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By Ramzy Baroud
Whereas it’s true that Zionism is a contemporary political ideology that has exploited faith to realize particular colonial goals in Palestine, prophecies proceed to be a essential part of Israel’s notion of itself, and of the state’s relationship to different teams, particularly Christian messianic teams in america and worldwide.
The topic of non secular prophecies and their centrality to Israel’s political thought was as soon as extra highlighted following remarks by former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, in a latest interview with the Hebrew-language newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth. Barak, perceived to be a ‘progressive’ politician, who was as soon as the chief of Israel’s Labor Social gathering, expressed fears that Israel will “disintegrate” earlier than the eightieth anniversary of its 1948 institution.
“All through the Jewish historical past, the Jews didn’t rule for greater than eighty years, besides within the two kingdoms of David and the Hasmonean dynasty and, in each intervals, their disintegration started within the eighth decade,” Barak stated.
Primarily based on pseudo-historical evaluation, Barak’s prophecy appeared to conflate historic information with typical messianic Israeli considering, harking back to statements made by Israel’s former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 2017.
Like Barak, Netanyahu’s feedback have been expressed within the type of concern over the way forward for Israel, and the looming ‘existential menace’, the cornerstone of Israeli hasbara all through the years. At a Bible research session in his home in Jerusalem, Netanyahu had then warned that the Hasmonean kingdom – also referred to as the Maccabees – had merely survived for 80 years earlier than it was conquered by the Romans in 63 B.C.E.
The “Hasmonean state lasted solely 80 years, and we wanted to exceed this,” Netanyahu was quoted by one of many attendees as saying, the Israeli Haaretz newspaper reported.
However, even in accordance with Netanyahu’s purported willpower to exceed that quantity, he had reportedly vowed to make sure Israel will surpass the Maccabees’ 80 years, and survive for 100 years. That’s merely 20 years extra.
The distinction between Barak and Netanyahu’s statements is sort of negligible: the previous’s views are supposedly ‘historic’ and the latter’s are biblical. Price noting, nonetheless, is that each leaders, although they subscribe to 2 completely different political colleges, have converged on comparable assembly factors: Israel’s survival is at stake; the existential menace is actual and the tip of Israel is barely a matter of time.
However the pessimism in Israel is hardly confined to political leaders, who’re recognized to magnify and manipulate information to instill concern and rile up their political camps, particularly Israel’s highly effective messianic constituencies. Though that is true, predictions concerning Israel’s grim future will not be confined to the nation’s political elites.
In an interview with Haaretz in 2019, one in every of Israel’s most revered mainstream historians, Benny Morris, had a lot to say about the way forward for his nation. In contrast to Barak and Netanyahu, Morris was not sending warning alerts however stating what, to him, appeared an unavoidable consequence of the nation’s political and demographic evolution.
“I don’t see how we get out of it,” Morris stated, including: “Already, right now there are extra Arabs than Jews between the (Mediterranean) Sea and the Jordan (River). The entire territory is unavoidably turning into one state with an Arab majority. Israel nonetheless calls itself a Jewish state, however a state of affairs wherein we rule an occupied folks that has no rights can not persist within the twenty first century.”
Morris’ predictions, whereas remaining dedicated to the racial fantasy of a Jewish majority, have been way more articulate and likewise lifelike if in comparison with these of Barak, Netanyahu and others. The person who as soon as regretted that Israel’s founder, David Ben Gurion, didn’t expel all of Palestine’s native inhabitants in 1947-48, spoke with resignation that, in a matter of a era, Israel will stop to exist in its present type.
Significantly notable about his feedback is the correct notion that “the Palestinians have a look at every little thing from a broad, long-term perspective,” and that the Palestinians will proceed to “demand the return of the refugees.” However who have been the “Palestinians” Morris was referring to? Actually not the Palestinian Authority, whose leaders have already marginalized the Proper of Return for Palestinian refugees, and most definitely haven’t any “broad, long-term perspective”. Morris’ ‘Palestinians’ are, in fact, the Palestinian folks themselves, generations of whom have served, and proceed to serve, because the vanguards of Palestinian rights regardless of all the setbacks, defeats and political ‘compromises’.
Really, prophecies concerning Palestine and Israel will not be a brand new phenomenon. Palestine was colonized by Zionists with the assistance of Britain, additionally primarily based on biblical frames of reference. It was populated by Zionist settlers primarily based on biblical references devoted to the restoration of historical kingdoms and the ‘return’ of historical peoples to their supposedly rightful ‘promised land’. Although Israel took on many alternative meanings all through the years – perceived to be a ‘socialist’ utopia at occasions, a liberal, democratic haven at others – it was at all times preoccupied with non secular meanings, non secular visions and inundated with prophecies. Essentially the most sinister expression of this fact is the truth that the present help of Israel by hundreds of thousands of Christian fundamentalists within the West is essentially pushed by messianic, end-of-the-world prophecies.
The most recent predictions about Israel’s unsure future are primarily based on a special logic. Since Israel has at all times outlined itself as a Jewish State, its future is usually linked to its means to take care of a Jewish majority in historic Palestine. By the admission of Morris and others, this pipedream is now crumbling because the ‘demographic warfare’ is clearly and rapidly being misplaced.
In fact, co-existence in a single democratic state will at all times be a chance. Alas, for Israel’s Zionist ideologues, such a state will hardly meet the minimal expectations of the nation’s founders, since it might not exist within the type of a Jewish, Zionist state. For co-existence to happen, the Zionist ideology must be scrapped altogether.
Barak, Netanyahu and Morris are all proper: Israel won’t exist as a ‘Jewish state’ for for much longer. Talking strictly by way of demographics, Israel is not a Jewish-majority state. Historical past has taught us that Muslims, Christians and Jews can peacefully coexist and collectively thrive, as they’ve performed all through the Center East and the Iberian Peninsula for millennia. Certainly, it is a prediction, even a prophecy, that’s value striving for.
– Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He’s the creator of six books. His newest e book, co-edited with Ilan Pappé, is “Our Imaginative and prescient for Liberation: Engaged Palestinian Leaders and Intellectuals Converse out”. Dr. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Analysis Fellow on the Heart for Islam and World Affairs (CIGA). His web site is www.ramzybaroud.internet
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