Judaism is a religion, not a race. Jews have no more exclusive right to the Holy Land than Christians, say, or Rastafarians. There are black Jews, Mideastern Jews, white western Jews, mixed-race Jews. You can convert. Many people have converted throughout history, and, while Jewish identity is effectively policed these days, through the matrilineal line, there’s no saying who may have converted in the past, nor what their ethnic origins might be.
Likewise, the Bible is symbolic, not literal. It’s myth, not history. There probably never was a King David or a King Solomon. There probably never was a Moses or an Abraham. If any of these characters ever existed, they’ve been mythologized: like Hercules, Ulysses or Jason and the Argonauts. Biblical stories aren’t facts, but they tell certain truths. They carry hidden messages. They are parables, allegories, metaphors. The promises contained in the books of the Bible have to be understood spiritually. God wasn’t offering his people a piece of real estate, but a state of mind. The promised land should be understood figuratively, as something that’s yearned for, hoped for, wished for, longed for, in the recesses of the soul, but never fought for, never killed for.
To be a Jew you have to follow the Torah. The Torah specifically prohibits a number of actions. You shall not kill. You shall not steal. You shall not covet. You shall not bear false witness. God’s promises are conditional. If you do any of these things you’ve broken the covenant. You’re not a Jew. The promises are made null and void by the breaking of the Law. Therefore the people of Israel (most of them) aren’t Jews. They break the Law every day.
They are Zionists. Judaism is an ancient religion, dating back to the Bronze Age, while Zionism is a political ideology, no more than 130 years old. It takes the politics of racism and nationalism and dresses it up in religious clothing. Many of the early Zionists were atheists. They didn’t believe in God, and yet they laid claim to the land of Israel as promised to them by God.
Zionism is a settler colonial project aimed at stealing the land from the indigenous population, many of whom have historical roots going back centuries, if not millennia. The Palestinians are the descendants of Canaanites, Philistines, Samaritans, Jews, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Crusaders: all the people who’ve criss-crossed this strip of land, at the crossroads of the world between Egypt and the Fertile Crescent, and left their DNA behind. They are the children of Israel who never left, a Semitic people, speaking Arabic, one of a nest of Semitic languages that defines the population group. Zionism aims at removing these original people, and replacing them with settlers. It’s a supremacist ideology. Zionists believe they’re superior. They see other people—specifically Palestinians—as less than human. “Human animals” as Yoav Gallant, the former Israeli defence minister called them.
Many settlers have dual nationality: that is, they already have homelands of their own. They’re from all over the world—North America, South America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia, everywhere but Palestine—but the Israeli “Law of Return” allows them to settle in this stolen land, while Palestinians, born in Palestine, but driven from the land in one of the many pogroms, have no such right.
People say that the Israel-Palestine conflict is complex and intractable, and it’s difficult, but the solution lies within the world’s grasp. Israel only exists because of the military backing of the West. Once the West removes its backing, Israel will fall. This is why we should do our best to undermine Western support for Israel, to question our governmental and institutional investment in Israel, to enact BDS: Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions. BDS brought down apartheid South Africa. It’ll bring down apartheid Israel too.
States don’t have a right to exist. People have a right to exist. Afrikaner rule in South Africa is no more. The Soviet Union is no more. Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, South Vietnam, East Germany: many states have fallen in the last century. Nullified by history. The people are still there, but their identity has changed. The same will happen to Israel. Israel is the illegitimate bastard child of British and American Imperialism, inserted into the Middle East to control the world’s supply of oil, and to keep the nearby states in check. Its days are numbered. It has proved itself to be violently anti-social in its nature. We should no more allow a psychopathic state to exist than we would allow a society of pedophiles to start recruiting children.
All terrorist groups need to be disbanded. That includes the IDF, one of the greatest terrorist armies in the world. An international force with the full authorisation of the United Nations should be brought in to take their place. There can only be a one-state solution. Israelis with dual nationality can elect to return to their homes, or remain in Palestine as law-abiding citizens, subject to the democratic rule of the majority. Native-born Israelis, too, should be given the choice, whether to continue to live in Palestine under international law, or be received into one of the western nations that have previously given Israel such unquestioning support. The law of return should be revoked and Palestinians granted the right of return. There should be freedom of religion and all peoples who lay claim to the various covenants of the region should be allowed to worship: Jew, Samaritan, Druze, Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, Alawite, Sufi, Ismaili, Sunni, Shia. No religion should be allowed to dominate another.
How any of this can happen is another matter. The confusion between the idea of the promised land as a piece of real estate, and the Holy Land as a state of mind, is one that bedevils us all. You can’t, ultimately, own anything. We should savor every moment alive, every passing beauty—every shaft of sunlight through the trees, every bird’s call, every breath of air that stirs the leaves—but know that we can’t hold on to any of it. Its secret is in the moment, a wealth more enriching than all the gold in Fort Knox, but as insubstantial as the breeze. This is where the Holy Land truly lies, not in substance, but in feeling: not in ownership but in what we give away, freely, from the generosity of our hearts.