The Land Of Purple

ZIONISM:

Everyone loves to form legends about their consecrated “homeland” in an effort to bolster the place’s significance.  It’s why Norman Christians connected the Abbey at Glastonbury to Joseph of “Arimath[a]ea” in the tales of King Arthur (thanks in large part to the writings of William of Malmesbury, then Robert de Boron).  (Gadzooks! The Holy Grail is in ENGLAND?)  Gee-wiz, it must be Providence.  It only makes sense that god’s favorite PEOPLE happen to be associated with god’s favorite LAND.  It all makes perfect sense…if, that is, one is willing to indulge in ethno-centric musings.

Being as they are hidebound ideologues, hyper-traditionalists are inclined to engage in endless revisionism so as to give their present-day claims a veneer of legitimacy–as with cockamamie assertions of territorial sovereignty (in Canaan) along ethnic lines.  (I explore this topic at length in the Postscript; as well as in my essay: “Genesis Of A People”.)

The positing of (ethnic) homelands is a corollary of the agenda to partition the world along ethnic lines; and think of everything—esp. geo-politically—in ethno-centric terms.  Here, the idea is treat ethnicity as a conceit rather than as a recognition of the diversity of mankind.  This entails a posture of derisive alterity; which precludes one from engendering human solidarity as the primary standard for inter-ethnic interaction.  In his 1916 “The Passing Of The Great Race”, Madison Grant expressed his—and others’—obsession with the notion of eternal homelands for ethnic groups: dominions in which there was no inter-racial mixing since time immemorial; and—the hope was—into the future.  Grant supposed the world’s races to—ideally—be forever pure.  Unsurprisingly, the Nazis loved the book; as it placed Anglo-Saxons at the pinnacle of the (imagined) racial hierarchy.

But what was wrong with Grant’s worldview wasn’t the particular ethnicity he designated as the exalted in-group; it was that he was prioritizing ANY ETHNICITY AT ALL.

Alas, this conceit is de rigueur for anyone involved in tribalistic thinking.  It makes sense, then, that associating an ethnic group with a specific territory was standard operating procedure (as was a contempt for miscegenation).  Anyone with such an ideology is inclined to indulge this kind of self-ingratiating farce—regardless of their ethnicity.  Hence a desire to maintain racial purity, and a claim upon a certain piece of real estate based on race lay at the center of Reactionary movements.  In the Far East, for example, similar obsessions underlay imperial Japan’s exaltation of the Nihon-jin (behold their territorial claims in the 30’s and early 40’s).

Grant’s thinking was but one version of a common phenomenon: the ethnic instantiation of hubris.  In other words: This social pathology was not unique to Teutonic / Aryan groups; as ANY group with an ethno-centric worldview was prone to it.  The quintessential example of this pathology TODAY is, of course, Revisionist Zionism.  This is a reminder that conceit and neurosis often go hand in hand.  (The bully is often the most insecure person on the playground.)

The Druze don’t have a nation-State of their own.  Should THEY be entitled to a theocratic ethno-State in the Levant?  How about the Yazidis in Nineveh?  How about the Kurds in Asia minor?  How about the Circassians or Kalmyks in the northern Caucuses?  How about the Jains in Gujarat?  How about the Sikhs in Punjab?  How about the Hmong in southeast Asia?  How about the Tibetans of southwestern China?  How about the Uyghurs in northwestern China?  No longer do any of these ethnic groups have claim upon their own homeland.

The Armenians were displaced from much of the area from Cappadocia and Cilicia (around Lake Van), being forced to the Southern Caucuses in the decades leading up to the First World War.  Does this somehow confer upon them license to engage in ethnic cleansing in the territory on which they stake their claim?  Can the world’s 10 million Armenians return to their original homeland in eastern Anatolia and set up their own ethno-State?  How about the 3 million Basques?  How about the 8.5 million Catalonians?  How about the untold millions of Romani?

Etiologies often serve to bolster ethno-centric worldviews.  This typically involves mythical homelands.  Hmong origin tales place their homeland in the Yellow River Valley (where Chinese civilization began); yet they actually originated in southern China between the Yangtze and Mekong rivers.

Fast-forward to the late 19th century. The original Zionist enterprise was about the Jewish people finding a sanctuary from persecution. That is to say: It was an eminently laudable cause insofar as there was a need for Jews to escape countries in which they were enduring persecution. Until the post-War era, this was a very serious problem; and thus a perfectly valid concern.

Revisionist Zionism has turned this entirely on its head.  The thinking is as follows: “The fact that Nazis just did it to us gives us license to now do it to someone else.”  Lebensraum based on claims ethnic supremacy was a travesty when THEY did it; because we were the victims.”  In other words: “Ethnic cleansing is justified only when WE do it.”  So it comes as no surprise that, in his 1934 “The Idea of Betar”, Ze’ev Jabotinsky stated openly: “When will we be able to say that ‘Palestine’ has become ‘Eretz Yisrael’?  Only when more Jews than non-Jews live in the land.”  Of course, all this assumes that the western Levant was an explicitly Jewish homeland.  That assumption is patently false.

In the argot of Hasbarah, using “Am Israel” in lieu of “Beth Israel” is by design.  Both refer to the world’s Jewish people—using different idioms.  For ideological purposes, the idea is to engage in a hermeneutic sleight of hand; as “nation” means something in the modern era that is entirely different from what it meant in Antiquity.  Using the Hebrew term “am” in contemporary geo-political contexts conflates the two.  As is usually the case, legerdemain comes in handy for ethno-nationalists.  Supplanting a “house of” X with a “NATION of” X primes the designated group (X = Israel) for nationalistic fervor along ethnic lines (in lieu of simply thinking of themselves as a dispersed ethnic group, bound by a shared Mosaic creed).  So rather than a diaspora with various homelands (dwelling amicably amongst others, in different countries); “Israel” is seen as a (lamentably) scattered tribe that must re-convene at a specific place…in order to fulfill its appointed destiny.

Consequently, the “nation” to be realized is no longer thought of as a group of people with a shared creed (as originally conceived), but as a NATION-STATE (a uniquely modern conception).  If the original use of “am” had indicated DOMINION (that is, over a specified realm), then the term used would have been the Hebrew for “kingdom”: “malkut[h]”.  But such terminology was not used; as the only JEWISH “malkut[h]” dubbed “Israel” had been the short-lived, united kingdom of Israel over which David and Solomon presided.  Thereafter, the Jewish kingdom was that of Judah; and it was located in a land called “Judea”.  (Ironically, the kingdom that retained the moniker “Israel” was the pagan kingdom to the north, in the land of Samaria.)

The revamped conception of “nation” (from an ethnic group to a regime) serves as a clarion call for the world’s Jewish people to engage in some sort of “in-gathering” (“aliyah”) on a tract of land designated explicitly for a singular ethnicity (their own) by divine ordinance.  Failing to toe the line, then, is tantamount to countermanding god’s decree; and thus to betray the Mosaic covenant. (!)  And, for the most zealous adherents, such dereliction is to impugn “Israel”…which leads to (entirely spurious) accusations of anti-Semitism.

Those who suggest that Revisionist Zionism has nothing to do with religion clearly don’t know the first thing about Revisionist Zionism or about how religion works in geo-politics.  For their ideology involves a claim OVER land BASED ON religion—in that it consists of geo-political claims that are predicated on a set of sanctified dogmas (viz. ethnicity and territory) concocted thousands of years ago; and rationalized by the historiography found in a holy book.  Those claims are just as spurious as the dogmas invoked to justify them.

Parallels with Israel’s theocratic ethno-nationalism (alt. ethno-centric ethnocracy) can be found with America’s Christian Nationalism (alt. Christian Dominionism), which has always been inextricably related to white nationalism.  The analogy is apt.  For, in each case, proponents are convinced of the following: With the imprimatur of the Abrahamic deity, the chosen group (often racially defined) will triumph!  Such movements are often militant.

And so it goes: The Zionist enterprise is now used as a rationalization for Judeo-supremacists to persecute others–namely: any indigenous peoples who stand in their way. The “Aliyah” [in-gathering] is no longer about getting away from a bad situation (in search of safe harbor); it is about going toward a place, and CREATING a bad situation–for themselves and for everyone else in the region. The thinking seems to go: “Someone did it to us; so now we have the right to do it to someone else.”

The initial (secular) Zionists, who were merely seeking refuge from persecution (which they had been enduring across Europe), never referred to Canaan as “the land of Israel”. They simply called it what it was: Palestine. It was not until Revisionist Zionists made the enterprise about RACE, envisioning an ethnically purified LAND (which had been bequeathed to that race by divine fiat), that right-wing elements started referring to Canaan as “[Eretz] Israel”. The rest was history.

Tellingly, the alternate names proposed for the designated tract of land were:

• “[t]Zabar” [alt. rendered “Sabra”] meaning “[place of] rest”
• “Medinat ha-Halakha” meaning “State of Jewish law”
• “Medinat ha-Yehudim” meaning “State of the Jews” (a rough equivalent of the German “Judenstaat”) {22}

Where was this State to be located? In “Eretz ha-Kodesh” [the Holy Land]. Only later was this moniker changed to “Medinat Yisrael”, which presumably meant the same thing: a “State” for a “People”. Located where? In the Holy Land…which was later refashioned “Land of the Jewish People” (i.e. “Eretz Yisrael”). Yet THAT was then reified to mean a tract of land belonging to a colonial nation-State called “Israel”. An ethnic heritage was thereby invoked to assert geo-political sovereignty.

The indication that Revisionist Zionists are playing games with terminology, then, is their way of referring to the tract of land formerly known as “Palestine”, referred to as “Judea” by their forebears…and ORIGINALLY called “Canaan”: the Land of Purple.

There was just one snafu that needed to be addressed. Since these perfidious interlocutors were re-purposing the term “Israel”, they were forced obfuscate its usage as the name for the northern (pagan) kingdom, “Shomron” [Samaria], when coupling it with the name for the southern (Jewish) kingdom, “Yehud[ah]” [Judea]. Instead of the Kingdom of Israel (for the former) and the Kingdom of Judah (for the latter), they were obliged to refer to both of them in their Romanized forms. Ergo the moniker “Judea and Samaria” is used when referring to the entirety of the coveted territory.

Such nomenclature is downright Kafka-esque, as it effectively renders “Judea and Samaria” (i.e. Canaan) synonymous with “Eretz [y]Israel”. By eliding the name of the northern kingdom (“Israel”), which was pagan, with the name of the land in which it was located (“Samaria”), the buzz-term can then be repurposed as ideologues see fit.

And so it goes: The reification of “Israel” (as the title of a modern nation-state) requires that the northern (non-Jewish) kingdom NOT be remembered as the “Kingdom of Israel”. In arrogating to themselves the license to incorporate all of Canaan into what is now fashioned as “Israel” (qua ethnically-pure nation-State), Revisionist Zionists recognize that the name must be shorn of its pagan connotations. So we do not hear of “Judah and Israel” (the Biblical names of the kingdoms); we only hear of “Judea and Samaria” (the Romanized references to those kingdoms’ respective territories).

Such prestidigitation is only noticed by those familiar with the history of the region and of the onomastics. (Part of obfuscation, after all, is to obfuscate the fact that there has been obfuscation.)

To rationalize this onomastic sleight-of-hand, Revisionist Zionists invoke spurious religious dogmas about divinely-ordained real-estate. This fraudulent narrative was put on full display in 1984 by Joan Peters in her “From Time Immemorial” (a cynical piece of thinly-veiled propaganda about the establishment of the modern nation-State in 1948). Among other things, this farcical account whitewashed the crimes against humanity that occurred (namely, the insidious program of forced evictions–and even massacring–of the indigenous population). The piece de resistance was to coin the perverse adage: “A land without a people for a people without a land” (which was fraudulent on BOTH counts). The point of such casuistry was to obfuscate the ethnic cleansing that occurred in the late 1940’s (and ever since); and thereby romanticize what was really a travesty (known to the native population as the “Nakba”), depicting it as some divinely-ordained crusade.

The ethnic cleansing of a land to make way for the exalted group has been a tragically common occurrence around the world since time immemorial. (Just ask, say, the Kurds, the Bulgars, and the Armenians of Anatolia…or the Tibetans of Bod Chen Po…or the Aborigines of Australia…or the native tribes of the Americas).

For the privileged, the resulting society–which invariably operates according to THEIR terms–seems magnificently democratic. For all that they do is by DIVINE RIGHT. Their odious deeds are legitimized by the invocation of Providence. (Those who are in power invariably tend to say of others’ grievances: “All is as it should be; so what are you complaining about?”) There is, however, another term for “democratic only for certain people”: “undemocratic”. {23}

As children, we learn that “fair for some, not for others” is what UN-fair means. Genuine democracies know no subaltern group. After all, selective justice is the very definition of injustice. Insofar as a society abides an oppressed / marginalized group, it is not democratic. Indeed, ethno-nationalism and civil society are mutually exclusive.

The case could be made that the confabulation of a Semitic (as opposed to Mosaic) identity for European Jews was a racialist construct (much of it based on farcical genealogy). That construct is intended to portray them as inherently foreign, and thus not belonging in Europe by dint of ethnicity. {24} The upshot is to shift the focus from creed (Mosaic) to bloodline (fashioned as “Semitic”). After all, the Revisionist Zionist program is called BIRTH-right, not FAITH-right.

This insidious program was called “lebensraum” by the Nazis. The irony is that Revisionist Zionists play the same game–though in the opposite direction. That is: It is used as an excuse for the exaltation of Jews as the in-group rather than for the derogation of Jews as the out-group. {25}

It is only since “Semitic” has become a term for linguistics (rather than for bloodlines) that people have finally been able to dismantle the scaffolding of racism based on this spurious racialist category–whether in the form of anti-Semitism (on the part of bigoted non-Jews) or anti-goyim-ism (on the part of bigoted Jews).

Tragically, the PURE RACE trope has played a significant role in our public discourse—from Nazism to Revisionist Zionism.  Take, for instance, strident calls for racial purity by the Judean Settler Movement, who—having read the Book of Ezra-Nehemiah—are convinced that Jews mixing seed with non-Jews is an abomination; and that the Creator of the Universe sanctioned their claims of “lebensraum” in the Levant.  (Recall that, in Numbers 25:6-13, the high priest, Phinehas murders a loving couple for the crime of miscegenation.  He was then rewarded by the Abrahamic deity.  The message was loud and clear.)

Fabricated heritage is commonplace around the world.  There is an ethno-centric movement known at pan-Turk-ism, in which all peoples of Turkic ancestry—from Crimean Tatars to Kazakhs—harken back to a mythical homeland: Turan.  This applies to the Turks of Anatolia (who are Turkish) as much as to the Turks of Volga Bulgaria (who are Tatar and Chuvash).  This fever dream serves as a source of ethnic pride for some in the global Turkic diaspora.  Where is this mythical Turan?  Nobody knows for sure.  It could be anywhere between the Altai Mountains and the Dnieper River.  The name comes from the mythical Pishdadian (Persian) prince, Tur[aj] (alt. “Tuzh”), son of Fereydun.  It seems to have vaguely pertained to a region in the vicinity of Bactria—possibly Transoxiana or Sogdia.  In any case, there is little historical credence to this contrived legacy.

So what are we to make of this?  Well, not much.  After all, such confabulation is typical.

According to the Revisionist Zionist narrative popular today, the modern nation-State of “Israel” was founded as a project of “liberation” (for the only group that matters) without any iniquities visited upon the native (Arab) peoples. This is a bewildering assertion that no well-informed, honest person takes seriously. (Such ethno-centric thinking should make any descent human recoil.) Though the claim has no factual basis, it SOUNDS nice, and seems to the untutored to be kinda-sorta plausible; so it is allowed to persist in public discourse. Considering what occurred until 1945, it seems like the least the rest of the world could do.

That said nation-State is an ethnocracy–a theocratic ethno-State founded on humanitarian atrocities–is rarely discussed openly in polite circles. We might pose alternate questions to make the present point: In terms of historical sanctification, Celtic peoples had considered “stone henge” to be a sacred site going back many millennia. Does this, then, give Neo-Druids license to forcibly evict everyone else from Wiltshire, England?

Farcical etiologies (which involve false collective memory) undergird many ideologies. As Shlomo Sand put it: “Collective remembering is to some degree a product of cultural engineering, which is almost always contingent on the mood and the needs of the present. I also place spacial emphasis on the fact that just as the past is responsible for creating the present, the national present freely molds its own past, which, we must always remember, contains vast empty space of forgetting.” And those empty spaces are often filled with apocrypha, custom-tailored to serve the desired purpose.

So, prior to the primacy of Revisionist Zionism in the post-War era, how did religious Jews refer to the Levant?  To answer this question, he might first bear in mind that the original Zionism was a patently SECULAR movement; and did not in any way seek to displace / oppress anyone.  It sought to be afforded cantons in Palestine in the Galilee and along the coast for (socialist) kibbutzim, communal enclaves that would serve as sanctuaries for those who’d been persecuted in Europe.

Even the founder of the original Zionism, Theodor Herzl HIMSELF referred to the land-in-question as “Palestine”.  When he met with pope Pius X on January 25, 1904, Herzl stated: “We are not asking for [dominion over] Jerusalem, but merely for [some land in] Palestine; for only a secular land.”  Where did Herzl say he wanted to be buried?  Jerusalem…in “Palestine”.  The idea of establishing a theocratic ethno-State in the Levant–whereby the indigenous population would be exiled, viciously oppressed, and/or massacred–would have never crossed his mind.

When, in 1933, Jewish communities in Palestine called for a boycott of products made within the Third Reich, mainstream media reported: “Judea declares war on Germany”. It would have made no sense to say that “Israel” declared war on Germany–as that would have included the Ashkenazim and other (Sephardic) European Jews. Prior to the proposition (in 1947) to give a new nation-State the name “Israel”, the moniker referred to the world’s Jewish People–many of whom were not the source of the boycott. It was the Palestinian Jews (i.e. those in JUDEA) in particular who were undertaking the boycott.

Before 1948, Jewish communities in Palestine were referred to as “Yishuv Ha-Ivrit” [Hebrew Settlements]; and their residents (primarily, secular / socialist kibbutzim) referred to the land alternately as “Judea” or “Palestine”…for the simple reason that THAT was, indeed, what it was called (that is, up until the Nakba). {17} To have said “Israel” would have meant the same as saying “Yehudim” (the world’s Jews).

Until the establishment of the modern nation-State of “Israel”, when they opted to conceive of the land in religious terms, devout Jews and Christians thought of the Land of Purple more generally as the “Holy Land”.

Another point: If Zionists had really wanted to create a Jewish nation as ORIGINALLY conceived, it would have been a matter of resurrecting the (quasi-apocryphal) kingdom of Judah; or the Hasmonean regime in what had traditionally be known as “Judea”, which was Maccabean (meaning theocratic and anti-Hellenistic)…replete with the reinstitution of the Sanhedrin and resumption of regular animal sacrifices (both central to the creed at the time). If they opted to invoke what had been the kingdom of Israel, they would have been invoking a regime defined by paganism, not Judaism. The capital of that kingdom was “Shomron” [the city of Samaria], not Jerusalem. Indeed, the KINGDOM OF Israel was often HOSTILE TOWARD Jerusalem…and toward the Abrahamic peoples of the time. {26}

The transition from the HOUSE OF “Israel” (a group of people scattered throughout the known world) to the LAND OF “Israel” (a specific tract of land equated with Canaan, bequeathed to a specific ethnic group formerly known as “Israel”) is the result of a semiotic swindle. Indeed, the notion of “eretz Isreal” is a political locution that has nothing whatsoever to do with anything in the Hebrew Bible; and certainly has no connection to actual history. The “trick”, though, is to pretend that it has EVERYTHING to do with the Hebrew Bible; and is MANDATED by historical precedent.

Referring to the Land of Purple as the “Land of Israel” is deceptive, as it insinuates that the land is to be exclusively affiliated with a particular ethnic group–a group that accounted for a small segment of the land’s demographic composition at a distant point in history (prior to the modern Zionist movement and subsequent “Aliya”). Such addled nomenclature is not uncommon. After all, the moniker “China” is based on the affiliation of an entire country with the Qin Dynasty; the moniker “Russia” is based on the affiliation of an entire country with the “Rus” (“men who row”, referring to the Varangians, who had Nordic origins); and “Portugal” is based on the Roman name for the port of the “Gaels”. All are equally absurd labels to use NOW considering the demographic history of each of those lands (which does not correlate with what is connoted by the onomastics).

The difference is that Portugal is not currently trying to fashion itself as a Celtic ethno-State, in which the polis has pledged its undying fealty to the Gaelic mother-goddess, Cailleach.

And imagine notifying all the people of China that only those whose heritage can be traced back to King Huiwen from the 4th-century B.C. are LEGITIMATELY Chinese.

And imagine telling all Russians that they are now obliged to honor the legacy of the Vikings.

To suggest that the entirety of Canaan is to be identified exclusively with one particular ethnic bloc is racist. It is an especially insane sort of racism, as such a proposal is predicated solely on the sanctified historiography of that ethnic bloc. In other words, it is not just perfidious; it is delusional.

To recapitulate: Prior to Zionism, the Jewish diaspora entailed no one homeland for “Beth Israel”. Going back to the Hebrew patriarch, Joseph, the place of origin for the vast majority of the world’s Jews was NOT the Land of Purple. Indeed, for most of its history (per Judaic lore), when speaking of any given Jews’ “homeland” (“moledet” in Ancient Hebrew), Canaan / Judea / Palestine was NEVER referred to in this manner. For in the Hebrew Bible, “moledet” simply meant a familial country-of-origin (that is: wherever one happened to be born). Hence Beth Israel was affiliated with SEVERAL DIFFERENT “moledet”. Referring to the Land of Purple as THE homeland of the Jewish people is thus both historically and etymologically fallacious.

There is nothing especially unique about a name-change PER SE. It might be noted that transformations in the nomenclature of LAND is quite common. Virtually every region on the planet has undergone an onomastic metamorphosis; and those name-changes have mostly to do with the interests of those doing the naming.