Opinions of Peter Belmont
Speaking Truth to Power
| On retroactively abandoning all knowledge of good and evil |
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by Peter A. Belmont / 2011-08-21
The story of Adam and Eve, as I have heard it, has it that Adam and Eve (The People) were placed in a wonderful garden (The Land) by God, and allowed to live there forever and enjoy all the fruits of the garden except that they were forbidden to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. ”what you would not that others do unto you, do not unto them”and ”do unto others as you would have them do unto you” And that was the story of the knowledge of good and evil until modern times. Then came a great evil, the holocaust, and Jews—already discussing a colonial-style project in Palestine under the rubric of Zionism, taught by Herzl and others, totally lost it. Or regained it. What they lost was any knowledge of (or concern for) good and evil. What they regained was the sense that if they abandoned all knowledge of good and evil, especially as taught by th Jewish rabbis for two thousand years, and for so long as they remained in absolute ignorance of good and evil they could again become The People and live in happiness in The Land. And in 1948, the State of Israel was formed, in a colonial war in which the human rights of the non-Jewish Palestinian people were wholly ignored by the Israeli army—even as the text of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was being negotiated, and human rights were on all minds, especially after the Second World War and the Holocaust. The Jews of Israel had made their choice, to abandon all knowledge of good and evil in return for what they imagine to be their reward for this abandonment—recovery, forever of The Land from God. And they have—as a nation, with exceptions among individuals, of course—maintained that abandonment.[1] Israelis do not know the international humanitarian law. They do not know the international law of belligerent occupation. They do not know the laws of war. Their rabbis told them to obey the laws of the lands in which—in diaspora—they lived, and, imagining that they were no longer living in diaspora, the Jews of Israel abandoned the knowledge of good and evil which their rabbis had told them. Today, as for 63 years, they have acted upon the faith that by abandoning all knowledge of good and evil they will be allowed—by God, presumably—to live forever in The Land (which they seem to have decided means the territory of Mandatory Palestine). My hope is that the nations, those whose international laws have been so flagrantly flouted, will rise up against Israel and show Israel that its rabbis had the right idea and that the idea of abandoning all knowledge of good and evil was a chimera, an evil spirit, born of the shock and hurt of the Holocaust. A chimera born understandably, perhaps, allowance being made for pain and shock and dislocation—although the Zionist leaders had made their plans years before Hitler came to power—but a mistake, an error, a horror, a monster nevertheless, and, chimera-like, “an impossible or foolish fantasy.” Israel will leave some, at least, of The Land, allowing the non-Jewish Palestinians to return and to assume their national character on that 22% of Palestine which consists of Gaza and the West Bank. But ending the occupation will not be enough for the nations. Israel will also have to demonstrate a knowledge of good and evil, and a determination to live according to the rules of law, to live peacefully among its neighbors, not merely to know good but to do good. The fantasy of a life everlasting for The People in the whole of The Land in return for their abandonment of the knowledge of good and evil must be put to rest forever, as one of the worst nightmares—and one of the worst mis-readings of the Hebrew Bible—of all times. ----------- [1] There may be a gentle reader who comes across this essay who doesn’t know what evils on Israel’s part I am complaining of. Fair enough. Glad you asked. Principally, I complain of the expulsion of substantial numbers of non-Jewish Palestinians from the lands Israel conquered in the 1948 war, and Israel’s refusal—despite repeated demands from the UNGA—to allow Palestinians who found themselves outside “Israel” after that war to return to their homes and homeland after that war. I am complaining about the seizure of the houses and lands of those absent Palestinians by the State of Israel and its donation of the same to a trust for the benefit of the Jewish people (of the world). I am complaining of Israel’s holding the lands it seized and occupied in the 1967 war—lands in Palestine and Syria—for more than 44 years, and counting, despite the 1967 UNSC 242 that said that land could not legitimately be acquired by force of arms. I am complaining about Israel’s torture and oppression of the people living in these occupied territories, particularly the recent dreadful Israeli siege and blockade of Gaza, still on-going. I am complaining of Israel’s dreadful obliterative attacks on Lebanon in 1982 and again more recently, and of its attack on Gaza (2008/2009). I am complaining about Israel’s blatant flouting of the laws of military occupation by its settlement program which has placed 10% of the Israeli population into illegal settlements in the West Bank and, seemingly, prevented a “two-state solution” to create peace between Israel and the non-Jewish Palestinian people. I have other complaints,. These will do to educate the ignorant, but gentle, reader. Educational materials may be found on the internet. See momdoweiss.com for daily updates. read Gideon Levy. |
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