In 1890, the Austrian Jewish writer "Nathan Birnbaum" published one of his articles in the magazine "Self-Emancipation", using a new term for his readers at this time [1], but it was not an arbitrary word, as it was not until seven years passed that this term crystallized in Basel, Switzerland, in 1897 by the other Austrian Jew, "Theodor Herzl", who used the word "Zionism" coined by "Nathan" to hold the First Zionist Congress one year after the publication of his book "The Jewish State";
In it, he called for the immigration of Jews to Palestine and the establishment of the Land of Israel, which will solve the problem of Jewish minorities in the diaspora [2].
What we know is that this moment was the beginning of the Zionist settlement project, which ended with the state of Israel built on the ruins of Palestine, but what is not reported much is that from this moment - also - the story of the internal Jewish conflict between religious Jews and Zionism began, before the Nakba, and before the Jewish migrations to Palestine, and before the Balfour Declaration, and before "Balfour" even knew that he would make a promise to the Jews of something on a land.
According to the researcher in history affairs at the Islamic University in Gaza, Yunus Abdel-Hamid [3], many religious Jews rejected Zionist thought from its inception, and even fought it and considered it harmful to their interests in the world, and their leaders realized that Zionism is a secular movement, not only for the secularism of its founders, but for opposing it. They express their belief in the Kingdom of Israel that the expected "mashih" will establish for them.
The religious character with which the Zionist movement characterized its movement did not affect religious Jews, as the writer “Muhammad Amara” [4] - a researcher in religions and the Arab-Israeli conflict - says, as he tells us that the derivation of “Zionism” came to exploit the feelings of the Jews and their longing for Mount Their sacred "Zion", which clashed with a well-established Jewish rule - also - which is that the Land of Israel is a gift from God to them by the awaited mourners, and that every human attempt to establish a Jewish state is an infidelity and an anomaly from the known traditional Jewish method and treachery The meaning of the promise [5].
This objection was the main cornerstone in all moral and material disputes between religious Jews and the Zionist movement, before, during and after the establishment of their Zionist entity on the land of Palestine. Every Jewish religious movement / group, whether it transformed into a political party or not, has internalized the Mashih doctrine in its rejection of Zionism, While - on the opposite side - the movement saw, according to "David Ben-Gurion," the first Israeli Prime Minister, that the idea of the return of the Mashihs is a "very negative" idea.
The opinion presented by Ben-Gurion found its echo among many pro-Zionist Jewish thinkers, as the Russian Zionist thinker "Bertis Smolenskin" saw that the Zionist vision is defined as a kind of settlement to ensure livelihood and security and has nothing to do with the savior [6], which is agreed by the Hungarian Zionist. Max Nordau "who described the movement as a political movement, not a mystical religious one, and that it is not linked to Masihian visions and does not wait for a miracle, but rather wants to prepare the way back with its own efforts [7], which is completely consistent with the saying of" Herzl "in his memoirs:" I am not I submit in my project to any religious motive. "
This combination was an affirmation of the secularism of the movement among the fundamentalists and the falsehood of its religious claim, which was used to justify its colonial purposes - according to the description of "Al-Masiri" [8] -. Orthodox Jews [*] believe that "the Jewish people" is nothing but a religious expression, and that belonging to this people It depends on the extent of adherence to his Sharia. Therefore, every call that looks at the Jews with a political or national point of view is something contrary to religion and far from it [9], and from here shouts of rejection rose throughout this people.
The Zionist movement did not end its way to Palestine until it mobilized various criticisms and opposing positions from within the Jewish ranks itself, the fundamentalist before the leftist or the secular, while the secular criticism started from the need for the integration of Jewish minorities with their societies [10], and considering Zionism a civilized response that cannot be addressed. The problem of the Jewish ghettos but rather increases it by creating a large ghetto [**] in the name of a state [11]. On the other hand, religious criticism was launched from the dilemma of the aforementioned nomads.
At the individual level, fundamentalist Jewish protests against the nascent Zionist entity emerged in succession and from the various areas in which Jews live. Rabbi Moshe Hirsch, born in Palestine and one of the leaders of the anti-Zionist Naturi Carta movement, wrote in a 1978 article in the Washington Post that “Zionism is in contrast to Complete with Judaism ... It wants to define the Jewish people as a national unit, and this is the disbelief itself ... and when they do so, they must bear all the consequences. ”[12]
This vision that the Zionist movement saw in the Zionist movement is infidelity and lonely about the heritage of the fathers, we find it in the statement of another rabbi, "Elmer Berger," the former president of the American Jewish Council, when he declared in 1968 at the American University of Leiden that "the land of Zion is not sacred unless it is controlled by Sharia law." The Lord "[13], and said:" No person can accept the claim that the establishment of the present state of Israel was a fulfillment of the prophecy "[14].
Indeed, the matter transcended the status of rabbis and opinion writers, as Sir Edon Montagu - the Jewish minister in the British government at the time of the Balfour Declaration was influenced by his strong opposition to Zionism and describing it as an evil doctrine, a misleading political doctrine that no citizen who loved his country could defend, and that the return of The Jews from exile - according to his belief - must be done by divine will and not by the will of the Zionists, but he suggested depriving every Zionist the right to vote in the United Kingdom, and he emphasized that the Balfour Declaration offends the Jews;
It deprives them of their rights as citizens of the countries to which they belong [15].
Sir Edon Montagu, the Jewish minister in the British government at the time of the Balfour Declaration
It is a position that is very similar to the position of the great physicist Albert Einstein - a Jew of religion - who said that “reaching a peaceful common life with the Arabs guided, in my opinion, the establishment of a Jewish state ... My awareness of the nature and essence of Judaism collides with the idea of establishing a dedicated Jewish state. [16], and it is the same religious position on which Judaism and Zionism disputed.
In a related context, the researcher "Jada Jalladi" [17], a Jewish Arab thinker, mentions that this Jewish rejection of Zionism was on the same pattern in many Arab Jewish institutions and on the lips of many of their famous people, and this is due to several reasons - other than belief criticism and belief Mashih - including the Jews enjoying an atmosphere of religious tolerance as people of dhimmah throughout the Islamic world. They did not suffer persecution and racism like the Jews of Europe. Rather, they felt that they were first-class citizens in their Arab countries.
Among the manifestations of this rejection is that the Israeli Association for Combating Zionism was established in Egypt in 1946, announcing its principles, which were summarized in two pivotal principles:
The struggle against Zionism, which conflicts with the interests of both Jews and Arabs, and the close connection between the Jews of Egypt and the Egyptian people in the struggle against colonialism.
The same happened in Iraq, a year ago, when the Anti-Zionist League was formed headed by "Harun Zalkha", and it has practiced many activities against the Zionist movement, including conferences and mass events, and the newspaper "Al-Osbah" was published for the same purpose, in which it was published many Among the articles that considered Zionism an agent of colonialism, as this movement undermines the common popular struggle - between the Arabs and their Jewish citizens - against colonialism, and the League considered that Zionism is an explicit violation of the rights of the Palestinians, and that the solution to the problem of Jewish minorities is through defending their duties inside their homelands and not from During their displacement to Palestine [18].
Anti-Zionist League
The Israeli historian, Ze'ev Herzog, declared that the biblical myths invoked by the Zionists to prove the historical right to the land of Palestine are a false claim without historical proof [19]. "The invention of the Jewish people", in which it was stipulated that the Roman expulsion of the Jews did not take place from the origin until they returned to Palestine, which is confirmed - in fact - the confusion of the Zionist movement at its inception about the desired homeland for immigration. Subtracted for selection [20].
On the other hand, the Jewish-Zionist conflict was taking a more intense and frictionless form than before, which is the ongoing conflict at a haunting pace for the government until now between religious groups and the Israeli government over the state, its institutions, and so on.
To understand this conflict, we need a quick historical tracing of the religious factions within Israeli society, which branch from two main directions: the reformist trend, and the Orthodox / Haredi trend.
In view of the reform movement, it began in the late nineteenth century in Germany, specifically in 1840, and demanded the complete integration of the Jewish minorities in Germany and the purification of Judaism from the impurities that clung to it, including changing the language of worship from Hebrew to the language of the country in which prayer is performed, And the two words Zion and Jerusalem were deleted from all prayers, and indulgence in the sanctity of the Sabbath day and lawful eating, etc. [21].
The reform movement was also expressing a new form of solutionism, which is the permissibility of the people of God.
They saw that God had settled in the spirit of progress and age - neither the nation nor the Jewish land -, and then this was the origin of their disagreement with Zionism, because the reformers did not see in the Jews a people but rather religious minorities, while Zionism considered that the place of solutions is the Jewish people and the land (22) ].
Yunus Abd al-Hamid states that the reformist movement has constituted the largest organized obstacle in the paths of Zionism, as it is the most influential of the Jewish groups in the United States of America. Many conferences were held calling for anti-Zionism, such as the Rabbis ’conference in Frankfurt in 1869, in which the reformists demonstrated their rejection. Praying for the return to the land of the patriarchs - as Zionism claimed - and they declared that their hopes are still tied to their homeland in Germany, and that the desire to establish a Jewish state in Palestine is completely non-existent, which was repeated - almost - in the same year, but in "Philadelphia" in the United States.
On the other side, the situation did not differ much among the Orthodox Jews. Rather, it was more severe and violent. Orthodoxy is the closest expression of fundamentalism, which arose as a reaction to the reform movement, but agreed with it in defending the Jewish "diaspora" where it is, and complete hostility to any means that accelerates From the alleged kingdom of the Jews in their creed, and the movement considered that any call that looks at the Jews with a political or national view is something contrary to religion and far from it [23], but rather considered Zionism - from the origin - to worship the wrong God [24].
And because the Orthodox movement, later called the Haredim - meaning the pious - was more hostile to Zionism than others, the German Council of Rabbis - Protest Rabbis - forced Herzl in 1897 to change the location of the First Zionist Congress from "Munich" to "Basel", They issued an anti-Zionist statement after the conference, expressing that the efforts of these Zionists contradict the efforts of their fundamentalist group [25], and from this moment they adopted the history of the fiercest opposition to Zionism from within the Jewish class.
In October 1911, a meeting was held in Frankfurt, Germany, in which a number of German Jews, Hungary, Lithuania and Poland participated.
To discuss the issue of the language of worship and the position of Western civilization and so on, until it was agreed upon the first foundations for the establishment of the "Agudat Yisrael" party - the Israel League - as an international organization [26], which is the party that has been hostile to Zionism since its founding in Poland in 1912, and sought to unify the groups Eastern and Western Orthodoxy with the aim of forming an alternative option for the Jewish organizations to confront the Zionist movement [27].
"Agudat Yisrael" Israel Association
According to Yunus Abd al-Hamid, the party was based on Orthodox ideas and launched its political programs, and was interested in encouraging biblical education, political representation and religious Jewish prosperity, until it began its activity on the land of Palestine in Jerusalem in 1919 at the hands of an Orthodox community, and considered opposition to Zionism as one of the most important His basic principles, so he started this opposition with wide media campaigns against the Zionist movement and its project in Palestine, opposed it in its testimony before the League of Nations, refused to join the Zionist groups and maintained his isolation from it, and presented himself as a spokesman for the Jews opposed to Zionism in an attempt to create a non-political Jewish organization to replace the movement Zionism, until "Jacob DeHaan", the political spokesman for Hamm in 1924, was assassinated by the Zionist gangs at the time.
Abdel Hamid adds that with the announcement of the establishment of Israel in 1948, the intensity of the party’s policies began to gradually diminish, and it agreed with some of the Zionist positions on settlement, immigration and the establishment of the state, provided that it adheres to the Jewish Sharia, which made the party’s final outcome weaker than considering it a real obstacle to Zionism. This is the most prominent feature of the Orthodox trend in general, which was rejected by some and split from it to practice its opposition independently.
As it contained within it many conflicting factions with different powers, [28] but with the difference and multiplicity of the anti-Zionist religious parties and groups, there has not yet emerged what is more violent and hostile than the Haredim "Satmar" and "Naturi Karta", which increased the intensity of the conflict inside After Agudat Yisrael transferred it to the lands of Palestine.
In contrast to the many movements and parties whose conflict with the Israeli government has slowed down with the passage of time, the ultra-Orthodox Jews in the two groups "Satmar" and "Naturi Karta" remained among the fiercest religious Jews and the strongest hostility to the Zionist movement and its government so far, which is confirmed by the researcher, "Muhammad Emara" in his book Religious movements rejecting Zionism inside Israel, as he says: “It is known that the Zionist movement has not seen, since its inception, hostility from a Jewish religious leader, as it has seen from Rabbi Yoel Telbaum, the spiritual leader of the“ Satmer ”movement, who accused Zionism of heresy and that it was a devout religion. ".
Rabbi "Yoel Tlelbaum" spiritual leader of the "Satmer" movement (center)
The Rabbi also went further - as he mentions "Amara" - when he considered the Holocaust as a punishment from God for the Jewish people who violated his commandments at the hands of the Zionist movement, and he even explicitly accused Zionism of having orchestrated the Holocaust in conjunction with the Nazis to force the remaining European Jews to emigrate to Palestine. 29].
The movement also controls one of the largest international Jewish organizations, the "United States Rabbis Union", which issued a sharp statement in 1982 attacking Zionism and the State of Israel, in which it attacked the joining of religious parties to the government - such as the National Religious Party - under the pretext that this accession reverses the balance of power when it joins. Those who adhere to the Torah to the wicked and help them establish their rule, and they said in the text that these adherents are “directly responsible for the actions that this unbelieving rule carries out… they have chosen to join a government that is competing with states with frightening arrogance… A spirit of atheism resides within everyone who believes that the Jews are able From breaking the diaspora and establishing an independent state before the Savior appeared ”[30].
Likewise, the "Neturei Karta" movement - or city guards - comes back in 1935 when it split from the "Agudat Yisrael" party after it gradually began to merge with Zionism, and the number of its followers now stands at nearly half a million people around the world, and tens Thousands of people inside the occupied territories are concentrated in the "one hundred Shaareem" neighborhood in Jerusalem, which is a poor neighborhood, and the newly established city of "Beni Brak", which has become one of the most important strongholds of religious groups in the country [31].
As for the movement’s doctrine, it - as mentioned by “Amara” - takes an aggressive stance against Zionism for the aforementioned religious reasons and considers it a blasphemous movement. Its followers boycott the timing of the state and all its media - except for religious programs on the radio - and they adopt a special timing in which the day begins at midday, They own a special newspaper that does not stop attacking Zionism, the "Al-Soor" newspaper, whose name means the separation fence between Judaism and Zionism, as well as boycotting the Israeli currency and minting a special internal currency between them.
It is also evident in the media materials about them and the documentaries that they adhere to traditional Jewish fashion and boycott technology greatly, and their women are modest in their clothing, and they sanctify the Sabbath so sharply that they force the owners of shops outside their group to close and prevent all work and life on the roads as much as they can.
The group has a sharp position on military service, so that Rabbi "Hirsch" says in this regard: "Why are they considering our recruitment when they do not recruit Arabs? We hate them more than the Arabs, and if they give us a weapon, we will shoot them" [31].
It is also the movement that most defends the right of the Palestinians to their land. In an interview that Rabbi "David Feldnan" conducted with the Qatari newspaper Al-Watan in 2005, he said: "The Palestinian people have the right to regain their land however they want, and we are confident that the Jews who live in Israel will leave it if they know that Arabs will not kill them, contrary to what Zionism has been spreading since 1948. "
In this context, Rabbi "David Weiss" said: "Since the establishment of the State of Israel, we have been demonstrating against the state and have been beating us during the demonstrations without mercy." [32] In February of 2015 the movement sent a message to the French President, "Nicolas Sarkozy," after inviting the president Israeli ministers, "Benjamin Netanyahu", the Jews of Europe to the mass immigration, in which she said: "The Israeli prime minister once again acted as a protector and representative of the world's Jews. The Zionists consider themselves the saviors of the Jews, but in fact they pose a great danger to them, and they are the reason for the increase in hostility to the Jews in the world." And their Zionist project is the cause of the hatred of the Jews ”[33].
Rabbi David Weiss
Therefore, the movement always works to warn the Jews against immigration to Palestine, which we find clearly in the words of Rabbi "David Weiss", a spokesman for the movement, as he says: "The chief rabbis in our movement preached that one should not live under Zionism. There are tens of thousands who have left. Palestine so that they would not live under the shadow of Zionism ... But there is another school of thought in the Jewish community that does not want to leave Israel on the grounds that it wants to fight Israel and Zionism from within. ”[34]
Commenting on that, “Amara” says that we should not resort to the simple Muslim woman who says: As long as there are Jews who reject Zionism in Palestine, let them leave it and leave, because the matter is more complicated than that.
There is a group of them who believe that it is imperative to fight Zionism from the inside, and they are completely isolating the state, and there are those who see it as a sacred land of worship regardless of Israel, and there was a Palestinian Jewish minority, and that minority considers itself Palestinian to the point that the "Naturi Karta" movement boycotted the late president "Yasser Arafat" and the Palestine Liberation Organization - for some time - after they practically recognized Israel in exchange for the organization's control over the West Bank and Gaza Strip, in addition to the movement's support for the families of detainees and the wounded Palestinians financially and their sympathy for them;
In his book "Jewish Fundamentalism", David Landau mentions one of the movement's messages: "We Palestinian Jews who are anti-Zionist express our sympathy and affection for you, we are your Palestinian brothers."
Nevertheless, “Amara” affirms that the Jewish rejection of Zionism can be distributed among many groups and parties, and not all rejectionist positions should be interpreted as sympathy for stolen Arab rights, as some of the movements that reject Zionism - such as the two movements “Satmar” and “Habed” - adopt racist visions For the other in general, and for the Arabs in particular, and she believes that the holy Jewish state does not exist except after the expulsion of the Arabs from their land.
The "Habd" movement
Also, he indicates that the material temptations offered by the Zionist entity play a major role in changing some religious movements to their positions, as they tend to dissolve into the state, and that the ethnic basis on which these movements were based is what made it very difficult to unify them, so the process of co-opting them was - accordingly - Much easier.
In the end, the relationship between Judaism and Zionism, and the problems that result from it, does not cease to announce itself at all times as "a narrative that does not stop producing itself dramatically, for Zionism does not cease to employ religion politically ... and religious people do not stop declaring their rejection of Zionism." Exposing its falsehood "[36], so the question remains: Does Israel carry the factors of its own annihilation within it?
Or is this conflict capable of being contained and the Zionists of its last remaining party, which is the ultra-Orthodox?
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Margins
[*] The Orthodox is a derivative word, the first part of which is from the word Orthodox and its origin from the Greek language meaning "right" or "right" or "correct", and its second part from the word doxa which means "opinion" or "belief", and it is related to the word Doken, meaning "to think", is used in general to denote adherence to agreed upon customs, particularly to religious belief associated with religions.
[**] A ghetto refers to a region in which, willingly or unwillingly, lives a group of people who are considered by the majority of people to be a background to a certain ethnicity, culture or religion.
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