Bernard Spiegal

The Israeli state sustains itself despite the contradictions that underpin it. Viewed this way, it’s an inherently unstable structure, its disparate parts coalescing in various formations to produce fragile, temporary, governmental coalitions of ill-grace.

The state’s foundations rest, in part, on sustained acts of legerdemain.  On ethical, conceptual and theological trickery. This, in part, contributes to the inherent instability of Israeli governance alluded to above.

Thus, Zionism, at its inception, was a militantly secular movement, eager to put distance between it and the religion, Judaism. Political Zionism, the idea that Jews should have a state of their own, was essentially a European idea emerging out of the late 19th century nationalist movements that saw the creation of unified nation-states such as Italy and Germany. At that time, and well into the 20^th century, religious Judaism had no truck with political Zionism, many seeing the very idea as a heresy, a presumptuous usurping of God’s role in history. Any ‘return’ to Zion was God’s work, and no-one else’s[1]. 

Yet, what claim could Zionism have to Palestine, the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, other than ‘The Book’, the Old Testament, the Tanakh’? Thus, we come to a founding act of Zionist legerdemain, the appropriation of religious text as justification for the establishment of a secular Israeli state. 

Israel is founded on a mythistory – the biblical narrative – that now plays out in the present-day stand-off between an increasingly powerful religious constituency, and a countervailing force of secular Jews, fearful for the future of their, notionally, liberal secular state.

Cleave to Christian Zionists

Acts of legerdemain seek to suggest that circles can be squared. Or at least to give the impression that such acts are inherently do-able. Madness, of course. However, Israel gleans support from wherever it can. It will sup with the devil, and it does, see below, if required.

For a virtuoso display of attempting to square circles, one need only turn to Israel’s relationship with Christian Zionists. Christian Zionists are committed, massively loyal, supporters of Israel. That support expressed through political clout, certainly in the USA, and the raising of millions of dollars for Israel. By way of example the Christians United for Israel (CUFI), a major US Christian Zionist organization, claims over 10 million members, and the actual number of evangelicals who espouse Christian Zionist beliefs is likely much larger. It’s estimated that for every one Jewish Zionist there are between 10-20 Christian Zionists.

Israel assiduously courts Christian Zionist (CZ) support, though given CZ’s theological underpinnings, courting hardly seems required.  They are Zionistphiles of the first order for the very good reason that, based on their particular reading of biblical sources – Old Testament and New – they believe Jews must be in-gathered to the Holy Land, Israel, as the necessary condition for the Second Coming of Jesus Christ in which they fervently believe.  The role of the Jews, once gathered, is to convert to Christianity – or else hell fires await.  

There’s surely something morally barren in a self-proclaimed Jewish state cleaving so closely to a worldview that, on the one hand, instrumentalises Jews as beneficial to the fulfilment of a CZ vison; and, on the other, holds a worldview so antithetical to, certainly, Jewish religious thought, but also to the stance of Israeli secular Jews. It can only be described as bizarre, Jews signing-up to a theology that envisions either their conversion to Christianity, or death.

Cleave to antisemites

A number of Israeli politicians have embraced as friends and allies governments – Hungary and Romania, for example – and individuals, Elon Musk, for example, who have made no secret of their antisemitic views. One feature common to Israel and those countries is that they view the world through a white person’s ethnonationalist lens. As with Balfour way back in 1917, so with current Zionist antisemites, they want Jews out of their countries, and so are happy to support an ethnonationalist, Jewish, racist state that, so to speak, does the job for them.

The central contradiction

Israel’s self-description as a Jewish and democratic state is the contradiction at the heart of the state. This is amply demonstrated in Israel’s Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty, 5752-1992.

It opening paragraph states:

Fundamental human rights in Israel are founded upon recognition of the value of the human being, the sanctity of human life, and the principle that all persons are free; these rights shall be upheld in the spirit of the principles set forth in the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel.

This paragraph leans towards a universalist account of the inherent equality of all humans.

However, under the heading ‘purpose’, the document rows back from the universalist ethic.

1A. The purpose of this Basic Law is to protect human dignity and liberty, in order to establish in a Basic Law the values of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state.

The commitment here is to a specifically Jewish state, reaffirmed and further embedded in Israel’s 2018 Nation State Basic Law that grants self-determination exclusively to Jews. Such a conception neuters any universalist vision, and ties Israel to an ethnoreligious ethic – a fundamental contradiction at the heart of the Israeli state, one that cannot be resolved while remaining incarcerated in a Zionist worldview. 

Incarcerated in a Zionist worldview

In 1858, Abraham Lincoln famously referred to the danger arising from the conflict between pro-slavery and anti-slavery states:

A house divided against itself, cannot stand

In so far as Israel is concerned, two questions are prompted by the quote:

Can Israel continue to stand?

Should Israel continue to stand?

Can it continue to stand?  The centrifugal forces, among them the contradictions discussed above, are strong, so it’s increasingly unlikely that there is glue strong enough to hold it together.

 Should Israel continue to stand? To refine that question: Should Israel continue to stand in its present form?

The answer is ‘no’. Ethnonationalism is not a proper, ethical, or indeed ultimately practical, foundation for a state. Note, this addresses a question about states, not about people.  

A better future for all?

All who live within the region have the absolute right to live there within a constitutional settlement that accords equal rights to all.  This requires the hoped-for peaceful dissolution of the present Israeli state and the formation of One Democratic State for all. That should be the aim, the direction of travel, for the benefit and security of all. 

In Gaza, and indeed in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, we see where a state founded on ethnonationalist principles leads: to ethnic cleansing, genocide and untold cruelties.

[1] Though note, as Stephen Sizer points out, Christian Zionism predates Jewish Zionism by at least 50 years and today dominates the Zionist movement