In the midst of the "important lives of blacks" protests that erupted in the United States and affected many countries, US President Donald Trump walked a short distance from the White House on Monday to the St. John's Episcopal Church in Washington, and stood outside while the Bible was raised high. .
In her article in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Rachel Haverlock, the academic academy of religious studies at the University of Illinois, sees that this scene made the Bible look like an icon of military nationalism in the hands of a man who did not read it and did not serve in the army, as she put it.
Haverlock examines how the Bible, and especially the book of Joshua in the Old Testament, became a booklet for Jewish and Christian nationalists and the state violence they promoted.
In her article, she cautions the United States against following in the footsteps of another country (Israel), where the Bible has been used to justify militant nationalism and launch a relentless attack on societies under its control.
Religious or military text?
The author says that the Bible is not a military text in nature, and its interpretation as a memo of peace or war depends on the reader and the interpretation given by religious and political leaders, and when Christian leaders promote imperialism or settlers search for divine cover to seize them on the ground, they often cite the travel of Joshua, despite the neglect of the Jews - Historically - this book was even denied by some of them.
This travel dates back to a time period spanning three decades from the death of Moses, peace be upon him until the death of Joshua (Joshua) Bin Nun. The translators of the rabbis largely rejected the imaginations of the Holy War and the Jewish end-of-world movements that embraced this travel and usually ended with a bitter end.
Few of the books are read in Jewish mass or cited in Jewish culture, but the Zionist movement and the first Israeli leaders found political inspiration for the conquest of the Palestinian land and the demarcation of its borders, and its "purification from the Canaanites."
Biblical travel is used to demonstrate the promised land and God's chosen people, and the Zionist movement used it in the 19th century extensively to justify its occupation of the Palestinian land. Havelock says that Zionism called for travel and read it to justify its wars and "nourished the vocabulary of Joshua's lexicon of Jewish nationalism."
Ben-Gurion
The founder and first Prime Minister of Israel, David Ben-Gurion (1886-1973) was particularly enthusiastic about Joshua's travel, and was keen on teaching him in the Israeli army and holding a regular study group during which the young elite created a travel-inspired culture focused on an imagined national culture created from Religious text.
Ben-Gurion wanted to unite the immigrant population from the corners of the earth through a patriotic military culture filled with the Bible, an idea that lasted for nearly two decades until Israel occupied Palestinian lands in the 1967 war and settlers set out to confiscate Palestinian lands while waving the book of Joshua.
The settlers and their supporters provided a very nationalistic interpretation of the Bible, as many took God's promise to Joshua that “every spot that treads your foot is yours” literally. They called the West Bank settlements places in the travel of Joshua, such as Gilgal, Gibeon, Ofra, and others.
Joshua criticizes the Israeli tribes for their failure to exterminate and completely displace the inhabitants of the land designated for them, and thus a stream of settler ideology affirms that the "implementation" of full Palestinian displacement, through "mass transfer", will achieve the Bible and realize salvation for the entire land of Israel, and according to this vision Jews who oppose this vision are seen as internal enemies of the people and divine will.
The author asserts that these texts were inspired to justify Israel's wars against the Palestinian population, as well as to the policies of occupation, militarization, blockade, deprivation, and restrictions imposed on the Palestinians, "Now the right-wing government supported by religious political parties in Israel and evangelical groups in America is seeking to embody its" divine right "in the West Bank , By annexation. "
For decades, American support for the Israeli side relied mainly on geo-strategic foundations, especially during the Cold War period, but with the arrival of Donald Trump to rule, the basis for Israel's support has become a return to biblical and biblical religious justifications, according to a previous report by Al Jazeera Net.
The second half of the book and the novel
The author continues her study of the Book of Joshua and says that those who have already read the Bible may reach the second half of the Book of Joshua, where it becomes clear that the "indigenous people" have not been eliminated, but are still neighbors that are largely indistinguishable from "the people of Israel."
In return, the army of Joshua fades and turns into a group of tribes, clans, and families who need divided city residents and water sharing.
This story is a counter-narrative of the preceding militarization ideas contained in the first half of the Book of Joshua, and the author considers that the second half of the story "intentionally corrupts national anger."
In the second half of Joshua, a complete set of affiliations - family, tribal, regional, and global - that directed the ancient peoples can be found, and this is the opposite of those who wanted to form these identities in one state and army, so the separation between the Israelis and the Canaanites was not achieved in the end and is not justified by the reality of life Also.
The writer concludes that the national reading of Joshua's travel by "the politicized and abusive Christianity of the Bible leads to a cultural war backed by state violence."
Alternative reading
In her recent book from the Princeton University Press entitled "The Generation of Joshua: The Israeli Occupation and the Bible," Haverluck studies "how the controversial Bible story of conquest and genocide has become a foundational story of modern Israel."
The book explains the centrality of the text "The Book of Joshua" in modern Israeli politics and contemporary occupation, and reveals the reason why the Jews ignored a long time ago to the text that was called in conjunction with the wars and origins of Israel in the twentieth century, while critics of the occupation see travel commemorating the genocide.
In the book, “The Book of Joshua,” the author sees evidence of a decentralized society consisting of tribes, clans, and families run by women, and considers it appropriate for the status quo, especially when diverse people share the diminishing resources of a scattered land.
The book also reveals how Israeli leaders summon the religious text to promote national cohesion, as it chronicles the unification of the population under a strong monarchy, and explains how Israeli generals, politicians and academics reformulated the story of the establishment of Israel in the language of Joshua, by telling a brutal invasion story that united immigrants from different races and backgrounds!