Newsletter:
Vol. 5. Iss. 3
10 August 2004
A Disaster for Dialogue, cont'd.
Prof. Michael Prior, CM
Unlike those who pass over the moral question of the impact of Zionism on
the indigenous Palestinians, the Jewish religious group Neturei Karla - founded
in Jerusalem in 1938 - continues to be distressed at the injustices to the
Palestinians in the name of Jewishness. True Jews, they insist, are not allowed
to dominate, kill, harm or demean another people. They regard Zionism as a
tragic experiment and a "dismal failure". Already too much blood
has been shed on the altar of a nineteenth-century colonial nationalism, misapplied
to the Jewish people. From being that of a people of faith, Zionism, they
charge, has changed being Jewish into a barren secular, ethnic identity. World
Jewry, they insist, is implicated in Israel's violence against the Palestinians.
Such religious notables would be bemused to learn that their criticism of
Zionism was a manifestation of anti-Semitism. Despite such religiously based
criticism of the Zionist enterprise, however, the Jewish religious leadership
today, both in Israel and abroad, has been among the most enthusiastic supporters
of the Zionist enterprise. Given the consequences for the people of Palestine,
I find their moral stance disturbing.
For there is a fundamental moral problem at the core of the Zionist project
which no amount of special pleading, or pretence to innocence, can sidestep:
it is the determination to establish a state for Jews at the expense of the
indigenous Arabs. Herzl and the leadership of the Zionist enterprise were
well aware of the ethnic-cleansing imperative of his project. As an entry
in his diary of 12 June, 1895, shows, Herzl knew what was needed to establish
a state for Jews in a land already inhabited. Having occupied the land and
expropriated the private property, he wrote: "We shall endeavour to expel
the poor population across the border unnoticed, procuring employment for
it in the transit countries, but denying it any employment in our own country
... The process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried
out discretly and circumspectly."
There is also a large body of evidence in the Zionist archives, and in the
public domain since the early Nineties, tracing the consistency of this line
of thinking within the Jewish leadership in Palestine. In fact, the establishment
of the State of Israel in 1948 was preceded and followed by the systematic
expulsion of 80 per cent of the Arab population - aided by several massacres
and rapes - the destruction of 418 of their villages to ensure they would
not return, and the confiscation of virtually all their land. Israel's colonization
policy since 1967 has added to Palestinian disaffection to this day.
There are, then, two reasons for objection to criticism of Zionism being seen
as "an attack against the whole Jewish people". The first has its
roots in Jewish theological considerations, and the second includes consideration
of the rights of an indigenous population not to be expelled from, or dominated
in their land. If the former concerns preoccupy some religious Jews, then
secular Jews, and some religious ones also, are among those most disturbed
by the human cost of the implementation of Zionism. Such people should not
be dismissed as "self-hating Jews", nor should those who share their
concerns, for either theological or humanitarian reasons, be accused of being
"Jew haters".
The failure of the Catholic and Jewish leaders to include a thoughtful religious
perspective on one of the great moral crises of our time calls the integrity
of the actual Catholic-Jewish dialogue into question. How does the evasion
of hard truths in any way benefit the noble ideal of inter-religious relations?
There are religious and moral considerations of even greater importance than
cozy relations with another faith group. One might not unreasonably have hope
that the combined wisdom as reflected in the Buenos Aires joint statement
would transcend the liberation rhetoric of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and
President George W. Bush.
