Louis E. A. Moyston| The Chosen Two: Religions on trial

IT IS important to understand the conceptual underpinnings of the Israeli-Palestine conflict, as well as the unwavering and monumental financial, military and material support from the United States of America to their “chosen” ally Israel, generally, and especially in times of conflicts and wars.

In order to make sense of this conflict, it is important to have an understanding of the ‘chosen few’ concept. The works of Todd Giltin and Liel Leibovitz, Chosen Peoples: America and Israel, is a blend of history, politics, and theology to offer an understanding of the ‘chosen few’ idea; and Benjamin L. Merkel in United in Christ: Walking in the Spirit for his explanation of the “divine election” which is the guiding force that shaped both the vision of the United States of America and Israel.

CHOSEN BY GOD

These ‘chosen two’ are strengthened by the idea of ‘providential destiny’ that shaped their behaviour towards the rest of the world. Both countries enjoy a special friendship on the basis that they were “chosen by God”. This is where St Augustine, the Christian philosopher, in his book The City of God, comes in with the justification for the actions of the “chosen two”. These states, he argues, are led by God as elect to do the work of God – to keep the “heathens” in check. Importantly in his book, he offers lessons on just and unjust wars and the rules to guide military engagements: no violence or aggression against the clergy, women and children, non-combatants in general.

According to Giltin and Leibovitz’s Chosen People, the United States of America and Israel embrace and advance the idea that their nations were “chosen”, in perpetuity, “to do God’s work”. As a result, the “chosen two” use their “blessings” to unleash aggression on the “heathens” – non-Christians. In the case of the Americans, the “divine election” guided them against their colonial master, Britain, in their War of Independence in 1776; and the wars and genocidal activities against the Native Americans, in order to control the land; followed by ‘Manifest Destiny’, the seizing of land from Mexico and the building of empires abroad. The Americans waged onslaughts on non-Christians such as Vietnamese peoples, and twice against non-Christian Iraqis, to name a few.

GUERILLA WARFARE

The Jews were more or less a diasporic people in modern history, but they were constantly living under violence and expulsion and, by the World War I and II eras, we saw the European Jews set upon Palestine, where both traditional/Semitic Jews lived with Palestinian people in peace. The European Jews unleashed severe guerilla warfare, so intense that the British, who were in charge of Palestine, made a hasty retreat that gave them the territory. This was followed by a history of increasing land seizure from the Palestinians and lands from neighbouring states.

This ‘choseness’ is manifested in the post-October 7 Hamas raid into Israel, killing Israelis and kidnapping many, as well as the destruction of property. This raid was not a random act. In recent years, the Israeli government has been building communities on Palestinians’ lands, and some Israeli citizens, especially from the Kibbutz, have been conducting pogroms against Palestinians, driving them off and capturing their lands. Decades of Hitler-type pogroms are accompanied by genocidal activities against the Palestinians, tantamount to crimes against humanity, with the help and support of the United States of America. The European Jews are doing to the Palestinians what they did not like about Hitler’s pogroms and genocide.

TREASURED POSSESSION

What is this “divine election” that guides the Israelis and the Americans? In his book United in Christ: Walking in the Spirit, Benjamin Merkel defines “divine election” as “God’s choice of individuals to receive his favour before they have done anything good or bad – predestined.” It is not a choice based on certain deeds but “solely on God’s sovereign grace”, and that “God chose the nation of Israel to be a treasured possession”.

The religious persons who were expelled from Britain landed in Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts in 1619, followed by other missions over the years and later populated by European immigrants as they waged war against the Native Americans and Mexico for lands for expansion westward and southward. In a similar tradition, the Europeans Jews were expelled from Europe and made their ways from the First World but with noted increase during the Second World War. In both cases, the native peoples suffered genocide and brute force as they lost control of their lands.

I find the thinking of the Christian philosopher St Augustine useful in making sense of the idea of “choseness”, as well as how this “divine elect” guides the history of both Israel and the United States of America. I find St Augustine’s work The City of God interesting and instructive in understanding the behaviour and actions against peoples and states by Israel and America.

ALIEN TO GOD’S LOVE

So, according to his world in his book, there is the “earthy city” in which people who are “un-regenerative” (not spiritually reborn), the heathen, live. They are justifiably damned and are alien to God’s love, because they are of a rebellious disposition which they inherited from the fall of Adam and Eve. On the contrary, only those who are predestined by God will enter The City of God, implying that the latter is the world of the “chosen few”.

In a rational spat, he argues that while political states serve divine purpose, they are imperfect but, in spite of this defect, the citizens must obey their leaders and that they have no right to protest. Rulers, he argues, are God’s ministers, they are empowered to keep the “heathens” under manners and in control; and that the rulers can first develop coercive laws, even death penalty to maintain law and order. Second, the state must develop a massive army having “the right to punish the guilty, heretics and schismatics.” He declares that war is part of God’s plan, that human history is a history of warfare. A “just war”, with the help of an ally, is conducted to defend the state from external attacks and invasion and also a war to punish a nation in accordance to “divine command”. This is a picture, a clear reflection of the history of Israeli onslaught on the Palestinians from then to now; an instructive interpretation of the ‘chosen few’ idea and its application against the “heathen”, in accordance with “divine command”.

CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY

The “chosen two” do not have any respect for international organisations and institutions. The Americans like to refer people to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), yet that country does not subject itself to the ICJ. Putin is accused of committing “crimes against humanity” but they turn blind eyes to the brazen and wicked atrocities, tantamount to genocide, to the Palestinian people. Even though the discourses of St Augustine gave justifications for the adherence to the ‘chosen few’ mentality, they also offered guidelines to war. The Americans neglected those rules in Vietnam and twice in Iraq, and the Israelis have been disregarding those standards since they unleashed their full guerilla force in the post-World War II period.

All peoples have the right to self-determination, homeland and self-defence. This position includes the Palestinians and the Israelis, and this is the central question regarding the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and not just the Hamas October 7 incident.

Louis E. A. Moyston, PhD. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com