Conflict Between Zionists and Islamists
Since several generations, we have an unsolved conflict in the Middle East, the conflict of Israel-Palestine. The conflict resulted into several conventional wars and many acts of terrorism and violence in this region.
The roots of animosities are not on the shoulder of one or another side, but both belligerent sides:
- In the case of Israel, since its existence in 1948, whoever governs in Israel, the policy is more or less influenced by Zionist ambitions. Zionism propagates the idea that the whole region is the Jewish sacred homeland, where allegedly the early Jewish nation originated over 3,200 years ago. Zionism is the first fundamentalist and extremist ideology of the region. It goes so far to claim that the entire region belongs to Israel. It explicitly ignores the rights of many vibrant communities who have been living there during the last 3000 years.
- The counter-pole to extremist Zionism is the advent of Islamism in Palestine and Lebanon, Islamists dream of destruction of Israel and creation of God’s state in its place. They regard the territory of Israel, the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank as an inalienable “Islamic waghf” (Islamic assets), which can never be surrendered to non-Muslims.
It is true, the both Islamists, militant movements fight to push back Israel from their occupied territories, but at the same time sow seeds of Islamism in these territories. They do not intend to free their people, but to impose the yoke of a God’s state on this region. The God’s state dreamed by Hamas is derived from a dictatorial belief system; the one which is now largely rejected by a growing majority of Iranians.
Despite that the Islamic revolution of Iran failed, the Islamic radicalism of which it was a projection, continues to be an aggressive ideology and imposes problems for the entire region. What now bothers all Palestine-loving people is the future of this land. In other words, not only Israeli occupation, but also a take-over of Islamists in Palestine is a serious alarm for Palestine. The international community must help Palestine to attend its deserved rights of independence, while rejecting and isolating the rise of Islamism.
The plague of Islamism in Palestine Islamism was reborn with Hamas, founded in 1987 in Gaza by both Shaikh Ahmad Jassin and started its existence with its jihadi attacks on both military and civil targets in Israel.
Though Hamas is a Sunni organisation, but is a protégé of the IRI; it follows a strict charter which is not different from IRI’s official policy towards Israel. According to this charter the State of Israel must be wiped off the region and replaced with an Islamic state. Furthermore, Hamas will not accept any non-Islamic state in Palestine.
Hamas, like all Islamists, opposes any peace process with Israel; it regards such a process a “betrayal of God’s will”. This is its fundamental difference with the PLO which in 1988 recognised Israel’s sovereignty.
Hamas’s last success in the Palestinian elections is not a consequence of the rise of Islamism linked to the Iranian revolution, but rather a related reaction to the deep frustration of Palestinians who were disappointed from the West. This frustration is characterises by the continued postponement in the resolution of Palestinian conflicts, US foreign policies in their absolute support for Israel in its occupation of “Islamic” territories.
The Islamists, wherever they are, guided or inspired by the IRI, stage the question of state at the middle of their battleground. The legitimacy of such a state cannot be ignored. Therefore in the case of Palestinian independence, the PLO or any non-Islamist political force will not be for Hamas in the legitimate position to govern.
The second IRI’s proxy-movement in this region is Hezbollah. It was formed in 1982 by the IRI’s officials and the Revolutionary Guards Corps. It was to import the “Islamic” revolution of Iran in the region. The movement was logistically helped to fight Israeli occupation following the 1982 Lebanon war. Hezbollah’s ideology is based on the Shiite Islam, specifically in the concept of absolute power of supreme leader or “Welayat-e-Faqih” put forth by Shiite Islam in Iran.
Although, Hezbollah is considered by the West as a terrorist organisation, it is a recognised political party in Lebanon, where it has now two ministers in the government and can even influence the coming president elections. For the moment, the Lebanese government rejects Hezbollah’s slogans: “God is the target, the Prophet is the model, the Koran the constitution, jihad is the path and death for the sake of God is the loftiest of the wishes”.
Hezbollah’s strength is enhanced by the military and financial backing of the IRI. Terror is its principal weapon and Islamism its only ideology. It follows a jihadist and Islamist policy dictated by IRI’s officials. Though, the movement claims that its goal is not to establish an Islamic state in Lebanon, but the double standards of its allegations show that Hezbollah has realised that Lebanon is the only Arab country which has not been very affected by Islam. The majority of Lebanese have no close ties with Islamic traditions and are horrified by the advent of the Mullahs who imposed an Islamic regime in Iran. The country has been long a paradise of tourists with all non-Islamic entertainments and a secular way of life.
Lebanon with only 40 percent Shiites is not a cosy cradle of Mullahs. Hezbollah has taken this fact into consideration; therefore, a God’s state, on the IRI’s model, is not officially demanded. However, it claims that an Islamic state requires the consent of the people, and since Lebanon remains a religiously and ideologically heterogeneous society, their political platform favours the introduction of an Islamic state in Lebanon by non-militant means
All trilateral parts of conflicts, Hamas, Hezbollah and Zionism, reject constantly peaceful solutions. All of them believe that Palestine is a consecrated land for their future generations and only so it must exist until Judgement Day. If all of them are at the height of their radicalism, they will gender an eternally vicious spiral of war and violence. The two Islamist movements of Hamas in Palestine and Hezbollah in Lebanon are along with aggressive Zionism the main obstacle for peace in this region.
The two antagonistic poles have different charges and sacred altars. Neither Zionist sacred expansionism nor Islamist God’s state can guarantee peace and co-existence in this region.
It is to mention that Israel is implicitly authorised by the US to continue its animosity not only against Islamist groups, but also the legitimate rights of Palestinian.
Now, the least the international community is to encourage both sides to achieve peace and co-existence based on the UN repeated resolutions and bilateral agreements. If this conflict is to be stopped, the international community must defend the historically rights of Palestinians to install their UN proposed state. The Lack of an international consensus can be interpreted as a green light to continue the conflict.
What concerns Israel and Palestine, a durably peaceful co-existence of all peoples in the region can be guaranteed when only the democrats and seculars are the official peace-makers of both sides.
Join the Conversation
Jahanshah,
While I think you made some interesting points about how Hamas and Hezbolla are Iranian proteges, your post over-simplified Zionism. There are many types of Zionism, secular and religious, left-wing and right-wing. Most Zionists (that is, Israelis and Jews who believe that Israel has a right to exist) also believe that a Palestinian state has a right to exist alongside of Israel in safe and secure borders. There are at least 5 Zionist parties in the Knesset who believe in a 2-state solution.
What your post described as Zionist is those crazy people who live in caravans on some remote hill in the West Bank and want to rule over or expel the Palestinians. These people don’t represent Zionism as a whole, just like Hamas donesn’t represent the Palestinian cause as a whole. In fact, the debate about the conflict inside Israel is really about the nature of tomorrow’s Zionism – will it be a Zionism that accepts its neighbors and tries to live in peace with them, or will it be a Zionism that seeks to consolidate its power over the land that Jews have a historical and Biblical connection to.
You can read more on Zionism at http://www.blogsofzion.com/
Jahanshah,
I couldn’t disagree more with you on Zionism, you deeply misrepresent this stream of thought, which by the way is very diverse… (“two Zionists, three opinions” one could say). It is utterly false for example to state that “Zionism propagates the idea that the whole region is the Jewish sacred homeland”, even revisionnists Zionists (and they lost to Ben Gourion’s left-leaning mainstream in 1948) never reclaimed more than the whole Palestine, including today’s Jordan, as the Jewish homeland, and even their leader Jabotinsky expressely viewed as “immoral” the idea of forcefully displacing the Arabs from this homeland.
Zionism and religious streams were largely disconnected up until 1967. Most Zionists were secular, and the small religious-Zionist movement hold center-left positions regarding the Arabs and was NOT expansionnist. Remnants of this “old school”, progressive religious Zionism are represented today by the Meimad party and Netivot Shalom (allies of Labor). True and sad, most of the religious-Zionist stream has been taken over by far-right racist nuts after Israel’s victory of 1967, which was perceived as a sign from God.
For most Zionists nevertheless, the homeland is not “sacred” but derives its legitimacy from the former oppression of the Jewish people and the necessity of building a refuge-state in order to preserve the Jews and ensure their autonomy. Far from being a religious stream, Zionism was mainly inspired by the emergence of the nation-state in XIXe century Europe.
The lethal concoction of right-wing Zionism and religious mysticism, though worrying, remains on the fringe of Israeli public discourse.
Which is not to say that mainstream Zionism is above criticism. But Jahanshah’s conceptions are grossly inacurate regarding the facts and the history of ideas, and they hinder further reflection on what’s going on in the region.
I somewhat regret that they are expressed on MidEastYouth, I was used to much more knowledge and subtlety on this website – it’s not a matter of opinion, but of widely acknowledged historical facts.
Levylevthuglife
Anti- Zionism does not mean Anti-Semitism. Neither Zionism nor Anti-Semitism has been appeared after 1948, but long ago, in Europe and before the occupation of Palestinian territories by Israel. The levels of both anti-Semitism and Anti-Zionism in the region are linked with the aggressive policy of Israel.
Today there is a difference between the “Zionist Revisionists” from a range from Left, the Right, and the centre to the Arch-Zionism concetualised in Europe. However, all political forces in Likud are more or less inspired from it, it seems a national identity for them.
Anti-Israeli views were not the purpose of my article, but a wish of peaceful co-existence based on the right of sovereignty and UN resolutions.