I was advised to take a look as Peter Kosminsky's 'The Promise' and I managed to watch a few episodes to find that the same forces that drive me each year to commemorate the shoah were slowly aroused to find me despair in exactly the same way with the Jews and the way the Nazis engaged with the Jews then, and the ways the Jews engage now.
As I read and dialogue, I find that Israel has nothing to do with the day-to-day realities of the majority and yet it is a place, an issue, which sees great polarisation. All is condoned or condemned. Israel is poor little country on the brink of extinction, fight for her life every day or she is a territory grabbing, murdering, American-aided demon.
I find little or no balance regarding the issue (something that was admirably demonstrated by the responses I had from some when I supported an 'Israel and the Church') and even less intelligent dialogue. So I am going to have to work from scratch, it seems.
An observation from the frustration that the journey has been thus far has to be that surely those who see their support of the state of Israel, the rebuilding of the temple and the many other things that they drone on about as being necessary for 'The Return' all seem to forget one thing. If God is God then He doesn't need us to manufacture the condition for 'The Return', He is surely bid enough and powerful enough to do what is required Himself. It is immature, naive, outrageous even to assume that we can engineer the conditions so that, Genie-like, He will appear at our command 'out of the bottle'.
Any sympathy, any 'blood guilt' over the shoah, is slowly fading as the generation that witnessed the second world war, that perhaps saw the liberation of the camps (I know of three who were there and am trying to get them to share their experiences). The new anger, the new awareness of the slaughter of innocents is not about the Jews, but from them and they are losing ground in the eyes of many because of it.
I get the feeling that somewhere underneath it all, there is a parallel in a car I hired when working for a firm in Newark, NJ. It said 'Mustang' on the paperwork, it said 'Mustang' on the tail (and the steering wheel) but it wasn't and it was soon relabelled 'Ford Probe'. Is this the case here - are people reading the label 'Israel' and setting about bring God back on their terms and timing? Are people looking at the physical location and confusing it with a spiritual entity? Are 'all believer; now the 'New Israel' (as put forward by one person I am in dialogue with) and are we looking at double revelation or was the return to the 'Promised Land' something that took place long before Palestine was partitioned?
If I were Palestinian and saw my land taken from me, the homes of my forebears snatched by force and found myself excluded, pushed further away and acted against, would I maintain my intellectual and moral veneers or would I be firing rockets too?
Being acted against, however badly, does not provide warrant to act badly against others and so the case for supporting Israel slowly wanes if that's the excuse. The shoah has passed and all must learn from the wickedness that is was, and still is in the genocide to be found even today, and seek to make true the words 'never again'
Pax
5 comments:
You continue to main your antisemitic stance and to apportion blame only on the side of israel whilst condoneing and endorsing the Palestinians.
You are wrong in all that you write
TB (cough)- i am convinced that my stance is neither
antisemitic or zionist but is placed somewhere betwixt the two.
The problem with the Palestinian problem is that neither side are wholly wrong and neither are wholly right. The offence (occupying Palestine) which has rendered people homeless and marginalised is a little more recent than the various offences culminating perhaps in the AD 70 temple demolition and the reasons for behaving as they do (in the case of Israel) is addressed in my next post (which I see you have already found).
Pax
Kudos to you, Vic, for being prepared to air your thoughts on this diffcult and controversial subject in such a public forum.
And it is a difficult subject, with many, including Christians, wanting to apportion blame to one side or the other, and I commend your desire not to fall into that trap. There are two things I would want, at this stage, to draw attention to:
1. As Christians we are called to exercise a ministry of reconciliation. Unfortunately, the Christian church is not best placed to do this since we have a record (a) of historic (real) antisemitism, brought about by a theology that the church has replaced Israel in God's affections (BTW nowhere in the NT does it speak about "New Israel"; the nearest it comes is "the Israel of God by which the author means Gentile and Jewish believers); and (b) historic hostility to the Arab and Muslim worlds.
2. Because of these considerations it is difficult for Christians to speak into this situation without being perceived as for or against one or other of the "sides" to this issue. Uncritical Christian Zionism is not "prophetic" as its proponents would have us believe. But nor is an uncritically pro-Palestinian stance either. Elias Chacour expressed this in a video I posted a few months ago here.
you speak of people being throw out of their land.... No not at all, nobody has ever been thrown of any land.. infact The arab population have always been welcomed within Israel and have had been entitled to full citizenship including voting rights... its also important to note that Israel was only named" palestina" in the 2nd century by roman emporer Hadrian after Israel attempted to gain independance from the Roman Empire. He chose this name as an insult to remind Israel of their past ememy the Pilestines and ancient tribe whom where no longer in existane. This was the time when Israel were scattered through out the earth. This did not however create a new state. The land lay in ruins for many centuries , an account from Mark Twains, the famous writer of Huckelbery finn. when on a trip to Israel in 1867, described it as: "a desolate country whose soil is rich enough, but is given over wholly to weeds--a silent mournful expanse...A desolation is here that not even imagination can grace with the pomp of life and action...We never saw a human being on the whole route...There was hardly a tree or a shrub anywhere. Even the olive and the cactus, those fast friends of the worthless soil, had almost deserted the country." When Jews began to immigrate to Israel in large numbers in 1882, few Arabs lived there, and the majority of them had arrived in recent decades.
All grist - thanks,
V
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