What Israel’s trapped mindset tells the world

Gideon Levy is a prominent Israeli journalist and sharp critic of Israeli policies, often described as the nation’s conscience keeper.

He understands his people and is concerned by the way they have been brainwashed into supporting a reality that cannot be condoned.

Israel today, he stresses, is a nation whose mind and soul have been trapped.

‘Chosen people’?

Levy identifies some deep-rooted values and beliefs generally held within Israeli society. The first is that Jewish people are a “chosen people”. This belief is widespread and deeply held.

It marks the psyche of many Israelis. And out of it arises, he says, a sense of arrogance: “Who are you in the rest of the world, and who are those in the international community, to tell Israel what to do?

“International law is all very good and wonderful, but it does not apply to us. It may apply everywhere else but not in Israel, because we are a chosen people.”

The arrogance that flows out of such thinking is staggering.

The second deep-rooted value, Levy stresses, is that Israelis see themselves as victims – and perhaps the only victims in the world.

He quotes former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir: “We can forgive the Arabs for killing our children. We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children.”

Many Israelis appear to believe their sense of victimhood gives them the right to do what they want, and nobody can tell them otherwise.

The third deeply rooted value – even if some may deny it – is that Palestinians are not equal human beings. They do not love their children as the Israelis do, and do not love life as the Israelis do. This belief, too, is deeply rooted in Israeli society.

Levy asserts that as long as most Israelis do not perceive the Palestinians as equal human beings – believing themselves much better, much more developed – their dreams will come to nothing.

This is what frames Israeli attitudes and approaches. The mindset is trapped, and the other is viewed as less than human. This is at the root of apartheid in Israel.

There is also the deep fear that marks Israeli society.

When the state of Israel was founded in 1948, many Jewish people were drawn into returning. They came from Western and Eastern Europe, from across the diaspora, from Arab lands and North Africa. These disparate groups had to become a cohesive society.

So, they were given an identity and a political ideology – Zionism – to hold them together. The beliefs Levy highlights were all part of the brainwashing needed to bind these groups. Fear and insecurity became the common bond, and the presence of a people painted as an enemy further emboldened the cause of Zionism.

The fine line between religion and religiosity was soon crossed. Zionism became the political agenda, and very soon the tenets of Judaism faded into the background.

Zionism versus Judaism

Rabbi Dovid Feldman, a prominent spokesperson for the anti-Zionist group Neturei Karta, speaks of the difference between Judaism as a faith and Zionism as a political ideology. This distinction is critical, for many well-meaning people believe that one feeds into the other. Nothing could be further from the truth, he stresses.

The two are diametric opposites. Judaism is a religion, and a religion only, while Zionism is a political movement – and a very different one at that. Zionism is forbidden, the rabbi stresses, as it stands in sharp contrast to Judaism.

In his view, Jewish people throughout history have, without exception, accepted the concept of Jewish exile as God’s will – and they are forbidden to fight against it by physical means.

Thus, the philosophy of Zionism is in total violation of Judaism, even before any crime is committed against a human being.

Given what is presently happening in Palestine – the violence and the oppression of an entire people – none of it is in keeping with the teachings of Judaism. Stealing land, and adding crime after crime – these are violations of not only Judaism but also international law and human rights.

Another rabbi describes Zionism as a transformation from subservience to God into a movement from religion to nationalism. It is totally different from Judaism. Zionists aspire to have a country accepted by the world, but this rabbi insists they have taken God out of the equation.

They will do anything to accomplish what they want, including using the name Israel, the Star of David and other trappings of Judaism, to legitimise themselves. This is immoral in its essence and does not represent Judaism at all.

Many others have expressed the view that Zionism is a political ideology that exploits theology.

There are those who believe that the Israel of 1948 is the fulfilment of a biblical prophecy. Senator Ted Cruz, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are among those associated with Christian Zionism in the United States.

Nominal Christians and Jews easily fall into the trap and come to believe in the cause of Zionism. This reveals a frightening example of how religion can be hijacked through religiosity. We see evidence of this across the globe – in jihadist and other religious extremism, Hindutva in India and Christian Zionism.

A warning for Malaysia

We live in a world of diversity, and there is a need to understand and accommodate differences.

But many politicians today use right-wing, identity-centred, exclusivist ideologies that divide communities to win votes. Communalism becomes rampant. In some countries, refugees become the target of such ideas.

Democracy remains vulnerable to such popular pressures.

That this can happen and be condoned in the 21st Century requires us to be aware of such mindsets. They creep in, playing on our biases and prejudices.

We see religious-ethnonationalists promoting Zionism, Christian Zionism, Hindutva and, locally, ketuanan Melayu (Malay supremacy).

We all need to inspect our own perspectives about “the other” and the meaning of community and cohesiveness.

We also encounter white nationalism, Pan-Turkism, Han nationalism, and those who promote nativism and ethnopluralism – the argument that cultures should remain separate to preserve identity.

Not all of them are harmful, and some view them as protective, restorative or rooted in historical justice.

Meanwhile, there is an ongoing, painful genocide unfolding before the world. Despite the United Nations, international law and other international bodies, very little progress has been made in bringing this impunity to an end. What does all this mean for our collective future?

These ideologies are prevailing in several countries. In some instances, their right-wing supporters lack the numbers to bring about political change. The weaponisation of religion – its transformation into religiosity – becomes a popular way to blind people to such radical causes.

We need to be awake to these realities so that we are not brainwashed into thinking it’s OK because everyone thinks so. National unity is critical for our country.

The exclusive, incendiary mindset on display in Israel demonstrates what can happen when an entire people becomes adherent to extreme right-wing causes like Zionism.

We must inspect ideas that divide people from one another. When leaders deliver incendiary speeches that sow division between communities, we see plainly how religion is being weaponised.

History in the case of Hindutva has been painted in a way that justifies the victim status of the majority community in India. Many buy in, because fear is an easy ticket for mental enslavement.

But how can the minority Muslim community, at about 15% of India’s population, have such an impact on the majority? Yet, emotions override rationality, and justifications deepen polarisation. Tragically, a victim mentality can justify taking revenge for events of the past.

Hinduism is some four to six thousand years old and has witnessed a vast array of rulership, from kingdoms to the Moghuls and later the British. Yes, there has been injustice, but we must look to the future.

The cause of secular India is greater than what Hindus, Muslims, Christians or other minorities can achieve alone. It must be a collective endeavour that brings forth the best in all of them. Indian secularism provides this possibility.

Events in Israel warn us of the perils that await us if we allow segments within the community to tear at the fabric of society. All of us have to become vigilant and bring to the table what is best for all.

National unity must be our core focus in Malaysia. We must continue educating our politicians and the public that such exclusive, divisive and radical ideas are dangerous. If such ideas prevail, no one wins, and humanity dies.

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