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-Caveat Lector- RELIGIOUS FUNDAMENTALISM:
A Dangerous Phenomenon that poses a direct threat to Freedom, Democracy and Human Rights
An article, which was posted on Al-Jazeera website on 11 March 2003, highlighted the religious-fundamentalist aspect of the war that the U.S. is waging for global control and hegemony. (1)
An ironical aspect of this dangerous phenomenon is, which started to spread three decades ago, is the fact that it was spreading simultaneously among people from the three monotheistic religions: Islam, Christianity and Judaism. Another ironical aspect of it is the fact that a tacit understanding is binding the extreme right-wingers with the religious fundamentalists together in a holy war waged to achieve political gains.
The march of folly, which started in Afghanistan, has just moved to Iraq and is expected to spread to a list of other countries including Iran and Syria.
While the mainstream media, especially in North America, is focused on fundamentalist Moslems, nothing much is being said about the danger of fundamentalists in Israel or the tens of millions of fundamentalists in the U.S. who pushed one of their members to the driving seat of an administration that is shamelessly challenging international law and all moral values and basic human rights.
The article posted in Al-Jazeera website sheds some light on fundamentalism in the U.S. This article, however, is in Arabic and it would be highly appreciated if someone would provide a good translation of it into English.
To complete the picture, the following paragraphs give an overall idea about fundamentalism in Israel, which is part and parcel of the racist and colonialist military establishment that is in full control under Sharon's leadership. (2)
Expanding territorial occupation of Israel in 1967 to include the remaining parts of Palestine that were not occupied in 1948 intoxicated the Israeli right and opened the door for a new wave of a radical, chauvinist, and fundamentalist religious type of neo-Zionism. The Gush Emunim (Block of the Faithful) led the new wave.
Gush Emunim was founded in 1974 and played a key role in establishing Jewish settlements on the newly conquered West Bank and Gaza strip areas. Gush Emunim was led by the Gahalet group of religious students who were inspired by Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda Kook at the Merkaz HaRav Talmudic Academy in Jerusalem. Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda emphasized the critical importance of Jewish settlement and control over all parts of the land "promised to the Jewish people by God". According to the Rabbi, "All this land is ours, absolutely belonging to all of us, non-transferable to others even in part... There are no 'Arab territories' or 'Arab lands' here but only the lands of Israel, the eternal heritage of our forefathers to which others have come, upon which they have built without our permission and in our absence�"
In an interview published by the US News and World Report on 4 April 1988, Rabbi Moshe Levinger, a leader of the Gush Emunim settler movement stated "Samaria and Judea belonged to the Jewish people even before 1967. We've known that they belonged to us all throughout history.... We know that some day we will receive the East Bank of the Jordan as well. It's God's will." In another interview quoted by David Grossman, Levinger said: "Fifty years ago our opponents argued about Jaffa. Today, they argue with us about [the West Bank Settlement] Alfei Menashe. In another fifty years they will argue with us about Amman [capital of Jordan]. That's the way it is".
For Rabbi Levinger, peace is irrelevant "Peace in itself is not a goal. Right now the advancement of the Jewish people and the redemption process are more important than hypothetical peace�. The redemption process will culminate with the coming of the Messiah. Settlement of the Jewish people in its ancient homeland is seen as a prerequisite that must be met before the Messiah can arrive. Levinger repeatedly stated that the Jews cannot fulfill their spiritual mission within the borders of pre-1967 Israel: "No Jew prayed three times a day that he'd come back to Tel Aviv or Haifa but for centuries we did pray to come back to Jerusalem, Hebron and Nablus. The tombs of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are here. Hebron was David's capital." According to the Rabbi, a Jewish state encompassing all of Eretz Yisrael must be formed to await the coming of the Messiah.
Fundamentalists in Israel believe that they are living in the redemptive age. This redemption would include the return of the Jews from exile to the land of Israel, the establishment of Jewish sovereignty over the land, territorial expansion, and reconstruction of the Temple and economic prosperity. Some fundamentalist ideologues suggested that the redemption process would be over very quickly. But Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda Kook had stated "Israel's redemption will proceed by gradual stages, which is in harmony with what is clearly stated in the Torah".
Most of Gush Emunim activists see the West Bank and Gaza as only the minimal requirement for Zionist expansion. The Gush scholar Yehuda Elitzur considers that the proper boundaries of the Jewish State extend to the River Euphrates, southern Turkey and the Nile delta. Rabbi Yisrael Ariel sees the boundaries of the Zionist state as including Lebanon up to Tripoli, Syria as well as parts of Iraq, the Sinai and the oil-producing regions of Kuwait.
Gush Emunim did not have a formal membership list or elected leadership. Nevertheless, it had been very effective, especially Amana (Covenant), the branch which actually supervises settlement in the occupied territories. The movement played a key role in the formulation of Israeli policy in the occupied territories since 1974. They gained more power under the Likud governments, which were formed since 1977 under Begin, Shamir, Netanyahu and Sharon. Begin had long been known as an outspoken advocate of Eretz Yisrael. One of his first acts after his election as Prime Minister in 1977 was to visit Tzvi Yehuda Kook in order to receive the Rabbi's blessing.
Extremist religious ideas were marginal in the Zionist ideology before 1967. All the forefathers of Zionism were secular. None of them advocated a religious [sectarian] "Jewish State". The sheer idea of creating an exclusive "Jewish State", however, included the seeds of religious fanaticism. This development of the political Zionist ideology is not surprising. It is a logical conclusion of the ideas and policies advocated and followed by Herzl, Weizmann, Jabotinsky and Ben-Gurion. This brand of neo-Zionism became increasingly close to the center of political thinking in the late 1980's and early 1990's. It is dividing the Israelis into two distinct groups and posing a new dilemma to the "secular" Zionists of the left as a result of the paradoxical dual type of ideology, which characterized the socialist Zionist pioneers of the 2nd Alyia.
Nizar Sakhnini, 21 March 2003
Footnotes:
(1) The article is in Arabic and is accessible online at:
http://www.aljazeera.net/cases_analysis/2003/3/3-11-1.htm#TOP
(2) All the information and quotations are based on an excellent account given by Michael Palumbo in his book: Imperial Israel: The History of the Occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, London: Bloomsbury Publishing Ltd., 1990. Palumbo gives more details especially in pp. 14-17, pp. 173 � 181, and pp. 275 � 276.
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