The State of Israel claims to be “the Jewish state,” and its Zionist leaders claim to be the leaders of the Jewish people. But these claims are entirely false. In reality, the State of Israel is nothing more than the state of the Israelis, and its leaders represent no one other than its citizens. If people realized this and internalized it, the world would be a safer place — for Jews and non-Jews alike.
The Jewish people has existed for over 3,300 years, and it has always meant one thing only — it is the people who follow the religion of the Torah and live their lives according to its laws. Anyone who is born a Jew but does not follow the Torah is not considered part of the Jewish people. And if someone who is not born a Jew decides he wants to become one, he can make a wholehearted commitment to do so, convert, and become a Jew.
The Jewish people is not a race. One cannot convert to a race.
The Jewish people is not a culture. Jews have lived all over the world throughout history and have developed varying cultures. Yemenite Jews eat different foods, wear different clothing, and speak a different language than, for example, Eastern European Jews or Italian Jews. But as long as we follow the Torah, we are considered part of the Jewish people.
The Jewish people is not a nationality. The main feature of a nationality is its land. But the Jewish people became the Jewish people in the Wilderness when it received the Torah from G-d, and it has spent most of its existence in exile from its land. Although the Land of Israel was given by G-d to the Jewish people as the place most suited for fulfilling the Torah, the Jewish people was never defined by its land. A Jew who lives outside the Land of Israel is no less a Jew than one who lives there.
So why, then, does the State of Israel and its leaders make these baseless assertions? Where did this big lie start?
Here’s a brief historical overview:
A bit over 200 years ago, at the end of the 18th century, was the era known as the Enlightenment. At this time, after almost two millennia of persecution, Jews in Europe were granted equal rights as citizens. When that happened, what every Jew should have done was to express his deep gratitude to his host nation and lived the life of an exemplary citizen, while still maintaining his loyalty to the Torah. Unfortunately, many Jews did not respond that way. Instead, they chose to abandon their traditions and assimilate with their gentile neighbors. Some shed their Jewish identity entirely and intermarried.
Many of these assimilated Jews became quite wealthy and influential. Some founded newspapers and other periodicals and used these platforms to disseminate their views. Over time, by spreading hateful messages about the rabbis (the traditional leaders of the Jewish people), they succeeded in poisoning the minds of large swaths of the Jewish multitudes against the rabbis. In their place, new Jewish “leaders” gained the trust of the multitudes, most of whom were not religious or were anti-religious.
Then came the Russian pogroms of the 1880’s. These vicious mob attacks on Jews of all kinds, religious and irreligious alike, proved to be a terrible disillusionment for the assimilationists. They realized that as much as they wanted to become like gentiles, the gentiles would ultimately never let them.
It was out of this period of profound disillusionment that Zionism arose.
The irreligious, assimilated Jews should have heeded the wake-up call and returned to their heritage, to follow the ways of the Torah like the Jewish people had for millennia. But they couldn’t bring themselves to admit they were wrong. Instead, they reasoned: If the gentiles won’t let us be gentiles, if they insist we remain Jews, then we will simply redefine what it means to be a Jew. We will redefine the Jewish people as a nationality like all other nationalities. No longer will the Jewish people be viewed as adherents to the religion of the Torah. From now on, just as there are French gentiles, Italian gentiles, and English gentiles, there will be Jewish gentiles, too. We will become a nation like all other nations.
And that’s what they set out to do. These are facts that anyone can verify — just read what the Zionist themselves wrote. They say all these things openly. Herzl, Jabotinsky, Ben-Gurion, etc. Just read their words (which we will omit here for the sake of brevity). If you didn’t realize that’s what Zionism was and is, you’ll be in for a shock.
With their wealth, media platforms, connections in high places, and the trust of many Jews, the Zionists were remarkably successful at their goal. They acquired all the trappings of a nation — they developed a language (Hebrew), a culture, a new ideology, and an army, and acquired the Land of Israel by force. And now here they are, over seventy years after founding their state. They have control over the Land of Israel and over the lives of millions of Jews.
And they have a dangerous effect on the entire world.
By identifying themselves as the Jewish state and claiming they represent all Jews around the world, they endanger Jews in numerous ways. When Israel takes military action that angers people around the world, Jews in other countries pay the price by suffering attacks. Jews in their host countries are often looked at as having dual loyalty and viewed with distrust. When the state of Israel acts in ways that are in opposition to the values of the Torah, it brings disgrace to the real Jewish people, the loyal Jews who hold the Torah’s values dear.
And when Israel plays its anti-Semitism card (as it does all the time), when it claims that anyone who opposes them is nothing more than an anti-Semite, it effectively bludgeons its opponents into silence. When no one can say a word against Israel for fear they will be branded as an anti-Semite, that’s an extremely serious detriment to peace. No country is above criticism, and Israel should not be, either.
The world must learn what has happened — the greatest case of identity theft in history. An entire nation, which has existed for over 3,300 years, has been and is being robbed of its identity by a group of con artists. The Zionists, over more than a century of propaganda, have succeeded in convincing billions of people that they are the real Jewish people.
To that, the Jewish people declares: Stop pretending that you’re us. Come clean and admit that the state of Israel is not the Jewish state, that it’s just a country like any other, and it represents no one but its citizens. That would go a long way to solving many of the world’s tensions.
They will never do that, of course. But one way or another, the world must learn the truth.
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