Judaism - Israel - Palestine - Part II

Part I - This is Part II

https://www.georgemarx.org/2024/01/judaism-israel-palestine-part-i.html

ONE SIDE OF THINGS:   There are many Arab countries.   Prior to the creation of The State of Israel there was not a single Jewish country.   The Holocaust proved the reality that Jews needed and continue to need a Jewish state.  Israel is the ancestral home of Judaism.  It is the logical place for a Jewish home.

Israel has been defending itself from Arab attacks going back at least to the 1920’s.   The Jewish leaders in Palestine and then in Israel have sought peace and have acted lawfully from the beginning.   When the British were leaving Palestine, The Arabs were offered their own independent state.  They reacted by attacking the much weaker Jewish forces who heroically won The War of Independence, establishing the only democratic state in the Middle East.    Non-Jews in Israel have freedom of religion and are treated entirely fairly.

Israel has made many efforts to have a just peace with the Arabs who live in the Jewish lands which since 1967 have justly belonged to Israel.   Jerusalem is our holy city and only we can be trusted to safely protect the sacred sites of The Old City.   We respect the rights of the Moslems, Christians and other religions who have sacred sites (also) in Jerusalem.

The Palestinians have repeatedly refused to acknowledge the rights of Israel to exist.   At Oslo and at other times a just peace has been offered, and rejected.   We can not safely do more than protecting ourselves against internal and external aggression against us because we Jews continue to be persecuted.

On October 7, 2023 radical militant terrorists from Hamas attacked innocent civilians and killed over 1200 of them.   Many were raping and otherwise abusing women and cruelly murdering of many innocent children.

Israel will not be safe until Hamas is wiped out.   In The United States and elsewhere Jews are threatened by Palestinians, Muslims, and leftist radicals who continue to blame us, while oppression continues in other countries, totally minimized.  

Anti-Semitism persists and we are doing our best to combat it.   “From the River to the Sea” – are words from the original Hamas Charter and continue to call for the extermination of all Jews in Israel.

Pause for a moment please!

ANOTHER PERSPECTIVE:

“In March 1919,on the eve of the post World War I Paris Peace Conference, ‘Julius Kahn, the German-born Jewish congressman from San Francisco, delivered to President Wilson “A Statement to the Peace Conference” endorsed by 299 Jews.  …[T]he document denounced the Zionists for attempting to segregate Jews and to reverse the historical trend toward emancipation.’  Its signers ‘objected to the creation of a distinctly Jewish state in Palestine’ not only because they feared it would jeopardize the status of Jews like themselves in the home countries, but because they found it ‘contrary “to the principles of democracy’ to elevate Jewish immigrants over Palestine’s Muslim and Christian native inhabitants.  They explicitly denied ‘the existence of ethnic ties among Jews’ and ‘asserted their wish not to see Palestine “either now or at any time in the future’ become a Jewish state.’  They petitioned instead for Palestine to be ‘made into an independent , free, and democratic state that would not recognize any distinctions of creed, race, or ethnic descent among its citizens.’ “ (18) (p. xii) - https://www.georgemarx.org/2021/06/reclaiming-judaism-from-zionism.html

A key issue exists related to contrasting the initial basic perspective(s) with the 1919 petition quoted above.   Who does the land of Israel, The West Bank and Gaza – basically former “Palestine” – “belong to”?

Many Jews and a significant number of “Pro-Zionist Christians” believe in a “biblical / historical” view of “Israel” – as “The Land of The Jews”.  For the Jews believing this, the destruction of the Second Temple – exiled “the residents” of Israel and their return is preordained.  

Other scholarly, religious “believers” feel that “the time has not yet come for a state and that exile or living in a Non-Jewish State is the right path.

Among a significant number of Evangelical Christians Israel is pre-ordained in the bible.    They, however, believe that when Jesus is resurrected, those who have not take Jesus Christ as their savior will be doomed to burning in hell – basically – as true Christians are the only surviving humans.   It should be noted that such beliefs seemingly condemn:   Buddhists, Hindi, Moslems, Atheists, Agnostics, and others besides (of course) Jews (excluding “Messianic Jews” [aka “Jews for li

A slightly different narrative relates to (what I would call clear Anti-Semitism) wishing for a Jewish state – being Israel – so one’s native Jewish population will largely, if not totally, leave one’s country for Israel.  

A noted part of the Jewish citizens of Germany, France, and England were educated and/or upper-middle class to wealthy.   My paternal great-grandfather (who I was named after – and whose children are pictured near the beginning of Part I of this writing) made his first fortune buying Prussian War Bonds for the Franco-Prussian War of 1870.   When the highly “favored” France, lost the War, the bonds value skyrocketed.   He then owned his own bank in Koenigsberg, in extreme Eastern Prussia (now in an independent Soviet republic).   He sold his bank to Deutsche Bank in 1904.   His second oldest son got his Phd at The University of Koenigsberg in 1903.   Alexander Marx was immediately recruited from Koenigsberg to NYC – to The Jewish Theological Seminary (near Columbia University) as the chief librarian and history professor where he remained into retirement/death.

Some Jews were “competitors” for university faculty jobs, as the owners of department stores, as physicians and similar.   Following The Treaty of Versailles in 1919, Germany (with its required war reparations), was forced to print more and more money, causing massive inflation.

Other European countries were economically depressed over the 1920s, and “exporting Jews” to Palestine was appealing – Anti-Semitism heavily connected.

Other people, particularly following World War II, as the Holocaust became visible to them, both didn’t want Jews coming to their own countries, and in some cases felt compassion for survivors of The Holocaust.

Jews in the mid-to-late 1940’s in The United States and Canada often had a combination of views in support of the creation of The State of Israel.   Some were angry at what they saw as a coverup of the genocide.   They felt that the warning signs of the Holocaust were hidden from them.  

Others may have felt guilt and shame that they had not “done enough” to try to prevent the Holocaust.   They may have had “survivors’ guilt” related to how their relatives had perished, while they’d been safe in their relatively recent home countries.

Many survivors of concentration camps and soldiers who witnessed places like Dachau – were so traumatized – that they were silent – smothered in their deep feelings.

Part III 

https://www.georgemarx.org/2024/01/judaism-israel-palestine-part-iii.html