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必須對抗和製止以色列的種族滅絕意識形態
Israel's Ideology of Genocide Must Be Confronted and Stopped
https://www.commondreams.org/
傑弗裏·薩克斯 | 2024 年 9 月 30 日 | 共同夢想
現在控製政府的以色列暴力極端分子認為，以色列擁有聖經許可，實際上是宗教授權，可以摧毀巴勒斯坦人民。
上周，當以色列總理本傑明·內塔尼亞胡在聯合國大會上發表講話時，數十個政府退出了會議廳。內塔尼亞胡及其政府受到全球譴責，原因是以色列對其阿拉伯鄰國實施了墮落的暴力。內塔尼亞胡宣揚一種原教旨主義意識形態，使以色列成為世界上最暴力的國家。
以色列的原教旨主義信條認為，巴勒斯坦人對自己的國家沒有任何權利。以色列議會最近通過了一項宣言，拒絕在以色列的土地上建立巴勒斯坦國，以色列的土地指的是約旦河以西的土地。
以色列議會堅決反對在約旦河以西建立巴勒斯坦國。在以色列土地的中心地帶建立巴勒斯坦國將對以色列國及其公民構成生存威脅，使以巴衝突持續下去，並破壞該地區的穩定。
將約旦河以西的土地稱為“以色列土地的中心”令人震驚。以色列隻是約旦河以西土地的一部分，而不是整個土地。國際法院最近裁定，以色列占領巴勒斯坦土地（即 1967 年 6 月 4 日，即 1967 年 6 月戰爭之前，位於以色列邊界之外的土地）明顯是非法的。聯合國大會最近以壓倒性多數投票支持國際法院的裁決，並呼籲以色列在一年內撤出巴勒斯坦領土。
值得回顧的是，當英國帝國於 1917 年承諾在奧斯曼帝國巴勒斯坦建立猶太人家園時，巴勒斯坦阿拉伯人約占總人口的 90%。在 1947 年聯合國分治計劃時，巴勒斯坦阿拉伯人約占總人口的 67%，盡管分治計劃提議隻給阿拉伯人 44% 的土地。現在以色列聲稱擁有 100% 的土地。
以色列的這種厚顏無恥有很多原因，最重要的是美國軍事力量對以色列的支持。如果沒有美國軍事力量的支持，以色列不可能統治一個種族隔離政權，在這個政權中，巴勒斯坦阿拉伯人占人口的近一半，卻沒有任何政治權力。後代人將驚訝地回顧以色列遊說集團在操縱美國軍隊方麵取得的成功，嚴重損害了美國的國家安全和全球和平。
然而，除了美國軍隊之外，以色列對巴勒斯坦人民的嚴重不公還有另一個根源，那就是自稱法西斯分子的貝撒列爾·斯莫特裏奇、以色列財政部長和國防部長伊塔馬爾·本·格維爾等狂熱分子所宣揚的宗教原教旨主義。這些狂熱分子堅信《約書亞記》，根據《約書亞記》，上帝應許以色列人這片土地“從南部的內蓋夫荒野到北部的黎巴嫩山脈，從東部的幼發拉底河到西部的地中海。”（約書亞記 1:4）。
上周，內塔尼亞胡在聯合國再次以聖經為依據主張以色列對這片土地的主權：“去年我在這裏講話時說過，我們麵臨著摩西在數千年前向以色列人民提出的同樣永恒的選擇，當時我們即將進入應許之地。摩西告訴我們，我們的行為將決定我們留給後代的是祝福還是詛咒。”
內塔尼亞胡沒有告訴他的同僚（他們中的大多數人無論如何都離開了大廳），摩西為通往應許之地（申命記 31）製定了一條種族滅絕之路：
[耶和華] 將在你們麵前消滅這些國家，你們將剝奪他們的土地。約書亞是那個走在你們前麵的人，正如耶和華所說的。“耶和華必待他們，像他從前待亞摩利人的王西宏和噩以及他們的土地一樣。耶和華必將他們交給你們，你們要按照我吩咐你們的一切誡命對待他們。”
以色列的暴力極端分子認為，以色列擁有聖經許可，實際上是宗教授權，可以摧毀巴勒斯坦人民。他們的聖經英雄是約書亞，他是摩西的繼任者，領導以色列人進行種族滅絕性征服。（內塔尼亞胡還提到了亞瑪力人，這是上帝指定的對以色列人敵人進行種族滅絕的另一個例子，這顯然是向他的原教旨主義追隨者發出的“狗哨”。）以下是聖經中關於約書亞征服希伯倫的記載（約書亞記 10）：
於是約書亞率領以色列眾人從伊磯倫上到希伯倫，攻城。他們占領了希伯倫，用鐵錘擊打了城中的居民，然後又用鐵錘擊打了城中的居民。
Israel's Ideology of Genocide Must Be Confronted and Stopped
https://www.commondreams.org/
Jeffrey D. Sachs | September 30, 2024 | Common Dreams
Israel’s violent extremists now in control of its government believe that Israel has the Biblical license, indeed a religious mandate, to destroy the Palestinian people.
When Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took the podium at the U.N. General Assembly last week, dozens of governments walked out of the chamber. The global opprobrium of Netanyahu and his government is due to Israel’s depraved violence against its Arab neighbors. Netanyahu purveys a fundamentalist ideology that has turned Israel into the most violent nation in the world.
Israel’s fundamentalist credo holds that Palestinians have no right whatsoever to their own nation. The Israeli Knesset recently passed a declaration rejecting a Palestinian State in what the Knesset calls The Land of Israel, meaning the land west of the Jordan River.
The Knesset of Israel firmly opposes the establishment of a Palestinian state west of Jordan. The establishment of a Palestinian state in the heart of the Land of Israel will pose an existential danger to the State of Israel and its citizens, perpetuate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and destabilize the region.
To call the land west of the Jordan the “heart of the Land of Israel” is breathtaking. Israel is one part of the land west of the Jordan, not the entire land. The International Court of Justice has recently ruled that Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian lands (those outside of Israel’s borders as of June 4, 1967, before the June 1967 war) is plainly illegal. The U.N. General Assembly has recently voted overwhelmingly to back the ICJ ruling and called on Israel to withdraw from Palestinian territories within one year.
It is worth recalling that when the British empire promised a Jewish homeland in Ottoman Palestine in 1917, the Palestinian Arabs constituted around 90% of the population. At the time of the 1947 U.N. partition plan, the Palestinian Arab population was approximately 67% of the population, though the partition plan proposed to give the Arabs only 44% of the land. Now Israel asserts the claim to 100% of the land.
There are many sources of this Israeli brazenness, the most important being the backing of Israel by U.S. military power. Without the U.S. military backing, Israel could not possibly rule over an Apartheid regime in which Palestinian Arabs constitute nearly one half of the population yet hold none of the political power. Future generations will look back in amazement at the success of the Israel Lobby in manipulating the U.S. military to the severe detriment of U.S. national security and global peace.
Yet in addition to the U.S. military, there is another source of Israel’s profound injustice to the Palestinian people, and that is the religious fundamentalism purveyed fanatics such as the self-proclaimed fascist Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s Minister of Finance, and Minister of National Defense Itamar Ben-Gvir. These fanatics hold fast to the biblical Book of Joshua, according to which God promised the Israelites the land "from the Negev wilderness in the south to the Lebanon mountains in the north, from the Euphrates River in the east to the Mediterranean Sea in the west." (Joshua 1:4).
At the U.N. last week, Netanyahu once again staked Israel’s claim to the land on Biblical grounds: “When I spoke here last year, I said we face the same timeless choice that Moses put before the people of Israel thousands of years ago, as we were about to enter the Promised Land. Moses told us that our actions would determine whether we bequeath to future generations a blessing or a curse.”
What Netanyahu did not tell his fellow leaders (most of whom had in any event vacated the hall), was that Moses laid out a genocidal path to the Promised Land (Deuteronomy 31):
[The LORD] will destroy these nations before you, and you shall dispossess them. Joshua is the one who will cross ahead of you, just as the LORD has spoken. “The LORD will do to them just as He did to Sihon and Og, the kings of the Amorites, and to their land, when He destroyed them. “The LORD will deliver them up before you, and you shall do to them according to all the commandments which I have commanded you.”
Israel’s violent extremists believe that Israel has the Biblical license, indeed a religious mandate, to destroy the Palestinian people. Their Biblical hero is Joshua, the Israelite commander who succeeded Moses, and who led the Israelites’ genocidal conquests. (Netanyahu has also referred to the Amalekites, another case of a God-ordained genocide of foes of the Israelites, in a clear “dog-whistle” to his fundamentalist followers.) Here is the Biblical account of Joshua’s conquest of Hebron (Joshua 10):
Then Joshua and all Israel with him went up from Eglon to Hebron, and they fought against it. They captured it and struck it and its king and all its cities and all the persons who were in it with the edge of the sword. He left no survivor, according to all that he had done to Eglon. And he utterly destroyed it and every person who was in it.
There is a deep irony to this genocidal account. It almost surely is not historically accurate. There is no evidence that the Jewish kingdoms arose from genocides. Most likely they arose from local Canaanite communities adopting early forms of Judaism. Jewish fundamentalists adhere to a 6th century BCE text that is most likely a mythical reconstruction of purported events several centuries earlier, and a form of political bravado that was common in ancient Near Eastern politics. The problem is 21st century Israeli politicians, illegal settlers, and other fundamentalists who propose to live by—and kill by—6th century BCE political propaganda.
Israel’s violent fundamentalists are some 2,600 years out of step with today’s acceptable forms of statecraft and international law. Israel is duty bound to the UN Charter and the Geneva Conventions, not to the Book of Joshua. According to the recent ICJ ruling and UN General Assembly resolution backing it up, Israel must withdraw in the coming twelve months from the occupied Palestinian lands. According to international law, Israel’s borders are those of June 4, 1967, not the Euphrates to the Mediterranean Sea.
The ICJ ruling and U.N. General Assembly vote is not a ruling against the state of Israel per se. It is a ruling only against extremism, indeed against extremism and malevolence on both sides of the divide. There are two peoples, each with roughly half the overall population (and with no shortage of internal social, political, and ideological divisions within the two communities). International law calls for two states, living side by side, in peace.
The best solution, which we should strive for and hope for sooner rather than later, is that the two states, and the two peoples, get along, and actually draw strength from each other. Until then, however, the practical solution will be peacekeepers and fortified borders to protect each side from the animosity of the other, but with each having the chance to prosper. The utterly intolerable and illegal situation is the status quo, in which Israel rules brutally over the Palestinian people.
Hopefully, there will soon be a State of Palestine, sovereign and independent, whether the Knesset wants it or not. This is not Israel’s choice, but the mandate of the world community and of international law. The sooner the State of Palestine is welcomed as member state of the U.N., with the security of both Israel and Palestine backed by U.N. peacekeepers, the sooner will peace come to the region.
