ProMosaik interviews Prof. Rabkin about What is Israel?
Hi all,
In the following I would like to introduce you to the main ideas expressed by Prof. Yakov Rabkin in his book “What is Israel”.
We asked him about the opposition between Judaism and Zionism, about Western support to Israel, about the objectives of Christian Zionism. Zionism is a national movement which has nothing to do with authentic Judaism and Jewish ethics. Christian Zionism also pursues a different objective from real Judaism and forces Jews to accept Jesus as the Messiah. The West strategically supports Israel as a colonialist force opposed to Islam in the Middle East.
A pessimistic vision… I would say no…. I consider it a realistic vision of the status quo in the Middle East. The Middle East will change… and we all hope it will be a multicultural and multi-religious world of peace and tolerance. The question for us is not if, but how.
Thank you so much for reading and sharing this important interview.
Dr. phil. Milena Rampoldi
ProMosaik e.V.
ProMosaik e.V.:
Dear Yakov, on page 9 of your book you say that Israel has a lot of support from Western nations. How can we make Western nations understand that Zionism and Israel have been denounced most bitterly by Jews committed to Jewish religion?
Prof. Yakov Rabkin:
People in Western nations are not really interested in what is good for religious Jews. To the extent they are concerned, it is about the injustice done to the Palestinians. And they may be less defensive in proposing solutions if they become aware that Zionism has been rejected by the vast majority of prominent rabbis as a rebellion against Jewish continuity. These rabbis can surely not be accused of being antisemitic.
ProMosaik e.V.:
How did Zionism profit from the Shoa and from Anti-Semitism? How can we explain this to Germans today?
Prof. Yakov Rabkin:
Herzl, the founder of political Zionism, once wrote in his diary that Anti-Semites would be « our allies and friends ». In this respect, he turned out to be a true visionary. Most Jews who chose to live in Israel did so out of real or imaginary Anti-Semitism. This is why many Zionists see peaceful and serene Jewish communities as a danger « to the survival of the Nation ». The Nazi genocide provided the Zionists with the ultimate proof of the rightness of their cause. But before the genocide Nazi authorities cooperated with the Zionists and treated them as « favoured children » compared to the way they treated the rest of Jewish communities in Germany. Germany’s Zionists were also exceptional in that they officially welcomed Hitler’s rise to power. A prominent Zionist Joachim Prinz published a book Wir, Jüden in 1934 extolling and sharing the values of national rebirth. Today this is worth remembering.
The Zionists and the Germans learned very different lessons from the Nazi genocide. The Zionists learned that only arms determine human history. « We were weak. Now, we have to be strong. » Conversely, most German learned to beware of charismatic dictators, racism and policies of discrimination.
Many Germans mean well but they confuse Jews, who suffered in the Holocaust because of their ethnicity, with the state of Israel, conceived as “a state for the Jews”. Israel’s dominant ideology is predicated on the impossibility of a Jew to be fully accepted in any country except Israel. It is quite clear that many Jews do not share this belief. This is why, when given a chance, most Jews, including quite a few Israelis, prefer peaceful pluralistic democracies to the perennially threatened Israel. For example, hundreds of thousands of ex-Soviet Jews chose to move to Germany and other Western countries in the late 20th century, and Berlin has become the major centre of Israeli expatriates in Europe.
ProMosaik e.V.:
At school, we learnt to love Jewish culture and tradition also because of what happened to Jews in the second world war… I loved Anne Frank for example… How can we maintain this deep respect towards Jewish tradition and religion, Jewish philosophers, psychologists, and authors, etc. and remain a non-Jewish anti-Zionist like me for example and explain people that we are not Anti-Semitic?
Prof. Yakov Rabkin:
The burden of proof must be on those who accuse others of Anti-Semitism.
ProMosaik e.V.:
How can we explain Messianism in Judaism to the Christian Zionists, in America and elsewhere, to make them understand that the means Israel use to “defend” and “affirm” itself are opposed to Judaism?
Prof. Yakov Rabkin:
Christian Zionists support Israel for their own reasons that have nothing to do with loyalty to Judaism. Most of them believe that it is important to concentrate Jews in Israel in order to speed the Second coming of Christ. According to this scenario, Jews would have to accept Jesus as Messiah or perish in the Apocalypse. As you can see, this view is opposed to Judaism.
ProMosaik e.V.:
Do you think that the support of Israel by the West has also other reasons like neo-imperialism and militarism which have nothing to do with religion?
Prof. Yakov Rabkin:
The Zionist project, well before some Jews rallied to it in the end of the 19th century, was organically linked to imperial interests in the Middle East. The idea of “ingathering of Hebrews in Palestine” by political means was publicly encouraged by politicians close to Queen Victoria in the 1850s. They aimed at creating a friendly bridgehead near the Suez Canal. From the very beginning of official Zionism, its leaders such as Herzl and, Weizmann, all of them atheists, relied on strategic interests of different powers to promote their project. In 1948 Stalin’s Soviet Union recognized the State of Israel as a means to expel Britain from the Middle East. Today, many in the West see Israel as a bulwark against “the threat of Islam”. Interest may change but their nature is political and strategic that, indeed, have nothing to do with religion.
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