We are so aware of the powerful Israel Lobby and its money machine that we overlook the many ways that Jews have been used and abused by both England and the United States. Going all the way back to the Balfour Declaration, we find that England had a habit of promising Palestine to several nations and peoples at the same time. There was the promise made in 1915 to give Arabs independence from the Ottoman Empire (called the Hussein-McMahon correspondence). And then there was a separate agreement with the French in 1916 that guaranteed Palestine would be under international control, and the rest split between the two Western powers (called the Sykes-Picot agreement). England made all three agreements without ever consulting the indigenous inhabitants of the region.
How big a gift was this thrice promised land of Palestine to the Jews? It was already owned and occupied by millions of Palestinian people. To make the area an all Jewish state would take decades of ethnic cleansing and slaughter, something that would eventually make Israel a pariah state in the rest of the world. A kinder, more reasonable solution would have been to let Jews immigrate to English speaking countries where there was plenty of room. But of course, England and the US did not want the millions of desperate Jewish refugees who needed a home. Giving Palestine to the Jews ensured that they wouldn't be clambering to get into England and America.
Probably the most important reason for the creation of Israel is the oil fields that surround our militarized colony in the Middle East. Not only did England and the US avoid a huge influx of Jews, but these redirected immigrants would make up a military base to extend Western control over these vast oil fields. Israel would do the dirty work of empire without staining the reputation of English speaking countries.
It wasn't long before both England and the US began see another benefit to the creation of the state of Israel. The Jewish Holocaust was a potent symbol and could be used in many ways. Even the Western support of Israel's ethnic cleansing and genocide could be made virtuous by referring to the Holocaust. How could anyone dare to criticize Israel/US foreign policy if it were done in the name of Jewish suffering?
In addition, charges of antisemitism have become the weapon of choice in England and the US for ending any criticism of the US Empire and its unholy alliance with Israel. If you are a college teacher who condemns Israel's war crimes and crimes against humanity, why you must be an antisemite! If you are a student chanting "Free Palestine," why you must hate Jews. Our Congress is falling all over itself to make any criticism of Israel illegal, and these laws are a particularly dangerous assault on our First Amendment freedom of speech.
But the use of the Holocaust and antisemitism for political gain cheapens and debases Jewish history and Jewish culture. Who will respect these terms when they are used to justify an ongoing genocide? Who will be left to fight real antisemitism? Certainly not the 36 million Christian Zionists in America, whose thinly veiled antisemitism should be a concern to us all.
These supposed allies of Zionism are intent on pushing all Jews into the Holy Land where they can either convert to Christianity or be slaughtered. Only when Jews have been ethnically cleansed from the rest of the world, will sweet Jesus appear and save all Christians from the carnage awaiting Jewish unbelievers. Is this "final solution" any better than the plan offered by the insane leaders of the Third Reich? In fact, is it really any different?
Will the creation of Israel prove to be the second catastrophe visited on the Jewish people by Western imperialism?
-Fred Nagel
The Gift of Thrice Promised Land
