atheist-outreach, peace, israelI have a touchy question: How should our atheism inform our opinions towards middle east peace?
Let me explain a bit: I’m an atheist, and I’m not American, but I do live in the United States, where unconditional support for Israel is basically the only politically acceptable position in polite company. And I certainly am not an anti-semite, nor do I deny that Jewish people should be able to live in peace wherever they want or defend themselves from attack.
But the conflict in the middle east is based on two conflicting religions believing that they have a divine mandate to occupy a certain portion of land. No matter what holy book such divine claims come from, I reject them as an atheist, so I don’t respect the claims of either side that they must retain Jerusalem, for example.
So what is the logically consistent position for atheists, and rationalists in general, to take on middle east peace?
As an atheist: Both sides are acting on the basis of religious myths and people are suffering. The actions of both sides are wrong and deplorable.
That’s pretty straightforward as far as it goes, but I think any stance going beyond that is going to be personal, not atheist opinion.
I am an atheist living in Israel, and I will try being as objective as possible.
I think that atheism by itself doesn’t tell us anything about Israel. The conflict between Israel and Palestine is old, and very complex. I do agree that most of the problem comes from religious parties on both sides.
The Palestinian religious extremists (who hold much power) will not accept any non Muslim state over the entire area, especially not of the “zionazis”.
The Israeli religious extremists (who do hold power, albeit not as much as on the other side) will not accept giving away parts of “the promised land” and “the holy city” to others.
Once we get rid of both extremist parties (in Israel, we must create a separation of religion from state to have any chance, and in Palestine I think it’s even more complicated), the secular/moderate people of both sides will reach an agreement in practically no-time. But if we judge by reality, and how things are, and where they are going, I am unfortunately not very optimistic.
Speaking as someone who arrived at atheism through the birth religion of Judaism, I have an interesting personal history on this item.
If we would criticize any nation for preemptively invading another nation, taking some of their land, and forcing the people who happen to have already been living on that land from prior to the invasion to act as refugees, then we should be free to criticize Israel for having done the same. (In this case, I’m talking about the 1967 Six Day War…)
It’s interesting that this simple statement earned me the label “anti-Semitic Jew” in the early 90’s.
The Jews had to endure a truly horrific experience during World War II. And, I suppose, that experience in and of itself is sufficient to justify giving them their long-denied homeland. But that does not give them the right to commit atrocities towards those who happened to have been in what would become their homeland before the nation was carved out.
The news is always the same: some Palestinian gets fed up at the way his or her people are treated at the hands of the Israelis and commits a terrorist attack. The Israelis then retaliate on suspected terrorist strongholds or hideouts, often with civilian casualties, which prompts another terrorist attack, which prompts another retaliation and so on and so forth. It’s a vicious cycle or a snowball effect and both sides vilify each other and it’s easy to lose sight of who started it… As if knowing or caring who started it actually matters after this long.
When my kids get into a scuffle, one of them will invariably point to the other and say “he started it.” As their father, I find myself resorting to the parental cliche of “well, I’m ending it.”
Is it really that complicated for someone to step in and say “I’m ending it”? With my kids, that means getting them to sit down, calm down, and essentially leave each other alone. The Israelis, then, should stop building settlements on Palestinian lands. The Palestinians should do something to curtail terrorism, and it’s everyone’s responsibility to build a prosperous society that addresses the legitimate concerns of the downtrodden before those concerns bubble over into violence.
I think Dennis Miller once said it that “you have to marvel over the stun gun absurdity of fighting to the death over what happens to you after you die.”
Take god out of the equation. There are legitimate enough grievances without god. Then address the grievances and see if coexistence is a worthy enough goal.
It’s really a land dispute; the religion thing just adds some backstory.
To clarify: If you’re really an atheist, how can you have an opinion on the religious angle other than, “They’re both wrong, and I wish they weren’t”? This thing is so long standing even they don’t fully understand it, and so irrational that no amount of common sense is going to have an impact.
Andrew Bolt is an atheist and is pro-Israel.
Fred Phelps is a theist and is very anti-Israel.
Atheism doesn’t tell us very much about Israel.
However, as an atheist, I’m interested in the role of the then Mufti of Jerusalem in the holocaust.
As an Israeli atheist, and therefore as someone who lived in the shadow of this conflict since birth, I have an opposing claim: Middle east conflicting sides only uses religious for propaganda. The hard points that prevent the conflict resolution are fear and anger.
After being terrorized for several decades, Israelis came to fear Palestinians profoundly - That what terrorism does: It roots irrational fear into its victims. Most Israelis of my age (~30) witnessed at least one terror attack, or were familiar with at least one terror victim. The majority of Israeli voters accept the idea that eventually a Palestinian state will have to become independent, but fear of terror prevents taking actual steps toward this solution.
Similarly, after several decades of occupation, the Palestinians are angry. They want revenge. Ending the conflict means forgiving the Israelis, instead of punishing them. I believe that most Palestinians recognize that this is a reasonable step, but emotionally reject it.
Religious extremists are piggy-bagging on these basic emotions. If the root causes of fear and anger were removed, the rest of the conflict - Holy sites, national feelings, the refugees’ problem - Could be resolved with a greater ease.
This is very close to epic flame war, but, you should determine your position how you would in any secular dispute. We really don’t care who’s sky daddy can beat who’s, so who’s right and who’s wrong?
I don’t think there’s any piece of land that can’t be somehow disputed in that part of the world. They need to just learn to how to not blow each other up, once they do that they might be able to work something out.
I agree that religion is making it much harder to achieve any kind of rational solution. First problem — when the state of Israel was founded, the right wing religious groups were given more power than their numbers warranted and have been able to impose their will ever since.
Second, they insist their claim to the territory of greater Israel is based on the borders of the biblical “promised land” and the holdings of David and Solomon. For many years, archeologists in the area tended to be biblical scholars, with a trowel in one hand and a bible in the other. If a bit of evidence could be twisted in any way to interpret it as confirming a biblical story — even if all it confirmed was the name of a certain place or major historical character (hey, Pilate!) The dates could be altered willy-nilly, and anything that contradicted the biblical story was ignored.
Modern archeologists have taken the more scientific (oooh, that awful word) approach and let the evidence speak for itself. Or — as in the case of the sojourn in Egypt and the Exodus story, the absence of evidence (as in none at all — not even any evidence that a tribe that could culturally be linked to Judaism even existed at the time). David and Solomon? Well, yes they probably existed, but only as the rulers of a small, scrubby kingdom in the hills of Judea.
It appears that the Pentateuch was written in around 700BCE, mainly on the return from exile in Babylon. Priest and the King worked together to gather myths and legends, inflating the importance of the nation’s history for political reasons — to unite the demoralised Jews (One Nation Under God?) and lay claim to the unclaimed lands of northern Israel. It was good timing, as writing was only just being developed, so they got to tell their story early in the game, when it was hard for anyone to challenge it. Unfortunately they had forgotten — or hoped everyone else would — that the region was part of the Egyptian empire for most of the previous couple of thousand years, and the Egyptians kept pretty good records,
Atheism doesn't really tell you anything, but it could give you a more objective perspective than those who are compelled to include it in their analysis. The ancient Jewish claims on the land were made anew in the modern world over 100 years ago and are only part of the equation. All sides have made mistakes and missed opportunities to work toward peace. I recommend Michael Lerner's "Healing Israel/Palestine" for a balanced perspective.
The question of how religion affects the Israel/Palestine conflict is much, much more complex than just “two conflicting religions believing that they have a divine mandate”. Someone who has studied all the details (I haven’t) could write a book
Of course there are Jews who believe that Israel’s legitimacy comes from divine warrant, and that they have a literally God-given right to take other people’s land. This is a terrible, poisonous idea, and does not legitimize to the state of Israel. However, Zionism is not in any way a religious movement, and the real legitimacy for a Jewish state in Israel is completely secular:
I really don’t see how any fair-minded person could deny the right of the Jewish people to a homeland in Israel. Religious justification is not necessary, and in fact should be condemned while still asserting the legitimacy of Zionism.
The problem is that, due to accidents of history, another people developed an equally legitimate claim to the same land. Most non-Muslims reached the conclusion some time ago that the only way to deal with this is to split the land into two states. This will be messy and neither side will be completely happy, but there is just no other way. In contrast to the generally accepted narrative, I have come to believe that the lack of a peace agreement is due to Palestinian, not Israeli, intransigence.
This intransigence is fueled in large part by Islamic beliefs, which outright reject the idea that a Jewish state can exist in what they consider to be “Dar al-Islam” (Islamic lands). Islam has limited tollerance for Jews and Christians, provided they pay special taxes and generally recognize that Islam is in charge. Israel as a Jewish state obviously violates this. In addition, the majority of Palestinians still seem to think they can turn the Israeli Jews into a minority and thereby restore Islam. The jhadists are using violence, whereas the rest are relying on demographics, hence the unshakeable Palestinian demand for the return of refugees and their descedents.
On a slight tangent, I was startled to learn recently that the oft-heard claim that “Jerusalem is the third holiest site in Islam” is basically bullshit. The Koran never mentions Jerusalem once, it talks about “Al-Aqsa” (the furthest) mosque. Some enterprising Muslim ruler later retconned things by building a mosque in Jerusalem and calling it “Al-Aqsa”.
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