It seems that the current war will end up strengthening Iran. Perhaps it will end up returning, more or less and under a different name, to Obama's 2015 JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), which limited Iran's nuclear program in exchange for lifting the imposed sanctions. A situation that would weaken the almost unconditional support of the US for Israel and that would question the Greater Israel project shamelessly defended by the Netanyahu government.
On the other hand, the Palestine-Israel conflict has leaked into our country in recent days, even in sports celebrations and in the support that Pedro Sánchez has given to Barça footballer Lamine Yamal for waving a Palestinian flag. However, some key concepts of this conflict, such as Zionism or anti-Semitism, are not always entirely clear when discussing these issues. For example: are there anti-Semitic Zionists? Yes, and more than one type.
The creation of the State of Israel (1948) claimed by Zionism (Jewish nationalism) was presented as a reparation for the monstrosities committed by the Nazis, as well as a political solution to the unfortunate Jewish history over the centuries (pogroms, discrimination, etc.). This is a cause that has usually been viewed with sympathy in the West, although, of course, not in Arab countries. There was, however, a less presentable and less explicit historical motive in international Zionism: getting rid of a large part of the Jews living in the United Kingdom and other states.
Before the founding of the state, a slogan often repeated by Zionism was “A land without a people for a people without a land”. The problem, however, was that approximately 1,450,000 Arabs lived in the territory of the British mandate of Palestine. And here the problems began, which have only grown larger over time.
After several wars and an Intifada, the Oslo Peace Accords (1993) raised hopes based on the perspective of “peace by territories” and the establishment of the “two-state” solution promoted by international institutions. However, Israeli nationalism turned almost immediately towards opposing postulates (this was promoted by the authors of the American Clean Break report, presented in 1996 to Benjamin Netanyahu). A turn in which we are still: not accepting in any way the existence of a Palestinian state and building Greater Israel, which includes all of Palestine (West Bank, Gaza, Jerusalem), as well as parts of Lebanon and Syria.
Today it seems logical to ask whether establishing the State of Israel in the middle of Arab, Persian and Turkish societies was a very good idea.
Recent Israeli governments have promoted two paths of political legitimation. On the one hand, the key word has been security, interpreted increasingly in warlike terms: it comes to mean that “we must destroy the enemies before they destroy us”. On the other hand, a fundamentalist religious line has been introduced, especially after the 1967 war, which justifies military actions in the name of supposed mandates from the Old Testament (the book of myths of the Jewish religion) to occupy the lands of Palestine (it is easy to find biblical references in this sense). And we already know that when the gods are made to intervene in political affairs, almost nothing good can be expected.
It may be worth reviewing some historical knowledge about the Zionist project, as some aspects are somewhat surprising today. Let us highlight two.
First of all, the idea of Zionism did not initially arise from Jews, but from evangelical Christians, especially in Great Britain, in the first decades of the 19th century (John Nelson Darby, a preacher who believed that the invention of the telegraph was the beginning of the end of the world). It is based on a reading of certain books of the Bible (especially the Apocalypse, which seems to have been written at the end of the 1st century AD, at the time of the Roman emperor Domitian). The central idea is that the Jewish collectivity should have its own political unit in Palestine, since “the second coming of Jesus Christ” would occur when the Jews controlled what they call the “Holy Land”. Historiography shows how behind this Christian Zionism was the aforementioned objective of expelling the Jews from Great Britain, which was still present in 1948. An anti-Semitic Christian Zionism.
Secondly, Jewish Zionism proper, theorized by Theodor Herzl in The Jewish State (1896), was initially secular rather than religious in nature. It was a minority movement in the world's Jewish communities and discouraged by most rabbis. Herzl mentions several places where the new state could be established: Argentina, Palestine, part of what is now Kenya... On the other hand, Herzl himself already understood that the main allies of the Zionist project would be the anti-Semites of the various states where Jews resided, interested, as we said, in expelling them from their countries.
Currently, the Israeli government is interested in making anti-Semitism coincide with anti-Zionism, but it is very clear that they are two non-coincidental terms. One can be anti-Zionist without being anti-Semitic. And vice versa. In fact, Jews do not have the monopoly on being Semites, a concept historically associated with the anthropological school of Göttingen (1770), but today referred fundamentally to collectivities with shared linguistic characteristics (Arabs, Jews, Arameans, Phoenicians, etc.). Thus, given the hatred that the current Israeli government shows towards Arabs and Palestinians, it could paradoxically be labeled anti-Semitic.
Religion and nationalism have been two great political cements legitimizing the cohesion of political collectivities. When they act together, they leave almost no room for more secular and universalist perspectives, including that of human rights. When some god marries some nation, intolerant dogmatism is served. The history of humanity and religions is full of examples.
I believe that we will never appreciate enough the work of political liberalism in separating political and religious powers, as well as the practical wisdom of domesticating the gods, whoever they are, wherever they come from and whatever they call themselves.
