY TRANSLATED FROM ROMANIAN

What is Zionism?
https://evadare.ro/istorie/ce-e-sionismul/

Personally, I never use this word anymore, because I find it confusing. In linguistic jargon, connotations overwhelm its denotation. In Romanian, it means different things to different speakers and it is not clear what meaning is given to it. It is the moment when a word becomes unusable without clarification.

Jewish patriotism
The first meaning is harmless. It refers to the historical desire for the Jewish people, in the diaspora, to establish their own national state. A nationalist of another country would have no objection to this. You want a country for yourself, you also want it for others.

Like any political line, Zionism was not a creation of the masses, but of some visionary elites, and it did not meet unanimity. (It didn't need to, nor does it ever happen.) A Jewish joke a century ago said that "Zionism is a middle-class Jew pleading with a rich Jew to contribute money so that a poor Jew can move in Palestine."

In addition to other peoples, who aspired to self-determination in the 19th century, the Jews were not concentrated in one geographical point, but widely spread over the map. For this reason, many were inclined to integrate into the societies in which they found themselves. So they did not consider Zionism a practical idea. It's one thing to ask for autonomy for your province, within an empire, and another to have to emigrate alone, with your family or part of your clan.

At the beginning of the Zionist movement, at the end of the 19th century, an anecdotal story appeared. It is said that the rabbis of Vienna secretly sent a delegation to Palestine, to prospect the idea of ​​(re)establishing a Jewish state there. The province was, of course, inhabited by Arabs under Ottoman occupation. So the occasional "spies" sent a coded telegram saying, "the bride is beautiful, but she is married to another man." . Although it has been repeated in many books and documentaries over the past 130 years, the snoava has only recently begun to be challenged as apocryphal.

But the point remains: if anyone would have a problem with this innocent meaning of the word, it would be the Palestinians. Who also have a dream similar to Zionism, on approximately the same territory. If we have freedom of speech, we can give our opinion in this never-ending dispute. Otherwise, at the political level, it shouldn't be our problem and we'd better not get involved. So if that's the point, and you're not Palestinian, you should be OK with Zionism.

false name for Jews
Ever since the Internet began to be heavily censored and anti-discrimination laws came into being, some commentators have begun to loosely use the word "Zionist" as a synonym for Jew. This is done both by those who bring legitimate and decent criticism of the policy of the State of Israel or some politicians, but also by anti-Semites, who thus hide behind a political concept in order to express hostile positions to an ethnic group as a whole.

I do not agree with this usage. I understand that it came to it also because special protection laws were given or because there are censorship algorithms on YouTube, Facebook, etc. But it's not OK to find someone's ethnicity (sometimes not even confirmed) and use it as evidence that they are part of an evil plan. And the fact that you "expose" him as a "Zionist" instead of saying that he is a Jew (or worse!) does not change the wrong essence of the approach. In addition, this "code name" is extended to other non-Jewish supporters of Israel's policy.

policy of discrimination
In 1972, the United Nations (UN) passed a resolution condemning Zionism as "a threat to world peace and security" and calling on all countries "to oppose this racist and imperialist ideology". Resolution 3379 decided that "Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination" . The same resolution spoke of "an alliance between Zionism and the apartheid policy of South Africa" ​​and condemned any doctrine of "racial superiority as scientifically false, morally reprehensible, socially unjust and dangerous".

The resolution was voted for by 72 countries, 32 abstained and 35 voted against. Many of those who voted for were satellites of the USSR in the Eastern European bloc, Africa and China. (Romania was not represented.) And of those who voted against, it was the Western bloc and its colonies in the Caribbean and Africa. In 1991, it came back with a new vote to cancel the resolution of 72. (Romania voted in favor.)

a bloody history
There were several reasons, which had justified the vote of 72. In 1917, the British Foreign Secretary, Lord Arthur Balfour, issued a document known as the "Balfour Declaration" . In it "His Majesty's Government expressed itself favorably to the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people." The document, which formed the basis of the international recognition of the new state in 1948, was contained in a letter addressed by Balfour to Lionel Rothschild. The letter began like this:

"Dear Lord Rothschild,
It gives me great pleasure to inform you, on behalf of His Majesty's Government, of the contents of the following declaration of sympathy with the aspirations of Jewish Zionism, which has been sent to the Cabinet and approved."

Here is an early, if not the first, example of non-Jewish adherence to Zionism. The problem was that at that time England had no inclination to promise anything within the Ottoman Empire. The following month, after the surrender of the declaration, the British army defeated the Turks and occupied Jerusalem. What Lloyd George called a "Christmas present for the English". In total, between 1916 and 1918, the islanders occupied the region, including the Sinai desert and Gaza. Thus, after the First World War there followed a period of three decades, in which the region was under British control. (1920-48)

Since this period, paramilitary forces appeared, supporting land acquisitions, guarding kibbutzim and settlers arriving from Europe. (The Jewish population grew rapidly during that interval. At the end of the 19th century it represented 5%, reaching 29% in 1942.) The Zionists created several organizations such as – Haganah (the base of the army of the future state), Irgun, Lehi. The actions of these groups were no different from those of insurgent groups, labeled today as terrorists, such as those of the Palestinians or the Kurds. Their violence was directed at both the local Arab population and the British occupier.

In 1940, the Haganah bombed the ship Patria, which was carrying 1,800 Jews to Mauritius, another site considered for the establishment of a Jewish state. The attack left 267 dead. The Irgun gangs acted in the purest terrorist style, with the programmatic intention of producing a state of fear and demoralization. Their attacks included: grenades thrown at bus stops, bombs planted in markets and cinemas, derailed trains.

In 1946, the Haganah and Irgun approved the terrorist attack on the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, where British soldiers were staying. The attackers entered disguised as Arabs. The explosion killed 91 people, including 70 British officers and military personnel. In the same year, the Irgun planted a bomb in the British Embassy in Rome , resulting in only injuries.

The establishment of the state of Israel was followed by the Nakba – the mass exodus of the Palestinian population. Between 1947 and 1949, 700,000 Palestinians were forced from the occupied territories and 500 villages were destroyed. They formed numerous communities in the surrounding states (mainly Lebanon). They represented at that time 80% of the Arabs living in what would become Israel, which can be assimilated to a policy of ethnic cleansing.

The Palestinian diaspora has multiplied (through demographic growth and new waves of refugees), reaching 4-5 million refugees in the meantime . They are not allowed to return to the places where they were born, or where their parents were born, because it would demographically destabilize the situation in Israel, which presents itself as a democracy. Although for Palestinians the Nakba ("Catastrophe") is sentimentally equivalent to the Holocaust, in 2009 a law was passed in Israel that punishes the commemoration of that event with 3 years in prison.

Jewish racism
Another radical organization, Lehi, led by Avraham Stern in the same period before the establishment of the state, had an even racist ideology . Its propaganda materials referred to Jews as a "superior race" and Arabs as a "slave nation". The organization negotiated rapprochement with fascists in Italy, Nazi Germany and Vichy France, seeing the British and not Hitler as the main enemy. They were proposing alliance with the Axis Powers and sabotaging British interests in order to obtain a state in British-controlled territory. Moreover, between 1933 and 1939, the Nazi state and the Zionist leaders had a transfer agreement ( Haavara Agreement ) through which Jewish contingents moved to Palestine. Commemorative coins were also minted , which had a swastika on one side and the Star of David on the other.

Stern's gangs have carried out numerous bombings in the Middle East and Europe. The most important British ruler in the Middle East, Lord Moyne, and the UN mediator, Count Folke Bernadotte, were assassinated by Lehi.

It was by no means the only intolerant organization at the extremes of Zionism. In the 80s, Meir Kahane was expelled from the US for preparing terrorist attacks. Later, he would be convicted for an attack on the USSR representation at the UN, which resulted in wounded soldiers. The party he founded in Israel proposed three options for the Arab minority: forced expulsion, leaving with some compensation, or remaining as a population with limited rights. Kahanism is still alive and well in Israel, with some adherents acting to encourage ethnic separatism, such as disciplining girls who date Arabs.

Here is a source of confusion . We can say that Zionism, as Jewish nationalism, knew the whole spectrum, which European nationalisms also knew. That is, it had both decent forms of civility and its own extremism, if not fascism. Proportionately, the moderate forms were more popular and spread over time, as was the case with European patriotisms.

All identities are complicated and up for debate these days. But the Jewish one is further complicated by the ambiguity of whether it refers to a religious affiliation open to conversion, an ethnicity, or even a race. The Jews themselves are not unanimous on this last point, whether they should consider themselves to belong to the white (Caucasian) race, to the Semitic family (in which the Arabs are the most numerous), or to a separate group.

DNA testing has also been discussed in government as a way to screen applicants for Israeli citizenship. A legal office clarifies that for now this test is not considered evidence under the "Law of Return", but that the test itself can prove belonging to the Jewish people, even if you have priestly descent (line of Levi or Cohen). The law grants citizenship to those who can prove two Jewish generations back and that they have not converted to other religions, such as Christianity. However, the Rabbinical Council has in the past requested such genetic evidence of Jewishness. Two years ago, the Supreme Court of the State of Israel issued a ruling rejecting a challenge to this method. In other words, he considered it legal and normal to resort to genetic tests to prove belonging to the Israeli nation. The policy is very far from that of "open borders" promoted by progressives in European countries, where it would be considered discrimination.

Even black Jews have faced the phenomenon of intolerance from a radical part of Israeli politicians. The Jerusalem Post reports the case of the deportation of black Jews , who arrived from America in the 60s. They consider themselves descendants of the "lost tribes" and during the six decades of their stay in Israel they also worked for the state army. However, it was deemed that they could not convincingly prove their ethnicity.

a mystical movement
The other component of Jewish identity is purely spiritual. The name itself comes from Mount Zion, a hill in Jerusalem , the city of David and Solomon. Thus are the many references in the Old Testament to the people as "the daughter of Zion" and to Zion as the sacred place where there was the Temple in which God dwelt. In the purest ancient style, Zion is the equivalent of Olympus, for then the deities were of one place.

Christianity fulfilled the visions of the prophets in a spiritual way. Explicitly, the Apostle Paul, former rabbi and persecutor of the first Christians, emphasizes the doctrine according to which Christians are the religious successors of the faith of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob:

"That is: The children of the flesh are not the children of God, but the children of the promise are considered descendants." (Epistle to the Romans chapter 9, vs
"As He also says in Hosea: "I will call My people who are not My people, and beloved she who was not loved;" (vs. 25)

So, when we hear during the liturgy:

"Do good, Lord, according to your good will, Zion, and let the walls of Jerusalem be built." (Psalm 50, vs. 19)

the Orthodox believer does not refer to physical Jerusalem and political Zionism. But it refers to the " heavenly Jerusalem ", to the Zion of the Kingdom of Heaven, invoked in the Book of Revelation (chap. 14), where Christ, symbolized by the Lamb of the Eucharistic sacrifice, will stand with the saved. Christians consider themselves "the people of Israel" in the mystical sense, they do not wait for another Savior, nor for the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem. We consider every church as the "house of the Lord" and the altars as the place where the bloodless sacrifice of the breaking of the bread and the pouring of the wine is performed.

In a similar way, the followers of the Jewish religion also saw the return to the Middle East as a religious act. The Jewish Passover prayer (the commemoration of the Exodus) ends with the greeting: "next year in Jerusalem" . Which had become a greeting formula of hope. A Jew's move to Israel is called " aliyah " ("climbing", "ascension") and evokes the same idea of ​​a spiritual ascent on the hill of Zion and in life. In the official biographies of some personalities, it is carefully noted: "he made aliyah in such and such a year".

During the period of over a millennium and a half of the Diaspora, a symbolic theology of the sacred place represented by the synagogue, similar to that of Christianity, had also developed in Judaism. And a mystical explanation for the exile as a trial that could be remedied towards the end of history. That is why some religious Jews were opposed to the establishment of a secular state. Even today there are (marginal) communities of Orthodox Jews who are anti-Zionist. How is the Nature Karta community , which participates in protest rallies in favor of the Palestinians and calls for the abolition of the state of Israel.

Most Zionist activists were atheists. In the eyes of the religious Jews, their project was not very different from the communist one, to establish a worldly kingdom, according to human laws. 20% of Jews in Israel declare themselves atheists and the same percentage are very practicing (Orthodox). This led to the famous ironic phrase according to which many Zionists today agree with the statement: "God does not exist, but he left us this land, because it is written in the Book."

Christian Zionism
Some progressive commentators today, like Shlomo Sand, believe that Zionism is an ideology set in motion by Puritan, Protestant Christian religiosity. That this kind of biblical reading impressed the energy of the 20th century. Incidentally, this is another meaning of the complicated word "Zionist": that of non-Jewish sympathizer of the Jewish patriotic or mystical cause. And from this perspective, we can say that there are more Christian Zionists than Jewish Zionists , given the current adherence of evangelical cults.

After Scofield published his own translation of the Bible in 1909, a new heresy arose in the Protestant world. It is called dispensationalism and is a variation on the Gnostic idea of ​​the emanation of aeons or ages. There would be 7 dispensations from Adam to the end of the ages. After the Resurrection, we would be in the penultimate interval, which will be followed by the rapture of believers and then a thousand-year reign of Christ.

American evangelical cults see the state of Israel as a key character of the end times. Before the return of the Savior, the Jews would convert en masse to Christianity. The Kingdom of Heaven, in the vision of the repentant according to the Gospel, would be a worldly kingdom, therefore the religious state of Israel would be a foreshadowing of that kingdom. Hence the affinity for Zionism of the American neo-Protestant movement.

the other in the Talmud
Having an old tradition, from tribal prehistory, the Hebrew language preserved an archaic notion, that of goy (plural goyyim) , which refers to non-Jews. In Gypsy there is the equivalent notion of "gadjo" (gagiu) for foreigner. In Bible translations, the word appears as "Gentiles." Including in the Gospels, the pejorative connotation with which this word was loaded, even towards the Samaritans - who were technically also Jews, but separated by some small differences regarding the ceremonial, is revealed.

Quoting from the Talmud presents problems. Unlike Bible quotations, where anyone can quote any verse, readily available online, it is insisted that the scriptures of the Jewish religion have a different complexity. And that phrases should not be taken out of context. (Which is difficult to judge, given the massiveness of the text, of tens of volumes.) An often emphasized characteristic is that the Talmud has the organization of a debate - it includes various opinions, interpretations and comments on previous texts, which do not necessarily represent the normative opinion. It is true that there are numerous exhortations to fair treatment of the goyim, good deeds, exhortations to acts of charity, and exhortations to non-Jews, the sort of stories you would expect to find in any foundational text of a religion.

But there are also places where there is discrimination against those of a different nationality, prejudices that can be taken as justification by some extremist followers of Zionism. For example, in the discussion about capital punishment, it is written:

"As for the shedding of blood, if a non-Jew (in English "gentile") kills another non-Jew, or a non-Jew kills a Jew, he is liable (to capital punishment). If a Jew kills a non-Jew, he is exempt." ( Sanhedrin 57a )

Texts in a circulation language are only partially accessible and have undergone further refinement and clarification. For example, the Jewish Encyclopedia gives the following translation for a famous quote: ""Ṭob shebe-goyyim harog" ("The best of the Gentiles is worth killing."). But if we check the passage in an online edition of the Talmud, we find the following text:

"Rabbi Simeon ben Yohai teaches: Kill the best of the pagans in time of war. Crush the brains of the best of snakes. The most valuable women delight in witchcraft. Happy is he who does the will of the Omnipresent." (Talmud, Soferim 15:10 )

The note, which accompanies the quotation, states that the fragment "in time of war" is considered by exegetes as a later addition, to soften the harshness of the passage; that it was written in a period of bitter persecution, and is not to be confused with typical Jewish ethics.

Involved in religious polemics, the rabbis used several expressions to designate non-believers as idolaters, pagans, or star readers. The study of the Old Testament was jealously guarded. Searching the Scriptures is like robbery.

"And Rabbi Yohanan says: A non-Jew who studies the Torah is liable to the death penalty; for it is written, "Moses gave us the Law (Torah), an inheritance of the congregation of Jacob" (Deuteronomy 33:4) indicating that it is an inheritance for us, not for them. ( Sanhedrin, 59a )

On the margin of a verse about Moses in the Old Testament, a rabbi quoted in the Talmud extracts an entire doctrine of Jewish superiority in relation to other nations.

"Rabbi Hanina says: A non-Jew who strikes a Jew (eng. Jew) is liable to the death penalty, because it is written when Moses saw an Egyptian striking a Jew (eng. Hebrew): "And he went to and fro and when he saw that there was no one around, he struck the Egyptian and hid him in the sand" (Exodus 2:12)
And Rabbi Hanina says: He who strikes a Jew on the cheek is considered as if he struck the cheek of the Presence Divine; for it is said: "it is a race for a man to say Holy in haste" ( Proverbs of Solomon 20:25 ) The verse is homiletically interpreted to mean: He who strikes a Jew is considered as if he struck the face of the Holy One." ( Sanhedrin 58b 18 )

In a debate over whether staying in a cemetery defiles, another rabbi makes the following distinction:

"Rabbi Shimon ben Yohai says that the graves of non-Jews do not defile, since it is written: 'And you, my flock, are human'" (Ezekiel 34:31), which teaches that you, the Jewish people, are called human, but non- Jews are not called 'man'" ( Bava Metzia 114b 2 )

The Old Testament verse invoked sounds like this in the Romanian Christian translation:

"27. The tree of the field shall yield its fruit, and the earth shall yield its fruit, and my sheep shall be safe in their land, and shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall break the chains of their yoke and deliver them from the hands of those who have them. enslaved
28. They will no longer be a prey to the peoples and the beasts of the field will no longer tear them apart; they will live in safety and no one will disturb them.
29. I will make a famous planting there, and they will no longer perish from hunger on earth, nor will they suffer reproach from the peoples.
30. And they will know that I, the Lord their God, am with them, and they, the house of Israel, are My people, says the Lord God.
31. And you, My sheep, are the flock I feed, and I am your God, says the Lord God. ( Ezekiel, chapter 34 )

The Christian must try to imitate God's love, which is revealed in the above verse. And whatever is written in the Talmud, do not lose sight of the fact that the divine plan includes all humanity, even more so the "lost sheep of Israel". For God wants all men to return and be alive. (cf. Eze 33 )

a right-wing political movement
I confess that the impetus to write this article, on such a delicate and risky subject, was given to me by the opinions of some people close to the AUR party, who spoke of its attempt to get closer to the Likud party in Israel. They argued that the approach is natural, since "Zionism is a right-wing ideology" . It's an assertion, which I've heard before coming from conservative circles of intellectuals and politicians. The thesis is the following: the ideological enemy of the conservative right is (neo)Marxism or socialism; and therefore Zionism, like any nationalism, is conservative.

Historically, the appreciation is both true and false. Again, it depends on what we mean by "Zionism". The father of Zionism is considered to be Theodor Herzl , the one who led Yiddish speakers to learn Hebrew - a cult language, with no current users in the 19th century, like Latin. He was the one who published "Der Judenstaat" (The State of the Jews) in 1896 and the first president of the Basel Zionist Congress, held the following year.

But before him there was Moses Hess , who was both an ideologue of the Zionist movement and the first communist in Germany. He was the one who introduced Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx to the socialist issue. He had written in 1862 (three decades before Herzl) the book " Rome and Jerusalem ", in which he talked about the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. Herzl read the work belatedly and said he would not have written his own had he known of its existence. Therefore, it is more correct to consider Hess "the father of Zionism".

Before World War II, Zionism was a radical movement and unpopular with the establishment of the Jewish world. He was to the left of religious affiliation, the leadership of the community through the rabbis. In addition, the popularity of communist and socialist ideas among Jews was huge. So it was anticipated that the future state would also be a social one. As mentioned above, even those pre-state armed organizations defended some kibbutzim, collectively owned farms, from which communist cooperatives were inspired.

Certainly, in the meantime, the entire planet has reached more left-wing, more liberal systems. By comparison, the Israeli political scene is to the right of the political spectrum in the European Union. But I don't think there is any question in the EU of trying "right-wing" solutions that include granting citizenship based on ethnic criteria and with a priest's approval.

globalist messianism
States have borders, but religions do not. Like Christianity, Judaism has an eschatological (end times) vision and a plan for all humanity. But as with any theological issue, opinions vary. One interpretation claims that the Jewish people have the covenant with God, and the rest of the Gentiles would follow a simplified form of the Law, the 7 precepts of Noah . Hence the rainbow symbol for Noahism. They are commandments, apparently simple, but involving several things, deduced by the rabbis and later associated with the myth of the flood. Among them: prohibitions for murder, theft, debauchery, blasphemy, idolatry. It's just that from a rabbinical perspective the dogma of the Holy Trinity still falls under idolatry.

Israel's chief rabbi stated years ago that only foreigners who obey Noah's laws should be allowed to stay in Israel. But the project is not limited to the Promised Land. Within the United Nations, conferences were held to promote Noah's Code, under the aegis of "One people, one planet" .

Another approach is more drastic, and starts from the biblical episode of the blessing of the sons of Isaac (Abraham). Esau (or Esau) was Isaac's firstborn, therefore entitled to the blessing. But Jacob convinces him to cede his right to a proverbial bowl of lentils and shows up in disguise at his father's deathbed. Jacob will become Israel after the fight with the angel, and Esau will become, by uniting with the Canaanites, the leader of Edom. In the Old Testament and later in the Talmud was developed the idea of ​​an unquenchable rivalry between Israel and Edom, identified by occultists with various peoples.

"I will execute My vengeance against Edom by the hand of My people Israel; he will work in Edom according to My anger and according to My wrath, and the Edomites will know what My vengeance is," says the Lord God." ( Ezekiel, chapter 25, vs 14 )

Another mythological rival for the people descended from the patriarch Jacob are the Amalekites. Unlike other peoples in the region, with whom the Israelites were at war, the tribe of Amalek was guilty of unmotivated hatred. They attack out of the blue the people led by Moses in Egypt and establish themselves as the enemy par excellence. Deuteronomy makes it a religious duty to remember the wickedness of Amalek and to cut off his descendants. As with Edom, some rabbinical mystics have ventured to speculate modern "reincarnations" of Amalek. For example, a shortened form of the verse is inscribed on the Holocaust memorial building in The Hague (Netherlands): "Remember what Amalek did to you."

"17. Remember how Amalek dealt with you on the way, when you came out of Egypt,
18. And how he met you in the way and killed all the weak after you, when you were weary and weary, not fearing by God.
19. Therefore, when the Lord your God will pacify you from all your enemies, from all sides, in the land that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance to possess, erase the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Don't forget this." ( Deuteronomy ch. 25 )

We will not go into the intricacies of Christian or Jewish eschatology, which includes many other prophecies such as those regarding the battle of Armageddon and the invasion of other mysterious kingdoms such as Gog and Magog. However, we retain the combative aspect and the idea of ​​a heavenly mission entrusted to a people. I have no idea how many of the Jews know these aspects, how many take them seriously, under the conditions of secularization. But there are also some mystics (perhaps few, perhaps marginal), who give this religious dimension to Zionism, understood as a messianic destiny for the whole world.

And it's not always about eccentric characters. For example, Maimonides, considered the most important after Moses, describes in the Mishna Torah (commentary on the Law) the status that the other peoples would have after the rebuilding of the Temple and the establishment of an earthly kingdom. Which we can call Pax Judaica.

"If they make peace and accept the Seven Commandments binding on the Sons of Noah (non-Jews), none of them is killed, but they must pay tribute to us, as it is written: "and they shall be your tributaries and serve you" ( Deut. 20:11). If they propose to accept tribute but not service to us, or accept service but not tribute, we ignore their proposal until they accept both. The service mentioned here is one of shame and humiliation. Let him not lift up his head to Israel for any reason. They must be subject to us and never be given positions above us. The tribute they must pay will be service to the king with their bodies and money, such as building the walls of Jerusalem and strengthening the fortresses, building royal palaces and the like." ( Mishneh Torah, 6:1 , Maimonides)

In a passage, this time from the Talmud, the relationship between the Sabbath law and the place of the Gentiles in the Messianic kingdom is explained:

"Only Elijah will not come on the Sabbath evening, but the Messiah himself may come, for once the Messiah comes, all the nations will be subject to the Jewish people and help them prepare everything necessary for the Sabbath." ( Eruvin 43b )

In 2010, the Chief Rabbi of the Sephardic community in Israel, Ovadia Yosef, caused a stir with a statement about non-Jews, picked up as a headline by the Jerusalem Post :

"The Goyim were born only to serve us. Without that, they have no place in the world – only to serve the People of Israel," he said in his weekly Saturday night sermon about the laws regarding what non-Jews are allowed to do on the Sabbath. According to Yosef, the lives of non-Jews in Israel are guarded by divinity to prevent loss to Jews.

"In Israel, death has no power over them... With other nations they would be like any other person - they must die but (God) gives them long life. Why? Imagine if someone's donkey dies, they would lose money."

Or this 2018 article from the progressive newspaper Haaretz, titled " One Jewish Life is Worth More than 10,000 Non-Jews " – which critically reports the ultra-nationalist perspective meted out to tour guides in Israel for young people from the diaspora.

These are, without question, out-of-print and non-representative examples. Even the noblest patriotic or religious sentiments can be abused by extremists or well-meaning but exalted persons. In the history of many countries there have been murderous patriots and religious fanatics. It is a similar relationship as between Islamic fundamentalism and the mass of Muslim believers. Only a statistically negligible number interpret "holy war" as a motivation for terrorism. Without generalizing or labeling, it is necessary to know passages from the Koran, Talmud or any other texts, to understand a phenomenon, even when (or especially) it is misinterpreted.

demystification and globalization
At the other pole of reporting on Jewish identity and Zionism are the progressives, followers of the theory of constructed identity. They would be the equivalent of some Lucian Boia, from us. For example, Shlomo Sand , professor emeritus at Tel Aviv University and author of demystifying books: "The Invention of the Jewish People" or "The Invention of the Land of Israel" .

Shlomo Sand argues that there is no continuity between the modern nation of Israel and the peoples of ancient and medieval sacred history. He argues that there is no historical evidence even for the Babylonian exodus and the expulsion from the Roman period. According to him the Jews did not want to return and there was no tradition of return until the emergence of Zionism at the end of the 19th century; that Zionism was not popular until World War II. In his opinion, Jerusalem represented a symbolic place, but the Jews did not want to live in it, just as the Muslims did not desire to live in Mecca. And speaking of Muslims, he believes that most of the biblical Jews converted to Islam, continuing to exist as Arabs.

Shlomo Sand is a human rights activist for the Palestinians and believes that the Zionist project has failed because the resulting state is not demographically viable. Israel has a choice between giving up territories with large Palestinian populations or giving up democracy altogether. However, Sand does not advocate for a single state, but for two separate states, united in a confederation, precisely for the explicit reason that he does not want the Jews to be a minority.

Also from the area of ​​the progressive left comes Gilad Atzmon, jazz artist and civic activist. He is the author of "The wandering Who" (a pun on "wandering Jew"). Atzmon is also convinced that the Zionist project failed, because the majority of Jews around the globe refused to move to the new state . And because a realistic solution for living with the Palestinians can no longer be found. Because of this, he argues that the project has shifted in favor of a global construction, in tune with the times, for a post-national stage.

"We are witnessing a clear shift in Zionist discourse from the 'promised land' to the 'promised planet,'" says Gilad Atzmon.