Dr. Mustafa Mheta, Absurd for Danny Danon to tell the UN that Israel has Biblical, historical and legal foundations
Dr. Mustafa Mheta
Israel’s Ambassador to the UN, Danny
Danon, made a very bold assertion during a debate in the Security
Council recently. “Jewish rights to the land of Israel depends on four
pillars,” he claimed. “This includes the Bible, history, legality and
the pursuit of international peace and security.”
I don’t know what he meant by “legality
and the pursuit of international peace” and, given Israel’s
record of attacking its neighbours, I will refrain from giving credibility to his illusionary discourse by dissecting it. Suffice to ask if he really believes that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands and regular military assaults on the civilians of the Gaza Strip are both legal and conducive to international peace?
record of attacking its neighbours, I will refrain from giving credibility to his illusionary discourse by dissecting it. Suffice to ask if he really believes that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands and regular military assaults on the civilians of the Gaza Strip are both legal and conducive to international peace?
Instead, I will confine myself to the
other two pillars that Ambassador Danon claims underpin “Jewish rights
to the land of Israel”, the Bible and history. The Bible is available
for everyone to examine and provide their own interpretations. Anyone
can apply their own hermeneutics to scriptural interpretation. Rest
assured, we will all give a different interpretation.
According to Danon, “God gave the land
[Palestine] to the people of Israel in ‘Genesis’, when He made a
covenant with Abraham. From the book of Genesis; to the Jewish exodus
from Egypt; to receiving the Torah on Mount Sinai; to the gates of
Cana’an; and to the realisation of God’s covenant in the Holy Land of
Israel; the Bible paints a consistent picture. The entire history of our
people, and our connection to Eretz Yisrael, begins right here.”
Abraham the patriarch, of course, was
neither Jewish nor Arab. He came from Mesopotamia, a region where
present day Iraq is located. A careful examination of the so-called
Abrahamic covenant story in the Bible’s book of Genesis, Chapters 12-17,
reveals that it contains several separate elements or episodes taken
from various independent traditions and woven together by the Yahwist
into a continuous narrative of the life of Abraham from his call until
his death. The following are the elements referred to:
I. The call of Abraham: Genesis 12:1-9
II. The Descent into Egypt: Genesis 12:10-20
III. Abraham and Lot: Genesis 13
IV. Abraham and the four kings: Genesis
14. The Melchizedek episode which the Yahwist has inserted into this
section is probably a fragment of an independent Jerusalem tradition.
In other words, the so-called covenant of
Abraham cannot be relied upon as being authentic. It’s a tradition that
can be contested like many others in the Bible. Besides, God has always
been silent while we humans are busy saying what we want in order to
justify our assertions. What the Zionists have exacted upon their
Palestinian brothers cannot be justified in the name of God; it can only
be explained as human folly. God has no part in it, for He is the God
of justice, and He loves all of His creation without discrimination. The
notion of “the chosen people” is much misunderstood by the Zionists.
All the racism in the world today usually traces its roots to this
Biblical concept. South African Apartheid, for example, was also
justified by the same verses.
For the sake of clarity, it must be remembered that the talk of an Eretz Yisrael was
articulated by Zionism, a man-made political, secular ideology which
believes that Jews need a state and a land like other people to protect
them from anti-Semitism in Europe; that Jews should be able to live as a
whole and free people engaged in the full range of human activity. The
fathers of political Zionism declared eventually (it was not a unanimous
decision) that the land in question should be Palestine, the ancient
land of the Children of Israel (Israel being the name of Jacob). A few
religious Zionists insisted on this. For most, the appeal was that this
was the location of the Jews as a free people thousands of years ago.
Danon is wrong to claim that, “The Romans
attempted to destroy that link [of the Jewish people] by renaming the
land Palestina.” This is simply not true. To rely on Biblical accounts
which have been given different interpretations across the centuries to
suit the economic and political realities prevailing at the time, is
really a travesty of justice.
I wonder what Donald Trump and his racist
cabal in Washington would do if American Indigenous Indians came up with
something from their ancient writings and traditions that confirms that
the land that is currently the United States of America is theirs.
Would they accept this unquestioningly? Somehow I doubt it, yet they
give unquestioned support to the Zionist claim on the land of Palestine.
Furthermore, for Danon to claim that the
document prepared and signed by British Foreign Secretary Lord Arthur
Balfour in 1917 constitutes an act of international law is absurd, even
if the British cabinet of the day did have “sympathy with Jewish Zionist
aspirations” and “approved” the “Balfour Declaration”. The Imperial
British Cabinet at the time had nothing to do with international law
and, interestingly, the only Jew in the cabinet in 1917, Edwin Montagu,
opposed Balfour and Zionism.
In claiming that Zionism appears in
international law, the Israeli Ambassador to the UN is being
disingenuous. Britain was a colonial power at that time which had passed
the Aliens Act in 1905 specifically, it is believed, to block Jewish
immigration from Europe. Any British support for Zionist efforts to
build a Jewish State would have had nothing to do with any love for the
Jewish people, and everything to do with securing Chaim Weismann’s
scientific prowess for the war effort and an insidious anti-Semitism
desirous of solving Europe’s “Jewish problem”.
It was ridiculous, therefore, for Danny
Danon to claim historical and scriptural justifications for Zionist
Israel and the injustices against the people of Palestine. It was not,
however, to be unexpected. Zionists have been peddling myths and lies to
the world for more than 120 years. Even some early Jewish settlers in
Palestine, which was then part of the Ottoman Empire, realised very
quickly that it was simply a lie for the Zionist hierarchy to claim that
Palestine was empty territory just waiting to be colonised: “A land
without a people for a people without a land” was and remains one of
many Zionist myths.
Zionist pressure at the UN may have
reversed a resolution that “Zionism is a form of racism”, but the
Apartheid nature of the state is becoming increasingly obvious to anyone
who cares to look with an open mind. No amount of Biblical quotes or
distortions of history can change that. There can be no Biblical,
historical, legal or moral justification for the state of Israel as it
is today. The UN Charter provides all colonised people with the right to
fight for their freedom. The successful conclusion to such a struggle
in occupied Palestine will be the creation of a democratic state all of
the people between the river and the sea.
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