(Facebook stukkie 11 juni 2024)
Joseph Massad heeft in 2005 betoogd hoe de politieke Zionisten in feite, bewust of onbewust, volwaardige Europeanen probeerden te worden met hun kolonisatie van Palestina ten koste van de inheemse bevolking: “…the very image of the Jew as carrier of European gentile civilization to a barbaric geography was definitional of Zionist political argumentation. Thus in 1930, Chaim Weizmann articulated the project thus: «We wish to spare the Arabs as much as we can of the sufferings which every backward race has gone through on the coming of another, more advanced nation.» As the Palestinians decided to resist this «mission civilisatrice», Weizmann, who was to become Israel’s first president, characterized the tasks before Zionism in quashing such resistance as follows: «On one side, the forces of destruction, the forces of the desert, have arisen, and on the other side stand firm the forces of civilization and building. It is the old war of the desert against civilization, but we will not be stopped.» Indeed they were not. They went on to destroy much of Palestinian society and expel the majority of its population.” (Joseph Massad, “The Persistence of the Palestinian Question”, Cultural Critique 59, 2005, 1-23, op p. 6).
Joseph Massad heeft in 2005 betoogd hoe de politieke Zionisten in feite, bewust of onbewust, volwaardige Europeanen probeerden te worden met hun kolonisatie van Palestina ten koste van de inheemse bevolking: “…the very image of the Jew as carrier of European gentile civilization to a barbaric geography was definitional of Zionist political argumentation. Thus in 1930, Chaim Weizmann articulated the project thus: «We wish to spare the Arabs as much as we can of the sufferings which every backward race has gone through on the coming of another, more advanced nation.» As the Palestinians decided to resist this «mission civilisatrice», Weizmann, who was to become Israel’s first president, characterized the tasks before Zionism in quashing such resistance as follows: «On one side, the forces of destruction, the forces of the desert, have arisen, and on the other side stand firm the forces of civilization and building. It is the old war of the desert against civilization, but we will not be stopped.» Indeed they were not. They went on to destroy much of Palestinian society and expel the majority of its population.” (Joseph Massad, “The Persistence of the Palestinian Question”, Cultural Critique 59, 2005, 1-23, op p. 6).
.
De uiteindelijke legitimatie van hun aldus “emancipatoire” kolonisatieproject was natuurlijk altijd al gevonden in het Oude Testament. Om te spreken met een Israelische psycholoog, Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi: “The basic Zionist claim of the right to Palestine rests on the notion of the divine promise.” (Beit-Hallahmi, Benjamin. “Religion and Nationalism in the Arab-Israeli Conflict”, Il Politico, vol. 38, no. 2, 1973,pp. 232-43, op p. 240). Het beloofde Land…. En zo vraag ik u af, meneer Sonneberg, hoeveel waarde hecht ú eigenlijk nog aan “het woord van de bijbel”?