The concept of Jewish supremacy accompanies discourse pertaining to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, asserting that the ethno-nationalist views, policies, and identity politics of some Israeli Jews arise to the level of a form of supremacism vis-à-vis the Palestinians, who are an Arab people.[1][2][3] The term has been used by a variety of critics of Israeli policies, with some arguing that it reflects a broader pattern of discrimination against non-Jews in Israel.
In 2021, the Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem classified the State of Israel as "a regime of Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea" through laws amounting to apartheid. It also took note of the fact that, after it was established in 1989, it initially focused on the legal and social situation in the Israeli-occupied territories, but that "what happens in the Occupied Territories can no longer be treated as separate from the reality in the entire area under Israel’s control," owing to the fact that there "is one regime governing the entire area and the people living in it, based on a single organizing principle."[4]
Proponents of the one-state solution cite the development of Jewish supremacy as one of the main reasons for the necessity of a single country that applies democratic principles across all sectors of society, regardless of ethnic or religious affiliations.[5]
Discourse
editIlan Pappé, an expatriate Israeli historian, writes that the First Aliyah to Israel "established a society based on Jewish supremacy" within "settlement-cooperatives" that were Jewish owned and operated.[6] Joseph Massad, a professor of Arab studies, holds that "Jewish supremacism" has always been a "dominating principle" in religious and secular Zionism.[7][8] Zionism was established with the goal of creating a sovereign Jewish state, where Jews could be the majority, rather than the minority. Theodor Herzl, the ideological father of Zionism, considered antisemitism as an eternal feature of all societies in which Jews lived as minorities, and as a result, he believed that only a separation could allow Jews to escape eternal persecution. "Let them give us sovereignty over a piece of the Earth's surface, just sufficient for the needs of our people, then we will do the rest!"[9]
Since the 1990s,[10] Orthodox Jewish rabbis from Israel, most notably those affiliated to Chabad-Lubavitch and religious Zionist organizations,[10][11] including The Temple Institute,[10][11] have set up a modern Noahide movement. These Noahide organizations, led by religious Zionist and Orthodox rabbis, are aimed at non-Jews in order to convince them to commit to follow the Noahide laws.[10][11] However, these religious Zionist and Orthodox rabbis that guide the modern Noahide movement, who are often affiliated with the Third Temple movement,[10][11] expound a racist and supremacist ideology which consists in the belief that the Jewish people are God's chosen people and racially superior to non-Jews,[10][11] and mentor Noahides because they believe that the Messianic era will begin with the rebuilding of the Third Temple on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem to re-institute the Jewish priesthood along with the practice of ritual sacrifices, and the establishment of a Jewish theocracy in Israel, supported by communities of Noahides.[10][11] David Novak, professor of Jewish theology and ethics at the University of Toronto, has denounced the modern Noahide movement by stating that "If Jews are telling Gentiles what to do, it’s a form of imperialism".[12][13][14]
In 2002, Joseph Massad said that Israel imposes a "Jewish supremacist system of discrimination" on Palestinian citizens of Israel, and that this has been normalized within the discourse on how to end the conflict, with various parties arguing that "it is pragmatic for Palestinians to accept to live in a Jewish supremacist state as third class citizens".[1]
In the aftermath of the 2022 Israeli legislative election, the winning right-wing coalition included an alliance known as Religious Zionist Party, which was described by Jewish-American columnist David E. Rosenberg as a political party "driven by Jewish supremacy and anti-Arab racism".[15]
Examples
editVarious discriminatory (or allegedly discriminatory) policies and practices have been cited variously as perpetrating Jewish supremacy in Israel,[16] including the 1952 Citizenship Law and [17] the 2018 Nation-State Law.[18] The banned Israeli political party Kach, the phenomenon of Israeli settler violence, and all of the Netanyahu-led Israeli governments have been accused of pursuing a Jewish supremacist agenda, particularly against the Palestinians.[17][19]
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ a b Massad, Joseph. "On Zionism and Jewish Supremacy". New Politics. 8 (4): 89.
- ^ The violent lies of Israel’s president
- ^ Chanting ‘burn Shu’afat’ and ‘flatten Gaza,’ masses attend Jerusalem Flag March
- ^ "A regime of Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea: This is apartheid". B'Tselem. 12 January 2021.
- ^ Reiff, Ben (2023-07-30). "The only answer to the Israeli right's war: A state for all its citizens". +972 Magazine. Retrieved 2024-11-17.
- ^ Ilan Pappé (1999). The Israel/Palestine question. Psychology Press. p. 89. ISBN 978-0415169479.
Whereas the First Aliya established a society based on Jewish supremacy, the Second Aliya's method of colonization was separation from Palestinians.
- ^ David Hirsch, Anti-Zionism and Antisemitism: Cosmopolitan Reflections Archived 2008-10-11 at the Wayback Machine, The Yale Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Antisemitism Working Paper Series; discussion of Joseph Massad's "The Ends of Zionism: Racism and the Palestinian Struggle", Interventions, Vol. 5, No. 3, 440–451, 2003.
- ^ According to Joseph Massad's "Response to the Ad Hoc Grievance Committee Report" Archived 2006-09-13 at the Wayback Machine on his Columbia University web site during a 2002 rally he said "Israeli Jews will continue to feel threatened if they persist in supporting Jewish supremacy." Massad says others have misquoted him as saying Israel was a "Jewish supremacist and racist state." See for example David Horowitz, The professors: the 101 most dangerous academics in America, Regnery Publishing, 271, 2006
- ^ Herzl, Theodor (1896). "Palästina oder Argentinien?". Der Judenstaat (in German). sammlungen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de. p. 29 [31]. Retrieved May 27, 2016.
- ^ a b c d e f g Feldman, Rachel Z. (August 2018). "The Children of Noah: Has Messianic Zionism Created a New World Religion?" (PDF). Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions. 22 (1). Berkeley: University of California Press: 115–128. doi:10.1525/nr.2018.22.1.115. eISSN 1541-8480. ISSN 1092-6690. LCCN 98656716. OCLC 36349271. S2CID 149940089. Retrieved 4 November 2020 – via Project MUSE.
- ^ a b c d e f Ilany, Ofri (12 September 2018). "The Messianic Zionist Religion Whose Believers Worship Judaism (But Can't Practice It)". Haaretz. Tel Aviv. Archived from the original on 9 February 2020. Retrieved 4 November 2020.
- ^ Kress, Michael (2018). "The Modern Noahide Movement". My Jewish Learning. Retrieved 9 November 2020.
- ^ Staff, ToI. "Chief rabbi: Non-Jews shouldn't be allowed to live in Israel". www.timesofisrael.com. Retrieved 2023-09-10.
- ^ "The Real Reason Intermarriage Is Bad for the Jews". Haaretz. Retrieved 2023-09-10.
- ^ Rosenberg, David E. (30 October 2022). "What Makes Israel's Far Right Different". Foreign Policy. Washington, D.C.: Graham Holdings Company. ISSN 0015-7228. Archived from the original on 8 November 2022. Retrieved 9 November 2022.
- ^ Menchik, Jeremy (August 2024). "Introduction: Symposium on the Jewish Left". Critical Research on Religion. 12 (2): 210–214. doi:10.1177/20503032241269655.
- ^ a b "Supremacy Unleashed: The Ongoing Erosion of Palestinian Citizenship in Israel." Shira Robinson 2021, The Routledge Handbook of Citizenship in the Middle East and North Africa
- ^ Saïd, Ibrahim L. (1 October 2020). "Some are more equal than others: Palestinian citizens in the settler colonial Jewish State". Settler Colonial Studies. 10 (4): 481–507. doi:10.1080/2201473X.2020.1794210.
- ^ Segal, Raz (15 August 2024). "Settler Antisemitism, Israeli Mass Violence, and the Crisis of Holocaust and Genocide Studies". Journal of Palestine Studies: 1–24. doi:10.1080/0377919X.2024.2384385.