many tweeted and cheered an article that was recently published in social media dating back many years ago, by israeli writer ari shavit, in which he said that the israelis had passed the point of no return, and that they could no longer end the occupation, stop settlement, and achieve peace, and that it was no longer possible to reform zionism and save democracy.
if the situation is like this, there is no taste for living in this country, no taste for writing in “haaretz,” and no taste for reading it, and you must leave the country. if israeliness and jewishness are not a vital factor in identity, and if every israeli citizen has a foreign passport, not only in the technical sense but also in the psychological sense, then the matter is over.
we must bid farewell to friends and move to san francisco, berlin, or paris, and from there we can watch israel breathe its last breath, and the myth of its democracy come to an end.
on the other hand, left-wing israeli writer gideon lavie says that the israelis realize that they have no future in palestine, as it is not a land without a people as they lied to.
lavie not only acknowledged the existence of the palestinian people, but also their superiority over the israelis, and that the palestinians, as it seems, have a different nature from the rest of humanity.
we occupied their land and called their youth prostitutes and drug addicts. we said that a few years would pass, they would forget their homeland and land, and then their young generation would explode.
one uprising after another; we also put them in prisons and said, “we will raise them inside them.” years later, after we thought they had learned their lesson, they returned to us with another armed uprising that burned a lot.
so we demolished their homes and besieged them for many years, and suddenly they extracted missiles from almost nothing to attack us with, despite the siege and destruction. so we took them. we build walls and put up barbed wire.
and lo and behold, they came to us from underground and through tunnels, until they intensified the killing of our youth. we fought them with our minds, and then they took control of the israeli satellite, and brought terror to every home in israel, by broadcasting threats and intimidation, as happened when their youth were able to seize control of the israeli channel 2!
in summary, it seems that we are facing the most difficult people in history, and there is no solution for them but to recognize their rights and end the occupation.
in 1970, the israeli writer shlomo sand, a professor of history at tel aviv university, published a book entitled “the invention of the jewish people.” it was very popular remained on the list of best books for weeks, and was translated into many languages.
documents
sand says that there are no historical documents proving the expulsion of the jewish people by the romans at any time, as it was impossible, at least logistically, at that time to deport hundreds of thousands from one place to another, and that modern jews do not descend from the origins of the ancient jews who lived in the land of ancient israel, there is no such thing as a jewish “race.” the jews do not belong to a single source, and they were not deported out of the country by the romans during the 12th century.
most of them continued to live there until the advent of islam in the seventh and eighth centuries, when many of them converted to islam, which means that many of the ancestors of today’s palestinians were jews.
sand believes that the myth of the jewish “diaspora” began with the first eras of christianity, to attract jews to the new religion, and a group of jewish intellectuals appeared in germany who were influenced by the ardent enthusiasm for german nationalism, and they took upon themselves the task of “inventing” jewish nationalism and the idea of promising the return of the jewish nation to the land.
the promised one is an idea completely foreign to “judaism.” it only appeared with the birth of “zionism,” as the jews had previously dealt with the holy lands as places to be glorified, and it was not necessary to live within them -- just as muslims deal with their holy places!
sand, a professor of history at tel aviv university, reviews valuable information about the emergence of the idea of judaism and the national homeland, reviewing the entirety of jewish history, and criticizing the traditional jewish historical discourse in its various stages and trends.
he wonders: how and why was the torah transformed from a book of religious laws into a history book that narrates the emergence of the “jewish nation,” knowing that no one knows with accuracy when the torah was written?! who wrote it?! what path did the jews expelled from egypt take?!
sand concluded that the jews had always formed important religious groups that had a foothold in various regions of the world, and were not a people of one origin.
shabit’s article sand’s book, and dozens of other similar articles and books, which were published before hamas’s latest attack on israel, on october 7, have become nothing compared to the flood of articles, interviews, speeches, and demonstrations in free capitals, and the accompanying major change in the position on the palestinian issue, which is a momentum that could not have been achieved without the sudden hamas attack, which was denounced by the world, but which awakened the global conscience towards the cause of a people who had suffered for more than a century from the oppression of the english occupier and subsequently from the occupation and oppression of the israeli occupier, such that it became criminal to think about the continuation of the situation as it was before that date.
to be as energetic and just as the jews who stood with our causes, we must immediately respect their positions appreciate them as they deserve, and reduce the trait of ingratitude in our societies, for we are not... the best of nations!