Might Makes Right The Theology Of Wishful Thinking
By Al Cronkrite The Covenant News ~ March 31, 2010
A blog entitled “Palestine End Game” begins with these sentences: “If this means anything, it is that the situation continues to fester. I am always hesitant to comment on the conflict centered in the historic Levant, if only because so many have strong feelings and no end of a historic sense of grievance”. “Historic Levant” is a non-specific term referred to land bordering the Eastern Mediterranean which includes Lebanon, Israel, Syria, Palestinian territories, Jordan, Sinai, and possibly Cyprus and Iraq.
Claiming objectivity the writer says, “I personally feel none of that and can attempt to be somewhat objective if such is even a practical possibility. Let me rephrase this then. I personally feel a sense of sadness in the face of such an ongoing out pouring of hatred and animosity on all the sides involved.”
The author of “Palestine End Game” is a humanist (See his notion of “What is God?”) who writes under the pen name of Arclein and lives in Vancouver, B. C.
Arclein maintains that peace in the Middle East is close to fruition with Egypt, Jordon, and Syria ready to capitulate and Palestine the only remaining impediment. He deplores the “hate Israel” education of Palestinian children and acknowledges a generational facet to the conflict. He believes peace could be secured if the “hot heads” in Palestine can be contained, “The moment that occurs, men of good will can easily resolve the rest. Everyone realizes that the Israelis are not going anywhere, anymore than the whites in North America are returning to Europe or the blacks are going back to Africa. They also can see that peace will benefit everyone. The Levant can hold a population equal to that of Japan and be just as rich.”
Ancient artifacts, some several thousand years old, have been found in the Levant. Its history is part of the Biblical narrative. Since the Diaspora, Palestine has had periods of stability interspersed with several changes of ownership. For more than 500 years the Romans endured. With the exception of the Kingdom of Jerusalem established at the beginning of the Twelfth Century and spanning almost 200 years, the area has been ruled by Arabs and Egyptians from such diverse locations as Constantinople, Damascus, Iraq, Egypt, and finally Istanbul.
In the late 1800s Jewish settlers began to arrive and in 1882 Baron Edmond de Rothschild of Paris began financing Jewish settlements. In the late Nineteenth Century there was support in England and Switzerland for a Zionist Homeland. In 1891 the World Zionist Organization was established in Switzerland. British Hegemony was declared following WWI and in 1917 the Balfour Declaration brought official British support for a Jewish Palestinian Homeland. The Declaration was confirmed by letter to British Baron Walter Rothschild.
Jewish immigration into Palestine continued through the early decades of the Twentieth Century. A substantial influx was feared and there were formal protestations and an occasional skirmish during the 1920s. The creation of a Jewish homeland on Palestinian soil was never acceptable to the indigenous population and the massive influx of Jewish refugees followed Hitler’s atrocities during WWII set the stage for an ongoing conflict.
The Zionist mantra “A Land without a people for a people without a land” is statistically bogus and contested by Palestinians. A British census taken in October,1921, pegged the population of Palestine at three quarters of a million with 78 percent Muslim Arab, 11 percent Jewish, and 9.6 percent Christian Arab.
Ben Gurion acknowledged the indigenous Palestinian population and the need to preserve their rights. As world powers worked at the tyrannical establishment of neo-Israel there was considerable concern for the welfare of it citizens. This smattering of righteous worry got buried in the mad rush to reclaim land that many Jews believed God had given them in perpetuity. This assumption was exacerbated by the subliminal idea that Palestinians were an ancient enemy expendable by a superior power. Severe atrocities were committed and have continued.
There are many similarities between the European occupation of North America and the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Arclein believes that the Jewish settlement of Palestine will not be reversed “anymore than the whites in North America are returning to Europe or the blacks are going back to Africa.” Zionist defenders of the rape of Palestine often use the European rape of North America as justification. Like many Americans, Arclein is a pragmatist who believes power provides its own justification.
The term “manifest destiny” was used and believed by many American colonists. Its meaning was not necessarily related to the Will of God as was the prevalent idea among Christian colonists that America was a promised land occupied by sinful savages who were destined to succumb to European Christian righteousness. Similar influences are behind the Jewish rape of Palestine. Many Jewish immigrants believe they are retaking God given terrain. A massive but largely unnoticed propaganda campaign has created an extensive sentiment that Jews deserve Palestinian land as a result of previous persecutions – a sort of “manifest destiny”.
When individuals and their governments loose the anchor of God’s immutable Law they revert to a theology of wishful thinking that centers righteousness on their personal ambitions. When God sent His chosen people into the Promised Land with genocidal instructions His intention was the creation of an obedient people who could live in peaceful abundance. Disobedience extended the conflict.
Christians often fail to properly understand God’s abhorrence for war. King David, highly favored by God, was prevented from building the Temple because he had been stained by the horrors of war. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is a God of peace. When His order to annihilate indigenous men, women, and children in the Promised Land was disobeyed the seeds of conflict were planted and future peace was destroyed.
Arclein’s contention that peace in the Holy Land is close to being realized is wishful thinking. Justice is a prerequisite to peace. When property is stolen from its owners the theft remains in the memory of the injured parties; injustice does not go away. People will comply with the tyranny of the powerful but passive resistance will remain. A century and a half and several generations have gone by but Southerners still remember the Northern injustice of the Civil War. The few American Indians that survived the genocide still remember the cruel fate of their ancestors; illegal Mexican immigrants are quick to reclaim land conquered by superior U. S. armed forces. Palestinians will not forget the atrocities forced on them by superior Zionist troops; they will not forget that rocks were not effective against bullets and the illegal confiscation of their property was an unrequited injustice.
The blessing of our Christian God has always been contingent on obedience to His Commandments. When His Commandments are disobeyed nations and individuals cannot expect His blessing. Zionist Israel could not have reached its present state of power and influence without the help of the United States. But both nations are humanistic; neither nation is obedient.
Jews were once God’s chosen people. He chose Abram, made a covenant with him and his descendents promising to create from his progeny kings and many nations. The covenant required circumcision; the uncircumcised could not share in the covenant. Following a miraculous exodus from captivity in Egypt God gave Moses the Law and set His chosen people on a course to the Promised Land. Under this Covenant His blessing was contingent on obedience to His Law and the Biblical narrative documents the mercy of a loving God in the face of continual disobedience. In a final act of mercy God sent His Son as a perpetual atonement for the sins of His chosen people. The propitiation of His Son would erase the sins of His chosen people and restore them to His favor. When His Son was rejected and crucified God enlarged His covenant to include Gentiles and as punishment rejected and dispersed His initial choice. Henceforth the only access to God is through His Son, Jesus, The Christ.
Two powerful and uncircumcised nations, both once intimately connected to the One True God but now scoffing at Him and His Laws, are seeking to recover the land God promised and once gave to His chosen people by forcible theft with genocidal intent. The result of this effort has been constant death, destruction, and turmoil.
Neither the Torah nor the Bible contains a promise that the miraculous invasion of the Promised Land will be repeated or conducted in other venues. There are several promises that God will again gather His Chosen people and many theories regarding these passages. Some Pretarists contend that by the time of the Jewish Diaspora all prophecy had been fulfilled. Zionist Christians believe the return of Christ is imminent; others contend He will tarry until after the tribulation. Christians in the era of Paul, the Apostle, believed Christ would return in their generation. Jews expect the soon return of a Messiah different from The Christ. There is a theoretical reverence for the Law and the Exodus in Judaism but little emphasis on the curses of disobedience or on the dispersion God threatened and finally consummated. The dire need for repentance is missing in the majority of those who claim to worship the One True God. Prophecy is the quicksand of the Christian religion. Jesus’ claim that only the Father knows the time should be heeded and all this mission robbing conjecture should cease.
It is difficult for anyone who understands the God of the Bible to endorse neo-Israel. If the Diaspora was a result of disobedience and failure to endorse the propitiation of Christ, the basis for the destruction of the nation God had created must be remedied before a resurrection can occur. If neo-Israel is no more than a humanistic attempt to recreate what God destroyed, efforts to achieve peace will continue to be frustrated as they have been for nearly three-quarters of a century.
Aclein ends his essay with this statement, “The US or NATO presence becomes the honest broker and provides cover for moderate Palestinian leaders to arise while the hotheads are finally neutralized. It could be done. After all, we ended the hatred machine of Nazism in less than five years after the war.”
Arclein is wrong on two counts. First, Nazism has not ended; it is alive and well and flourishes under the surface in Europe and to some extent in America and elsewhere. Jewish power has succeeded in suppressing it but it has not been eradicated. Second, the reasoning itself is flawed. Injustice produces lasting strife that has only two remedies: One, correcting the injustice; two, repenting from it and never repeating it.
Following are excerpts from an essay written by an Israeli youth who studied at Berkley before returning to Israel.
“We all lease the land on which the house was built. Who do we lease it from? - From the Jewish National Fund. Everyone does, either from them or from the State. Almost no one in Israel owns the land their houses are built on. ‘And where did the Jewish National Fund get it from?’ I ask myself. My parents have moved on to more comfortable topics. But I can guess the answer: I know the houses of a Palestinian village, Sumeil, were just a few blocks south of my parents house, until 1948 and while I always liked to tell myself that ‘that's where the village was’, in fact that's just where the houses were. The villagers had land. All the land in the country was divided, none of it was empty. And this land that my parent’s house is built on must have belonged to them… It was around then I met with some students from Nablus…. The organizers asked us to split into groups to discuss some of the biggest issues… We Israelis came up with an especially tolerant proposal: we would allow a hundred thousand Palestinians to return! This was much to the left of the Israeli consensus and we felt very generous…. To our surprise, the Palestinians weren't taken aback by our liberality. They even seemed offended by our discussing the issue in terms of allowing them to enter our country! ....Five years have passed since then. I learned a lot, and I was lucky enough to study at UC Berkeley. As a famous Israeli song goes, things that you see from here, you don't see from there. It seems much simpler to me now: Palestine/Israel isn't mine to give; Palestinians have as much of a right to it as I do. The former inhabitants of Sumeil don't need my big-hearted generosity: they need my recognition of the injustice committed towards them when they were expelled from their homes in 1948. They need me to remind people that most of Israel is built upon land that belonged to Palestinians. They need me to invite them and their children to come and live with us.”
In our New York Times owned local newspaper Rabbi Ephraim Rubinger writes: “Columnist Pat Buchanan once again proves that anti-Semitism is the very unholy and vile cathedral where the fascist right and the Stalinist left wed, mate and conceive their two rather identical twins: anti-Americanism and racism. Both extremist dung piles cannot be divorced from the hatred they spew. First, they hate and abhor America and the values America stands for. That is why they bemoan the alliance between the U. S. and the state of Israel. This alliance is based first and foremost, not on matters of policy or agreement, but rather on shared values, such as democracy, freedom of religion, the struggles against terrorism, the sacred worth of each and every individual, as well the right of each individual to create and produce without undue intrusion of the state.”
In the American Conservative Pat Buchanan writes “Indeed, it is the charge of “anti-Semitism” itself that is toxic. For this venerable slander is designed to nullify public discourse by smearing and intimidating foes and censoring and blacklisting them and any who would publish them. Neocons say we attack them because they are Jewish. We do not. We attack them because their warmongering threatens our country, even as it finds a reliable echo in Ariel Sharon.”
This is the dilemma: A small, highly intelligent, racially conscious, alien agenda oriented, conspiratorial minority has garnered enough financial leverage in the United States to enforce their agenda on our policies to the detriment of our best interests.
The Israeli student is correct in his tendency to repent but he is wrong in assuming he or his family has any right to Palestinian land.
Manipulation and oppression are punishments from God for recalcitrant sin that has festered.
Al Cronkrite is a free-lance writer from Florida. He can be reached at fmsinfla@hotmail.com