I’m trying to mint the term "religious left." This Thursday night the religious left is having a hoe-down at the Grand Hyatt in New York, a fundraiser for the Jewish settlers who who have colonized central Hebron, the second-largest Arab city in the West Bank, and whose children throw rocks at Arab girls trying to go to school. Imagine if someone held a fundraiser in New York for the Afrikaner regime during South Africa apartheid days! Would that have been news?
Meanwhile, the Hebron settlers, led by Kiryat Arba’s David Wilder, who made aliyah to Israel from the U.S. years ago, have written a letter to Condoleezza Rice in advance of Annapolis:
We wish to remind you, Dr. Rice, that in the Bible this land was promised to the Jewish people some 4,000 years ago. Abraham, the Jewish patriarch, purchased Hebron more than 3,800 years ago. The Jews left Egypt in order to go to their country, the Holy Land, the Land of Israel, 3,500 years ago. There they established a state 3,300 years ago. This state became the kingdom of the Jewish King David, 3,000 years ago. The Temple stood in the center of the country, Jerusalem, and after being destroyed by the Babylonians it was rebuilt some 2,000 years ago. In all of those generations, this land was the sole homeland of the Jewish people.Please bear in mind that by the time Arabs reached this country, it had belonged to the Jews for thousands of years. The Arabs destroyed the country and caused its inhabitants much suffering. They never established an independent state in this country and never contributed a thing to its development. Under Arab rule, most of the country was unpopulated and desolate, covered with marshes and deserts… The Holy Land remained abandoned, as if loyally waiting for its offspring to return. The Jewish people, too, remained true to its land for millennia and aspired to return to it. Jews began to return to the Land of Israel about 140 years ago and started to make it blossom, cultivate its soil, and build it.
I’m sure Ms. Rice knows the word for this. Racism.
Related posts:
- Wrong Again, This Time About the Bible
- Shocker: Haaretz Editor Urged Sec’y Rice to ‘Rape’ Israel
- Condi Rice and Palestinian Racism
- Now That the Religious Right Is History, Let’s Talk About the Religious Left (Which Claims to be Secular)
- An Israeli Reporter Prods Condoleezza Rice to Do Something About Illegal Settlements
{ 15 comments }
What do you mean by the "religious left"?
The American Friends Service Committee, the Unitarian Church, a gamut of other protestant churches do NOT resemble your caricature.
Why distort the reality of spiritual effort so, by a slogan?
You don't like Tikkun for example, of the religious left?
All these religous "cults" need to be put away…in padded cells.
They are insane.
I've met those settlers Philip. They are not left. They are right wing extremists, just like our right wing extremists back here.
Sometimes you sound like an idiot Philip.
Society will be better off once we relegate ancient religious beliefs to the margins.
MondoWeiss
I appreciate your sailing into uncharted waters. I don’t necessarily agree with your terminology in this post, but at least at this point, I think I understand your point.
Now that I have left Uris behind, I’ll surely admit that I don’t know any answers but I do believe that America is the greatest gift to and for the Jewish people since the beginning of the Exile. So I tend to stress the notion of religious liberty and a separation of church (synagogue) and state more than just pure secularism, although , again, I understand.
I offer an observation simply for consideration: strategic analysis is based upon assumptions that typically rise out of a worldview. And, more times than not, a worldview is going to bump up against and overlap theological interpretations. When it comes to Zionism, I think this certainly applies to the “religious left” and even avowed atheists such as Dersh. He after all approaches Zionism with a religious zeal (something the Satmar rabbis have warned us about, at least from what I can tell.)
So anytime I see examples of strategic analysis, I try to look for assumptions, which then help me construct a possible worldview of the person, group, or nation offering the analysis. From there, I then try to determine the perhaps unexpressed intent of the one offering the analysis.
If you asked me to construct a worldview based upon the statement by Wilder, I would first refer to Gorenberg’s work (among others) and then say that underlying this analytical content is an intent — or impulse — to rebuild the Third Temple by human hands at the same place where the Al Asqa Mosque now stands.
Settlers are right-wing religious whackos–not lefties.
"Religious left" is a brilliant turn of phrase – I'm using it from now on. All the "secular" liberals of the US who are also Zionist will heretofore be called "religious leftists" — if it makes them uncomfortable, all the better. Because Zionism's "truth" is a religious truth, where G-d gives land to certain tribes and smites others down.
I don't agree with Richard all that often, but he's right–"religious left" already has a clear meaning and it's not the meaning you want to give it. It means people like Michael Lerner and Jim Wallis–the Tikkun and Sojourners crowd. (Who I like–Tikkun is my favorite political magazine, though it fell short a few issues back when they decided to give a platform to those 9/11 "truthers" in the name of openness. Dumb.)
Anyway, I understand what you're trying to do, but you need a different term for it. Secular liberals who are kneejerk Zionists–well, I'm not clever enough to come up with a phrase, but "religious left" doesn't cut it.
Just to help the discussion along … Jewish Fundamentalists?
"Religious left" in this context is a dumb term which should be dropped.
These people are not left. They are as far right as you can get.
The real "religious left" are the "true" religionists, ie those who interpret religion in terms of justice, compassion, mercy, truth, forgiveness etc.
Someone who uses religion to justify slavery, murder, empire etc are what is called "the Antichrist" (false prophets – Pat Robertson, confederates etc). "The Beast" of course is the emperor.
All this is common knowledge in Christianity but even you as a progressive Jew should not make the error of describing right wing fundamentalist fanatics as the "religious left".
the religious left are social liberals with a right wing police state, fascist ideology.
Have you lost your mind Weiss? The hebron Fund is the LEFT??? They are tied to Kachists and far right settlers and their Brooklyn funders. And the Israeli left knows it
http://www.peacenow.org/policy.asp?rid=&cid=1636
Ansd here is a far right racist group soliciting for the fund
http://www.masada2000.org/tatiana.html
And this:
http://stopmoskowitz.org/hebron.html
For God sakes, Weiss, get a grip.
Have you lost your mind Weiss? The hebron Fund is the LEFT??? They are tied to Kachists and far right settlers and their Brooklyn funders. And the Israeli left knows it
http://www.peacenow.org/policy.asp?rid=&cid=1636
Ansd here is a far right racist group soliciting for the fund
http://www.masada2000.org/tatiana.html
And this:
http://stopmoskowitz.org/hebron.html
For God sakes, Weiss, get a grip.
Regarding American anti-Semitism, radio personality Dennis Prager once described on his show giving a talk to a synagogue in a small mostly Christian town in one of the southern seaboard states (North Carolina?). In the question and answer period, several in the audience asked him about the likelihood of anti-Semitism in their town. Prager responded by asking them about the public schools in their town. "Very good," came in the answer. What about crime? "Very low." How are your relations with Christian ministers? "We get along very well." Finally, Prager asked the question he had been leading up to–"Has it ever occurred to you that the reason life is so good for you here is that your town is overwhelmingly Christian?"
Kevin: Religious left" is a brilliant turn of phrase – I'm using it from now on. All the "secular" liberals of the US who are also Zionist will heretofore be called "religious leftists" — if it makes them uncomfortable, all the better. Because Zionism's "truth" is a religious truth, where G-d gives land to certain tribes and smites others down.
LeaNder: Am I reading your note correctly that you consider Phil's suggested neologism or new meaning of "religious left" brilliant mainly for it's potentially abusive qualities?
What gain in knowledge or insights about 'Zionism's "truth"' and/or settlement politics do you think the term offers?
Phil, it would be helpful – as has been suggested it feels – if you could define your new use of a standard term. Feels like you only help to muddy the waters.
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