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The logic behind Israeli Politics- Political Theory
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17-07-2014 3:23pm#1I find that it interesting to examine the real religious reasons for the establishment of Israel.
Israel was established so as to help fulfill the prophecy of the messiah (Mashiach).
Jews believe that any human descendant of David can become this figure if he achieves's certain things during his lifetime. Central to the principle of oneness, this individual will be totally human and will not need to perform any miracles. He will demonstrate that he is the messiah to God's chosen people collectively, through achieving the following objectives-
The mashiach will bring about the political and spiritual redemption of the Jewish people by bringing us back to Israel and restoring Jerusalem (Isaiah 11:11-12; Jeremiah 23:8; 30:3; Hosea 3:4-5). He will establish a government in Israel that will be the center of all world government, both for Jews and gentiles (Isaiah 2:2-4; 11:10; 42:1). He will rebuild the Temple and re-establish its worship (Jeremiah 33:18). He will restore the religious court system of Israel and establish Jewish law as the law of the land (Jeremiah 33:15).
As we can see over the past 70 years we are getting much closer to the day when the Jews can declare their Messiah. According to their prophesy, he will be a great political and military leader. The Palestinians are simply getting in the way of fulfilling this great religious ideal.
But hey; The Mashiach will usher in an age of Peace and Prosperity, where all nations of the earth will look to Israel for guidance.
Its worth it, right? Who cares about a few dead children?
NOTE: I admire lots about the Jewish religion. Particularly the way in which it encourages the use of logic, and the way in which people should learn from their mistakes. I think it is a more believable religion than Christianity. The Jewish rebuttal of Jesus Christ is particularly enjoyable and one which I can understand the thinking behind. However I myself have no religion.
This thread aims to promote the the real religious thinking behind a major modern political issue, and how it influences people. It is not meant to be discussion on any personal religious beliefs.
I have provided an objective summary of Jewish religious beliefs on which the re-establishment of Israel is founded. I would like to discuss the pros and cons of allowing collective religious beliefs to dictate a state's political theory.1
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RiteofPassage wrote: ».
I would like to discuss the pros and cons of allowing collective religious beliefs to dictate a state's political theory.
A better place to start might have been Ireland.0 -
Yes you are right, in the past a better place to begin would of been Ireland.
I agree that religion has scarred Ireland, and contributed enormously to the insanity of this country. However its influence is dying out, thank God.
However Ireland's move to independence was not principally fueled by religious theory, although it played a major role in the establishment of the state.
Also there is not currently a war taking place in Ireland and the country is becoming much more secular all the time. Israel is the very antithesis of a secular state. Its very name comes from the bible, something which cannot be said of Ireland. In fact it is the only country in the World who takes its name from the bible- a religious document...
Also I believe that part of the reason why Israel does not want peace is that the full Israeli control of Jerusalem is a central tenant of their religious beliefs. And this has not been achieved yet.
I don't think even the most fanatical IRA terrorist would claim that Belfast has been promised to Catholics by God, and that the Catholic domination of Belfast and the reunification of Ireland would usher in a new age peace and prosperity. Where the governments of the World would be controlled from Dublin.
I am trying to demonstrate the danger of letting religious beliefs influence politics.0 -
RiteofPassage wrote: »Israel is the very antithesis of a secular state.
I'd imagine there are far more religious countries than the Israeli state & its civil structure.
So it seems you just want to start a thread on why Israel is bad.
You will fit in just fine round here!0 -
I myself greatly admire the way Israel created a prosperous state from nothing, and the way in which it survives against such adversity. I do not understand how the state was created,or who's land it was so I will not go into that. However I believe that Jewish people in general exhibit a high level of intelligence and toughness. And have suffered a lot.
However this thread is primarily about letting religious beliefs dominate political policies. Israel considers itself a modern Western democracy.
Which other modern western democracy claims to be a state established for the benefit of one religious group?
Also can you name another Western democracy that takes its name from the Bible? Or any other religious text for that matter?
Do you disagree with the above comment which you replied to. The very raison d'etre for Israel is religious belief.
This thread is about the danger of letting religious beliefs dominate a western's state policies. I cannot think of any Western democracy that's establishment was based on a religious text.
Could you please stay on the topic of discussion?
I am not anti-Israel but abhor the mixture of religion and politics. I am sure there are lots of young Israeli's who see the danger of establishing a country based on religion.They are the only young people living in a western democracy with two years mandatory conscription. And I feel sorry for them living in such a cauldron and being indoctrinated into fighting a religious war. There will always be war in the middle east, when religion is involved.
War leaves scars. Even if there is no physical damage.0 -
RiteofPassage wrote: »I find that it interesting to examine the real religious reasons for the establishment of Israel.
Israel was established so as to help fulfill the prophecy of the messiah (Mashiach).
Jews believe that any human descendant of David can become this figure if he achieves's certain things during his lifetime......
The mashiach will bring about the political and spiritual redemption of the Jewish people by bringing us back to Israel and restoring Jerusalem (Isaiah 11:11-12; Jeremiah 23:8; 30:3; Hosea 3:4-5). He will establish a government in Israel that will be the center of all world government, both for Jews and gentiles (Isaiah 2:2-4; 11:10; 42:1). He will rebuild the Temple and re-establish its worship (Jeremiah 33:18). He will restore the religious court system of Israel and establish Jewish law as the law of the land (Jeremiah 33:15).
I am no expert on Judaism but I think even here there is a significant schism in interpretation about the relationship between a Jewish state and the coming of the Messiah. As you say "he WILL establish a government... he WILL rebuild the Temple. He WILL restore the religious court"
(Emphases are mine to highlight the future tense)
But if we assume the Messiah hasn't arrived yet and that the Jewish government and Jewish court, whatever about the Temple, have already been built and in place for some time, what is there left for the Messiah to do when he finally shows up?
I believe there are some ultra orthodox Jews who believe that pre-empting the work of the Messiah by creating the state of Israel in advance of his arrival is an obscene blasphemy. Many of these live in the territory of Israel but do not have Israeli nationality, carry Jordanian passports and refuse to recognise the legitimacy of the Israeli state.
Have I got that right?0 -
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Someone has always said it better:They say the skies of Lebanon are burning
Those mighty cedars bleedin' in the heat
They're showing pictures on the television
Women and children dying in the street
And we're still at it in our own place
Still tryin' to reach the future through the past
Still tryin' to carve tomorrow from a tombstone...They're raising banners over by the markets
Whitewashing slogans on the shipyard walls
Witchdoctors praying for a mighty showdown
No way our holy flag is gonna' fall
Up here we sacrifice our children
To feed the worn-out dreams of yesterday
And teach them dying will lead us into glory...Now I know us plain folks don't see all the story
And I know this peace and love's just copping out
And I guess these young boys dying in the ditches
Is just what being free is all about
And how this twisted wreckage down on main street
Will bring us all together in the end
And we'll go marching down the road to freedom...
Freedom...
What is happening in the Levant is an atrocity, it has been orchestrated by greedy and power hungry motives in the name of various religions.
As far as I know, and can prove, we get one life, if the childrens stories are to be believed, we get judged on the basis of that life. All of the childrens stories identify the taking of human life as an unforgivable offence against the man in the sky, some interpreters have decided that its okay, once the other human life has a different faith.
As an outsider to blind faith, I personally recognize a higher order than we can comprehend in the universe we live in, but also recognize that a code of behavior in which we treat others with dignity and respect is essential to our mutual presence on the planet.
Everyone in the Levant is too close, too involved, too emotional, to connected to the history, and to fervent in their beliefs in the children's stories to stop what they are doing and cease the slaughter. Even if they did get close to that point, the greed of the external warmongers will continually stir dissent amongst them in order to profit from arming one or both sides.
Its a mess, and is every bit as shameful a side of humanity as the WW2 Holocaust, the Armenian Genocide, the Rwandan Genocide, Darfur, Sudan, Ethiopia the list goes on and on throughout history.
Peoples belief in Biblical prophesy is the most dangerous thing of all, as they will continue to pursue an aim that the other side is fully aware of and determined to prevent.
Its a total nonsense, and I think you will find its a perpetual one.
The only biblical prophesy that has a chance of coming true, is the one of an Apocalypse, and it will be brought about by blind faith, greed, stupidity, insecurity and madness.
The whole thing just makes me sad, and I'm sure it does the same for many other decent people out there who currently feel helpless and disgusted by the whole thing.0 -
RiteofPassage wrote: »I myself greatly admire the way Israel created a prosperous state from nothing.
I know the statement of Israel being created from nothing is oft repeated. But there have been people living there continuously for thousands of years.
10% of the Palestinian population are Christians, whose roots go right back to the beginning of Christianity; 1st century Christianity. And before they became Christians they were Jews.I am not anti-Israel but abhor the mixture of religion and politics. I am sure there are lots of young Israeli's who see the danger of establishing a country based on religion.
The objective of Zionism was never to establish a religious state. It was to establish a secular nationalist state, based on Jewish ethnicity. The Zionists were relatively hostile to religion, only employing religious myths when it suited. The ultra-orthodox were always hostile to the Zionists; believing, quite rightly, that it was their intention to establish a secular state.
The Jewish ethnicity is a product of European anti-Semitism. Imagine things differently. Imagine if Judaism had been the majority religion of Europe and Christianity the minority. Everything may have happened just as it had; except Hitler would have been persecuting the Christians, etc. After the war, Christians would have fled to Palestine and established a Christian state, with the same theological justifications. And exactly what is happening now would be happening, except, the population being pummelled in Gaza would be constituted of Jews and Muslims.0 -
There were discussions around the establishment of a Jewish State some time before Israel was founded (or re-founded, I suppose).
Some Zionists believed Uganda could be a place for Jews to establish a homeland.
Others considered a part of Australia.
I don't think the creation of the Israeli state was due to religious motivations. It was more a reaction to antisemitism in Europe in the late nineteenth century.0 -
Yup - Zionism is basically a secular philosophy, a manifestation of nineteenth-century European nationalism - the view that each nation has both a right and a duty to govern itself through a sovereign state. I think where Zionism differs from Irish or Italian or German nationalism is that it also takes on a dose of European colonialism, to plug the gap that results from their being no territory (in the nineteenth century) where Jews are a majority. Hence the proposals (which never went very far) for a national homeland for the Jewish people in Uganda or somewhere in Australia.
It was never a religious project and has nothing to do with ushering in the age of the Messiah. The majority of Zionists are, and always have been, secular Jews. In fact those religious Jews who look to the coming of an individual Messiah are either suspicious of Zionism, or are outright opposed to it, regarding it as a blasphemy.
I think the only significant group who understand Zionism in religious terms are, oddly enough, some fundamentalist American protestant groups. Israelis and pro-Israel Jews regard this view with a mixture of amusement and alarm, but they will accept support from these groups on the basis that, any friend Israel can have, it should have.0 -
Peregrinus wrote: »It was never a religious project and has nothing to do with ushering in the age of the Messiah. The majority of Zionists are, and always have been, secular Jews. In fact those religious Jews who look to the coming of an individual Messiah are either suspicious of Zionism, or are outright opposed to it, regarding it as a blasphemy.
The Zionists were very intellectual. What they were doing, and something they to a great extent succeed in, was the creation of a "new" Jew. Something radical and secular.
The religious mythology, was important to them, but as a kind of iconography. But this is where they may have made a huge mistake. The Jews that call themselves "orthodox" are from Ukrainian heretical cults, that are closer to the Pennsylvanian Hamish, than anything else. It's not simply superficial. They closed themselves off and differentiated themselves - in Israel they speak Yiddish, not Hebrew, and they're very hostile to the Jewish state. What happened in 1948, Ukrainian Ultra Orthodox Jews left after the Holocaust. The population in Israel was as low as about 500 people. They wanted to replenish their numbers and their clergy. So the Israeli state did a deal with them. They'd get a subsidy for their males to study the Torah, and they wouldn't have to work. It worked as giving Israel an emblem. But the population of Haredi, has now exploded to 750,000. And their birth rate is such, that within a few decades their numbers may overwhelm the secular population. The biggest threat to the Zionist project, is from an enemy within.
The American religious right are in favour of Israel for a number of reasons. One being they hate Jews, and think it's great there's a place to shove them. The other is a belief in a biblical prophesy, that requires the Jews to re-establish Israel, so the rapture can comeI think the only significant group who understand Zionism in religious terms
are, oddly enough, some fundamentalist American protestant groups. Israelis and
pro-Israel Jews regard this view with a mixture of amusement and alarm, but they
will accept support from these groups on the basis that, any friend Israel can
have, it should have.
in this prophesy, all the Jews bar a few hundred will die.....The death will involve a terrible fire.
The Israelis court them....but they're not idiots. Israel gets great support from the western media; helping convince people that Hamas use their people as human shields, and breaks Israel's hearts to kill them.....It's risible as Hama saying they never target Israeli civilians, it's just that the Israelis use their children as a human shield.0 -
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Labarbapostiza wrote: »The Israelis court them....but they're not idiots. Israel gets great support from the western media; helping convince people that Hamas use their people as human shields, and breaks Israel's hearts to kill them.....It's risible as Hama saying they never target Israeli civilians, it's just that the Israelis use their children as a human shield.
I'm not clear who's children you're saying the Israelies use as human shields.
Israeli children or Palestinian children.
I'm not disagreeing with you, I'm just not sure what you're saying.0 -
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Angrybastard wrote: »I'm not clear who's children you're saying the Israelies use as human shields.
Israeli children or Palestinian children.
I'm not disagreeing with you, I'm just not sure what you're saying.
I was making a sarcastic but very important statement. Reversing a nonsense statement that is repeated.
The Israelis have a mantra that's repeated across western media. And that is that they do not target Palestinian civilians, but that Hamas uses them as a human shield. This is absolute nonsense, and should patently obvious. And really would take an idiot to believe - but the world is full of idiots. The Israelis directly target Palestinian civilians.0 -
Labarbapostiza wrote: »I was making a sarcastic but very important statement. Reversing a nonsense statement that is repeated.
The Israelis have a mantra that's repeated across western media. And that is that they do not target Palestinian civilians, but that Hamas uses them as a human shield. This is absolute nonsense, and should patently obvious. And really would take an idiot to believe - but the world is full of idiots. The Israelis directly target Palestinian civilians.
Yes they do.
I just wasn't clear on what you were saying.0 -
Peregrinus wrote: »Yup - Zionism is basically a secular philosophy, a manifestation of nineteenth-century European nationalism - the view that each nation has both a right and a duty to govern itself through a sovereign state. I think where Zionism differs from Irish or Italian or German nationalism is that it also takes on a dose of European colonialism, to plug the gap that results from their being no territory (in the nineteenth century) where Jews are a majority. Hence the proposals (which never went very far) for a national homeland for the Jewish people in Uganda or somewhere in Australia.
It was never a religious project and has nothing to do with ushering in the age of the Messiah. The majority of Zionists are, and always have been, secular Jews. In fact those religious Jews who look to the coming of an individual Messiah are either suspicious of Zionism, or are outright opposed to it, regarding it as a blasphemy.
I think the only significant group who understand Zionism in religious terms are, oddly enough, some fundamentalist American protestant groups. Israelis and pro-Israel Jews regard this view with a mixture of amusement and alarm, but they will accept support from these groups on the basis that, any friend Israel can have, it should have.
If Zionists are truly secular, they should oust those within their own movement who justify the illegal expansion of Israel's borders in '67 by saying "Well in the Bible, these lands were part of Israel. So they should become part of it again." To deny that a great many zionists justify expansionism on "biblical birthright" grounds is ridiculous - one only has to look at the comments section of a Jerusalem Post article on settlements to see this argument in action.0 -
hatrickpatrick wrote: »If Zionists are truly secular, they should oust those within their own movement who justify the illegal expansion of Israel's borders in '67 by saying "Well in the Bible, these lands were part of Israel. So they should become part of it again." To deny that a great many zionists justify expansionism on "biblical birthright" grounds is ridiculous - one only has to look at the comments section of a Jerusalem Post article on settlements to see this argument in action.
The Zionist ideology is/was secular. But it was a kind of high intellectual project. Christian anti-Semitism is something that goes back to the early centuries of the Christian religion. It has a religious basis. And much of European anti-Semitism has a religious basis; though that belief imbued the Jewish character with unwholesomeness and defects. Into the 20th century, well into the age of reason. The religious basis is abandoned, but anti-Semitic belief isn't. It's recast in science; there's something wrong with Jewish blood. If DNA had been discovered by the 30s, the NAZIS would have referred to the Jews having something defective in their DNA.
The Zionist ideology was to change the experience of ethnic Jews, by changing the mythology. A slur against Gypsies and Jews, was that they were so hated because they didn't have their own country. The idea was to create a new nation, but with a reshaping of Jewish mythology.
The actual territory claimed by the state of Israel, and what's promised in the bible, is disputable as being inexact. But that never mattered to the Zionists. Archaeologists have a tough time in Israel. They're attacked and stoned by Haredi Jews. The Haredi would argue that it is because the archaeologists are breaking Jewish law, by disturbing graves. But likely what really panics them is the unravelling of their own myths, should the archaeologists find or not find things. There's no historical record of Moses ever existing. The Egyptians were literate and kept records. They have no records of all their slaves running off led by a charismatic leader. The land of Israel itself may have been the land of a long forgotten king, called Israel. Or just a farmer called Israel, and a village of related nephews nieces and cousins...who just called themselves, Israelis,
The Moses story is more likely than anything else to be a campfire story that grew legs. But from the Zionist perspective that is irrelevant. The modern state of Israel is real.0 -
And you have no real knowledge besides hate-propaganda misinformation.
The Jews have NEVER abandoned their dream to return to their homeland, and always kept a population there. Go back 300 years, and you can see a majority Jewish population in Jerusalem. As for archeology, the Haredis ONLY care about the bones of Jews, nothing else. ASK the archaeologists. No, there is no problem with Jewish archaeology.. it is pretty impressive, actually. Biblical names on pottery, in Hebrew, first temple Menorah Gold pendant, first century under-street level drainage tunnels, which were described by Josephus Flavius as being used by Jews for hiding were rediscovered, with food leftovers, and carbon14 dating showed it was of the time. Even biblical archaeology is proving how accurate the Hebrew bible really is, but you are not interested in facts, only justification of your hate.
Zionism is a Jewish national movements, and Judaism is a unique phenomenon, so it is hard to grasp, using the “standard tools”. It is not a religion. It is a combination of Nation, and faith. Those who kept no connection with the faith, ended up uncounted as Jews. No matter how the Jews define their political movement, these are all Jewish National movements, and in every generation, every Jew breaks the glass during wedding, citing the sentence, “If I forget Jerusalem, may my right be forgotten”. The bond of Jews to their ancestral land is special, and different. All efforts to deny plain facts are pathetic, and stand no scrutiny of logic. The goal to deny Jews the right you give every nation is simply a form of pathological hate.0 -
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The Jews may have a bond with their ancestral land but the reality is that things have changed. It is not uniquely theirs anymore and they have to learn to share.And you have no real knowledge besides hate-propaganda misinformation.
The Jews have NEVER abandoned their dream to return to their homeland, and always kept a population there. Go back 300 years, and you can see a majority Jewish population in Jerusalem. As for archeology, the Haredis ONLY care about the bones of Jews, nothing else. ASK the archaeologists. No, there is no problem with Jewish archaeology.. it is pretty impressive, actually. Biblical names on pottery, in Hebrew, first temple Menorah Gold pendant, first century under-street level drainage tunnels, which were described by Josephus Flavius as being used by Jews for hiding were rediscovered, with food leftovers, and carbon14 dating showed it was of the time. Even biblical archaeology is proving how accurate the Hebrew bible really is, but you are not interested in facts, only justification of your hate.
Zionism is a Jewish national movements, and Judaism is a unique phenomenon, so it is hard to grasp, using the “standard tools”. It is not a religion. It is a combination of Nation, and faith. Those who kept no connection with the faith, ended up uncounted as Jews. No matter how the Jews define their political movement, these are all Jewish National movements, and in every generation, every Jew breaks the glass during wedding, citing the sentence, “If I forget Jerusalem, may my right be forgotten”. The bond of Jews to their ancestral land is special, and different. All efforts to deny plain facts are pathetic, and stand no scrutiny of logic. The goal to deny Jews the right you give every nation is simply a form of pathological hate.
All nations have a history/mythology we could call on to justify our claims to land we don't own at present, but we don't. Because you can't justify landgrabbing by ancient myths.0 -
The Jews may have a bond with their ancestral land but the reality is that things have changed. It is not uniquely theirs anymore and they have to learn to share.
Their ancestral land, was never uniquely theirs to begin with.
The version of Exodus you're taught in schools, Israel; the land with no one in it. Is not the actual version that's in the Shemot/Exodus.
Exodus 15:14
The people shall hear, and be afraid: sorrow shall take hold on the inhabitants of Palestina.
In Exodus, the Israelites are Egyptian outsiders, who Jehovah, the god of war, leads in an ISIS style invasion of Palestine.
The King James translation of Exodus is pretty extant. In modern versions they try to confuse the issue by using the word Philistine instead of Palestine. But it's the same place.All nations have a history/mythology we could call on to justify our claims to
land we don't own at present, but we don't. Because you can't justify
landgrabbing by ancient myths.
Dr David might beg to differ.0 -
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Labarbapostiza wrote: »Their ancestral land, was never uniquely theirs to begin with.
The version of Exodus you're taught in schools, Israel; the land with no one in it. Is not the actual version that's in the Shemot/Exodus.
Exodus 15:14
The people shall hear, and be afraid: sorrow shall take hold on the inhabitants of Palestina.
In Exodus, the Israelites are Egyptian outsiders, who Jehovah, the god of war, leads in an ISIS style invasion of Palestine.
The King James translation of Exodus is pretty extant. In modern versions they try to confuse the issue by using the word Philistine instead of Palestine. But it's the same place.
Dr David might beg to differ.
The Jewish scripture is a history book for the most part. History as was understood three thousand years ago, where fact, fiction and propaganda were not differentiated as they are now. The victors write the history...0 -
Just to say that the religious reasons for the creation of Israel and the idea of a Jewish state are not a big deal for everyday Israelis. It's more about the fact that so many of them are refugees or descended from refugees (from Europe in the 30s and 40s, from Arab lands from 1948 to 1970, or non-refugees comingn from Europe now with antisemitism on the rise) that they feel safest in a Jewish-majority homeland, even with all that is going on around them and the occasional rocket.
The Palestinians being removed from their land to facilitate this isn't fair, but it's seen as collateral damage.0 -
A Primal Nut wrote: »Just to say that the religious reasons for the creation of Israel and the idea of a Jewish state are not a big deal for everyday Israelis. It's more about the fact that so many of them are refugees or descended from refugees (from Europe in the 30s and 40s, from Arab lands from 1948 to 1970, or non-refugees comingn from Europe now with antisemitism on the rise) that they feel safest in a Jewish-majority homeland, even with all that is going on around them and the occasional rocket.
The Palestinians being removed from their land to facilitate this isn't fair, but it's seen as collateral damage.
Ironic, considering the way they were treated in Germany and elsewhere, that they show such disregard for the human rights, indeed the lives, of other people.0 -
Ironic, perhaps, but not surprising. We know that human individuals are rarely morally improved by being brutalised and victimised; why would we expect things to be any different with human communities?Ironic, considering the way they were treated in Germany and elsewhere, that they show such disregard for the human rights, indeed the lives, of other people.0 -
Maybe I'm an idealist but I would have thought that with all the analysis and talking and debate about what went on in the past, the Israeli nation would, as a body, have a bit more empathy.Peregrinus wrote: »Ironic, perhaps, but not surprising. We know that human individuals are rarely morally improved by being brutalised and victimised; why would we expect things to be any different with human communities?
It's not as if they are the ones who suffered. Most of that generation are either dead, or are not in positions of power.0 -
As a nation, Israelis have considerable empathy for other persecuted Jews, and they will put themselves out financially, politically, practically and in any other way to a very great extent to provide a refuge for any Jew, from anywhere in the world, who needs a refuge. And they'll interpret "Jew" pretty widely; you don't have to be Jewish according to the religious standards of Judaism itself; just sufficiently Jewish to be persecuted for being a Jew. If you're in that situation, Israel is there for you.Maybe I'm an idealist but I would have thought that with all the analysis and talking and debate about what went on in the past, the Israeli nation would, as a body, have a bit more empathy.
It's not as if they are the ones who suffered. Most of that generation are either dead, or are not in positions of power.
I think if you want to reduce the lessons Judaism took from the Holocaust to a soundbite, it's this: Jews have to look after themselves because, when push comes to shove, nobody else will do it. And, yeah, I think there's a bit of that being played out in the Middle East today.0
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