The War of
Narratives
What have Jews accomplished by in-gathering and becoming citizens of the state
of Israel ? They have bolstered a spurious interpretation of
history and identified themselves with twelve tribes who established some
states and administration, but apparently vanished from history and left little
imprint of having been a strong or extensive civilization for a long period of
time. By incorporating biblical history into its 'reason to be,' Israel has
exalted Joshua the warrior, guilty of nine genocides, David, a bandit,
suspected murderer of those who barred his route to kingship, and philanderer
who coveted the wives of others, and Solomon, who used forced labor and
exorbitant taxes to build huge construction projects (for this, Moses took them
out of Egypt?), and kept a harem of 700 wives. Evidently, the Israelis intend
to accomplish in real life what a mythical Joshua and his Israelites
accomplished -- conquer the city of Jericho, lay the entire West Bank
to waste, and "let the people be hewers of wood and water carriers in the
service of the whole assembly."
It seems strange that
Jews embrace the dubious connection with wandering tribes and errant kings and
reject the well-established memories of their most precious epochs and proud
moments of history -- their centuries of sojourn in Mesopotamia and Persia.
Readily absorbing the new wisdom they encountered after their exodus to ancient
Iraq and Persia, the Jews compiled the Talmud, and moved rapidly into
achieving almost total male literacy, obtaining economic advancement, and
becoming leaders for progress and modernity. Hopefully, Jews who absorb actual
history will awaken other Jews to the destructive impulses generating from Israel, which prevents them from recognizing the roots of
modern Judaism and instead reverts them to become atavistic and reactionary
relics of the ancient Hebrew world.
The Palestinians have
found themselves thrust into an unenviable role with specific challenges -- expose
the contrived narrative of the Israelis and impress the world with their narrative
of continuous transitory life as Canaanites, or possibly Hebrews, to
Christians, to Muslims, to Arabs, to citizens of the Ottoman Empire and finally
to suffering the Al-Nakba, which started their route to being oppressed.
Despite decades of mental, physical, and emotional fatigue, they owe this task
to themselves, to their communities in Diasporas, to Jews who don't want to be
involved in the injustices, to a Middle
East that suffers from the
expansion of the crisis, and to a world that might soon face a related
catastrophe. They owe it and should show it.
Next Page 1 | 2 | 3
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
