The establishment of the State of Israel and its embodiment of the religious and national aspirations of Jews and Christian Zionism (Part2)
The emergence of Jewish political Zionism as an ideological tool to gain international sympathy and support for the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine dates back to 1896, since Theodor Herzl published his book The Jewish State. Political Zionism was strengthened when the First Zionist Congress, held by Herzl in 1897, approved the Basel Program, which called for “a secure and legally recognized national homeland for the Jews in Palestine.”
Although “Herzl” was indeed the founder of political Zionism, his ideas were not new, as many individuals preceded him, including Jews and non-Jews (Christians who support Zionism), although most of the Zionist writings appeared in the second half of the ninth century. Ten, individual Christians developed the basic ideas and program of what later became known as Jewish political Zionism.
In fact, it must be mentioned that Christian individuals had begun to spread the Zionist idea of Jewish national consciousness directed towards Palestine about three centuries before the first Zionist Congress was held, and they provided hidden non-Jewish support.
Non-Jewish Zionists, i.e. Christians, are those who support the goals of Zionism and encourage them explicitly. They currently constitute an essential part of the structure of Christian Zionism, as there are many individual Christians in the Western world who have expressed their belief in Zionist goals. Therefore, we find that Christian Zionism represents an essential element in Western religious, social and political history, and it constitutes a parallel line to the history of Zionism. Judaism is not a line affiliated with it, and thus expresses one of the faces of Western colonialism and its colonial culture.
These Christians who support and support Zionism are not motivated by their love for the Semites or the Jews, but rather to find a justification for deporting them from their country to (where they are from) or not allowing them to enter their countries, or because the Zionist lobby represents an effective tool for political and diplomatic pressure on a country so that it is affected by the pressures of the lobby. Zionist and makes it adapt to Zionist requirements.
In confirmation of this meaning, Qadri Hifni says: Zionism may attract Jews, because through it they obtain a national homeland, and it may attract others because it guarantees them getting rid of the Jews.
It is England and then the United States of America, without the entire world, that made the realization of the dream of Zionism in Palestine a reality, and the United States is the clearest example of the traditions of these Christians who support Zionism, as the broad ideas of Zionism have penetrated American thinking and American policy, especially towards the East. The Middle East and Palestine since the beginning of America’s creation (America was discovered in 1492 AD), and this trend is still prevalent to this day. The general policy regarding the Palestinian problem refers to the recognition of the “rights” of the Jews in Palestine by the United States, and by England.
The Zionist lobby represents the most powerful and effective tool for political and diplomatic pressure within the United States, and the influence of Judaism on American foreign policy.
It should be noted that the Jewish literature that has seeped into the core of the Christian faith revolves around three myths:
The first myth: that the Jews are God’s chosen people, and thus they are considered the preferred nation over all nations.
The second myth: That there is a divine covenant linking the Jews to the Holy Land in Palestine, and that this covenant that God gave to Abraham, peace be upon him, is an eternal covenant until the Day of Judgment.
The third myth: Linking the Christian faith to the return of Jesus Christ with the establishment of the State of Zion: that is, by regrouping the Jews in Palestine until Christ appears in them.
The advantage of these Zionist myths lies in the close combination of national, historical, and religious elements that indicate the relationship between the Old Testament, the Holy Land, and the Chosen People. These three things were familiar in the past, and today they constitute the basis of Christian Zionism, in which Christian religious belief is harnessed to achieve Jewish gains.
Within the framework of the third proposition mentioned above, with regard to the appearance of Christ, which is related to the idea of escalating the “vision of Christian salvation,” which is based on the tidings of national salvation, the gathering of exiles, and the achievement of independence in the ancient homeland (Palestine)… One of the most famous people who claimed the personality of Christ the Savior was “David the Seer.” He is “Daoud bin Suleiman.” He was born in the city of Amed in the Kurdistan region in the year 1135 AD. “David the Seer” began his first steps toward claiming to be the “Awaited Messiah” around 1163 AD by trying to carry out a Zionist movement that he called for among the Jews of Baghdad and the region surrounding it. He called for going to Jerusalem, seizing it from the hands of the Arabs, and declaring Jewish rule there. In reality, this call was not It was just a whim or thought of “David the Seer”, but it was based on thoughtful planning, and he was not satisfied with that, but he began broadcasting among the Jews of the Arab world that his holy message was to save the children of Israel from alienation, contempt and displacement in the land, and to gather them all in Palestine, and to declare an independent Jewish government there.
These myths infiltrated Western history in the early sixteenth century, and the most obvious of them occurred through the Protestant religious reform movement in the same century. The pro-Zionist Christian movement began to take a distinct form in this century, especially when the European Renaissance movement and the religious reform movement joined forces to lay the foundation of modern European history.
Since then, the idea of the “return” of the Jews to Palestine or “Zion” has appeared among Protestant circles who are described as Christian Zionists. This Zionism grew in the soil of the Western settlement project, whose roots go back to the so-called “Western Renaissance,” which witnessed the era of discoveries and the rise of the white Western man’s dreams of world domination. This dream expressed itself in the case of Palestine and the Jews with the rise of millennium dreams calling for the necessity of the Jews returning to Zion in preparation for their conversion to Christianity, considering that this represents a basic condition for the final salvation of them and of all humanity.
In other words, the Renaissance witnessed a movement for religious reform, both Christian and Jewish.
The Jewish Reform movement included a call for national and national integration into European societies, and for overcoming sectarian, ethnic, and religious differences, claiming that Judaism was, and still is, a religion and culture within the framework of nations, and part of their movement, and that separation and isolation is nothing but a reaction in the direction of The past, and this is a truth that the Zionist movement has been trying to obscure since its emergence until now.
Muhammad Amara believes that the racist settlement project, which now exists in Jerusalem and Palestine, was the first to crystallize in Western (Protestant theology), based on the legendary thought about the “Revelation of John,” and the return of Christ (peace be upon him), to rule the earth for a thousand years, after The Battle of Armageddon, which made the gathering and mobilization of the Jews in Palestine, the Judaization of Jerusalem, and the establishment of the Temple on the ruins of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, that is, it made the realization of the Zionist dream a religion followed by Protestants in the West. Then there was evangelization of this Protestant project among the Jewish groups, so Zionism took over it — As a racist nationalist movement — and Western imperialism, during its march on the Islamic East, and its search for minorities to employ — as footholds — in the colonial project, which has multiple and complex dimensions, including:
1- The religious dimension in the theology of Western Christianity, which began as a Protestant, then exerted influence on the Western Orthodox Church, until it began to Judaize its Christianity, instead of achieving Jewish recognition of Christianity, and talked about the integration of Christ into Israel and modified not only Christian thought, but also Gospels and prayers.
2- The secular colonial dimension, and it started with “Napoleon Bonaparte” (1769–1821 AD), as he was the first to call for employing these religious myths in the service of his colonial project. Then it was “Sykes,” the English colonial politician, who concluded a treaty with the French “Picot” ( Sykes-Picot) in 1916 to tear up the Ottoman Empire and distribute its Arab parts among the colonial powers.
In 1917, the English General Allenby entered Jerusalem and assumed the image of the Popes of the Crusades. Meanwhile, the French general “Gouraud” is raising the banner of extremist French secularism. When he entered Damascus in 1920, he went to the grave of “Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi” to kick him with his foot and say: “Here we are back, Saladin.” The Western secular dimension allies, embraces, supports and employs the Western theological dimension in the struggle over Jerusalem and Palestine.
3- The contemporary American imperial dimension, combining religion and colonialism, employing Christianity and Zionism in the service of (religiosity) the Western Zionist usurpation of Jerusalem and Palestine. In 1995, the US Congress decided to move the American embassy to Jerusalem, and said in the introduction to its decision: “Jerusalem is the spiritual homeland of Judaism.”
4- The Zionist racist dimension, which turned Judaism into pure racism, has nothing to do with that heavenly religion, which is the religion of Moses (peace be upon him). The definition of a Jew is someone born from a Jewish mother, and thus this biological factor, not religiosity to religion, is what determines the Jewishness of a Jew.
Thus, we find, in this context, that the pro-Zionist Christian movement began to take a distinct form as a result of this aforementioned collaboration, and then the interest in biblical literature and its interpretation sparked a general interest in the Jews and their return to Palestine. Accordingly, granting the rights of Jewish citizens was no longer the essence of the Jewish issue in the sixteenth century, but rather the role that the Jews were destined to play regarding new issues such as the fulfillment of the prophecies of the Torah, the Last Day, and the return of the Messiah. Accordingly, it was the Protestant Reformation, by providing the opportunity for a national Jewish renaissance and their collective return to Palestine, that created a new register for non-Jewish Zionists as an important element in Protestant theology and eschatology (such as death, immortality, the end of the world, and the afterlife). In addition to Judaization through the Protestant movement first, and then through the Puritan movement.
In this aforementioned proposition, we find that among the clear results of the Protestant religious reformation was the emergence of interest in fulfilling biblical prophecies related to the end of time. The essence of the “Millennial Age” was the belief in the return of the Messiah who would establish the Kingdom of God on earth, which would last about a thousand years.
Millennial believers considered the future of the Jewish people to be one of the important events preceding the end of time. The literal interpretation of the texts of the Book of Revelation led them to the conclusion that the return of the Jews as a nation “Israel” to Palestine is the good news of a thousand years, but the conversion of the Jews to Christianity is an important element in achieving this, and some groups even insisted on the Jews converting to Christianity before their resurrection. While others believed that this would happen after their return to Palestine.
Throughout the history of the Christian Church, the eschatological belief in the rapid return of Christ continued. This belief became widespread in the first century AD and appeared from time to time during periods of political and social turmoil. What is noteworthy is that the idea of the end times was destructive and considered a threat to the security of the church in the Middle Ages.
After Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire in 380 AD, the early priests were determined to eradicate the ideas and expectations of millenarian believers who interpreted