Israel at 70
Thursday April 19 marks the 70th anniversary of the birth of Israel as a sovereign state. The event is being celebrated with fanfare and drums throughout Eretz Israel. The number 70 in Jewish mysticism represents completeness and new beginnings. The world was created in 7 days. Seven times 10 also represents fulfilment of potential. It is written in the Torah that 70 Jewish souls went with Jacob into Egypt to form a nation within a nation; 70 elders were chosen by Moses; there were 70 elders of the Sanhedrin; and the Babylonian exile lasted 70 years. The figure 70 in Hebrew is known as “ayin”. It represents not only the “eye” that sees all things; it stands for “source, well, spring, fountain and origin”.
The Unilateral Declaration of Independence on 15 May 1948 by Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion has been one of the great miracles of history. There is no other parallel to it, whereby a people colonised, enslaved, persecuted and dispersed throughout the world for 2,000 years have risen, Phoenix-like, from the ashes. And what is even more remarkable, they have retained their ancient language and religion. Contemporary Israel is a testimony to the resilience of the human spirit – its infinite capacity for endurance, faith and hope across 3,000 years of Jewish civilisation.
Abraham is the father of faith for the three world religions – Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The Bible records that Abraham, a very wealthy patriarch, paid tithes – a tenth of all his possessions – to the legendary Melchizedek King of Salem; a royal priest-king who had no father and no mother and who had no date of birth – an archetype of the Christ. During their centuries of serfdom in Egypt, YHWH sent his servant Moses to liberate his people. During their 40 years of wandering in the desert Moses went up to Mount Sinai and came down with the Ten Commandments that have formed the bedrock of Jewish ethics since time immemorial.
In November last year, I attended the World Science Forum hosted at the Dead Sea Resort in the Jordan Valley. From my hotel room at night, I beheld the glimmering lights of Jericho across the border. On the other side was Mount Nebo, where Moses, according to legend, first beheld the Promised Land and is supposedly buried. He was not to go into the Promised Land because his hands were filled with blood.
The kings of Israel dwelt in their eternal capital Jerusalem. Solomon was reputed to be the wealthiest and wisest king who ever lived. Africa features in Jewish history not only through their sojourn in Egypt but also through the union between King Solomon and the legendary Queen of Sheba, from whom succeeding kings of Ethiopia claimed descent. They were also blessed with great seers; from Jeremiah to Isaiah, Ezekiel, Nahum, Joel, Hosea, Obadiah and Habakkuk. They were often at war with their neighbours Assyria, Philistia and Babylon.
Some of the darkest years in their history coincided with the sacking of Jerusalem by King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon who carted away all the gold and silver from the Temple while taking captive some of the young princes of Israel – Daniel, Shedrack, Meshack and Abednego. They preserved themselves in holiness, and by wisdom and intellect excelled as rulers and advisers to the kings of Babylon. But their hearts were forever on Jerusalem: “By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion.”
No history of a people has been as chequered as the history of the Jewish people. At the time of Jesus Christ circa AD 1 to AD 33, Judea was a minor province of the Roman Empire. Alexander and the Greeks had left their imprints centuries earlier. The Zealots emerged as a nationalist movement prepared to repel the foreign occupiers by force of arms. They longed for a Messiah who will come on horseback to liberate them from their Roman conquerors. In AD 70, things came to a head when the Emperor Vespasian and his son Titus laid siege on Jerusalem, leading to the dispersal of the Jews to all corners of the world.
Wherever they went they kept their identity and culture. “Next year in Jerusalem”, was always the parting word. Some became fully integrated with their host cultures, rising to positions of prominence. The medieval philosopher Moses Maimonides, the Rambam – known to the Arabs as Musa bin Maymun – was a vizier and private doctor to the kings of Egypt. He is revered as one of the ornaments of Jewish spiritual and intellectual life. Throughout their millennia of exile in Europe the Jews endured violence and anti-Semitism. As a teenager, I devoured the novels of Nobel laureate Isaac Bashevis Singer about life in the ghettos of Warsaw, St. Petersburg and Vilnius. My tears would literally drench the pages, making them unreadable.
The Hasidic movement began as a mystical tradition in the midst of persecution and suffering. In the early eighteenth century, Israel ben Eliezer, the Baal Shem Tov, was a peasant Ukrainian orphan who began a series of spiritual teachings that were to transform the very nature of Judaism.
I myself have drunk deep from the springs of Jewish mysticism and philosophy through the works of Martin Buber, Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, Emmauel Levinas and Gershom Scholem. I have also learned political wisdom from the feet of the great Professor Yehezkel Dror, Israel Prize 2005. The Jewish concept of vivek olam – to perfect this world – has been dear to my heart, as is their eternal optimism and Tikvatenu (our hope).
According to the late Kenyan political scientist Ali al-Amin Mazrui, the difference between Jews and Africans is that the former overcame racism through Talmudic learning and deep-rooted spirituality; Africans, by contrast, took refuge in nihilistic self-hate, violent crime, alcoholism and drugs. It is no surprise that 70 percent of all Nobel laureates in science are people of Jewish extraction. Jews make up a mere 3 percent of the American population but control 25 percent of its wealth.
Contemporary Israel is the culmination of the Zionist Movement which began in late nineteenth century as a response to the worsening crisis of anti-Semitism in Europe. Theodor Herzl, a journalist and writer of Austro-Hungarian origins, organised the first World Congress on Zionism in the Swiss city of Basel in August 1897. Scion of a wealthy Jewish family who had initially set his sights on the German ideals of “bildung” (high intellectual culture), dedicated his life to founding a permanent homeland for his people in Palestine: “We shall live at last as free men on our own soil, and die peacefully in our own homes. The world will be freed by our liberty, enriched by our wealth, magnified by our greatness.”
Hope came by way of the Balfour Declaration 1917 which made explicit reference to the creation of a homeland for the Jewish people in Palestine. World War I led to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Palestine became a British Mandate Territory. The rise of Hitler and fascism in Europe – and the Shoah – upped the stakes by a high order of magnitude. Waves upon waves of Jewish refugees returning from war-torn Europe created inevitable tensions with the local Arab population. Jewish guerrilla movements such as the Irgun, Palmach, Lehi and Haganah were bent on chasing out the British. A weakening imperial Britain was in no position to resist.
Immediately following the Unilateral Declaration of Independence, more than a million Palestinian refugees fled their homes, most of them never to return. War immediately broke out, with coordinated military invasion by Egypt, Syria and Jordan, together with expeditionary forces from Iraq. They were defeated by the battle-hardened Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Other major wars were to follow: the 1967 Six-Day War; the Yom Kippur War 1973; and the Lebanese War 1982. Israel not only survived; it gained territory. Outnumbered by formidable enemies throughout its neighbourhood, Israel has become a garrison warrior state; a country in a state of permanent mobilisation.
Israel is a prosperous democracy with 8.8 million people, of which 6 million are Jews and the rest Arabs. It has a GDP of US$362 billion and a per capita income of US$40,762; an oasis of freedom in a sea of chaos. It is reputed worldwide as “the start-up nation”, at the cutting-edge of high technology, robotics, agronomy, pharmaceutics and bioengineering. Israel has more than 63 companies registered in NASDAQ, ahead of any other country with exception of the United States.
The Israel Institute of Technology, Technion, ranks among the world’s elite science and technology research universities; founded in 1912 with the help of Albert Einstein himself. Silicon Wadi is an industrial cluster around Tel Aviv that leads in high-tech research and innovation. In March 2017 Intel bought Mobileye, a leader in computer vision for driverless cars, paying a whopping US$15.3 billion for it. Companies such as IBM, Google, Facebook, HP and Oracle have established their presence in Silicon Wadi. The government has strived to build an enabling eco-system together with the right mix of incentives to usher in a flourishing innovation society.
Amid the celebrations, there will be some on the other side of the fence who mourn. Among the Arabs, 1948 was the nakba (great humiliation). The world today is divided between those who love Israel and want her to survive and flourish and those who loath and wish her annihilated. When asked about Israel, the late British musician Bryn Jones replied: “I would not tolerate anything to do with Israel…the whole people are disgusting”.
Israel is far from being a perfect democracy. While it may not be an “Apartheid state”, Arab-Israelis complain of routine discrimination, not to talk of the Ethiopian Falashas. Israeli settlers have a penchant for retaliating with overkill at the slightest provocation. There is also the humanitarian crisis in the occupied territories. This is not to overlook the work of men such as David Shulman, winner of the prestigious Israel Prize for 2016, and his team of grassroots volunteers. They have been working through an organisation known as Ta’ayush, to bring succour to local Palestinian communities — digging wells, harvesting orchards and looking after children.
Some progressive elements in Israeli society, including President Reuven Rivlin, look favourably upon the idea of a one-state solution as the ultimate answer. However, a recent poll sponsored by the EU found that both Israeli Jews (82%) and Palestinian Arabs (72%) are overwhelmingly opposed to the idea “by which Palestinians and Jews will be citizens of the same state and enjoy equal rights”. Israeli Jews worry about losing the “Jewish character” of their country while Palestinian Arabs would rather live in a state of their own. A two-state solution is also not without its nightmares. There is no corridor linking the West Bank with the Gaza Strip. And not all Palestinians are willing to hammer out a modus vivendi with the Jewish State. Hamas, for example, is a radical Iranian satellite sworn to mortal combat with the Jewish state.
Our role in Africa is to be a moderating influence; working with others across the world to find a just and lasting peace. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited East Africa in July 2016; the first Israeli leader to do so in decades. In June 2017 he was in Monrovia to address the summit of ECOWAS leaders. Nigeria’s absence on that occasion spoke volumes. Netanyahu reaffirmed his commitment to seeking common ground with African countries for mutual prosperity. We need to cooperate in fighting terrorism. Israeli technology can help boost African agriculture and infrastructures while our natural resources can help drive Israeli industry and investments. The scenario is that of a win-win, positive-sum game.
Obadiah Mailafia