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  • There is no path to lasting peace that includes a Zionist state @aasatru

    Zionists like to use ancient history for distractions
    but I draw a line at the Ottoman Empire. That was a prolonged period of stability, in which Muslims, Christians and Jews shared Palestine.

    Then came the British. The story really begins around the year 1840. Apparently, they were quite miffed that Britain's Jews weren't interested in moving to Palestine.

    This is long, but worth a read. It reveals some interesting history.
    https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/blogs/news/the-destruction-of-palestine-is-the-destruction-of-the-earth
    #Palestine
    #Israel
    #colonialism
    #impirialism

    • Obviously an international protectorate would be incompatible with a zionist state. It might be more of a no state solution than a one state solution.

      A tricky part of zionism might be that, except for the fact that it's an inherently evil contemporary ideology, a longing for Zion is somewhat inherit in Judaism. If a version of zionism is to be salvaged I think it requires a rethinking of what Zion is - peaceful coexistence during the Ottoman Empire might be as close as one could ever get to its meaning in a religious sense.

      As it appears today, zionism is a longing for a pure state of a single people, based on romanticized ideas of a hypothetical past that we know literally nothing about. That's pretty much exactly the same as any other totalitarian ideology.

      I do, however, believe that we have to accept that ancient history matters. Not necessarily because it actually does, but because it creates powerful narratives that are incredibly hard to fight.

      • @aasatru
        I've read that Jewish Zionism takes many forms. Among them, that Zion is wherever Jews are.

        Complicating that is that Jewish Zionism springs from Christian Zionism. That's a Protestant reinterpretation of scripture dating from the turn of the 17th century.

        Jews didn't start using the term 'Zionism' in relation to themselves until the late 19th century. Herzl adopted (or perhaps developed) the Jewish master race interpretation. Other groups evidently took different paths.

        Originally, Palestine wasn't part of the plan. Locations around the world were considered. Somebody (probably Herzl) realised that they could leverage the historical connection to Palestine. It also plays into the Christian rapture/second coming narrative, which was significant in the British involvement. The image is from the link that I posted earlier.
        #Palestine
        #Israel
        #colonialism
        #imperialism

        • That's incredibly fascinating - I had never heard of Christian Zionism before (though I'm obviously familiar with evangelical Christians in the US and their ideas about a Jewish state). It appears the term Chirstian Zionism first appeared in the mid-20th century, though the idea is older than that:

          The term began to be used in the mid-20th century, in place of Christian restorationism, as proponents of the ideology rallied behind Zionists in support of a Jewish national homeland.

          Advocacy on the part of Christians for a Jewish restoration grew after the Protestant Reformation, and is rooted in 17th-century English Puritanism. Contemporary Israeli historian Anita Shapira suggests that England's Zionist Evangelical Protestants "passed this notion on to Jewish circles" around the 1840s, while Jewish nationalism in the early 19th century was largely met with hostility from British Jews. (Wikipedia)

          I like the idea that Zion i wherever Jews live/are at home. As far as I'm concerned, fighting anti-semitism and fighting Israel's version of Zionism is two sides of the same battle.

          • It's a tangled web @aasatru
            The roots run deep. 🤔 To mix metaphors.

            I haven't actually read Herzl, but he reportedly wasn't at all religious. He exploited what suited his ends. Part of his solution was that Jews would convert to Christianity. That's probably his exploitation of the Christian mythology.

            Herzl recognised that Palestine is too small to hold all of the world's Jews. The ones that wouldn't fit, he saw as dying out. His solution for the existing population of Palestine was evidently similarly brutal (in practice, if not in expressed theory).

            Israeli Zionism is running true to form.
            #Palestine
            #Israel
            #colonialism
            #zionism

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