I JUST CAN’T TAKE IT ANY LONGER
Peter Edel
This morning I just couldn’t take it any longer. On a Dutch news site I read how the IDF (which stand for “Israel Defense Forces”- for what an irony, shouldn’t it be “Israel Assault Forces”?) has put a hospital in Gaza on fire where many desperate Palestinians had found shelter. The eyewitness report of a French photographer filled me with disgust. I felt nausea, a feeling of profound sickness in the core of my being. It is too fucking much. How can this happen?
Over the years I’ve been writing on Israel, I did everything in my power to separate the Jewish identity from Zionism, for I personally know too many Jews who can’t live with Zionism. But now I’m reaching a turning point in my thinking. What has been happening recently brings me to the question what “Jewish” means, especially from an Israeli perspective.
Is it a religion? Not really. Although it once used to be a belief system, being Jewish does not seem to have much to do with religious feelings anymore. If only because killing gentiles on the day of the Sabbath, is the most unforgivable sin for Jews from a pre-Zionist point of view within Judaism. Moreover, most Jews aren’t believers, especially the majority in Israel. Just like the founders of modern political Zionism who were already atheists. It even comes to the point where statements of atheist Jews against religious Jews outside of Zionism, resemble the historic arguments of Anti-Semitism. So what are we talking about?
Again, what is it to be Jewish? Are Jews belonging to a separate race, as both Theodor Herzl and Adolf Hitler believed? No. Being Jewish has nothing to do with race. Similarity in physique is often mentioned as an argument in this respect, but does not prove anything. The shared facial characteristics of some Jews, is the result of inbreeding, which is normal in isolated communities. It also explains certain hereditary diseases for instance.
Other closed social environments show the same phenomenon. Take for instance Volendam, a catholic enclave in the Netherlands, which is surrounded by several protestant villages. Many people living there show a strong facial resemblance, but no one would get it in his mind to say that the people from Volendam are a separate race. For it is obvious that this follows from intermarrying within the community over the centuries. The same thing goes for Jews. Besides, if Jews belong to a separate race, how can there be black Jews, or Asian Jews?
Or do Jews represent a social group that once used to live collectively in the same country? In other words: can nationality be an argument for Zionism? Crucial in the Zionist claim is the myth of exile. It is commonly believed in the Western world that the Romans deported literally all Jews from the Kingdom of Judea. But regrettably for Zionism there is not a shred of historical evidence to support this idea. Instead the argument of nationality is part of the underlying belief system of Zionism. The Romans were simply lacking the logistics to move an entire population over a large distance. Such only became possible in the 19th century.
It is more likely that only the Jewish elite was exiled by the Romans, while the common Jewish people were left behind. The once who remained Jewish, we know nowadays as the oriental Jews. Others converted to Christianity, or later to Islam. This group is presently known as the Palestinians. Contrary to the myths of Zionism, there is quite some scientific evidence to prove this point. DNA research shows that the genetic profile of oriental Jews has more in common with Palestinians than with Ashkenazi Jews.
Consequently the Palestinians are the only rightful inhabitants of the region where they live. Let it be sure that the early Zionists were bloody well aware of this. Or in the words of Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, the second President of Israel: “The vast majority of the peasant farmers do not have their origins in the Arab conquerors, but rather before then in the Jewish farmers who were numerous and a majority in the building of the land”.
True, genetic resemblances have also been established between Ashkenazi Jews and oriental Jews. But does that mean that all of them had their ancestors in the Kingdom of Judea? No, because there is also the element of conversion. Up to the second millennium many non-Jews converted to Judaism. For instance, because they could not chose between Christianity of Islam for political reasons. Subsequently they mixed over the centuries with the small minority of Jews who did in fact have their origin in the Middle East, which explains the genetic resemblance between the Ashkenazim and oriental Jews.
What it comes down to is that the ancestors of most European Jews never lived in what is nowadays known as the state of Israel. This turns their appropriated right in the 20th century to dominate, suppress and kill the indigenous population into pure travesty. Their inhuman conduct on itself fully justifies the missiles of Hamas on Israel (although I personally believe that direct hits on leading Israeli politicians and army generals - if possible - are more effective in the long run).
So what does the word Jew stand for nowadays? For a religion? Well, the majority of Jews in the world disagrees with that, so how could it be? For a racial entity? Absolutely not, if only because the days of Theodor Herzl and Adolf Hilter are fortunately gone. Or for nationality? Not either, because history shows something completely different.
Instead, under influence of Zionism being Jewish primarily came to stand for a mentality. Or better even, for an ideology. An ideology in which tribal feelings of superiority and hate, as well as mass murder, are prime objectives. The “warm Jewish heart” seems to have gone lost forever, due to the Zionist brainwashing of Jewry. Regrettably it was replaced by the unscrupulous Jewish murderer.
This modern Jewish ideology has nothing to do with the former Judaism. It can even be adopted separate from a genetic Jewish background. The gentile western governments who support the mass murder in Gaza for instance, are as Jewish as Ehud Olmert, while the same goes for most of the western media. So, apart from those regions where an objective view on Zionism prevails, this world is overwhelmingly Jewish.
And how about the Jews who are resisting Zionism while sticking to their Jewish identity? They still can’t be blamed for what the state of Israel is doing, let that be clear. But they should be aware that their identity has been thoroughly hijacked by Zionism and that crimes of Israel against humanity are committed in their name. That is why I did come to understand people like Israel Shamir, Gilad Atzmon and Mordechai Vanunu, who have not only turned their back to Zionism, but also to being Jewish.
