Rationalism, Faith and Nationalism

Alastair Crooke says that US policy in West Asia is failing because of secular, rationalistic, mechanistic thinking coming from the Enlightenment which is insufficient to understand the non-rational values of religious faith coming from both Israel and Iran. Israel, in particular, has become “messianic”. Zionism used to be justified by the need for Jews to have a safe place to live. Its leaders were secular. But in recent years, Israel has been taken over by a kind of religious mania combining the worst features of nationalism and religion.

I know one Zionist, who is a cousin I have known since childhood. We were always friendly and still are. It was very surprising to me to find out after knowing him for more than sixty years that he was Jewish. I never thought of him that way. He was just my Tommyburger-eating cousin Pete from Los Angeles. I thought he was as completely assimilated as I am. I was not raised in the Jewish tradition or told I was Jewish. I was raised a patriotic American citizen and an antiwar socialist. Both of us were atheists and liberal Democrats. I never heard about anybody in my cousin’s family going to Jewish schools or even celebrating Jewish holidays. But apparently, whereas my mother did not raise me to think of myself as Jewish (she also was an atheist and a socialist) her sister did raise her children to think of themselves as Jewish. Yet they never read the Bible or believed a word of it. For them, being a Jew was a being part of a secular nationalist movement to protect Jews from oppression and “anti-Semitism”. It had nothing to do with religion, which they regarded as superstition in accordance with the mechanistic enlightenment rationalism that Alastair is talking about. Atheistic Zionism had to have some justification for the existence of Israel other than its being promised to Jews by God as His “chosen people”. This was done by Zionist “historians” who claimed that Jews had always lived in Palestine and it had always been their land. The “Palestinians” were not a “people”, they were just squatters who had come to live on Jewish land but had no right to be there. As the real historian Ilan Pappé famously said, “Zionists don’t believe in God, but they do believe He gave them Palestine”. Well, it was actually the British Empire, not God, that gave them Palestine via the Balfour Declaration of 1917. In recent years, however, Zionist secular nationalism has evolved into a religious mania using Old Testament justifications for genocide and seeking redemption for Jews by building a Third Temple where the Al Aqsa Mosque now stands.

Iran is also both nationalistic and religious. However, their religious nationalism is based on Persian civilization going back thousands of years, not British colonialism masquerading as a Jewish protectorate. It is combined with Shia Islam, a powerful and genuine religious faith that emphasizes “martyrdom”, which is nothing but self-sacrifice for the good of the people. “Martyrdom” in this sense is common to all religions. It just signifies that one’s own personal life is less important than that of one’s people and society as a whole, and that a good person will sacrifice his or her life if necessary for the good of the people. War heroes who have sacrificed their lives are venerated for this everywhere, not just in Islamic countries. Jesus said that one who saves his life will lose it, but one who loses his life in keeping the word of God will have eternal life. That is martyrdom as defined by Christianity and it is exactly the same as the Shia concept.

Israel is essentially a British colony and Zionism is essentially a British con game. The Jewish religious trappings make it especially vicious. Its genocidal actions are causing a revival of “anti-Semitism” that is a the greatest danger to real Jewish people everywhere since Nazism.