Israel's Right to Exist

UN vote in 1947

One of my friends both on and off Facebook has been posting his usual anti-Israel canards.  His latest, however, really goes too far.  He claims that Israel doesn’t really exist and that it’s a myth that the country was created by the United Nations.

That’s rubbish.

Israel was created by a vote of the United Nations in November 1947.  The reports fill the archives of both media and the United Nations.  The New York Times may make an occasional mistake, but it doesn’t report mythology as truth.

Here is a sample report:

The General Assembly voted, 33-13, in favor of partition, with 10 members, including Britain, abstaining. The six Arab nations in the General Assembly staged a walkout in protest.  The New York Times reported: “The walkout of the Arab delegates was taken as a clear indication that the Palestinian Arabs would have nothing to do with the Assembly’s decision. The British have emphasized repeatedly that British troops could not be used to impose a settlement not acceptable to both Jews and Arabs, and the partition plan does not provide outside military force to keep order. Instead, it provides for the establishment of armed militia by the two nascent states to keep internal order.”

This is how the Arab world saw the partitioning of Palestine.

The United Nations recommended dividing Palestine between Arabs and Jews. The plan was published in November 1947. The Arabs immediately rejected partition, because they believed that Palestine was theirs by right. The Plan also appeared to favor the Jews. Although the population of Palestine was about 60 percent Arab, the Jews received more than half of the land and the more fertile areas as well. The Arabs were allotted areas that were mostly desert.

Irgun

As the British withdrew, the Palestinians fought to gain control of every town. On the other side, Israeli terrorist gangs, the Stern and the Irgun, forced Arabs to leave their homes and flee for their lives. Those who stayed, or tried to fight, were killed, men, women and children. This was a major factor in the bitter hatred that developed between Jews and Arabs.

Nevertheless, the United Nations plan was approved, and preparations began for the new state of Israel.

For their part, the Israelis announced that Israel would be a secular state; that meant that religion would have no influence, and that all people living within its borders would have the full rights of citizenship. In other words, although Israel was being created as a homeland for Jews, Arabs would qualify as citizens and be able to vote and stand for the Knesset, the Israeli parliament. This did not satisfy many Arabs. They did not want to live in Israel. They wanted a state of their own.

On 14 May 1948 the Israeli Prime Minister, David Ben Gurion, announced the creation of the state of Israel. There was great rejoicing in Tel Aviv, but the Arab governments in the surrounding countries objected to the new state and tried to destroy it. On 15 May 1948 the armies of Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Transjordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt attacked Israel.

There’s no question that Israel was created as a direct result of the United Nations vote.  Certainly, the Arab countries understood what the vote meant as did every other nation.  Supporters and opponents fought bitterly to woo ambassadors to their side, offering bribes and presents.  The Israeli side won.

My friend is correct that General Assembly resolutions are not enforceable.  In this case, the partition resolution (181) was never acted on by the Security Council.  That doesn’t make the Resolution invalid.  Its decision still stands.  A resolution is binding whether or not the Security Council votes.  Resolutions are often ignored.  This one was acted on.

 

The Resolution divided the ancient land into three units: 

1)      A Jewish state covering 56.47 percent of Mandatory Palestine (excluding Jerusalem) with a population of 498,000 Jews and 325,000 Arabs;

2)      An Arab state covering 43.53% of Mandatory Palestine (excluding Jerusalem), with 807,000 Arab inhabitants and 10,000 Jewish inhabitants;

3)      An international trusteeship regime in Jerusalem, where the population was 100,000 Jews and 105,000 Arabs.

The partition plan also included these points:

4)      A guarantee of the rights of minorities and religious rights, including free access to and the preservation of Holy Places;

5)      A constitution of an economic union between the two states: custom union, joint monetary system, joint administration of main services, equal access to water and energy resources.

The British Mandate allowing England to control Palestine ended May 14, 1948.  As a result, that day, Israel declared its existence.  

 The published statement reads:

Accordingly, we, members of the People’s Council, representatives of the Jewish community of Eretz-Israel and of the Zionist movement, are here assembled on the day of the termination of the British Mandate over Eretz-Israel and, by virtue of our natural and historic right and on the strength of the Resolution of the United Nations General Assembly, do hereby declare the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz-Israel, to be known as the State of Israel.

Zionist leaders had already established a shadow government, which promptly took control.  

The residents of southern Syria, as Palestine was usually called, were actually supposed to choose which portion of the divided land they wished to join, but, of course, that was only wistful thinking.  After all, Zionists made no secret that they didn’t want a large Arab population, and neighboring Arab countries promised swift destruction of the new country.

Without any doubt, some of the tactics on both sides involved terrorism and brutality.

Holocaust victims

That’s deplorable, but the Jewish efforts are at least understandable.  The United Nation’s vote was a direct result of the Holocaust, the murderous efforts by the Nazis to rid Europe of Jews.  Around 6 million of them died.  It’s wholly understandable that Jews would take desperate measures to create a homeland where they would be safe from such vile anti-Semitism, which had been the European norm for close to 1500 years.

No other ethnic group has ever suffered such prolonged mistreatment.

On a personal basis, I would prefer that all ethnic groups gain independence.  That would include the Berbers, the Kurds, the Armenians, the Tamil and many others who have been persecuted.  They have certainly have tried, just as the Jews did.

Maybe, someday, a United Nations resolution will allow these ignored ethnic communities to declare their own legal and unimpeachable creation of a new homeland.

Long-time religious historian Bill Lazarus regularly writes about religion and religious history.  He also speaks at various religious organizations throughout Florida.  You can reach him at www.williamplazarus.net.  He is the author of the famed Unauthorized Biography of Nostradamus; The Last Testament of Simon Peter; The Gospel Truth: Where Did the Gospel Writers Get Their Information; Noel: The Lore and Tradition of Christmas Carols; and Dummies Guide to Comparative Religion.  His books are available on Amazon.com, Kindle, bookstores and via various publishers.  He can also be followed on Twitter.

You can enroll in his on-line class, Comparative Religion for Dummies, at http://www.udemy.com/comparative-religion-for-dummies/?promote=1

Killing for God

Murderous mob in Pakistan

Amid the chaos of daily life and the international crises that are now grabbing our attention, small events get overlooked, especially ones in distant lands.

However, they often contain kernels of truth that shouldn’t be shunted aside.

For example, in Pakistan, three people who were members of a Muslim sect that follows an Islamic prophet other than Muhammad were killed recently by an angry mob who accused them of heresy.

Apparently, a woman and her two granddaughters were victimized after a young man in the Ahmadi sect posted something on Facebook that aroused the crowd of faithful Muslims.  The young man was not injured, but the woman, a seven-year old and her babysitter were murdered.

A neighbor described the scene.  "The attackers were looting and plundering, taking away fans and whatever valuables they could get hold of and dragging furniture into the road and setting fire to it... Some were continuously firing into the air," he said.

"A lot of policemen arrived, but they stayed on the sidelines and didn't intervene," he said.

The real reason for the attack was buried at the bottom of the story:  “Human rights workers say the accusations are increasingly used to settle personal vendettas or to grab the property of the accused.”

Constantine

There was nothing religious in the deadly assault, just greed.

The murderous Pakistanis are in good company.

Christians reacted the same way when their religion was legalized by Constantine in the 4^th century.  They burned and looted homes of members of other faiths; they killed anyone who tried to stop them.  Their efforts increased when Christianity became the only legal religion in the Roman Empire about 50 years later.

It wasn’t the meek who were trying to inherit the Earth.

In fact, Christians invented the idea of heresy to have a deadly weapon for use against people who follow a separate path from orthodoxy.  Raging mobs made sure to enforce the rules and loot the wealth of their target.

“There is no crime for those who have Christ,” one zealot in the 5^th century insisted.

The Inquisition which terrorized much of Europe continued the process in the Middle Ages.  “Ethnic cleansing” of our time is more of the same thing, just under a euphemism, as is the Israeli version of “Mow the lawn.”

Juergensmeyer

A recent study by American scholar Mark Juergensmeyer titled Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence identified a rising number of hate crimes tied to religion.  “Increasingly,” he wrote, “global society must confront religious violence on a routine basis.”

His findings were supported by a new survey by the Pew Research Center.  That study found that “violence and discrimination against religious groups by governments and rival faiths have reached new highs in all regions of the world except the Americas.”

Religion creates that situation, according to a study by University of Washington Professor James Wellman Jr. and Senior Lecturer in the Jackson School of International Studies Kyoko Tokuna.  They concluded that “the symbolic and social boundaries of religion (no matter how fluid or porous) mobilize individuals and group identity in conflict, and sometimes violence, within and between groups.”

Selengut

Added Sociology Professor Charles Selengut in his book Sacred Fury: Understanding Religious Violence, “…religion has another side; A sense that its truth is so correct and so divinely ordered and universal that all people must follow it.”

As a result, violence is worse in countries with limited religious diversity.  That’s because there are few people there of different faiths, whose mere presence challenges the hierarchy. It’s also easier for looters to take advantage of the few outsiders who live among them.

There’s no solution to any of this.  Residents of countries in the Middle East dominated by Islam are not going to suddenly become open minded.  Pakistanis aren’t going to glad hand the Ahmadis in their midst. Religions insisting that they are the only true faith aren’t going to back down from that stance.

Of course, as long as such attacks lead to power and money, no one is going to step aside.

War in Gaza

The violence will continue unabated in religions that tout their “peaceful” intentions.  Islam derives from the word “peace,” while Christianity prays to its “prince of peace.” One of the significant Jewish blessings concludes “may God lift up His countenance on you and grant you peace” from Number 6:26.

Obviously, hypocrisy isn’t going to disappear anytime soon either.

Long-time religious historian Bill Lazarus regularly writes about religion and religious history.  He also speaks at various religious organizations throughout Florida.  You can reach him at www.williamplazarus.net.  He is the author of the famed Unauthorized Biography of Nostradamus; The Last Testament of Simon Peter; The Gospel Truth: Where Did the Gospel Writers Get Their Information; Noel: The Lore and Tradition of Christmas Carols; and Dummies Guide to Comparative Religion.  His books are available on Amazon.com, Kindle, bookstores and via various publishers.  He can also be followed on Twitter.

You can enroll in his on-line class, Comparative Religion for Dummies, at http://www.udemy.com/comparative-religion-for-dummies/?promote=1

On the Road to Hell

Operation Save America protestors

In yet another vicious attempt to impose Christian religious views, members of a group calling itself Operation Save America recently invaded a Unitarian Universalist Sunday prayer meeting in New Orleans.  Most had to be escorted out because they were disrupting an effort to honor a member who had died.

The invaders claimed they were presenting the “truth in the synagogue of Satan.”

Actually, it’s hard to get more satanic that attacking innocent people having a moment of silence during a peaceful service.

Even before this sinister attack, Operation Save America had already been condemned by the Mississippi Religious Leadership Conference as “an affront to Islam, all people of faith, and to our society as a whole... not Christian [and] not American.”

Flip Benham

Operation Save America is headed by the Rev. Philip “Flip” Benham who has already earned a jail sentence and a reputation for attacking abortion clinics and their clients.  A minister of the Free Methodist Church, Benham served in the U.S. Army from 1970 - 1973 and then became the owner and operator of the Mad Hatter Saloon in Florida.

Presumably, both the “free” in the church name and “mad hatter” in the bar’s name are unintentionally ironic.  Operation Save America clearly has no sense of honor or humor.

Benham has openly savaged gays and Muslims, lead protests against a gay-straight alliance in North Carolina and burning Korans.  His son, David, wrote in a blog on the Operation Save America website that the group’s protest against gay rights is comparable to the World War II fight against Nazism.  He referred to Muslims as “enemies attacking” the United States.

Actually, the Benhams and their ilk parallel the Nazis, who also opposed gay people and killed them.  Nazis also tried to impose their views on everyone else, murdering those who rejected them.  Given a chance, there’s no doubt Operation Save America would follow that same path.

Hate is still hate, regardless of the name of the perpetrators.

The Rev. Deanna Vandiver from the Unitarians didn’t see the attack by David Benham and his deranged followers paralleling any battle against Nazis.   She called their invasion of her church “terrorism.”

Vandever

 “I think we were an easy target,” Vandiver said. “but we are not interested in being terrorized. Freedom of speech does not trump freedom of religion.”

Who is Vandiver?  According to her website, she is “a Unitarian Universalist minister committed to the life work of undoing oppressions plus also singing, loving.”

And what kind of “satanic” religion was the gang of crazed lunatics attacking?

Universalism dates back probably to the 4^th century and espouses a belief that all persons can be saved.  That’s the same thing Pope Francis said.  It became a separate denomination in this country in the 1790s.  Universalists merged with Unitarians in 1961, and the resulting society is better known under the initials UU.

The Unitarian movement also began as an offshoot of Christianity, accepting Jesus but rejecting the idea of a God with three parts.  Commonly considered liberal Protestants, Unitarians did not become an organized denomination until 1825, but still lists as members famous individuals who accepted its tenets without actually being members.   

Webster

 

On its website, the group claims as members such famed “devil worshipers” as Presidents John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Millard Fillmore and William Howard Taft as well as senators Daniel Webster and Adlai Stephenson along with luminaries like Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine and editor Horace Greeley. 

Others who are claimed by the Unitarians include Alexander Graham Bell, Jane Addams, Clara Barton, Luther Burbank, Linus Pauling and Florence Nightingale.

All are clearly in league with the Evil One.

What do UUs believe?  They accept all religious beliefs, and are actively involved in working for equality, promoting peace and nonviolence, and environmental protection, among other issues.

Only a group like Operation Save America could find something to hate on that list.

Landrieu

The worst part of the invasion actually came outside the church.  While thugs were terrorizing innocent people during Sunday services, New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, a virtual physical clone of archconservative Florida Gov. Rick Scott, was issuing a certificate of recognition to Flip Benham and Operation Save America.

Reportedly, the mayor’s office said, “It is routine for the City to provide standard proclamations to visiting non-profits, faith-based organizations and conventions that request them.”

It’s also routine to arrest people who harass others and disturb the peace.

That didn’t happen as, increasingly, a small but fanatical cadre of religious maniacs seizes hold of this country.  Officials who share their views see protests and hate speeches as attempts to bring this country back to a rigid Christianity.  Actually, Operation Save America and similar groups are marching the United States in the wrong direction — on a direct line to Hell.

Long-time religious historian Bill Lazarus regularly writes about religion and religious history.  He also speaks at various religious organizations throughout Florida.  You can reach him at www.williamplazarus.net.  He is the author of the famed Unauthorized Biography of Nostradamus; The Last Testament of Simon Peter; The Gospel Truth: Where Did the Gospel Writers Get Their Information; Noel: The Lore and Tradition of Christmas Carols; and Dummies Guide to Comparative Religion.  His books are available on Amazon.com, Kindle, bookstores and via various publishers.  He can also be followed on Twitter.

You can enroll in his on-line class, Comparative Religion for Dummies, at http://www.udemy.com/comparative-religion-for-dummies/?promote=1