David, I expressed the same amount of bigotry that you gave…anyone defending Zionism is clearly a RACIST….and on the chance that you really care about this issue, I suggest that you start by reading this book: The Invention of the Jewish People-> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Invention_of_the_Jewish_People
Here’s another of his books that is also a great read: The Invention of the Land of Israel: From Holy Land to Homeland https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/233278/the-invention-of-the-land-of-israel-by-shlomo-sand/9781781680834/
Also, the Guardian, breaks down this book with great detail: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/apr/18/invention-land-israel-shlomo-sand
The “Land of Israel” is barely mentioned in the Old Testament: the more common expression is the Land of Canaan. When it is mentioned, it does not include Jerusalem, Hebron, or Bethlehem. Biblical “Israel” is only northern Israel (Samaria) and there never was a united kingdom including both ancient Judea and Samaria.
Even had such a kingdom ever existed and been promised by God to the Jews, it is hardly a clinching argument for claiming statehood after more than 2,000 years. It is an irony of history that so many past Zionists, most of whom were secular Jews, often socialist, used religious arguments to buttress their case. Besides, the biblical account makes it quite clear (insofar as such accounts are ever clear) that the Jews, led by Moses and then by Joshua, were colonisers themselves and were commanded by God to exterminate “anything that breathes”. “Completely destroy them — the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites — as the Lord your God has commanded you.” Imagine if the Amorites came back and claimed their ancient land. If they did, this is what Deuteronomy 20 has to say: “Put to the sword all the men … As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else … you may take these as plunder for yourselves.” Today, such an injunction would take you straight to the international criminal court.
Much of what Shlomo Sand reveals is known to specialists. His achievement consists in debunking a nationalist mythology which holds sway in large sections of popular opinion. It also normalises Jews, since it challenges the belief in exceptionalism. The Holocaust was a unique event, but the basic nationalist litany is similar across nations — almost a literary genre in itself — for it is poised between a lachrymose sense of self-pitying victimhood and a vainglorious account of heroic deeds. “We”, so goes the story, have been around for centuries (1066, famously, in Britain; 966 in Poland; since antiquity in Italy and in Greece). Eventually, after centuries, we achieved our freedom, our independence, our happiness, and we, who are unlike everyone else, can finally be like everyone else: members and possessors of a country and a nation.
Demystifying what the French call le roman national seems to be today one of the major tasks of historians (once they used to write it). This can be an uphill struggle, yet it is to the credit of the Israeli book-reading public that Sand’s previous book, The Invention of the Jewish People became a bestseller. Truth-telling may be painful but necessary.
Another great read: The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine by Ilan Pappe-> https://oneworld-publications.com/the-ethnic-cleansing-of-palestine-pb.html
Happy Reading…
