I could never really take seriously the hard Left's continual focus on Israel-Palestine issues - why so crazily obsess about the travails and misdemeanours of a country the size and population of Scotland, in a sea of enemies? - until I was confronted with it on a regular basis in the context of serving on a trades union committee that had been thoroughly infiltrated by the Socialist Worker's Party.
(Yes, it really happened to me! Hard though it is to believe...)
Almost every meeting finished with us discussing an anti-Israel or pro-'Palestinian' agenda item. And these agenda items have never gone away, but crop-up recurrently wherever the Left has most influence.
Why has the Left chosen to make Israel a long-term, strategic, relentless, focus for propaganda and action? We can be sure that there must be a a very good reason - 'good' that is in terms of the Left's goals of subverting, destroying and ultimately inverting the Good.
Fist we need to note that the Left obsession began only in the mid 1960s and built up over the next decade. After Israel was formed the Left loved it - but early Israel was an idealistic secular socialist state. So part of the Left's hatred of Israel comes from Israel's abandonment of extreme Leftism.
But this is not enough to account for the sustained focus. The Left focuses on Israel because it is the Holocaust State, the refuge for the most famous victim group of modern times - and the modern view of the Holocaust was itself a post-60s (and Leftist) phenomenon.
The Left recognizes that to have succeeded (as they have) in confusing, subverting and finally inverting the moral status of Israel-specifically and above all others; represents an existential triumph of the first order.
The annihilation of Israel (which the Left hopes and plans for) would therefore be one of the greatest of all victories for evil - precisely because-of the symbolic role of Israel (which the Left itself helped to create).
But it is not the 'mere' annihilation of Israel that the Left craves - it is for that annihilation to be accepted, even celebrated - even, or especially, by the Jews themselves.
And that is the goal and reason for the Leftist obsession with Israel.
And, yes - it is a very pure form of evil. Exactly.
Note: I do not propose to discuss the Israel-'Palestine' situation except to say that it really is not complicated - unless you want to make it complicated. At any rate it is no more complicated than anything else of its kind - and the fact that so many moder people deny that there are goodies and baddies, or invert them, is merely a sign of moral corruption. Also, I use 'Palestine' in quotes because the term is ambiguous - the Left talks of 'Palestine' partly as an existing, partly an aspirational nation state - but the Arab division of the former British Mandate was created at the same time as Israel and still exists - and is called Jordan. So Jordan already-is the nation state of Palestine.It may also be worth clarifying that my understanding is that the intelligence behind this whole strategy is Satan; and that the many evil humans involved are merely servants, dupes, idiots, pawns and mercenaries - who will themselves be next on the list when Satan has finished this work.
Let's just say that there are no "good guys" in this. Both Palestinians and Israelis have blood on their hands.
ReplyDeleteArafat was - in my mind - an idiot to walk away from what was on the table at Camp David. It was the best shot and he didn't step up. The current state where settlements continue to grow and expand is a direct result of failure in those talks, and that came down to a failure over Jerusalem. The Israelis had never put so much on the table. It could have ended the worst of the problem, and laid the groundwork for two states that could co-exist.
Israel had a demographic problem. Arab Israelis were having many more children than Jewish Israelis. The last decade has seen a shift where the birth rate has shifted downwards from 3% to 2.2% - according to the Wikipedia link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Israel This particular article looks well cited, so the numbers are probably reasonably good. Probably an increasing life expectancy and standard of living has had the same effect on Arab Israelis as it had on their Jewish counterparts.
I do notice that during the Syrian crisis Israel has being sitting as quietly as possible on the sidelines. I expect they do not want to draw much attention, and I would not either under the circumstances. "Don't pay any attention here" is exactly the position I would adopt given the horrible quagmire that is Syria.
Regarding the last part of your note, I used to think that the idea of spiritual powers of darkness seeking to subvert this world was superstitious fantasy but it really is the only explanation for the state of the world today, and how apparently sane, rational people can believe such 'eccentricites' as, to take only one glaringly obvious example, same sex marriage. No doubt they are aided and abetted by their servants ‘down here’, mostly unconscious though some certainly conscious, but there is plainly an attempt now to deconstruct spiritual man and reassemble in his place a type of being that recognizes its existence as belonging only to this world, with any kind of spirituality, if permitted at all, merely an extension of the principles of this world, the precise opposite of what is actually the case.
ReplyDeleteI think these forces can work through both left and right, perverting ideals of love and truth, though the left is undoubtedly the more fruitful field for them to sow their seeds in, and has been for a while. However I also think that those of us who recognize this must always be scrupulously honest in examining the motives for our reactions lest we fall into the trap of hating the sinner as well as the sin or else succumb to a sense of spiritual superiority.
@Nicholas - Fro these comments and the implicit analytic frame, I'm afraid I would have to characterize you as a 'dupe' of Leftism (which is the least-worst of the options I presented) - no offence intended!
ReplyDelete@William Wildblood - I could have added that I acknowledge that we have entered the 'end times' or 'latter days' - so what we are seeing has been prophesied.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I believe it is incumbent upon us to try and *delay* 'the end' (whose timing is unknown, even to Jesus Christ - therefore presumably not foreordained, because of Man's freedom to choose) - which I think can *only* be done by a mass Christian revival (and not by any actual or potential political means).
So the political Left is the main agent of sin; but the political Right is (obviously!) not the answer to sin.
Plus, the mainstream/ powerful political 'Right' - such as conservatives, republicans, libertarians, populists, nationalists etc. - are all and without exception actually part of the Left, lagged by a few years or with a few minor variants.
So Christians should, I believe, focus on trying somehow and in all ways possible to stimulate or encourage a mass revival/ great awakening in the faith.
You're correct to point out that the political right ceased to be conservative in any traditional sense at least 40 years ago. I also agree that all those who recognise the corruption of the world should seek to combat that, not necessarily in order to change general external conditions but to support those whose inner sense of what should be might be crushed by the unrelenting forces of atheistic materialism.
ReplyDelete"However, I believe it is incumbent upon us to try and *delay* 'the end'".
ReplyDeleteI would like Christ to come now. We are told that true religion will be abused and attacked towards the end and that false religion will take over. That seems to be happening, so why is it obligatory to try to delay the end? Do you think it is because we are required to evangelise to help save as many as possible?
I interpret it as a facet of the US-Soviet struggle that began in 1945 and continued even after the Cold War "ended". The international Left -- including Leftists in the USA and Britain -- followed Moscow's line on Israel just as they followed Moscow's line on so many other things.
ReplyDeleteIn the late 1940s, Moscow supported the creation of Israel and even armed the Israelis in 1948. Stalin's purpose was to weaken the British who were occupying Palestine and had (generally) good relations with the Arabs. Stalin even briefly believed that Israel would be a Soviet client state. In this period, the international Left echoed Moscow's line that the Jews were struggling righteously against British imperialism and colonialism.
In the 1960s, the Soviets were supporting the North Vietnamese war effort by sea. Shipments went from Odessa through the Suez Canal to Haiphong. Israel became a de facto American ally when it closed the Canal in 1967. This forced the Soviets to go around the Cape of Good Hope, reducing the quantity of supplies they could deliver to Hanoi. Thus the USSR replenished the supply of arms to the Arabs and supported Arab terrorism with the goal of re-opening the Canal as soon as possible. The international Left of course echoed Moscow's hate for Israel, and clamored for weakening Israel as much as possible. Ergo, Moscow's strategic needs - unrelated to the Arab-Israeli struggle as such - were the origin of the Left's rabid obsession with Israel that started in the mid-1960s.
One can dispute how useful Israel has actually been as an American ally. One cannot dispute that Israel is universally perceived as one of Washington's most important allies. The USSR, and Russia after it, wants to weaken America, as does the international Left (including Leftist Americans). Destroying Israel would be a tremendous black eye for America. Symbolically if not in fact, it would show that America was unable or unwilling to protect an important friend. Who would count on America's protection, ever, if America let Israel get crushed? To be sure, this would not be the first time Washington threw a friend under the bus - South Vietnam, Iran, Nicaragua, South Africa are other examples - but destroying Israel might well cause (and symbolize) the death-knell of American influence overseas.
Meanwhile, whipping up hatred of Israel keeps many Arabs in Moscow's camp, and motivates Arab terrorists to attack and weaken the USA, which serves Russia's interests.
In this case, evil is not merely evil for its own sake, but long-term and strategic in nature.
@JP - How much of my life I have wasted reading this type of foreign policy analysis...
ReplyDelete@Geraint - Well, it isn't up to me to tell you what to do - but don't you get the strong impression we are supposed to work to pursue Christ's mission he left us with, to fufil as much as possible the intended function of this world - thereby delaying the end? That seems pretty clear to me.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand the last words of the Bible are "Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus." - so it is certainly permissable to hope and pray for the second coming.
Maybe the answer is that we are not trying to delay the end as a goal, but to do God's work - and the end will come when it will.
The Israel-Palestine question is one of the few times I think the Left is somewhat right, but of the wrong reasons. They probably dislike Israel because they see it as belonging to Europe in some manner. A last hold out of Western civilization in the Mideast. The destruction of Israel would be the destruction of yet another part of the Western world and therefore good, in their minds.
ReplyDeleteI disagree and think that Israel in many ways are as fundamentally opposed to European and Christian civilization as Islam but in different and subtler ways. I don´t wish for their destruction but believe it to be an deeply illegitimate state. But, you wished that we don´t discuss Israel-Palestine as such.so I´ll stop here. I just wonder why you consider Israel as a symbol of good?
@AnteB - My point is to understand why the Left so deeply and strategically wants Israel to be destroyed - not to defend Israel.
ReplyDeleteWhy do I consider Israel a symbol of good? Well, it is NOT now - after 50 years of anti-Israel propaganda, Israel is regarded by the majority of the Western elites as THE symbol of evil.
But it *used to be the* symbol of good - the state was founded as a homeland for the Jews (a small homeland, about the size of Scotland) so that 'never again' would the Jews be forced to live among hostile populations who could and would sometimes attempt to annihilate them.
The triumph of the Left has been to make the symbol of good into the symbol of evil - and now they want to annihilate Israel in such a way that this will generally be regarded (by 'the people who matter' - including many/ most leading secular ethnic Jews) as finally ridding the world of this most wicked of all states.
What a remarkable achievement for nihilism this would be! - yet it has a fairly high probability of happening within the medium term, if present trends continue.
Biblical prophecy, eg, Exekiel 37 has God restoring Israel to its people. But as Christians New Testament prophecy must surely matter just as much, if not more. Revelation talks about the restoration of Israel during Christ's 1,000 year kingdom. We know that has not happened, so perhaps it may be right to think of the current State of Israel as not the real deal. I could easily be wrong on this as I do not know enough about scripture. And I don't mean to offend any Jewish people who do see the current State of Israel as the manifestation of God's promise to them. I rather offer it as a tentative thought only.
ReplyDeleteMy understanding is many/most Orthodox Jews feel a modern, secular state of Israel to be illegitimate. It's supposed to be a religious state founded on peace and devotion to God.
ReplyDeleteIt would be a good further discussion why you think Christ's return is to be delayed. I don't understand that at all as the Bible is clear. The steps in Revelations need to be gone through to get Christ's return.
@VI "It would be a good further discussion why you think Christ's return is to be delayed. "
ReplyDeleteI don't think that.
You don't?
ReplyDelete"However, I believe it is incumbent upon us to try and *delay* 'the end'"
Perhaps you are saying something else by the end times, 'the end', etc.