Danish newspaper: bond between Israeli and American Jews based on myths

"It is an unsustainable situation that is kept alive by myths which makes the Palestinians dreams of statehood distant."


Source: Israel in Denmark: “The Jewish People is a Myth”

Dagsbladet Information published 26-09-2011 an article on their online news site which claimed Israel was built on lies and myths, the relationship between American Jews and Israeli was built on myths, the Kingdoms of David and Solomon never existed, the Jews of Russia all from the tribe with the king in Khazar who converted, says Jews converted to Islam for pecuniary reasons, says Israel is an ethnocratic state rather than democratic. The author [Maja Naur] has previously been a vocal critic of Israel’s actions, and some claim that she was involved with pro-Gaddafi groups in the 80ies.

Interesting parts highlighted.

Last week the Palestinian president Abbas asked the UN General Assembly to vote for the establishment of a Palestinian state. Israel fights the idea with tooth and nail, and USA’s president Obama find himself in a mess, as he needs the Jewish votes for the primary elections next year.

The amount of Jews in USA is almost the same as in Israel. But the bonds between the Israeli and the American Jews are based on myths rather than facts.

This revealed the Israeli historian Shlomo Sand from Tel Aviv University in his book The Invention of the Jewish People from 2008.

The Book was met with equal amounts of ‘we knew that already’ and ‘it is all a lie’.

The first-mentioned reaction was based on the argument, that it is not unique for Israel to create ideological myths, that confirms the self-perceptions of the country – those kinds of myths are build in every state.

The other reaction, was on the other hand based on a denial of any talk about the Zionist colonization was anything else than the Jews returning to their native country.

Sand’s strength is that his detailed documentation builds on a long number of interdisciplinary examinations from historical sources. Together the myths form an unpleasant pattern, that is used politically against the Palestinians, and can be a part of the undermining legitimacy of the State of Israel. It is in the long run impossible to rely on a right by denying others the same right.

The people that doesn’t exist

But first: Sand’s historical analysis. The conclusion is, that there is no other state in the world that consists of one people. People have always been moving, and with time they are more like they non-religious neighbors than their coreligionists, who live other places in the world. Chinese, Ethiopian and Argentinian Jews look more like their non-Jewish neighbors than Jews that live other places in the world.

The Zionist colonization could not in meantime have existed without an ideological preparation, that fertilized the number of myths of the Jewish peoplehood. The Jewish statehood founding simply needed an illusion of an authentic indigenous people that as ‘Israel’s children’ came ‘out of Egypt’. Because only this myth about Hebrew ancestors could justify the right to Palestine. This made the Zionist historians to emphasize their mutual ethnic origin. The Jews was seen as one biological people.

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