Nurit Peled-Elhanan is a respected human rights activist. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I have a lot of respect and time for Ms Peled-Elhanan, but I disagree with a part of a quote I saw attributed to her yesterday, on X.

“Israeli evil has nothing to do with Judaism and that what is manifested in Israeli behaviour is not Jewishness”.

I find that inaccurate and too simplistic.

– Zionism chose Palestine and Jerusalem for a homeland, partly if not largely, due to Jewish religious reasons.

– One of the key tenets of Zionism and Judaism is “making Aliyah”, and Aliyah is one of the main factors that drives ethnic cleansing Palestinians and illegal Israeli settlements.

– The Zionist belief that the West Bank belongs to Jews and is really Judea and Samaria, is based on Judaism.

– Many Zionists who are also of the Jewish faith, believe god gave them that land, and that is based on Judaism

I can go on for longer, but I think you get my point.

Now, it can be argued, and I believe it’s the correct argument, that Zionists have taken religious Jewish tenets and manipulated them / radicalised them to work as a means to their ends.

But even then, one must first admit that the roots of this manipulation is coming from Judaism.

It inherently does not come from political Zionism, it comes from religious Jewish Zionism.

If we say Judaism has nothing to do with Zionism whatsoever, then we are unable to rebut many of the drivers of Zionism.

And if one cannot or is not willing to rebut these key drivers of Zionism by simply saying Judaism has absolutely nothing to do with Zionism, then the objectives of anti-Zionism cannot ever be fulfilled.

Saying Judaism has nothing to do with the crimes of the Zionist movement is taking the easy route, rather than actually tackling the hard realities.

This woman below, is not driven any political ideology – she is evidently driven by her interpretation of religious Jewish Zionism.

Religious Zionism has always been one of the dominant forces behind the overall Zionist movement.

Even the way that Israel is currently executing its genocidal war in Gaza – in some ways is rooted in religious Jewish teachings.

We all recall how Netanyahu cited Amalek – but what has been most intriguing is how so many Israelis have been framing arguments where they believe they can do whatever they want, including starving people to death, killing indiscriminately – and the general disregard for Palestinian human life.

According to Nahmanides – he was a Spanish Jewish rabbi and thinker, who wrote famous commentaries on the Torah and the Talmud. In addition to his commentaries on Jewish sacred texts, he left behind several codes of Jewish law and it forms the basis of Jewish religious thinking today.

According to Nachmanides, people trapped in war should be provided a safe passage BUT critically, he said this this law doesn’t apply “when fighting to establish our residence in the land of Israel”.

Many Zionists today, whether they overtly admit to being religious or not, claim they cannot continue to live in Israel in the long-term if Hamas continue to rule over Gaza. If that’s right, then “Jewish law allows us to starve the whole of the Gaza strip into submission” – is the conclusion by Rabbi Dr Samuel Lebens (Professor in the philosophy department at the University of Haifa, he is also an Orthodox Rabbi and Jewish educator).

Anti-Zionists can turn a blind eye to the deeply detrimental effects and influences of Religious Zionism, as they largely have over the past several decades – because it is uncomfortable for people to talk about, or they fear it will offend people – that is a conscious choice every anti-Zionist has to make of themselves – it doesn’t make one antisemitic to argue against Religious Zionism, not a single bit. Nor does it mean we are painting all Jews and Zionists with the same brush – this ought to be obvious but alas, we live in a world where this obvious point sometimes has to be said explicitly when discussing these topics.

We believe to shy away from critiquing religious ideas that drives Zionist terror and oppression against the Palestinians, is a cop-out. Worst is, denying it actually exists.

We are here to tackle the serious and critical issues that drives and expands the oppression and terror – we are not here to pussyfoot around just in case it might offend some people or make them uncomfortable.

There is a freaking genocide going on in case people haven’t noticed!