There is a striking paradox in this conflict in the Middle East! While Israel and Judaism in general are convinced they have a message to bring to the world, of being an embodiment of light over darkness, one is forced to admit that the very basics of communication have not been mastered. This makes a more ambitious project difficult. Such as bringing the Light to the world and the leader who will reign over Humanity! (Which the Messiah is supposed to do)
Let's go back....
All Western historiography has been built in opposition to Islam and Muslim countries .... Islam is the third religion of the Book, in order of appearance. But from Charles Martel pushing back the Arabs at Poitiers in 732, to the emergence of Spain as a major power after the Reconquista in the fifteenth century, to the conflicts against the Sublime Porte, through to the colonial movements of the eighteenth and decolonial movements of the twentieth century... A long history of confrontations exists. And we in the West lack perspective on the diversity of Islam, since before the first crusades, Arabs readily welcomed Christians to Jerusalem when they were on a pilgrimage to the tomb of Christ. It was the capture of the holy city by the Seljuks that sparked the crusades movement. And Francis I allied himself with Suleiman the Magnificent to fight Charles V. .
The West exalts the individual, the Ummah the group …. So, each is to the other a strange world. It’s a relationship that could be summed up as «I love you, neither do I» .
The emergence of the Zionist project in the Near East
This changes at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. It is no longer a problem with his «best enemy».This is a new political project, with the aim of both protection and a return to the past, and 3,000 years in the past. It should be noted that Jews have always lived in the Near East. The Return from Exile is a myth …. While there was indeed an expulsion at the end of the second revolt in 135 AD and a Roman desire to erase the Jewish identity of Judea … many Jews of the era emigrated to Galilee, that is to say, to the north of present-day Israel. In 1921, Faisal wanted to make the Palestine region part of the Kingdom of Syria, which is what the Romans had done almost 2,000 years earlier by integrating the region into the Province of Syria.
The famous phrase «a land without a people for a people without a land», which justifies the Zionist project, poses a problem. It transposes the concept of the nation-state, which is resolutely European, to the Muslim world. And so basically, it denies the Muslim presence for 1,400 years. If the political project of a Jewish renationalisation of this land could have been a viable project in 1918, at the fall of the Ottoman Empire, After the Second World War, it became compensation for European antisemitism. That is how it is perceived by the Arab masses!
And Israel has become a Western aircraft carrier in the Middle East... and the sense of injustice persists on the other side. One cannot reproach the Jews, who were resolutely persecuted in Europe for centuries, for having a national aspiration, and originally the Zionist movement was on the left... But revisionist Zionism, which is now a major current in Israel, is very much to the right and has a conquering vision.
The events of 7 October shatter a myth
7 October 2023 shattered Israel's original narrative, the «bunker for Jews that could prevent the Holocaust». No, a massive attack had taken place even in Israel, where Hamas militants remained for several hours to the astonishment of the entire world...
I prefer the term militia. A militia is the only term that shows the use of both paramilitary and terrorist means.
Islamist militias are driven by this sense of injustice and centurylong frustration passed down from generation to generation. Meanwhile, on the Israeli side, the shock of 7 October has revived the long-standing security psychosis regarding the need to protect Jewish people, which is likewise experienced across generations. But also, a problem of narcissistic injury which explains the extreme violence of the Israeli armed response... showing little regard for civilians or its own soldiers.
Unlike Christianity, Islam has never borne a natural antisemitism
…. The Church had to assert itself as the new people of God, against the ’old« one (the Jews), and the question of the accusation of »deicide« against the Jews was only lifted in 1962 at the Second Vatican Council . The massive support of American evangelicals for Israel stems from the hope for a new coming of Christ and that, at last, the Jews will convert.
Israel is losing the battle for world opinion
Israel is losing the battle for public opinion and now has among its Western allies only anti-Muslims and those who fear being accused of antisemitism …..The Global South equates Israel with a colonial entity, and many diaspora Jews as well as Westerners are shocked by the extreme violence of the Israeli army, which has lacked any strategic vision for over a year.
Japan did not react to the atomic bombings of 1945, it rebuilt itself! And the horror was documented and the Land of the Rising Sun retains the world's sympathy regarding atomic fire.
The United States reacted to 11 September 2001, and no one was against the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan... The warmongering push towards Iraq marked the end of the world's sympathy.
Three months after 7 October 2023, it was quite clear that Israel had neither a plan nor a vision, other than systematic destruction.
Legitimacy undermined
The legitimate aspiration for a lasting Jewish state is destroyed by conquering and biblical ambitions… concealed by the media mantra of «the right to self-defence». Peace is only made with one’s enemy, which implies the possibility of treating the other as an equal.
Both sides are suffering... But one wants the recognition of an injustice, while the other refuses it and wants «its security on biblical lands» . It is not the first time God has been involved in a war, but arguably the only one where God is, into the bargain, a property developer.
By almost constantly siding with Israel, the West seems to have lost its status as the Muslim world's ultimate enemy, and therefore its potential as a mediator!.
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