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Whereas it’s true that Zionism is a contemporary political ideology that has exploited faith to attain particular colonial targets in Palestine, prophecies proceed to be a important part of Israel’s notion of itself, and of the state’s relationship with different teams, particularly Christian messianic teams in america and worldwide.
The topic of spiritual 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 Labour Occasion, 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.
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Primarily based on pseudo-historical evaluation, Barak’s prophecy appeared to conflate historic information with typical messianic Israeli considering, paying homage 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 worry over the way forward for Israel, and the looming ‘existential menace’, the cornerstone of Israeli hasbara all through the years. At a Bible examine session in his home in Jerusalem, Netanyahu had then warned that the Hasmonean kingdom – also called 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 would have liked to exceed this,” Netanyahu was quoted by one of many attendees as saying, the Israeli Haaretz newspaper reported.
However, even in keeping with Netanyahu’s purported dedication 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 kind of negligible: the previous’s views are supposedly ‘historic’ and the latter’s are biblical. Value noting, nevertheless, is that each leaders, although they subscribe to 2 totally different political faculties, have converged on comparable assembly factors: Israel’s survival is at stake; the existential menace is actual and the tip of Israel is simply a matter of time.
However the pessimism in Israel is hardly confined to political leaders, who’re identified to magnify and manipulate information to instil worry and rile up their political camps, particularly Israel’s highly effective messianic constituencies. Though that is true, predictions concerning Israel’s grim future should not confined to the nation’s political elites.
In an interview with Haaretz in 2019, certainly one of Israel’s most revered mainstream historians, Benny Morris, had a lot to say about the way forward for his nation. Not like Barak and Netanyahu, Morris was not sending warning alerts however stating what, to him, appeared an unavoidable end result of the nation’s political and demographic evolution.
“I do not see how we get out of it,” Morris stated, including: “Already, right this moment 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 scenario wherein we rule an occupied folks that has no rights can’t 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 technology, Israel will stop to exist in its present type.
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Notably notable about his feedback is the correct notion that “the Palestinians take a look at the whole lot 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? Definitely not the Palestinian Authority, whose leaders have already marginalised 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 the entire setbacks, defeats and political ‘compromises’.
Really, prophecies concerning Palestine and Israel should not a brand new phenomenon. Palestine was colonised by Zionists with the assistance of Britain, additionally based mostly on biblical frames of reference. It was populated by Zionist settlers based mostly on biblical references devoted to the restoration of historic kingdoms and the ‘return’ of historic peoples to their supposedly rightful ‘promised land’. Although Israel took on many various meanings all through the years – perceived to be a ‘socialist’ utopia at instances, a liberal, democratic haven at others – it was all the time preoccupied with non secular meanings, religious visions and inundated with prophecies. Essentially the most sinister expression of this fact is the truth that the present help of Israel by tens of millions of Christian fundamentalists within the West is basically pushed by messianic, end-of-the-world prophecies.
The most recent predictions about Israel’s unsure future are based mostly on a unique logic. Since Israel has all the time outlined itself as a Jewish State, its future is generally linked to its potential 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 struggle’ is clearly and rapidly being misplaced.
After all, co-existence in a single democratic state will all the time 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 will now 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 is not going to exist as a ‘Jewish state’ for for much longer. Talking strictly when it comes to demographics, Israel is now not a Jewish-majority state. Historical past has taught us that Muslims, Christians and Jews can peacefully coexist and collectively thrive, as they’ve carried out all through the Center East and the Iberian Peninsula for millennia. Certainly, it is a prediction, even a prophecy that’s price striving for.
The views expressed on this article belong to the writer and don’t essentially mirror the editorial coverage of Center East Monitor.
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