Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on February 10, 2017

February 10, 2017, Spencer Irvine, Leave a comment

The Modern Language Association held a panel discussion of professors who were critical of Zionism and Israel and sympathetic of the Palestinian effort to create a Palestinian state. The four professors focused on the origins of the Balfour Declaration and the creation of the Jewish state of Israel.

Nabil Matar, a professor of English, History and Religious Studies at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, criticized British Christians link between Zionism and Christian restoration. Restoration, in his words, describes how Jews will be restored to the Holy Land of Israel in accordance with Christian biblical prophecies. British Christians identified restoration as Zionism and the British could not contradict this Christian doctrine, said Matar. He continued, Numerous English writers became addicted to the end-of-the-world biblical prophecies, such as when Christ will destroy their enemies, the papists, the Catholics [etc].

Thus, Matar said, was born the call of restoration of Jews to Palestine and he said it was disingenuous because Christian doctrine never spoke of restoration. Matar claimed that restoration was found only three times in the Christian Bible and the militaristic disciples asked Jesus Christ about restoring the kingdom by force. His second disingenuous reason was that the Christians appeal to restorationism by British Christian writerswas intended to rid England of whatever Jewish population there was.

The defeat of naturalization in the United Kingdom is an example of the most telling anti-Jewish restorationism. James Balfour, the British foreign secretary who wrote the Balfour Declaration to help create the Jewish state of Israel, believed religion was equal to philosophy. Matar called it silly to conflate the two, and said Balfour was a Zionist and an imperialist. This ruse was the conflation of Zionism and restorationism. Then, the British government began to confront the benign non-Jewish populations and it began the gullible restorationism of the United Kingdom.

Mounira Soliman, an English professor at American University in Cairo, said that the Balfour Declaration pointed to the Jewish Zionist efforts and the Palestinians were mostly unaware of it and therefore had to deal with its outcomes. She said, A modified version drafted by the Zionist committeeit is not surprising that the Arabs distrust[ed] the British and Jews. The drafting process did not include Arabs, Soliman said. She continued, This foreign group make, quite literally a land of their own and various actors [U.S. and the U.K.prefer to deal with others than dealing with the Palestinians.

The Balfour Declaration do not feature the perspectives of the Palestinians and she lamented, not much is written about the Balfour Declaration as such, giving a sense that there is not much out there. She noted, The topic is certainly a part of Palestinian [popular] culture. However, most references are literary and not popular culture.

Hani Bawardi, associate professor of history at University of Michigan-Dearborn, outlined the Palestinian side of the Balfour Declaration. Bawardi claimed that Zionism traveled like lightning and some of the top motivations for Zionism were religious feelings and economic greed. He noted that the Balfour Declaration was designed to protect economic interests because it was to protect Frances and the Britishs largest investment in the Suez Canal. He continued that the West and its rich financiers wanted to drag the U.S. into World War One and a congressional investigation was shut down. The Wests control of the League of Nations ended up dividing Syria under the mandate from the organization, Bawardi said. He claimed, The cause of the trouble was mass immigration and loss of land by Palestinian peasants in Syria during their civil war in 1925 and that Syrian nationalist identity was soon absorbed by Arab nationalism.

Mark Bayer, a Texas-San Antonio assistant English professor, compared William Shakespeares Merchant of Venice to the Balfour Declaration. Specifically, he said, The infamous pound of flesh in Shakespeares Merchant of Venice is the comparable example. He said that the issue is both communities already convinced of the veracity of their claim and both the British and the Zionists appear to deploy the same language. He said that Zionism was politically and militarily intertwined for the British. But, the pound of flesh is a rhetorically powerful Shakespearean metaphor that led to the iron law or use of irresistible force to reach Zionist demands. Bayer warned, These are words not to be forgotten by Arabs.

Zionists, Bayer said, were able to appropriate Arab land through this Shakespearean pound of flesh metaphor. He claimed a Zionist leader took the Balfour Accord from Great Britain. He pointed out the differences between Zionists and the Palestinians, we only disagree on the interpretation and the fairness of the declaration. He added, Israel wants to strip the remaining flesh from the occupied territories. The Merchant of Venice character Shylock, in Bayers opinion, represents cruel authority, now, post-Holocaust, demanding what is rightfully his.

Photo by Zachi Evenor

Posted in MLA. Tagged as academia, Accuracy in Academia, AIA, American University at Cairo, Balfour Declaration, Hani Bawardi, Israel, Jewish state, Jews, Mark Bayer, MLA, MLA 2017, Modern Language Association, Mounira Soliman, Nabil Matar, Palestinians, UK, United Kingdom, University of Michigan-Dearborn, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, UT-San Antonio, Zionism, Zionist

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British Christian Imperialism led to Zionism and Israel's Creation, Professors Claim - Accuracy in Academia

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