The latest political fashion is a race to come to a peace proposal with Israel and Palestine. The Republican Party has outwitted its president with an invitation for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel to address the U.S. congress.
Superficially, it seems that the time is ripe for a dramatic advancement in peace between the two arch-enemies. However, Netanyahu has a different, Ultra-Orthodox agenda. First and foremost, he wants the security needs of Israel addressed by the Americans. Israel is engulfed by mutual hatred, not only between the Palestinians and the Israelis but also the Shi’ite and Sunni Muslims in the Middle East. As investigated in the new book The Great Leap-Fraud, this hatred has its foundation in ancient history and will not be negotiated away with a peace agreement. Secondly, the aim of the Ultra-Orthodox Jews is to reconquer all of the land of Canaan. It is an eternal biblical command that encompasses the Sinai Peninsula, Lebanon, Jordan, most of Syria, and the parts of Iraq south of the Euphrates River. The command includes the cleansing of any non-Jewish ethnicity (Josh 13:2).
The Ultra-Orthodox Jews are guided by the Torah. They have a standing mandate not to enter treaties with anyone who lived in the land of Canaan (Ex. 34:15-16). This has consequences for the so-called negotiations taking place between Israel and the Palestinians, where Israel cannot go beyond lip service. “You shall make no covenant with them, nor with their gods. They shall not dwell in your land, lest they make you sin against me, for if you serve their gods, it will surely be a snare to you (Ex. 23:32)." Palestinians are on the Jews’ extermination list, and this will not change as long as the Torah guides the Ultra-Orthodox Jews. Israel might give in to the international pressure for a few years until the heat is off. However, before we know it, Israel’s leadership will ensure new aggressions with the goal of territorial expansion, even at the expense of lives ordinary Jews.
One might think that these are relics from over 2,000 years back with no relevance to modernity. This is not so. Instead, religion is still the defining cultural marker of our time. Point in case is the popular Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. The Jews managed to mourn at the wall for almost two millennia, praying to their God to let them rebuild their temple that had been destroyed in the first century AD. The religious persistence is at the heart of the various faiths having such a hard time—today—to find common ground.
If peace should ever be achieved, the approach with the Middle East must be changed. America has to ask itself what its interest is to protect an Israel that is unable to protect itself but has treated the world’s will with contempt ever since its inception. Is Israel important for America’s military strategy? The United States have more important tasks at hand than to babysit an eternal aggressor in the Middle East. Instead, it might be time to finally make good on Mr. Obama’s promise for Change and to trade guns for doves. Is America closest friend and ally with Israel? Can a treacherous profiteer ever be a true friend? A better solution might be to invite a few million Israelis to live in America and to liquidate the hotspot of terrorism, or to establish a neutral and demilitarized zone. The Ultra-Orthodox leaders should be shunned by the world as extremists and as a systemic risk to global peace. The citizens of Israel need to come to terms that the behavior of their elected representatives is unacceptable.
A.J. Deus
