The Weight of Three Thousand Years
By Professor Israel Shahak
Contents:
- A Closed Utopia?
- Prejudice and
Prevarication
- Orthodoxy and
Interpretation
- The Weight of History
- The Laws against
Non-Jews
- Political Consequences
The whole book as one
HTML-document
Foreword:
Sometime in the late 1950s, that world-class gossip and occasional
historian, John F. Kennedy, told me how, in 1948, Harry S. Truman had
been pretty much abandoned by everyone when he came to run for
president. Then an American Zionist brought him two million dollars
in cash, in a suitcase, aboard his whistle-stop campaign train.
'That's why our recognition of Israel was rushed through so fast.' As
neither Jack nor I was an antisemite (unlike his father and my
grandfather) we took this to be just another funny story about Truman
and the serene corruption of American politics.
Unfortunately, the hurried recognition of Israel as a state has
resulted in forty-five years of murderous confusion, and the
destruction of what Zionist fellow travellers thought would be a
pluralistic state - home to its native population of Muslims,
Christians and Jews, as well as a future home to peaceful European
and American Jewish immigrants, even the ones who affected to believe
that the great realtor in the sky had given them, in perpetuity, the
lands of Judea and Sameria. Since many of the immigrants were good
socialists in Europe, we assumed that they would not allow the new
state to become a theocracy, and that the native Palestinians could
live with them as equals. This was not meant to be. I shall not
rehearse the wars and alarms of that unhappy region. But I will say
that the hasty invention of Israel has poisoned the political and
intellectual life of the USA, Israel's unlikely patron.
Unlikely, because no other minority in American history has ever
hijacked so much money from the American taxpayers in order to invest
in a 'homeland'. It is as if the American taxpayer had been obliged
to support the Pope in his reconquest of the Papal States simply
because one third of our people are Roman Catholic. Had this been
attempted, there would have been a great uproar and Congress would
have said no. But a religious minority of less than two per cent has
bought or intimidated seventy senators (the necessary two thirds to
overcome an unlikely presidential veto) while enjoying support of the
media.
In a sense, I rather admire the way that the Israel lobby has gone
about its business of seeing that billions of dollars, year after
year, go to make Israel a 'bulwark against communism'. Actually,
neither the USSR nor communism was ever much of a presence in the
region. What America did manage to do was to turn the once friendly
Arab world against us. Meanwhile, the misinformation about what is
going on in the Middle East has got even greater and the principal
victim of these gaudy lies - the American taxpayer to one side - is
American Jewry, as it is constantly bullied by such professional
terrorists as Begin and Shamir. Worse, with a few honorable
exceptions, Jewish-American intellectuals abandoned liberalism for a
series of demented alliances with the Christian (antisemtic) right
and with the Pentagon-industrial complex. In 1985 one of them
blithely wrote that when Jews arrived on the American scene they
'found liberal opinion and liberal politicians more congenial in
their attitudes, more sensitive to Jewish concerns' but now it is in
the Jewish interest to ally with the Protestant fundamentalists
because, after all, "is there any point in Jews hanging on
dogmatically, hypocritically, to their opinions of yesteryear?' At
this point the American left split and those of us who criticised our
onetime Jewish allies for misguided opportunism, were promptly
rewarded with the ritual epithet 'antisemite' or 'self-hating
Jew'.
Fortunately, the voice of reason is alive and well, and in Israel, of
all places. From Jerusalem, Israel Shahak never ceases to analyse not
only the dismal politics of Israel today but the Talmud itself, and
the effect of the entire rabbinical tradition on a small state that
the right-wing rabbinate means to turn into a theocracy for Jews
only. I have been reading Shahak for years. He has a satirist's eye
for the confusions to be found in any religion that tries to
rationalise the irrational. He has a scholar's sharp eye for textual
contradictions. He is a joy to read on the great Gentile-hating Dr
Maimonides.
Needless to say, Israel's authorities deplore Shahak. But there is
not much to be done with a retired professor of chemistry who was
born in Warsaw in 1933 and spent his childhood in the concentration
camp at Belsen. In 1945, he came to Israel; served in the Israeli
military; did not become a Marxist in the years when it was
fashionable. He was - and still is - a humanist who detests
imperialism whether in the names of the God of Abraham or of George
Bush. Equally, he opposes with great wit and learning the
totalitarian strain in Judaism. Like a highly learned Thomas Paine,
Shahank illustrates the prospect before us, as well as the long
history behind us, and thus he continues to reason, year after year.
Those who heed him will certainly be wiser and - dare I say? -
better. He is the latest, if not the last, of the great prophets.
- Gore Vidal
A Closed Utopia?
THIS BOOK, although written
in English and addressed to people living outside the State of
Israel, is, in a way, a continuation of my political activities as an
Israeli Jew. Those activities began in 1965-6 with a protest which
caused a considerable scandal at the time: I had personally witnessed
an ultra-religious Jew refuse to allow his phone to be used on the
Sabbath in order to call an ambulance for a non-Jew who happened to
have collapsed in his Jerusalem neighbourhood. Instead of simply
publishing the incident in the press, I asked for a meeting which is
composed of rabbis nominated by the State of Israel. I asked them
whether such behavior was consistent with their interpretation of the
Jewish religion. They answered that the Jew in question had behaved
correctly, indeed piously, and backed their statement by referring me
to a passage in an authoritative compendium of Talmudic laws, written
in this century. I reported the incident to the main Hebrew daily,
Ha'aretz, whose publication of the story caused a media scandal.
The results of the scandal were, for me, rather negative. Neither the
Israeli, nor the diaspora, rabbinical authorities ever reversed their
ruling that a Jew should not violate the Sabbath in order to save the
life of a Gentile. They added much sanctimonious twaddle to the
effect that if the consequence of such an act puts Jews in danger,
the violation of the Sabbath is permitted, for their sake. It became
apparent to me, as drawing on Talmudic laws governing the relations
between Jews and non-Jews, that neither Zionism, including its
seemingly secular part, nor Israeli politics since the inception of
the State of Israel, nor particularly the policies of the Jewish
supporters of Israel in the diaspora, could be understood unless the
deeper influence of those laws, and the worldview which they both
create and express is taken into account. The actual policies Israel
pursued after the Six Day War, and in particular the apartheid
character of the Israeli regime in the Occupied Territories and the
attitude of the majority of Jews to the issue of the rights of the
Palestinians, even in the abstract, have merely strengthened this
conviction.
By making this statement I am not trying to ignore the political or
strategic considerations which may have also influenced the rulers of
Israel. I am merely saying that actual politics is an interaction
between realistic considerations (whether valid or mistaken, moral or
immoral in my view) and ideological influences. The latter tend to be
more influential the less they are discussed and 'dragged into the
light'. Any form of racism, discrimination and xenophobia becomes
more potent and politically influential if it is taken for granted by
the society which indulges in it. This is especially so if its
discussion is prohibited, either formally or by tacit agreement. When
racism, discrimination and xenophobia is prevalent among Jews, and
directed against non-Jews, being fueled by religious motivations, it
is like its opposite case, that of antisemitism and its religious
motivations. Today, however, while the second is being discussed, the
very existence of the first is generally ignored, more outside Israel
than within it.
Without a discussion of the prevalent Jewish attitudes to non-Jews,
even the concept of Israel as 'a Jewish state', as Israel formally
defines itself, cannot be understood. The widespread misconception
that Israel, even without considering its regime in the Occupied
Territories, is a true democracy arises from the refusal to confront
the significance of the term 'a Jewish state' for non-Jews. In my
view, Israel as a Jewish state constitutes a danger not only to
itself and its inhabitants, but to all Jews and to all other peoples
and states in the Middle East and beyond. I also consider that other
Middle Eastern states or entities which define themselves as 'Arab'
or 'Muslim', like the Israeli self-definition as being 'Jewish',
likewise constitute a danger. However, while this danger is widely
discussed, the danger inherent in the Jewish character of the State
of Israel is not.
The principle of Israel as 'a Jewish state' was supremely important
to Israeli politicians from the inception of the state and was
inculcated into the Jewish population by all conceivable ways. When,
in the early 1980s, a tiny minority of Israeli Jews emerged which
opposed this concept, a Constitutional Law (that is, a law overriding
provisions of other laws, which cannot be revoked except by a special
procedure) was passed in 1985 by an enormous majority of the
Knesset.
By this law no party whose programme openly opposes the principle of
'a Jewish state' or proposes to change it by democratic means, is
allowed to participate in the elections to the Knesset. I myself
strongly oppose this constitutional principle. The legal consequence
for me is that I cannot belong, in the state of which I am a citizen,
to a party having principles with which I would agree and which is
allowed to participate in Knesset elections. Even this example shows
that the State of Israel is not a democracy due to the application of
a Jewish ideology directed against all non-Jews and those Jews who
oppose this ideology. But the danger which this dominant ideology
represents is not limited to domestic affairs. It also influences
Israeli foreign policies. This danger will continue to grow, as long
as two currently operating developments are being strengthened: the
increase in the Jewish character of Israel and the increase in its
power, particularly in nuclear power. Another ominous factor is that
Israeli influence in the USA political establishment is also
increasing. Hence accurate information about Judaism, and especially
about the treatment of non-Jews by Israel, is now not only important,
but politically vital as well.
Let me begin with the official Israeli definition of the term
'Jewish', illustrating the crucial difference between Israel as 'a
Jewish state' and the majority of other states. By this official
definition, Israel 'belongs' to persons who are defined by the
Israeli authorities as 'Jewish', irrespective of where they live, and
to them alone. On the other hand, Israel doesn't officially 'belong'
to its non-Jewish citizens, whose status is considered even
officially as inferior. This means in practice that if members of a
Peruvian tribe are converted to Judaism, and thus regarded as Jewish,
they are entitled at once to become Israeli citizens and benefit from
the approximately 70 per cent of the West Bank land (and the 92 per
cent of the area of Israel proper), officially designated only for
the benefit of Jews. All non-Jews ( not only all Palestinians) are
prohibited from benefiting from those lands. (The prohibition applies
even to Israeli Arabs who served in the Israeli army and reached a
high rank.) The case involving Peruvian converts to Judaism actually
occurred a few years ago. The newly-created Jews were settled in the
West Bank, near Nablus, on land from which non-Jews are officially
excluded. All Israeli governments are taking enormous political
risks, including the risk of war, so that such settlements, composed
exclusively of persons who are defined as 'Jewish' (and not 'Israeli'
as most of the media mendaciously claims) would be subject to only
'Jewish' authority.
I suspect that the Jews of the USA or of Britian would regard it as
antisemitic if Christians would propose that the USA or the United
Kingdom should become a 'Christian state', belonging only to citizens
officially defined as 'Christians'. The consequence of such doctrine
is that Jews converting to Christianity would become full citizens
because of their conversion. It should be recalled that the benefits
of conversions are well known to Jews from their own history. When
the Christian and the Islamic states used to discriminate against all
persons not belonging to the religion of the state, including the
Jews, the discrimination against Jews was at once removed by their
conversion. But a non-Jew discriminated against by the State of
Israel will cease to be so treated the moment he or she converts to
Judaism.This simply shows that the same kind of exclusivity that is
regarded by a majority of the diaspora Jews as antisemitic is
regarded by the majority of all Jews as Jewish. To oppose both
antisemitism and Jewish chauvinism is widely regarded among Jews as a
'self-hatred', a concept which I regard as nonsensical.
The meaning of the term 'Jewish' and its cognates, including
'Judaism', thus becomes in the context of Israeli politics as
important as the meaning of 'Islamic', when officially used by Iran,
or 'communist' when it was officially used by the USSR. However, the
meaning of the term 'Jewish' as it is popularly used is not clear,
either in Hebrew or when translated into other languages, and so the
term had to be defined officially.
According to Israeli law a person is considered 'Jewish' if either
their mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and
great-great-grandmother were Jewesses by religion; or if the person
was converted to Judaism in a way satisfactory to the Israeli
authorities, and on condition that the person has not converted from
Judaism to another religion, in which case Israel ceases to regard
them as 'Jewish'. Of the three conditions, the first represents the
Talmudic definition of 'who is a Jew', a defintion followed by Jewish
Orthodoxy. The Talmud and post-Talmudic rabbinic law also recognise
the conversion of a non-Jew to Judaism (as well as the purchase of a
non-Jewish slave by a Jew followed by a different kind of conversion)
as a method of becoming Jewish, provided that the conversion is
performed by authorised rabbis in a proper manner. This 'proper
manner' entails for females, their inspection by three rabbis while
naked in a 'bath of purification', a ritual which, although notorious
to all readers of the Hebrew press, is not often mentioned by the
English media in spite of its undoubted interest for certain readers.
I hope that this book will be the beginning of a process which will
rectify this discrepancy.
But there is another urgent necessity for an official definitionof
who is, and who is not 'Jewish'. The State of Israel officially
discriminates in favour of Jews and against non-Jews in many domains
of life, of which I regard three as being most important: residency
rights, the right to work and the right to equality before the law.
Discrimination in residency is based on the fact that about 92 per
cent of Israel's land is the property of the state and is
administered by the Israel Land Authority according to regulations
issued by the Jewish National Fund (JNF), and affiliate of the World
Zionist Organization. In its regualtions the JNFdenies the right to
reside, to open a business, and often to work, to anyone who is not
Jewish, only because he is not Jewish. At the same time, Jews are not
prohibited from taking residence or opening businesses anywhere in
Israel. If applied in another state against the Jews, such
discriminatory practice would instantly and justifiably be labelled
antisemitism and would no doubt spark massive public protests. When
applied by Israel as a part of its 'Jewish ideology', they are
usually studiously ignored or excused when rarely mentioned.
The denial of the right to work means that non-Jews are prohibited
officially from working on land administered by the Israel Land
Authority according to the JNF regulations. No doubt these
regulations are not always, or even often, enforced but they do
exist. From time to time Israel attempts enforcement campaigns by
state authorities, as, for example, when the Agriculture Ministry
acts against 'the pestilence of letting fruit orchards belonging to
Jews and situated on National Land [i.e., land belonging to the
State of Israel] be harvested by Arab labourers', even if the
labourers in question are citizens of Israel. Israel also strictly
prohibits Jews settled on 'National Land' to sub-rent even a part of
their land to Arabs, even for a short time; and those who do so are
punished, usually by heavy fines. There is no prohibitions on
non-Jews renting their land to Jews. This means, in my own case, that
by virtue of being a Jew I have the right to lease an orchard for
harvesting its produce from another Jew, but a non-Jew, whether a
citizen of Israel or a resident alien, does not have this right.
Non-Jewish citizens of Israel do not have the right to equality
before the law. This discimination is expressed in many Israeli laws
in which, presumably in order to avoid embarressment, the terms
'Jewish' and 'non-Jewish' are usually not explicitly stated, as they
are in the crucial Law of Return. According to that law only persons
officially recognised as 'Jewish' have an automatic right of entry to
Israel and of settling in it. They automatically receive an
'immigration certificate' which provides them on arrival with
'citizenship by virtue of having returned to the Jewish homeland',
and with the right to many financial benefits, which vary somewhat
according to the country from which they emmigrated. The Jews who
emigrate from the states of the former UUSR receive 'an absorption
grant' of more than $20,000 per family. All Jews immigrating to
Israel accordingthis law immediately acquire the right to vote in
elections and to be elected to the Knesset -- even if they do not
speak a word of Hebrew.
Other Israeli laws substitute the more obtuse expressions 'anyone who
can immigrate in accordance with the Law of Return' and 'anyone who
is not entitled to immigrate in accordance with the law of Return'.
Depending onthe law in questionm benefits are them grantedto the
first category and systematically denied to the second. The routine
means for enforcing discrimination in everyday life is the ID card,
which everyone is obliged to carry at all times. ID cards list the
official 'nationality' of a person, which can be 'Jewish', 'Arab',
'Druze' and the like, witah the significant exception of 'Israeli'.
Attempts to force the Interior Minister to allow Israelis wishing to
be officially described as 'Israeli', or even as 'Israeli-Jew' in
their ID cards have failed. Those who have attempted to do so have a
letter from the Ministry of the Interior stating that 'it was decided
not to recognise an Israeli nationality'. The letter does not specify
who made this decision or when.
There are so many laws and regulations in Israel which discriminate
in favour of the persons defined in Israel as those 'who can
immigrate in accordance with the Law of Return' that the subject
demands seperate treatment. We can look here at one example,
seemingly trivial in comparison with residence restrictions, but
nevertheless important since it reveals the real intentions of the
Israeli legislator. Israeli citizens who left the country for a time
but who are defined as those who 'can immigrate in accordance with
the Law of Return' are eligible on their return to generous customs
benefits, to receive subsidy for their children's high school
education, and to receive either a grant or a loan on easy terms for
the purchase of an apartment, as well as other benefits. Citizens who
cannot be so defined, in other words, the non-Jewish citizens of
Israel, get none of these benefits. The obvious intention of such
discriminatory measures is to decrease tje number of non-Jewish
citizens of Israel, in order to make Israel a more 'Jewish'
state.
The Ideology of 'Redeemed' Land
Israel also propagates among its Jewish citizens an exclusivist
ideology of the Redemption of Land. Its official aim of minimizing
the number of non-Jews can be well perceived in this ideology , which
is inculcated to Jewish schoolchildren in Israel. They are taught
that it is applicable to the entire extent of either the State of
Israel or, after 1967, to what is referred to as the Land of Israel.
According to this ideology, the land which has been 'redeemed' is the
land which has passed from non-Jewish ownership to Jewish ownership.
The ownership can be either private, or belong to either the JNF or
the Jewish state. The land which belongs to non-Jews is, on the
contrary, considered to be 'unredeemed'. Thus, if a Jew who committed
the blackest crimes which can be imagined buys a piece of land from a
virtuous non-Jew, the 'unredeemed' land becomes 'redeemed' by such a
transaction. However, if a virtuous non-Jew purchases land from the
worst Jew, the formerly pure and 'redeemed' land becomes 'unredeemed'
again. The logical conclusion of such an ideology is the expulsion,
called 'transfer', of all non-Jews from the area of land which has to
be 'redeemed'. Therefore the Utopia of the 'Jewish ideology' adopted
by the State of Israel is a land which is wholly 'redeemed' and none
of it is owned or worked by non-Jews. The leaders of the Zionist
labour movement expressed this utterly repellent idea with the
greatest clarity. Walter Laquer a devoted Zionist, tells in his
History of Zionism1
how one of these spiritual fathers, A.D. Gordon, who died in 1919,
'objected to violence in principle and justified self defence only in
extreme circumstances. But he and his friends wanted every tree and
bush in the Jewish homeland to be planted by nobody else except
Jewish pioneers'. This means that they wanted everybody else to just
go away and leave the land to be 'redeemed' by Jews. Gordon's
successors added more violence than he intended but the principle of
'redemption' and its consequences have remained.
In the same way, the kibbutz, widely hailed as an attempt to create a
Utopia, was and is an exclusivist Utopia; even if it is composed of
atheists, it does not accent Arab members on principle and demands
that potential members from other nationalities be first converted to
Judaism. No wonder the kibbutz boys can be regarded as the most
militaristic segment of the Israeli jewish society.
It is this exclusivist ideology, rather than all the 'security needs'
alleged by Israeli propaganda, which determines the takeovers of land
in Israel in the 1950s and again in the mid-1960s and in the Occupied
Territories after 1967. This ideology also dictated official Israeli
plans for 'the Judaizition of Galilee'. This curious term means
encouraging Jews to settle in Galilee by giving them financial
benefits. (I wonder what would be the reaction of US Jews if a plan
for 'the Christianization of New York' or even only of Brooklyn,
would be proposed in their country.) But the Redemption of the Land
implies more than regional 'Judaization'. In the entire area of
Israel the JNF, vigorously backed by Israeli state agencies
(especially by the secret police) is spending great sums of public
money in order to 'redeem' any land which non-Jews are willing to
sell, and to preempt any attempt by a Jew to sell his land to a
non-Jew by paying him a higher price.
Israeli Expansionism
The main danger which Israel, as 'a Jewish state', poses to its
own people, to other Jews and to its neighbors, is its ideologically
motivated pursuit of territorial expansion and the inevitable series
of wars resulting from this aim. The more Israel becomes Jewish or,
as one says in Hebrew, the more it 'returns to Judaism' (a process
which has been under way in Israel at least since 1967), the more its
actual politics are guided by Jewish ideological considerations and
less by rational ones. My use of the term 'rational' does not refer
here to a moral evaluation of Israeli policies, or to the supposed
defence or security needs of Israel - even less so to the supposed
needs of 'Israeli survival'. I am referring here to Israeli imperial
policies based on its presumed interests. However morally bad or
politically crass such policies are, I regard the adoption of
policies based on 'Jewish ideology', in all its different versions as
being even worse. The ideological defence of Israeli policies are
usually based on Jewish religious beliefs or, in the case of secular
Jews, on the 'historical rights' of the Jews which derive from those
beliefs and retain the dogmatic character of religious faith.
My own early political conversion from admirer of Ben-Gurion to his
dedicated opponent began exactly with such an issue. In 1956 I
eagerly swallowed all of Ben-Gurion's political and military reasons
for Israel initiating the Suez War, until he (in spite of being an
atheist, proud of his disregard of the commandments of Jewish
religion) pronounced in the Knesset on the third day of that war,
that the real reason for it is 'the restoration of the kingdom of
David and Solomon' to its Biblical borders. At this point in his
speech, almost every Knesset member spontaneously rose and sang the
Israeli national anthem. To my knowledge, no zionist politician has
ever repudiated Ben-Gurion's idea that Israeli policies must be based
(within the limits of pragmatic considerations) on the restoration of
the Biblical borders as the borders of the Jewish state. Indeed,
close analysis of Israeli grand strategies and actual principles of
foreign policy, as they are expressed in Hebrew, makes it clear that
it is 'Jewish ideology', more than any other factor, which determines
actual Israeli policies. The disregard of Judaism as it really is and
of 'Jewish ideology' makes those policies incomprehensible to foreign
observers who usually know nothing about Judaism exept crude
apologetics.
Let me give a more recent illustration of the essential difference
which exists between Israeli imperial planning of the most inflated
but secular type, and the principles of 'Jewish ideology'. The latter
enjoins that land which was either ruled by any Jewish ruler in
ancient times or was promised by God to the Jews, either in the Bible
or - what is actually more important politically - according to a
rabbinic interpretation of the Bible and the Talmud, should belong to
Israel since it is a Jewish state. No doubt, many Jewish 'doves' are
of the opinion that such conquest should be deferred to a time when
Israel will be stronger than it is now, or that there would be,
hopefully, a 'peaceful conquest', that is , that the Arab rulers or
peoples would be 'persuaded' to cede the land in question in return
for benefits which the Jewish state would then confer on them.
A number of discrepant versions of Biblical borders of the Land of
Israel, which rabbinical authorities interpret as ideally belonging
to the Jewish state, are in circulation. The most far-reaching among
them include the following areas within these borders: in the south,
all of Sinai and a part of nothern Egypt up to the environs of Cairo;
in the east, all of Jordan and a large chunk of Saudi Arabia, all of
Kuwait and a part of Iraq south of the Euphrates; in the north, all
of Lebanon and all of Syria together with a huge part of Turkey (up
to lake Van); and in the west, Cyprus. An enormous body of research
and learned discussion based on these borders, embodied in atlases,
books, articles and more popular forms of propaganda is being
published in Israel, often with state subsidies, or other forms of
support. Certainly the late Kahane and his followers, as will as
influential bodies such as Gush Emunim, not only desire the conquest
of those territories by Israel, but regard it as a divinely commanded
act, sure to be successful since it will be aided by God. In fact,
important Jewish religious figures regard the Israeli refusal to
undertake such a holy war, or even worse, the return of Sinai to
Egypt, as a national sin which was justly punished by God. One of the
more influential Gush Emunim rabbis, Dov Lior, the rabbi of Jewish
settlements of Kiryat Arba and of Hebron, stated repeatedly that the
Israeli failure to conquer Lebanon in 1982-5 was a well-merited
divine punishment for its sin of 'giving a part of Land of Israel',
namely Sinai, to Egypt.
Although I have chosen an admittedly extreme example of the Biblical
borders of the Land of Israel which 'belong' to the 'Jewish state',
those borders are quite popular in national-religious circles. There
are less extreme versions of Biblical borders, sometimes also called
'historical borders'. It should however be emphasized that within
Israel and the community of its diaspora Jewish supporters, the
validity of the concept of either Biblical borders or historical
borders as delineating the bordrers of land which belongs to Jews by
right is not denied on grounds of principle, except by the tiny
minority which opposes the concept of a Jewish state. Otherwise,
objections to the realisation of such borders by a war are purely
pragmatical. One can claim that Israel is now too weak to conquer all
the land which 'belongs' to the Jews, or that the loss of Jewish
lives (but not of Arab lives!) entailed in a war of conquest of such
magnitude is more important than the conquest of the land, but in
normative Judaism one cannot claim that 'the Land of Israel', in
whatever borders, does not 'belong' to all the Jews. In May 1993,
Ariel Sharon formally proposed in the Likud Convention that Israel
should adopt the 'Biblical borders' concept as its official policy.
There were rather few objections to this proposal, either in the
Likud or outside it, and all were cased on pragmaic grounds. No one
even asked Sharon where exactly are the Biblical borders which he was
urging that Israel should attain. Let us recall that among those who
call themselves Leninists there was no doubt that history follows the
principles laid out by Marx and Lenin. It is not only the belief
itself, however dogmatic, but the refusal that it should ever be
doubted, by thwarting open discussion, which creates a totalitarian
cast of mind. Israeli-Jewish society and diaspora Jews who are
leading 'Jewish lives' and organised in purely Jewish organisations,
can be said therefore to have a strong streak of totalitarianism in
their character.
However, an Israeli grand strategy, not based on the tenets of
'Jewish ideology', but based on purely strategic or imperial
considerations had also developed since the inception of the state.
An authoriative and lucid description of the principles governing
such strategy was given by General (Reserves) Shlomo Gazit, a former
Military Intelligence commander.-- According to Gazit,
"Israel's main task has not changed at all [since the demise of the USSR] and it remains of crucial importance. The geographical location of Israel at the centre of the Arab-Muslim Middle East predestines Israel to be a devoted guardian of stability in all the countries surrounding it. Its [role] is to protect the existing regimes: to prevent or halt the processes of radicalization, and to block the expansion of fundamentalist religious zealtory.
For this purpose Israel will prevent changes occuring beyond Israel's borders [which it] will regard as intolerable, to the point of feeling compelled to use all its military power for the sake of their prevention or eradication."
In other words, Israel aims at imposing a hegemony on other Middle
Eastern states. Needless to say, according to Gazit, Israel has a
benevolent concern for the stability of the Arab regimes. In Gazit's
view, by protecting Middle Eastern regimes, Israel performs a vital
service for 'the industrially advanced states, all of which are
keenly concerned with guaranteeing the stability in the Middle East'.
He argues that without Israel the existing regimes of the region
would have collapsed long ago and that they remain in existence only
because of Israeli threats. While this view may be hypocritical, one
should recall in such contexts La Rochefoucault's maxim that
'hypocrisy is the tax which wickedness pays to virtue'. Redemption of
the Land is an attempt to evade paying any such tax.
Needless to say, I also oppose root and branch the Israeli
non-ideological policies as they are so lucidly and correctly
explained by Gazit. At the same time, I recognize that the dangers of
the policies of Ben-Gurion of Sharon, motivated by 'Jewish ideology',
are much worse than merely imperial policies, however criminal. The
results of policies of other ideologically motivated regimes point in
the same direction. The existence of an important component of
Israeli policy, which is based on 'Jewish ideology', makes its
analysis politically imperative. This ideology is, in turn based on
the attitudes of historic Judaism to non-Jews, one of the main themes
of this book. Those attitudes necessarily influence many Jews,
consciously or unconciously. Our task here is to discuss historic
Judaism in real terms.
The influence on 'Jewish ideology' on many Jews will be stronger the
more it is hidden from public discussion. Such discussion will, it is
hoped, lead people take the same attitude towards Jewish chauvinism
and the contempt displayed by so many Jews towards non-Jews (which
will be documented below) as that commonly taken towards antisemitism
and all other forms of xenophobia, chauvinism and racism. It is
justly assumed that only the full exposition, not only of
antisemitism, but also of its historical roots, can be the basis of
struggle against it. Likewise I am assuming that only the full
exposition of Jewish chauvinism and religious fanaticism can be the
basis of struggle against those phenomena. This is especially true
today when, contrary to the situation prevailing fifty or sixty years
ago, the political influence of Jewish chauvinism and religious
fanaticism is much greater than that of antisemitism. But there is
also another important consideration. I strongly believe that
antisemitism and Jewish chauvinism can only be fought
simultaneously.
A Closed Utopia?
Until such attitudes are widely adopted, the actual danger of
Israeli policies based on 'Jewish ideology' remains greater than the
danger of policies based on purely strategic considerations. The
difference between the two kinds of policies was well expressed by
Hugh Trevor-Roper in his essay 'Sir Thomas More and Utopia' 3
in which he termed them Platonic and Machiavellian:
- "Machiavelli at least apologized for the methods which he
thought necessary in politics. He regretted the necessity of force
and fraud and did not call them by any other name. But Plato and
More sanctified them, provided that they were used to sustain
their own Utopian republics."
In a similiar way true believers in that Utopia called the 'Jewish
state', which will strive to achieve the 'Biblical borders', are more
dangerous than the grand strategists of Gazit's type because their
policies are being sanctified either by the use of religion or,
worse, by the use of secularized religious principles which retaim
absolute validity. While Gazit at least sees a need to argue that the
Israel diktat benefits the Arab regimes, Ben-Gurion did not pretend
that the re-establishment of the kingdom of David and Solomon will
benefit anybody except the Jewish state.
Using the concepts of Platonism to analyse Israeli policies based on
'Jewish ideology' should not seem strange. It was noticed by several
scholars, of whom the most important was Moses Hadas, who claimed
that the foundations of 'classical Judaism', that is, of Judaism as
it was established by talmudic sages, are based on Platonic
influences and especially on the image of Sparta as it appears in
Plato.4 According to
Hadas, a crucial feature of the Platonic political system, adopted by
Judaism as early as the Maccabean period (142-63 BC), was 'that every
phase of human conduct be subject to religious sanctions which are in
fact to be manipulated by the ruler'. There can be no better
definition of 'classical Judaism' and of the ways in which the rabbis
manipulated it than this Platonic definition. In particular, Hadas
claims that Judaism adopted what 'Plato himself summarized
[as] the objectives of his program', in the following
well-known passage:
- "The principle thing is that no one, man or woman, should ever
be without an officer set over him, and that none should get the
mental habit of taking any step, whether in earnest or in jest, on
his individual responsibility. In peace as in war he must live
always with his eyes on his superior officer... In a word, we must
train the mind not to even consider acting as an invidual or know
how to do it." (Laws, 942ab)
If the word 'rabbi' is substituted for 'an officer' we will have a
perfect image of classical Judaism. The latter is still deeply
influencing Israeli-Jewish society and determing to a large extent
the Israeli policies.
It was the above quoted passage which was chosen by Karl Popper in
The Open Society and Its Enemies as describing the essence of 'a
closed society'. Historical Judaism and its two successors, Jewish
Orthodoxy and Zionism, are both sworn enemies of the concept of the
open society as applied to Israel. A Jewish state, whether based on
its present Jewish ideology or, if it becomes even more Jewish in
character than it is now, on the principles of Jewish Orthodoxy,
cannot ever contain an open society. There are two choices which face
Israeli-Jewish society. It can become a fully closed and warlike
ghetto, a Jewish Sparta, supported by the labour of Arab helots, kept
in existence by its influence on the US political establishment and
by threats to use its nuclear power, or it can try to become an open
society. The second choice is dependent on an honest examination of
its Jewish past, on the admission that Jewish chauvinism and
exclusivism exist, and on an honest examination of the attitudes of
Judaism towards the non-Jews.
END - Chapt.1
Back to Israel Shahak´s "Jewish History..." Main Page
COPYRIGHT NOTICE:
This material is displayed for educational purposes and uses only. To this end, copies may be made for personal use, but anything beyond that will require permission from the author and publisher as listed below.
First published 1994 by Pluto
Press
345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA
and
5500 Central Avenue, Boulder, Colorado 80301, USA
98 97 96 95
7 6 5 4 3
Chapters 2, 3, 4 and 5 first appeared in the journal
Khamsin and
are reproduced with permission
Foreword copyright © 1994 Gore Vidal
Copyright © 1994 Israel Shahak
The right of Israel Shahak to be identified as the author of this
work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988
British Library Cataloguing in Publication
Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the
British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication
Data
Shahak, Israel.
Jewish history, Jewish religion: the weight of three
thousand
years/Israel Shahak
ll8pp. 22cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-7453-0818-X
1. Israel - Politics and government. 2. Orthodox
Judaism
- Israel - Controversial literature. 3. Zionism -
Controversial literature. 4. Palestinian Arabs -
Israel.
I. Title. II. Series.
D5102.95.S52 1994
956.94-dc20 94-1596
CIP
ISBN 0 7453 0818 X hardback
Designed, typeset and produced for Pluto Press by
Chase Production Services, Chipping Norton, 0X7 5QR
Printed in Finland by WSOY
Le Judaïsme deshabillé! Shahak avslöjar vad rabbinerna döljer! Jüdische Religion Jewish History, Jewish Religion
"Jewish History, Jewish Religion" may be purchased at:
http://www.amazon.com
-Shahak
in Swedish
Speaks the Truth about the
Jewish "Religion"
The Ideology Behind Hebron Massacre |
