Jewish History, Jewish Religion:
The Weight of Three Thousand Years
By Professor Israel Shahak
1. A CLOSED UTOPIA
THIS BOOK, although written in English
and addressed to people living outside the State of Israel, is, in a way, a
continuation of my political activities as an Israeli Jew. Those activities
began in 1965-6 with a protest which caused a considerable scandal at the
time: I had personally witnessed an ultra-religious Jew refuse to allow his
phone to be used on the Sabbath in order to call an ambulance for a non-Jew
who happened to have collapsed in his Jerusalem neighbourhood. Instead of
simply publishing the incident in the press, I asked for a meeting which is
composed of rabbis nominated by the State of Israel. I asked them whether such
behavior was consistent with their interpretation of the Jewish religion. They
answered that the Jew in question had behaved correctly, indeed piously, and
backed their statement by referring me to a passage in an authoritative
compendium of Talmudic laws, written in this century. I reported the incident
to the main Hebrew daily, Ha'aretz, whose publication of the story caused a
media scandal.
The results of the scandal were, for me, rather negative.
Neither the Israeli, nor the diaspora, rabbinical authorities ever reversed
their ruling that a Jew should not violate the Sabbath in order to save the
life of a Gentile. They added much sanctimonious twaddle to the effect that if
the consequence of such an act puts Jews in danger, the violation of the
Sabbath is permitted, for their sake. It became apparent to me, as drawing on
Talmudic laws governing the relations between Jews and non-Jews, that neither
Zionism, including its seemingly secular part, nor Israeli politics since the
inception of the State of Israel, nor particularly the policies of the Jewish
supporters of Israel in the diaspora, could be understood unless the deeper
influence of those laws, and the worldview which they both create and express
is taken into account. The actual policies Israel pursued after the Six Day
War, and in particular the apartheid character of the Israeli regime in the
Occupied Territories and the attitude of the majority of Jews to the issue of
the rights of the Palestinians, even in the abstract, have merely strengthened
this conviction.
By making this statement I am not trying to ignore the
political or strategic considerations which may have also influenced the
rulers of Israel. I am merely saying that actual politics is an interaction
between realistic considerations (whether valid or mistaken, moral or immoral
in my view) and ideological influences. The latter tend to be more influential
the less they are discussed and 'dragged into the light'. Any form of racism,
discrimination and xenophobia becomes more potent and politically influential
if it is taken for granted by the society which indulges in it. This is
especially so if its discussion is prohibited, either formally or by tacit
agreement. When racism, discrimination and xenophobia is prevalent among Jews,
and directed against non-Jews, being fueled by religious motivations, it is
like its opposite case, that of antisemitism and its religious motivations.
Today, however, while the second is being discussed, the very existence of the
first is generally ignored, more outside Israel than within it.
Without a discussion of the prevalent Jewish attitudes to
non-Jews, even the concept of Israel as 'a Jewish state', as Israel formally
defines itself, cannot be understood. The widespread misconception that
Israel, even without considering its regime in the Occupied Territories, is a
true democracy arises from the refusal to confront the significance of the
term 'a Jewish state' for non-Jews. In my view, Israel as a Jewish state
constitutes a danger not only to itself and its inhabitants, but to all Jews
and to all other peoples and states in the Middle East and beyond. I also
consider that other Middle Eastern states or entities which define themselves
as 'Arab' or 'Muslim', like the Israeli self-definition as being 'Jewish',
likewise constitute a danger. However, while this danger is widely discussed,
the danger inherent in the Jewish character of the State of Israel is not.
The principle of Israel as 'a Jewish state' was supremely
important to Israeli politicians from the inception of the state and was
inculcated into the Jewish population by all conceivable ways. When, in the
early 1980s, a tiny minority of Israeli Jews emerged which opposed this
concept, a Constitutional Law (that is, a law overriding provisions of other
laws, which cannot be revoked except by a special procedure) was passed in
1985 by an enormous majority of the Knesset.
By this law no party whose programme openly opposes the
principle of 'a Jewish state' or proposes to change it by democratic means, is
allowed to participate in the elections to the Knesset. I myself strongly
oppose this constitutional principle. The legal consequence for me is that I
cannot belong, in the state of which I am a citizen, to a party having
principles with which I would agree and which is allowed to participate in
Knesset elections. Even this example shows that the State of Israel is not a
democracy due to the application of a Jewish ideology directed against all
non-Jews and those Jews who oppose this ideology. But the danger which this
dominant ideology represents is not limited to domestic affairs. It also
influences Israeli foreign policies. This danger will continue to grow, as
long as two currently operating developments are being strengthened: the
increase in the Jewish character of Israel and the increase in its power,
particularly in nuclear power. Another ominous factor is that Israeli
influence in the USA political establishment is also increasing. Hence
accurate information about Judaism, and especially about the treatment of
non-Jews by Israel, is now not only important, but politically vital as well.
Let me begin with the official Israeli definition of the
term 'Jewish', illustrating the crucial difference between Israel as 'a Jewish
state' and the majority of other states. By this official definition, Israel
'belongs' to persons who are defined by the Israeli authorities as 'Jewish',
irrespective of where they live, and to them alone. On the other hand, Israel
doesn't officially 'belong' to its non-Jewish citizens, whose status is
considered even officially as inferior. This means in practice that if members
of a Peruvian tribe are converted to Judaism, and thus regarded as Jewish,
they are entitled at once to become Israeli citizens and benefit from the
approximately 70 per cent of the West Bank land (and the 92 per cent of the
area of Israel proper), officially designated only for the benefit of Jews.
All non-Jews ( not only all Palestinians) are prohibited from benefiting from
those lands. (The prohibition applies even to Israeli Arabs who served in the
Israeli army and reached a high rank.) The case involving Peruvian converts to
Judaism actually occurred a few years ago. The newly-created Jews were settled
in the West Bank, near Nablus, on land from which non-Jews are officially
excluded. All Israeli governments are taking enormous political risks,
including the risk of war, so that such settlements, composed exclusively of
persons who are defined as 'Jewish' (and not 'Israeli' as most of the media
mendaciously claims) would be subject to only 'Jewish' authority.
I suspect that the Jews of the USA or of Britian would
regard it as antisemitic if Christians would propose that the USA or the
United Kingdom should become a 'Christian state', belonging only to citizens
officially defined as 'Christians'. The consequence of such doctrine is that
Jews converting to Christianity would become full citizens because of their
conversion. It should be recalled that the benefits of conversions are well
known to Jews from their own history. When the Christian and the Islamic
states used to discriminate against all persons not belonging to the religion
of the state, including the Jews, the discrimination against Jews was at once
removed by their conversion. But a non-Jew discriminated against by the State
of Israel will cease to be so treated the moment he or she converts to
Judaism.This simply shows that the same kind of exclusivity that is regarded
by a majority of the diaspora Jews as antisemitic is regarded by the majority
of all Jews as Jewish. To oppose both antisemitism and Jewish chauvinism is
widely regarded among Jews as a 'self-hatred', a concept which I regard as
nonsensical.
The meaning of the term 'Jewish' and its cognates, including
'Judaism', thus becomes in the context of Israeli politics as important as the
meaning of 'Islamic', when officially used by Iran, or 'communist' when it was
officially used by the USSR. However, the meaning of the term 'Jewish' as it
is popularly used is not clear, either in Hebrew or when translated into other
languages, and so the term had to be defined officially.
According to Israeli law a person is considered 'Jewish' if
either their mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and
great-great-grandmother were Jewesses by religion; or if the person was
converted to Judaism in a way satisfactory to the Israeli authorities, and on
condition that the person has not converted from Judaism to another religion,
in which case Israel ceases to regard them as 'Jewish'. Of the three
conditions, the first represents the Talmudic definition of 'who is a Jew', a
defintion followed by Jewish Orthodoxy. The Talmud and post-Talmudic rabbinic
law also recognise the conversion of a non-Jew to Judaism (as well as the
purchase of a non-Jewish slave by a Jew followed by a different kind of
conversion) as a method of becoming Jewish, provided that the conversion is
performed by authorised rabbis in a proper manner. This 'proper manner'
entails for females, their inspection by three rabbis while naked in a 'bath
of purification', a ritual which, although notorious to all readers of the
Hebrew press, is not often mentioned by the English media in spite of its
undoubted interest for certain readers. I hope that this book will be the
beginning of a process which will rectify this discrepancy.
But there is another urgent necessity for an official
definitionof who is, and who is not 'Jewish'. The State of Israel officially
discriminates in favour of Jews and against non-Jews in many domains of life,
of which I regard three as being most important: residency rights, the right
to work and the right to equality before the law. Discrimination in residency
is based on the fact that about 92 per cent of Israel's land is the property
of the state and is administered by the Israel Land Authority according to
regulations issued by the Jewish National Fund (JNF), and affiliate of the
World Zionist Organization. In its regualtions the JNFdenies the right to
reside, to open a business, and often to work, to anyone who is not Jewish,
only because he is not Jewish. At the same time, Jews are not prohibited from
taking residence or opening businesses anywhere in Israel. If applied in
another state against the Jews, such discriminatory practice would instantly
and justifiably be labelled antisemitism and would no doubt spark massive
public protests. When applied by Israel as a part of its 'Jewish ideology',
they are usually studiously ignored or excused when rarely mentioned.
The denial of the right to work means that non-Jews are
prohibited officially from working on land administered by the Israel Land
Authority according to the JNF regulations. No doubt these regulations are not
always, or even often, enforced but they do exist. From time to time Israel
attempts enforcement campaigns by state authorities, as, for example, when the
Agriculture Ministry acts against 'the pestilence of letting fruit orchards
belonging to Jews and situated on National Land [i.e., land belonging to the
State of Israel] be harvested by Arab labourers', even if the labourers in
question are citizens of Israel. Israel also strictly prohibits Jews settled
on 'National Land' to sub-rent even a part of their land to Arabs, even for a
short time; and those who do so are punished, usually by heavy fines. There is
no prohibitions on non-Jews renting their land to Jews. This means, in my own
case, that by virtue of being a Jew I have the right to lease an orchard for
harvesting its produce from another Jew, but a non-Jew, whether a citizen of
Israel or a resident alien, does not have this right.
Non-Jewish citizens of Israel do not have the right to
equality before the law. This discimination is expressed in many Israeli laws
in which, presumably in order to avoid embarressment, the terms 'Jewish' and
'non-Jewish' are usually not explicitly stated, as they are in the crucial Law
of Return. According to that law only persons officially recognised as
'Jewish' have an automatic right of entry to Israel and of settling in it.
They automatically receive an 'immigration certificate' which provides them on
arrival with 'citizenship by virtue of having returned to the Jewish
homeland', and with the right to many financial benefits, which vary somewhat
according to the country from which they emmigrated. The Jews who emigrate
from the states of the former UUSR receive 'an absorption grant' of more than
$20,000 per family. All Jews immigrating to Israel accordingthis law
immediately acquire the right to vote in elections and to be elected to the
Knesset -- even if they do not speak a word of Hebrew.
Other Israeli laws substitute the more obtuse expressions
'anyone who can immigrate in accordance with the Law of Return' and 'anyone
who is not entitled to immigrate in accordance with the law of Return'.
Depending onthe law in questionm benefits are them grantedto the first
category and systematically denied to the second. The routine means for
enforcing discrimination in everyday life is the ID card, which everyone is
obliged to carry at all times. ID cards list the official 'nationality' of a
person, which can be 'Jewish', 'Arab', 'Druze' and the like, witah the
significant exception of 'Israeli'. Attempts to force the Interior Minister to
allow Israelis wishing to be officially described as 'Israeli', or even as
'Israeli-Jew' in their ID cards have failed. Those who have attempted to do so
have a letter from the Ministry of the Interior stating that 'it was decided
not to recognise an Israeli nationality'. The letter does not specify who made
this decision or when.
There are so many laws and regulations in Israel which
discriminate in favour of the persons defined in Israel as those 'who can
immigrate in accordance with the Law of Return' that the subject demands
seperate treatment. We can look here at one example, seemingly trivial in
comparison with residence restrictions, but nevertheless important since it
reveals the real intentions of the Israeli legislator. Israeli citizens who
left the country for a time but who are defined as those who 'can immigrate in
accordance with the Law of Return' are eligible on their return to generous
customs benefits, to receive subsidy for their children's high school
education, and to receive either a grant or a loan on easy terms for the
purchase of an apartment, as well as other benefits. Citizens who cannot be so
defined, in other words, the non-Jewish citizens of Israel, get none of these
benefits. The obvious intention of such discriminatory measures is to decrease
tje number of non-Jewish citizens of Israel, in order to make Israel a more
'Jewish' state.
The Ideology of 'Redeemed' Land
Israel also propagates among its Jewish citizens an exclusivist ideology of
the Redemption of Land. Its official aim of minimizing the number of non-Jews
can be well perceived in this ideology , which is inculcated to Jewish
schoolchildren in Israel. They are taught that it is applicable to the entire
extent of either the State of Israel or, after 1967, to what is referred to as
the Land of Israel. According to this ideology, the land which has been
'redeemed' is the land which has passed from non-Jewish ownership to Jewish
ownership. The ownership can be either private, or belong to either the JNF or
the Jewish state. The land which belongs to non-Jews is, on the contrary,
considered to be 'unredeemed'. Thus, if a Jew who committed the blackest
crimes which can be imagined buys a piece of land from a virtuous non-Jew, the
'unredeemed' land becomes 'redeemed' by such a transaction. However, if a
virtuous non-Jew purchases land from the worst Jew, the formerly pure and
'redeemed' land becomes 'unredeemed' again. The logical conclusion of such an
ideology is the expulsion, called 'transfer', of all non-Jews from the area of
land which has to be 'redeemed'. Therefore the Utopia of the 'Jewish ideology'
adopted by the State of Israel is a land which is wholly 'redeemed' and none
of it is owned or worked by non-Jews. The leaders of the Zionist labour
movement expressed this utterly repellent idea with the greatest clarity.
Walter Laquer a devoted Zionist, tells in his History of Zionism1
how one of these spiritual fathers, A.D. Gordon, who died in 1919, 'objected
to violence in principle and justified self defence only in extreme
circumstances. But he and his friends wanted every tree and bush in the Jewish
homeland to be planted by nobody else except Jewish pioneers'. This means that
they wanted everybody else to just go away and leave the land to be 'redeemed'
by Jews. Gordon's successors added more violence than he intended but the
principle of 'redemption' and its consequences have remained.
In the same way, the kibbutz, widely hailed as an attempt to
create a Utopia, was and is an exclusivist Utopia; even if it is composed of
atheists, it does not accent Arab members on principle and demands that
potential members from other nationalities be first converted to Judaism. No
wonder the kibbutz boys can be regarded as the most militaristic segment of
the Israeli jewish society.
It is this exclusivist ideology, rather than all the
'security needs' alleged by Israeli propaganda, which determines the takeovers
of land in Israel in the 1950s and again in the mid-1960s and in the Occupied
Territories after 1967. This ideology also dictated official Israeli plans for
'the Judaizition of Galilee'. This curious term means encouraging Jews to
settle in Galilee by giving them financial benefits. (I wonder what would be
the reaction of US Jews if a plan for 'the Christianization of New York' or
even only of Brooklyn, would be proposed in their country.) But the Redemption
of the Land implies more than regional 'Judaization'. In the entire area of
Israel the JNF, vigorously backed by Israeli state agencies (especially by the
secret police) is spending great sums of public money in order to 'redeem' any
land which non-Jews are willing to sell, and to preempt any attempt by a Jew
to sell his land to a non-Jew by paying him a higher price.
Israeli Expansionism
The main danger which Israel, as 'a Jewish state', poses to its own people,
to other Jews and to its neighbors, is its ideologically motivated pursuit of
territorial expansion and the inevitable series of wars resulting from this
aim. The more Israel becomes Jewish or, as one says in Hebrew, the more it
'returns to Judaism' (a process which has been under way in Israel at least
since 1967), the more its actual politics are guided by Jewish ideological
considerations and less by rational ones. My use of the term 'rational' does
not refer here to a moral evaluation of Israeli policies, or to the supposed
defence or security needs of Israel - even less so to the supposed needs of
'Israeli survival'. I am referring here to Israeli imperial policies based on
its presumed interests. However morally bad or politically crass such policies
are, I regard the adoption of policies based on 'Jewish ideology', in all its
different versions as being even worse. The ideological defence of Israeli
policies are usually based on Jewish religious beliefs or, in the case of
secular Jews, on the 'historical rights' of the Jews which derive from those
beliefs and retain the dogmatic character of religious faith.
My own early political conversion from admirer of Ben-Gurion
to his dedicated opponent began exactly with such an issue. In 1956 I eagerly
swallowed all of Ben-Gurion's political and military reasons for Israel
initiating the Suez War, until he (in spite of being an atheist, proud of his
disregard of the commandments of Jewish religion) pronounced in the Knesset on
the third day of that war, that the real reason for it is 'the restoration of
the kingdom of David and Solomon' to its Biblical borders. At this point in
his speech, almost every Knesset member spontaneously rose and sang the
Israeli national anthem. To my knowledge, no zionist politician has ever
repudiated Ben-Gurion's idea that Israeli policies must be based (within the
limits of pragmatic considerations) on the restoration of the Biblical borders
as the borders of the Jewish state. Indeed, close analysis of Israeli grand
strategies and actual principles of foreign policy, as they are expressed in
Hebrew, makes it clear that it is 'Jewish ideology', more than any other
factor, which determines actual Israeli policies. The disregard of Judaism as
it really is and of 'Jewish ideology' makes those policies incomprehensible to
foreign observers who usually know nothing about Judaism exept crude
apologetics.
Let me give a more recent illustration of the essential
difference which exists between Israeli imperial planning of the most inflated
but secular type, and the principles of 'Jewish ideology'. The latter enjoins
that land which was either ruled by any Jewish ruler in ancient times or was
promised by God to the Jews, either in the Bible or - what is actually more
important politically - according to a rabbinic interpretation of the Bible
and the Talmud, should belong to Israel since it is a Jewish state. No doubt,
many Jewish 'doves' are of the opinion that such conquest should be deferred
to a time when Israel will be stronger than it is now, or that there would be,
hopefully, a 'peaceful conquest', that is , that the Arab rulers or peoples
would be 'persuaded' to cede the land in question in return for benefits which
the Jewish state would then confer on them.
A number of discrepant versions of Biblical borders of the
Land of Israel, which rabbinical authorities interpret as ideally belonging to
the Jewish state, are in circulation. The most far-reaching among them include
the following areas within these borders: in the south, all of Sinai and a
part of nothern Egypt up to the environs of Cairo; in the east, all of Jordan
and a large chunk of Saudi Arabia, all of Kuwait and a part of Iraq south of
the Euphrates; in the north, all of Lebanon and all of Syria together with a
huge part of Turkey (up to lake Van); and in the west, Cyprus. An enormous
body of research and learned discussion based on these borders, embodied in
atlases, books, articles and more popular forms of propaganda is being
published in Israel, often with state subsidies, or other forms of support.
Certainly the late Kahane and his followers, as will as influential bodies
such as Gush Emunim, not only desire the conquest of those territories by
Israel, but regard it as a divinely commanded act, sure to be successful since
it will be aided by God. In fact, important Jewish religious figures regard
the Israeli refusal to undertake such a holy war, or even worse, the return of
Sinai to Egypt, as a national sin which was justly punished by God. One of the
more influential Gush Emunim rabbis, Dov Lior, the rabbi of Jewish settlements
of Kiryat Arba and of Hebron, stated repeatedly that the Israeli failure to
conquer Lebanon in 1982-5 was a well-merited divine punishment for its sin of
'giving a part of Land of Israel', namely Sinai, to Egypt.
Although I have chosen an admittedly extreme example of the
Biblical borders of the Land of Israel which 'belong' to the 'Jewish state',
those borders are quite popular in national-religious circles. There are less
extreme versions of Biblical borders, sometimes also called 'historical
borders'. It should however be emphasized that within Israel and the community
of its diaspora Jewish supporters, the validity of the concept of either
Biblical borders or historical borders as delineating the bordrers of land
which belongs to Jews by right is not denied on grounds of principle, except
by the tiny minority which opposes the concept of a Jewish state. Otherwise,
objections to the realisation of such borders by a war are purely pragmatical.
One can claim that Israel is now too weak to conquer all the land which
'belongs' to the Jews, or that the loss of Jewish lives (but not of Arab
lives!) entailed in a war of conquest of such magnitude is more important than
the conquest of the land, but in normative Judaism one cannot claim that 'the
Land of Israel', in whatever borders, does not 'belong' to all the Jews. In
May 1993, Ariel Sharon formally proposed in the Likud Convention that Israel
should adopt the 'Biblical borders' concept as its official policy. There were
rather few objections to this proposal, either in the Likud or outside it, and
all were cased on pragmaic grounds. No one even asked Sharon where exactly are
the Biblical borders which he was urging that Israel should attain. Let us
recall that among those who call themselves Leninists there was no doubt that
history follows the principles laid out by Marx and Lenin. It is not only the
belief itself, however dogmatic, but the refusal that it should ever be
doubted, by thwarting open discussion, which creates a totalitarian cast of
mind. Israeli-Jewish society and diaspora Jews who are leading 'Jewish lives'
and organised in purely Jewish organisations, can be said therefore to have a
strong streak of totalitarianism in their character.
However, an Israeli grand strategy, not based on the tenets
of 'Jewish ideology', but based on purely strategic or imperial considerations
had also developed since the inception of the state. An authoriative and lucid
description of the principles governing such strategy was given by General
(Reserves) Shlomo Gazit, a former Military Intelligence commander.-- According
to Gazit,
- "Israel's main task has not changed at all [since
the demise of the USSR] and it remains of crucial importance. The
geographical location of Israel at the centre of the Arab-Muslim Middle
East predestines Israel to be a devoted guardian of stability in all the
countries surrounding it. Its [role] is to protect the existing regimes:
to prevent or halt the processes of radicalization, and to block the
expansion of fundamentalist religious zealtory.
For this purpose Israel will prevent changes occuring
beyond Israel's borders [which it] will regard as intolerable, to the
point of feeling compelled to use all its military power for the sake of
their prevention or eradication."
In other words, Israel aims at imposing a hegemony on other
Middle Eastern states. Needless to say, according to Gazit, Israel has a
benevolent concern for the stability of the Arab regimes. In Gazit's view, by
protecting Middle Eastern regimes, Israel performs a vital service for 'the
industrially advanced states, all of which are keenly concerned with
guaranteeing the stability in the Middle East'. He argues that without Israel
the existing regimes of the region would have collapsed long ago and that they
remain in existence only because of Israeli threats. While this view may be
hypocritical, one should recall in such contexts La Rochefoucault's maxim that
'hypocrisy is the tax which wickedness pays to virtue'. Redemption of the Land
is an attempt to evade paying any such tax.
Needless to say, I also oppose root and branch the Israeli
non-ideological policies as they are so lucidly and correctly explained by
Gazit. At the same time, I recognize that the dangers of the policies of Ben-Gurion
of Sharon, motivated by 'Jewish ideology', are much worse than merely imperial
policies, however criminal. The results of policies of other ideologically
motivated regimes point in the same direction. The existence of an important
component of Israeli policy, which is based on 'Jewish ideology', makes its
analysis politically imperative. This ideology is, in turn based on the
attitudes of historic Judaism to non-Jews, one of the main themes of this
book. Those attitudes necessarily influence many Jews, consciously or
unconciously. Our task here is to discuss historic Judaism in real terms.
The influence on 'Jewish ideology' on many Jews will be
stronger the more it is hidden from public discussion. Such discussion will,
it is hoped, lead people take the same attitude towards Jewish chauvinism and
the contempt displayed by so many Jews towards non-Jews (which will be
documented below) as that commonly taken towards antisemitism and all other
forms of xenophobia, chauvinism and racism. It is justly assumed that only the
full exposition, not only of antisemitism, but also of its historical roots,
can be the basis of struggle against it. Likewise I am assuming that only the
full exposition of Jewish chauvinism and religious fanaticism can be the basis
of struggle against those phenomena. This is especially true today when,
contrary to the situation prevailing fifty or sixty years ago, the political
influence of Jewish chauvinism and religious fanaticism is much greater than
that of antisemitism. But there is also another important consideration. I
strongly believe that antisemitism and Jewish chauvinism can only be fought
simultaneously.
A Closed Utopia?
Until such attitudes are widely adopted, the actual danger of Israeli
policies based on 'Jewish ideology' remains greater than the danger of
policies based on purely strategic considerations. The difference between the
two kinds of policies was well expressed by Hugh Trevor-Roper in his essay
'Sir Thomas More and Utopia' 2 in which he termed them Platonic and Machiavellian:
- "Machiavelli at least apologized for the methods
which he thought necessary in politics. He regretted the necessity of
force and fraud and did not call them by any other name. But Plato and
More sanctified them, provided that they were used to sustain their own
Utopian republics."
In a similiar way true believers in that Utopia called
the 'Jewish state', which will strive to achieve the 'Biblical borders', are
more dangerous than the grand strategists of Gazit's type because their
policies are being sanctified either by the use of religion or, worse, by the
use of secularized religious principles which retaim absolute validity. While
Gazit at least sees a need to argue that the Israel diktat benefits the Arab
regimes, Ben-Gurion did not pretend that the re-establishment of the kingdom
of David and Solomon will benefit anybody except the Jewish state.
Using the concepts of Platonism to analyse Israeli policies
based on 'Jewish ideology' should not seem strange. It was noticed by several
scholars, of whom the most important was Moses Hadas, who claimed that the
foundations of 'classical Judaism', that is, of Judaism as it was established
by talmudic sages, are based on Platonic influences and especially on the
image of Sparta as it appears in Plato.3
According to Hadas, a crucial feature of the Platonic political system,
adopted by Judaism as early as the Maccabean period (142-63 BC), was 'that
every phase of human conduct be subject to religious sanctions which are in
fact to be manipulated by the ruler'. There can be no better definition of
'classical Judaism' and of the ways in which the rabbis manipulated it than
this Platonic definition. In particular, Hadas claims that Judaism adopted
what 'Plato himself summarized [as] the objectives of his program', in the
following well-known passage:
"The principle thing is that no one, man or
woman, should ever be without an officer set over him, and that none
should get the mental habit of taking any step, whether in earnest or in
jest, on his individual responsibility. In peace as in war he must live
always with his eyes on his superior officer... In a word, we must train
the mind not to even consider acting as an invidual or know how to do
it." (Laws, 942ab)
If the word 'rabbi' is substituted for 'an officer' we
will have a perfect image of classical Judaism. The latter is still deeply
influencing Israeli-Jewish society and determing to a large extent the Israeli
policies.
It was the above quoted passage which was chosen by Karl
Popper in The Open Society and Its Enemies as describing the essence of 'a
closed society'. Historical Judaism and its two successors, Jewish Orthodoxy
and Zionism, are both sworn enemies of the concept of the open society as
applied to Israel. A Jewish state, whether based on its present Jewish
ideology or, if it becomes even more Jewish in character than it is now, on
the principles of Jewish Orthodoxy, cannot ever contain an open society. There
are two choices which face Israeli-Jewish society. It can become a fully
closed and warlike ghetto, a Jewish Sparta, supported by the labour of Arab
helots, kept in existence by its influence on the US political establishment
and by threats to use its nuclear power, or it can try to become an open
society. The second choice is dependent on an honest examination of its Jewish
past, on the admission that Jewish chauvinism and exclusivism exist, and on an
honest examination of the attitudes of Judaism towards the non-Jews.
NOTES:
1 Walter Laquer, History of Zionism Schocken Publishers, Tel
Aviv, 1974, in Hebrew.
2 In Hugh Trevor-Roper, Renaissance Essays, Fontana
Press, London, 1985.
3 See Moses Hadas, Hellenistic Culture, Fusion and Diffusion,
Columbia University Press, New York, 1959, especially chapters VII and
XX.
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