The forced removal of Israelis from the occupied territories of the West Bank is just one of a series of dilemmas in the construct of identity that has happened in the Middle East in the last two decades. Indeed one might say since the Israeli occupation after World War 2.
Yes, ' Israeli occupation'. How would we have felt if some world powers had said that homeless Maoris should be resettled on Yorke Peninsula as their rightful homeland and given the right to make it an independent country.
[It is perhaps harder to see the link than it is for Jewry, though the immigration of essentially Eastern Europeans is only slightly less far-fetched]. I am sure the good burgers of Minlaton, Maitland and Kadina would take some exception to being booted off their land.
But it has suited the powerful to have a Jewish State, however artificial.
It is buttressed by the ambiguous witness of the Hebrew scriptures, but is it more buttressed by the romantic view of an Israel which exists in the mind of most Jews and many western Christians.
Reading as part of my "fun reading" at the moment 1Kings, I am conscious of how ambiguous the scriptures are about any Jewish rights to Israel at all!
What has happened, as with Moslem and Aboriginal Australia, is that the prevailing powerful elite has validated the language associated with their particular interests(see this article on AntiWar.com by Emmanuel Goldstein), and in so doing given credibility to the incredible.
Politicians want to deal with whom they want to deal.
We have seen it in the relation with Australian Churches. And as an Anglican I am conscious that for many years this has worked to our advantage. I am not so keen now that we see our pollies gravitating to Hillsong and the likes. They cultivate the language of this group and in so doing validate it.......and what of the Mate Debate...well more later
2 comments:
You're wasted in your present job Stephen. Get with the strength - Australia can't do without you.
I guess that's the difference between you and me. I don't consider my job to be a job in which I am wasted, I see it as a vocation. My proper response is to do what God wants me to do. When God wants me to leave then I'll go....but until then, I'm afraid you're stuck with me. Perhaps you should be asking yourself why God might want be to be here, even though it annoys you intensely!! If you can't do that perhaps you could ask why I might think that God wants me to be here.
Post a Comment