0 $
2,500 $
5,000 $
1,400 $
11 DAYS LEFT UNTIL THE END OF SEPTEMBER

Iran’s IRGC Commander Renews Pledge To Avenge Assassination Of Soleimani

Support SouthFront

Iran’s IRGC Commander Renews Pledge To Avenge Assassination Of Soleimani

IRGC soldiers

The commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) has renewed the pledge to avenge the blood of top anti-terror commander Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani and continue his path until the liberation of all Muslim territories is achieved.

Speaking in Tehran on Tuesday, Major General Hossein Salami said enemies wrongly believe that the martyrdom of great men would grind the Islamic Revolution to a halt, but the historical realities of the past four decades have shown otherwise.

He said martyrdom is in fact the driving force behind the resistance and defence agenda of Iran and other Muslim nations, and that the rule is the same in the case of the martyrdom of General Soleimani, the “great” and “unforgettable” commander, who belonged to the entire Muslim world.

The IRGC chief said not only will Iran take revenge for the US assassination in January of General Soleimani, but it will also “continue the sacred path of General Soleimani until the end, which is the liberation of al-Quds, the elimination of enemies of Islam and their expulsion from Muslim lands.”

Avenging his blood has “turned into an ideal. We will be pursuing our ideals,” he emphasized.

The US military assassinated General Soleimani, the commander of the IRGC’s Quds Force, along with Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, deputy head of Iraq’s Hashd al-Sha’abi, and their companions by targeting their vehicles outside Baghdad International Airport on January 3.

The IRGC chief’s statements followed those of Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, who said last month that Iran will never forget Washington’s crime and will deliver a “counterblow.”

Shortly after the assassination, Ayatollah Khamenei vowed “harsh revenge” against the US, with the IRGC missile attacks on two US bases on Iraqi soil in a “first slap.”

Iran’s Defence Minister Brigadier General Amir Hatami also said on Tuesday that the enemies had hatched a “big plot” for the West Asia and were bent on institutionalizing insecurity in the region.

Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Major General Mohammad Baqeri said terrorists such as Daesh and their supporters attempted in vain to pose major threats to Iran’s security by gaining dominance over Iraq and Syria. LINK

While Iran’s leadership has emphasized that it still has scores to settle with the US, events in Syria in particular are again pushing the region to the brink of a major conflict. In the evening of August 4 the Jerusalem Post reported that ‘intensive’ airstrikes have hit several ‘Iranian-backed’ militia positions over the previous two days:

Iranian positions near Albukamal, a key border city in Syria that is near Iraq, were hit by “unidentified jets,” according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR)…

The recent attacks took place between five and nine in the morning, apparently on August 3, although the reports emerged on August 4. They targeted Iranian-backed forces at Imam Ali, an area named Al-Sekka and also in the desert near Deir Ezzor. There were casualties and weapons were destroyed…

The SOHR report was picked up at Al-Ain, where the report also notes that “15 Iraqi militia members loyal to Iran” were killed. The airstrikes were intensive. Al-Ain says that a major explosion also happened at Al-Hizam al-Akhdar area near Albukamal, targeting an Iranian militia there…

Iran has signed a deal to support Syrian air defence, which could see it deploy the 3rd Khordad or Bavar systems. Tehran tried to move a 3rd Khordad to T-4 base in April 2018, but it was hit by an airstrike.

The Syrian regime blames Israel for airstrikes in Syria. Jerusalem has carried out more than 1,000 airstrikes on Iranian targets. Israel says it carried out other airstrikes in Syria on August 3 in retaliation for a thwarted IED planting effort by an unknown group in Syria near the Golan. “Jets, attack helicopters and aircraft struck military targets in southern Syrian belonging to the Syrian armed forces,” the Israel Defense Forces said on Monday…

Hezbollah says one of its members was killed on July 20 in airstrikes in Syria and blamed Israel, leading to tensions. On June 24, wide-ranging airstrikes hit a number of locations in Syria, including “dish hill” near Suwayda and also points near Deir Ezzor. At least seven Iranians and Syrians were allegedly killed in those strikes; reports at the time indicated that Iran might respond.” LINK

While China has been the main focus of attention in the US for the last few weeks, the Middle East is dangerously close to a major catastrophe as it appears one misstep away from a major conflict involving Israel, Lebanon, Syria and Iran.

MORE ON THE TOPIC:

Support SouthFront

SouthFront

Subscribe
Notify of
guest
43 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
d'Artagnan

Iran should talk less and do more, especially now with the Zionist act of horrendous terror against Lebanon. The US occupation forces in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan need to burn.

christianblood

Indeed!

Sylvain Jeuland

Just need to build and secure the business land road from Mashad/Chabahar to the Mediterranean see

occupybacon

Haha how about Russia? Wait, they even imposed blocade on Houthis together with China, USA, NATO, Saudis friends. Iran sent oil tankes in Syria, Venezuela, defying Trump threats and they don’t have one single nuke. Russia and China are pussies compared to Iran.

HiaNd

Iran is pushed in the corner and have no choice but to fight back (or turn and bend over in gay gratitude (like you do all the time Bacon))

China and Russia are too big to be cornered so easily and they cover Iranian back in any extreme situation . THEY WILL NEVER LET IRAN FALL no matter what.

occupybacon

And that’s why Russia participate on the NATO & Saudi blockade on Houthis. Hey, I know trading is priority but backstabbing is still backstabbing. I know Truth hurts the most and that’s why Russians are always salty.

HiaNd

I do not know anything in what would Russia participate with the NATO… and specially not “military blockade of any kind against anybody” let alone Houtis.

You are talking straight out of your posterior where all your 2 brain cells are.

occupybacon

You don’t know about it because you like to keep your head in your ass. Just because you don’t want to hear something, it doesn’t make it dissapear. Even with one brain cell I can see Russians don’t like to be told the truth. Go ask Putin about it.

HiaNd

I am asking you now! You low intensity sex abuser of pidgins! Answer it with some concrete link as proof or shat up!

occupybacon

What do you think I am, a retarded children teacher? Go ask your mom to show you how to use google, I’m sure you’ll find plenty of fisting porn in her browsing hitory, too.

HiaNd

if you are not talking about something that is happening right NOW and you are probably not…. I will not look for it… just another of many of your stupid comments on yesteryer or even much earlier.

can’t care less about that.

occupybacon

Look coward, I found it: when the security council voted the sanctions, Russia… abstained. I mean their vote has veto power. But they abstained. Knowing that a Yes or a “I don’t give a fuck” counts as the same vote. Now it’s your turn to explain to me how brave Russia is at the UN security council.

HiaNd

and what was China position in that vote deep shit? Russia is not always in Love with Iran who doesn’t behave often so if anything like that has happened it was most probably to send signal to Iran about something. To give veto is to invest political capital into something and maybe Russia didn’t have any reason to do such favor to Iran (because Houtis are too small player they do not count) It was Russia – Iran thing….what , why i have no clue. Love hate relations and stepping on each others foot while they dance together

occupybacon

Yeah deep shit, that’s what I’m saying :)

HiaNd

of course it wasn’t because you didn’t say that

occupybacon

Well, Yemen being too small for Russia; and showing the middle finger to Iran struggle against NATO and the Arab League just because…?

Wayne Nicholson

Is it a NATO blockade or a UN blockade? Russia and China respect all UN mandates including the sanctions on arming Iran but they don’t respect NATO sanctions or mandates. That’s why Iran doesn’t have advanced Russian or Chinese weapons.

Ok just looked it up. It’s a UN security council resolution (2511-2020) not a “NATO & Saudi Blockade. China and Russia abstained from the vote but they are abiding by the resolution …. as they should.

occupybacon

It’s a blockade which US and UK lobbied the most for, as members of the security council, main arms sellers to KSA. Russia or China could just say no, but they abstained. So it’s a UN voted blockade, enforced by NATO, KSA and UAE as UN doesn’t have a navy to enforce the blockade. Can you tell me why Russia or China didn’t vetoed it?

Wayne Nicholson

Perhaps because they didn’t have a dog in the fight.

Why do you think Russia and China always have to be opposed to anything the USA / GB / Israel wants? Did it ever occur to you that these countries both have independent FP’s?

It’s the same with every time Israel launches a missile at Syria …. everyone expects Russia to respond …. they don’t have a beef with Israel, in fact they have good relations with them … and the Saudi’s.

Some time you should read the statements that came out of Russia when they went into Syria in 2015. They aren’t Syria’s allies ….. they are there to protect Russia’s interests and they stated they weren’t fond of Assad but he was the best of a lot of bad options. They don’t want an Islamic terrorist run country near their southern border but if Israel want to bomb the crap out of hezboulla in Syria so what? I’m sure they would prefer Israel didn’t bomb Syria however not to the point of starting WW3 over it or ruining the vacations of the thousands of Russian tourist and retirees living there.

Same goes for the Houtis. Do your think Russia or China cares about whether the Saudi’s or Iran have control over Yemen enough to risk a kinetic war or strained relations over it? Both these countries have relations with both Iran and the Saudi’s.

Smart players choose their battles.

occupybacon

I was talking to my pal who was screaming with caps that Russia will never let down her friend, Iran. If you are too busy to read the discussion, how come you have time to write such a long post? well, I ‘don’t.

Assad must stay

Ya they talk too much

Free man

The guy probably also thinks that someone is taking him seriously. Commander of the Iranian babbling Guards.

The Objective

Good point.

Hishamsbr

iran is being very patient before it delivers israel the death blow. slowly but surely putting the pieces into position. these little airstrikes are insignificant.

<>

Don’t be too happy, pushing us to the corner would be a great mistake from the mullah’s side.

Hishamsbr

you already are in a corner. a very small, tight corner. you see, the zionist shape shifting entity has no strategic depth whatsoever. this will prove fatal in a grandiose way. hope your zionist cousins and you can swim.

<>

Again, don’t under-estimate us we might surprise you in our actions.

Free man

iran is being very, very, very, very patient with israel . But with the Iranian protesters in the November demonstrations Iran was really not patient.

Hishamsbr

lame comeback. a few LGBQT protesters are not a threat in a country of 80-90 million people. but they are going to squash your zionist dreams.

The Objective

He refers to the “whole Muslim world” as if he forgot that the Iranian regime collaborated with the U.S. to invade the Muslim lands of Afghanistan and Iraq. The fallen Soleimani even spearheaded that effort. He deserves what happened to him for the blood of innocents that died in the Afghan war. No Sunni Muslim should mourn this man’s demise. In fact any Sunni Muslim who knows how he helped the U.S murder hundreds of thousands in Afghanistan will pray for Allah’s punishment on him.

http://viableopposition.blogspot.com/2020/01/iran-united-states-and-operation.html

So Mr. commander, considering what Iran does and is doing to Sunni Muslim communities in the Middle East and beyond, there is no such thing as a united Muslim world from where you can draw support. Fight your war with the U.S alone, and do not expect our support.

HiaNd

You despise them yet you are nothing better than them you full !!!

It was the war and in war you sometime win and sometime lose. Be a man and accept it like man not like pussy!

And Iran is very far from winning everything in those wars….they have lost whole generation of young men…an arrested development and dark bitter memories.

So what the hell are you talking about?! The same West and Jews were helping both side whenever they could to make bloodshed last longer in any Muslim conflict. That is their only game TO DIVIDE YOU to stay on top of you as your Masters forever because like this you are WEAK and BITTER !

And their dream of “one Muslim bastard killing another Muslim bastard” becomes lasting reality! THANK YOU FOR YOUR PERSONAL CONTRIBUTION and CONGRATULATION ! In their favorite game you have earned “David Star with Bibi’s golden balls” their highest decoration for manipulated Muslim who helps them the most!

If all Sunni are like you and play sorry loser there will be no future for Muslim world. They will play you against each other all the time forever !.

The Objective

You speak out of ignorance. With or without the Zionists, there can never be unity between the aqeedas of Sunni and Shiite. It has been so for over 1000 years.

I will give you an example just to illustrate, not a fact, and I will use Christianity (that is if you are a Christian). Imagine a unique group of Christians who believe that the disciples of Christ and early generations of Christians “ALL” became hypocrites or apostates after Christ left, except for only a 9 or 10 people. Imagine that same Christian sect firmly believing that “CURSING” those they accuse of apostasy is a religious duty. Imagine that same sect claiming that the bible is not the real message of Christ. I can’t derive enough comparison, but if you want to understand the power tussle in the Middle East and the world between Sunnis and Shiites, you need to read this book: https://mahajjah.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/UMS-UPDATED-FINAL.pdf

I wish to see Muslims united, but two EXACTLY OPPOSITE faiths cannot unite with or without zionist manipulations. Get that fact. Shiites and Sunnis hold opposite beliefs.

HiaNd

Of coarse I am IGNORANT on subject. I’m not even Muslim, just simple bystander…But exactly that gives me possibility not to be biased or loaded with history of disputes and to go directly to the essential.

I have just one question and many others variations of the same question. (Excuse me is it sounds naive)

You have differences but:

You all still do believe in Allah and are Allah’s servants?

And if so how could anything be more important than serving to Allah or if you are really His servants what rights do you have to fight each other under any excuse?

The Objective

I don’t even know how to start answering your question. But I’ll just summarize the answer in two or three sentences.

Declaring that you believe in Allah and His messenger and claiming to be Muslim is not enough. You must not violate the laws of Allah, especially those that lead to apostasy, like falsifying the Quran or even just one verse of the Qur’an. Most Shias hold plenty of believes and practices that makes one an apostate.

An apostate is no longer Muslim even if he claims to be. There is no way one can hold the complete belief of Most Shiite sects without becoming an apostate. And the Iranian official Shiite belief is one of such that leads to apostasy. Apostates are non-Muslims, and we can’t cooperate with them on Issues of faith.

If you really are interested in this subject, then read the book I recommended in a previous page. It’s a huge book, but it’s the best on the subject. Here is the link again.

https://mahajjah.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/UMS-UPDATED-FINAL.pdf

HiaNd

I thank you for your very elaborate answer. I personally believe that everything that is divided must fall sooner or later. Once Islam was united, Islam has almost ruled whole known world at the time. Now in these circumstances it is most improbable that you even dominate courtyard of your own house.

You protect Islam from apostates yet you are ruled by enemies of Islam much worse than apostates !

Enemies who wisely use your only weaknesses against you all the time. And why would Allah need your “protection” in anything really? If He can’t defend Islam from evil of the apostates and any other evil than nobody can. Allah only needs your faith in Him and not your feeble protection of Islam.

That is all I have to say to you. Thank you for your kindness and your understanding.

Of course being non Muslim I will thank you so much on such NOBLE attitude and humility to take opinion of Christian (thus non-believer). I do have deep respect for all people who believe in Allah, God . Thank you and forgive if I have offended you in anything I have said. It was not deliberate.

The Objective

You’re welcome It’s not the end yet.

Hishamsbr

im sunni, and i mourned him. in fact, i support iran wholeheartedly

The Objective

You are either a liar (Shiite impostor) or an unlearned Sunni Muslim who does not understand the dangers of the Shiite belief to the True Islamic faith. I strongly believe you are one of the Shiite agents who are trying to mask Iran’s involvement in the killings of over a million Muslims in Afghanistan and Iraq simply because those Muslims do not follow the Shiite belief. Iran is also repopulating Sunni villages in Syria in order to alter the Sunni majority villages in strategic areas. Iran is also buying up houses and relocating Shiite families from Lebanon and other provinces to occupy vital locations in Syria. This is all part of their struggle to subjugate Sunnis wherever they can.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/13/irans-syria-project-pushing-population-shifts-to-increase-influence

But in case you are truly a Sunni Muslim who is unaware of the shadowy battles going on, I urge you to read this 1600+ page research work by a renowned Sunni Scholar of our time. His methodology is completely verifiable and he draws evidences from classical works by both Shiite and Sunni Scholars. This book is a long read, but I promise you’ll enjoy it. Just take it gradually, and verify from the references he makes if you have access to those books or people who do.

https://mahajjah.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/UMS-UPDATED-FINAL.pdf

TopTier

Any news on these poor US soldiers who were warned by Iran to bunker down in 5m & witness their precision guided missiles raining on top of them. Well, if there’s more avenging to do then I suggest the grunts just get the hell out…leave the truck with oil barrels in Syria & get the hell out.

TopTier

Check this video…there seems to be some kind of object coming in from the left side. About 0.2 minutes, 0.4 minutes & 1.16 minutes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNx3K22Zx9k

If it doesn’t load up on this page then copy & past the address.

Can anyone make anything of it?

verner

they better deliver and I will greet the day when they hoist netanyahu in a lamppost next to knesset and the rest of the evil jews are on the run to no where. that will be a day to cherish. and it can’t come too soon.

<>

Stop mumbeling you clowns, don’t mess with the U.S or Israel.

AlexanderAmproz

Zionist nationalist myth of enforced exile

. https://mondediplo.com/2008/09/07israel

Israel deliberately forgets its history

An Israeli historian suggests the diaspora was the consequence, not of the expulsion of the Hebrews from Palestine, but of proselytising across north Africa, southern Europe and the Middle East

by Schlomo Sand

Le Monde diplomatiqueIsrael deliberately forgets its history ↑

Every Israeli knows that he or she is the direct and exclusive descendant of a Jewish people which has existed since it received the Torah (1) in Sinai. According to this myth, the Jews escaped from Egypt and settled in the Promised Land, where they built the glorious kingdom of David and Solomon, which subsequently split into the kingdoms of Judah and Israel. They experienced two exiles: after the destruction of the first temple, in the 6th century BC, and of the second temple, in 70 AD.

Two thousand years of wandering brought the Jews to Yemen, Morocco, Spain, Germany, Poland and deep into Russia. But, the story goes, they always managed to preserve blood links between their scattered communities. Their uniqueness was never compromised.

At the end of the 19th century conditions began to favour their return to their ancient homeland. If it had not been for the Nazi genocide, millions of Jews would have fulfilled the dream of 20 centuries and repopulated Eretz Israel, the biblical land of Israel. Palestine, a virgin land, had been waiting for its original inhabitants to return and awaken it. It belonged to the Jews, rather than to an Arab minority that had no history and had arrived there by chance. The wars in which the wandering people reconquered their land were just; the violent opposition of the local population was criminal.

This interpretation of Jewish history was developed as talented, imaginative historians built on surviving fragments of Jewish and Christian religious memory to construct a continuous genealogy for the Jewish people. Judaism’s abundant historiography encompasses many different approaches.

But none have ever questioned the basic concepts developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Discoveries that might threaten this picture of a linear past were marginalised. The national imperative rejected any contradiction of or deviation from the dominant story. University departments exclusively devoted to “the history of the Jewish people”, as distinct from those teaching what is known in Israel as general history, made a significant contribution to this selective vision. The debate on what constitutes Jewishness has obvious legal implications, but historians ignored it: as far as they are concerned, any descendant of the people forced into exile 2,000 years ago is a Jew.

Nor did these official investigators of the past join the controversy provoked by the “new historians” from the late 1980s. Most of the limited number of participants in this public debate were from other disciplines or non-academic circles: sociologists, orientalists, linguists, geographers, political scientists, literary academics and archaeologists developed new perspectives on the Jewish and Zionist past. Departments of Jewish history remained defensive and conservative, basing themselves on received ideas. While there have been few significant developments in national history over the past 60 years (a situation unlikely to change in the short term), the facts that have emerged face any honest historian with fundamental questions.

Founding myths shaken

Is the Bible a historical text? Writing during the early half of the 19th century, the first modern Jewish historians, such as Isaak Markus Jost (1793-1860) and Leopold Zunz (1794-1886), did not think so. They regarded the Old Testament as a theological work reflecting the beliefs of Jewish religious communities after the destruction of the first temple. It was not until the second half of the century that Heinrich Graetz (1817-91) and others developed a “national” vision of the Bible and transformed Abraham’s journey to Canaan, the flight from Egypt and the united kingdom of David and Solomon into an authentic national past. By constant repetition, Zionist historians have subsequently turned these Biblical “truths” into the basis of national education.

But during the 1980s an earthquake shook these founding myths. The discoveries made by the “new archaeology” discredited a great exodus in the 13th century BC. Moses could not have led the Hebrews out of Egypt into the Promised Land, for the good reason that the latter was Egyptian territory at the time. And there is no trace of either a slave revolt against the pharaonic empire or of a sudden conquest of Canaan by outsiders.

Nor is there any trace or memory of the magnificent kingdom of David and Solomon. Recent discoveries point to the existence, at the time, of two small kingdoms: Israel, the more powerful, and Judah, the future Judea. The general population of Judah did not go into 6th century BC exile: only its political and intellectual elite were forced to settle in Babylon. This decisive encounter with Persian religion gave birth to Jewish monotheism.

Then there is the question of the exile of 70 AD. There has been no real research into this turning point in Jewish history, the cause of the diaspora. And for a simple reason: the Romans never exiled any nation from anywhere on the eastern seaboard of the Mediterranean. Apart from enslaved prisoners, the population of Judea continued to live on their lands, even after the destruction of the second temple. Some converted to Christianity in the 4th century, while the majority embraced Islam during the 7th century Arab conquest.

Most Zionist thinkers were aware of this: Yitzhak Ben Zvi, later president of Israel, and David Ben Gurion, its first prime minister, accepted it as late as 1929, the year of the great Palestinian revolt. Both stated on several occasions that the peasants of Palestine were the descendants of the inhabitants of ancient Judea (2).

Proselytising zeal

But if there was no exile after 70 AD, where did all the Jews who have populated the Mediterranean since antiquity come from? The smokescreen of national historiography hides an astonishing reality. From the Maccabean revolt of the mid-2nd century BC to the Bar Kokhba revolt of the 2nd century AD, Judaism was the most actively proselytising religion. The Judeo-Hellenic Hasmoneans forcibly converted the Idumeans of southern Judea and the Itureans of Galilee and incorporated them into the people of Israel. Judaism spread across the Middle East and round the Mediterranean. The 1st century AD saw the emergence in modern Kurdistan of the Jewish kingdom of Adiabene, just one of many that converted.

The writings of Flavius Josephus are not the only evidence of the proselytising zeal of the Jews. Horace, Seneca, Juvenal and Tacitus were among the Roman writers who feared it. The Mishnah and the Talmud (3) authorised conversion, even if the wise men of the Talmudic tradition expressed reservations in the face of the mounting pressure from Christianity.

Although the early 4th century triumph of Christianity did not mark the end of Jewish expansion, it relegated Jewish proselytism to the margins of the Christian cultural world. During the 5th century, in modern Yemen, a vigorous Jewish kingdom emerged in Himyar, whose descendants preserved their faith through the Islamic conquest and down to the present day. Arab chronicles tell of the existence, during the 7th century, of Judaised Berber tribes; and at the end of the century the legendary Jewish queen Dihya contested the Arab advance into northwest Africa. Jewish Berbers participated in the conquest of the Iberian peninsula and helped establish the unique symbiosis between Jews and Muslims that characterised Hispano-Arabic culture.

The most significant mass conversion occurred in the 8th century, in the massive Khazar kingdom between the Black and Caspian seas. The expansion of Judaism from the Caucasus into modern Ukraine created a multiplicity of communities, many of which retreated from the 13th century Mongol invasions into eastern Europe. There, with Jews from the Slavic lands to the south and from what is now modern Germany, they formed the basis of Yiddish culture (4).

Prism of Zionism

Until about 1960 the complex origins of the Jewish people were more or less reluctantly acknowledged by Zionist historiography. But thereafter they were marginalised and finally erased from Israeli public memory. The Israeli forces who seized Jerusalem in 1967 believed themselves to be the direct descendents of the mythic kingdom of David rather than – God forbid – of Berber warriors or Khazar horsemen. The Jews claimed to constitute a specific ethnic group that had returned to Jerusalem, its capital, from 2,000 years of exile and wandering.

This monolithic, linear edifice is supposed to be supported by biology as well as history. Since the 1970s supposedly scientific research, carried out in Israel, has desperately striven to demonstrate that Jews throughout the world are closely genetically related.

Research into the origins of populations now constitutes a legitimate and popular field in molecular biology and the male Y chromosome has been accorded honoured status in the frenzied search for the unique origin of the “chosen people”. The problem is that this historical fantasy has come to underpin the politics of identity of the state 
of Israel. By validating an essentialist, 
ethnocentric definition of Judaism it encourages a segregation that separates Jews from non-Jews – whether Arabs, Russian immigrants or foreign workers.

Sixty years after its foundation, Israel refuses to accept that it should exist for the sake of its citizens. For almost a quarter of the population, who are not regarded as Jews, this is not their state legally. At the same time, Israel presents itself as the homeland of Jews throughout the world, even if these are no longer persecuted refugees, but the full and equal citizens of other countries.

A global ethnocracy invokes the myth of the eternal nation, reconstituted on the land of its ancestors, to justify internal discrimination against its own citizens. It will remain difficult to imagine a new Jewish history while the prism of Zionism continues to fragment everything into an ethnocentric spectrum. But Jews worldwide have always tended to form religious communities, usually by conversion; they cannot be said to share an ethnicity derived from a unique origin and displaced over 20 centuries of wandering.

The development of historiography and the evolution of modernity were consequences of the invention of the nation state, which preoccupied millions during the 19th and 20th centuries. The new millennium has seen these dreams begin to shatter.

And more and more academics are analysing, dissecting and deconstructing the great national stories, especially the myths of common origin so dear to chroniclers of the past.

Schlomo Sand

https://mondediplo.com/2008/09/07israel

43
0
Would love your thoughts, please comment.x
()
x