Peter Espeut | Christian fundamentalism and Zionism

The area called Canaan is an ancient territory encompassing all of today’s Palestine and Syria west of the Jordan River. Because of its strategic location between Europe, Asia, and Africa, over millennia, it has been invaded from all directions (by Europeans, Asians, and Africans). When Abraham entered Canaan ca. 1855 BC (coming from Ur of the Chaldees in Mesopotamia), its inhabitants were Semitic-speaking people called Canaanites, with whom he co-existed.

According to the Hebrew scriptures, the land of Canaan was promised to Abraham and his descendants through his wife Sarah (i.e. through Isaac), but not to his descendants through his maidservant, Hagar (i.e. not through Ishmael). Jesus is descended from Isaac, while the prophet Muhammad is descended from Ishmael.

This donation is sealed by a covenant (see Genesis 12), which justifies occupation of the land; only descendants of Isaac were “God’s chosen people”.

Isaac’s son Jacob (later renamed Israel) was said to have migrated to Egypt (because of a famine in Canaan) with his 12 sons and their families (ca. 1700 BC).

The Book of Exodus has Moses leading the enslaved Hebrews out of Egypt (ca. 1250 BC) and into the Sinai Desert, where the covenant of donation was renewed in the blood of bullocks.

But by then, Canaan was occupied by many different peoples, and Joshua had to invade the territory (ca. 1200 BC), conquering and displacing the inhabitants. There the Kingdom of Israel was established with Saul as king (ca. 1030 BC).

CAPTURED

Jerusalem was captured by King Nebuchadnezzar II in 587 BC, who destroyed the temple, and the Jewish people went into exile in Babylon. King Cyrus of Persia liberated them in 538 BC, and the Jews returned to a destroyed Jerusalem, where they rebuild the temple (515 BC).

The Roman general Pompey captured Palestine in 63 BC, and Israel became a client state of Rome. Christianity emerged in Roman Palestine, where the Christian scriptures record a New Covenant between God and his people in the blood of Jesus (the earlier covenant having been broken and abrogated). In the new dispensation, Christians were free from the strictures of the old covenant, and the group referred to as “God’s chosen people” widened to include Gentiles.

The Jews revolted against the Romans, and in 70 AD Jerusalem was razed and the Temple destroyed. This led to massive scattering of Jews throughout the Roman Empire and beyond (the dispersion).

Later waves of migration and resettlement created distinct cultural groups, including Ashkenazi (Central and Eastern Europe), and Sephardi Jews (Spain and Portugal). Without the Temple, the locus of Jewish worship shifted from Jerusalem to local synagogues in the diaspora (including Jamaica). And so it remained for 1,800 years.

According to Judaism, Zion, the hill in ancient Jerusalem on which the Temple was built, is the place where God dwells (for Christians God is everywhere). In the latter part of the 19th century, a Jewish nationalist movement emerged called Zionism, with the goal of creating a Jewish national state in Palestine, the location of Canaan, the Promised Land.

It must be made clear that not all Jews are Zionists; prior to World War I, Zionism represented only a minority of Jews, mostly from Russia but led by Austrians and Germans. Judaism is a religion; Zionism is a political philosophy. Being anti-Zionism does not equate to being anti-Semitic.

The pogroms following the Russian Revolution of 1905 caused numbers of Russian Jews to migrate to Palestine. By 1914 there were about 90,000 Jews in Palestine. Upon the outbreak of World War I, political Zionism reasserted itself. Russian Zionists living in England were able to obtain the Balfour Declaration from Great Britain (November 2, 1917), which promised British support for the creation of a Jewish national home in Palestine.

In March 1925 the Jewish population in Palestine was 108,000, and rose to 238,000 (20 percent of the population) by 1933 (i.e. 80 percent of those in Palestine were Arabs). Jewish immigration remained relatively slow until the rise of Adolf Hitler.

Modern Israel became an independent state in 1948.

JEWISH STATE

For some reason, many fundamentalist Christians (more Jewish than the Jews) are Zionists, and believe that Palestine must remain a Jewish state, and that the Arabs there must leave. Because of this, many fundamentalist Christians in the US (who have always had great influence on the US government) support whatever Israel does in Gaza and the West Bank, no matter how horrendous.

Oxymoronic “Old Testament Christianity” is not New Covenant Christianity.

Events since then have shown that the Balfour Declaration did not balance the rights of Arabs and Jews living in Palestine, and was a mistake. Just this week the United Kingdom recognized Palestine as an independent state, as did Canada, Australia, Portugal and France, among others. Jamaica held out for a long time, being the 139th country (of the 157 who do) to recognize Palestine (April 22, 2024).

Twice now Jamaica’s UN representative has declined to cast a vote on Palestine-related matters, the latest being last week Friday (145 countries voted to allow Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas to address the UN Assembly remotely; five voted no and six abstained; Jamaica was absent from the room). Diarrhoea, perhaps?

In his inauguration speech last week PM Holness said: “We must continue to speak boldly and clearly in an increasingly complex and dangerous world. We must continue to defend democracy at home and abroad. We must stand up for small states whose voices are too often drowned out by great powers.”

I read that as a plea for international support for small-state Jamaica as we are placed on a US watch-list for drug trafficking, possibly to pressure us to change our policy on China.

Jamaica must fall on the right side of history. If we wish the support of others, we must not be seen to support religious fundamentalism, and strong countries perpetrating genocide against the weak.

Rev. Peter Espeut is dean of studies at St. Michael’s Theological College. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com