By Gilad Atzmon,10 juillet 2024
The Hebrew term used for an Orthodox Jews is 'an anxious Jew' (ירא שמים, יהודי חרד). Judaism is sustained by collective fear. Primarily it is the fear of the angry and revengeful Father figure. That Father figure is sometimes a Genocidal character. A good example of his appetite for mass killing is, of course, the Biblical story of Sodom and Gomorrah. In another Biblical incident the same God gives Samson the strength to kill himself together with thousands of Philistines. But the heroic Judaic Father figure also has been a WMD enthusiast. The biblical story of the Ten Plights of Egypt is a story of Godly cruelty that should challenge the imagination of the most advanced biological warfare specialists worldwide.
A brilliant Israeli philosopher who happens to be a close family relative has been convinced for years that the collective problematic symptoms manifested by Israel are actually typical of abused children that are tormented and tortured by their parents' aggression. In the case of Israel, according to the hypothesis, we are dealing with people tormented by an image of a demonic Godly Father figure. 'The abused children of Israel' is how my relative refers to the tribe and Israel in particular.
I would take it one step further. I often concern myself with a fundamental question: what came first, the Jews or maybe Judaism? I actually believe that Jews were prior to their religion. They invented a 'God' in their own image and also made themselves into its chosen children.
This decision to take such a path, inventing a demonic Father, has been serving many tribal interests. Fear is a unifier. And the rabbis practically understood that terror unites the people into a herd of sheep. They grasped it two and a half millennia before the Neocons fear mongering, climate extinctionists and also the WHO.
The Jews have been united by different types of fears. They fear the antisemites, the Amalekites, the Goyim in general, the Arabs in particular and the Iran nuclear project specifically. They fear everything that isn't them and sometimes they are also fearful of each other. For a Jewish religion to become a valid precept, it has to establish a form existential threat. If this fear doesn't exist it will have to be evoked or even invented.
The holocaust religion has its Hitler, the Moral Interventionists have the Hijab, the Jewish Bolsheviks didn't like the Tsar and his family. The progressives hate the white male, The anti zionists hate the Zionist's and vice versa. Unlike some universal religions that seek harmony and reconciliation, Judaism and Jewish secular ID politics are always driven by negation that materializes into organized fear.
This addiction to fear of pretty much everything, is easy to explain. First you fear your Father figure, then you are also fearful of yourself as your Father was made in your own image. You may even have fear of yourself being a worshiper of such a demonic Father. And if you have fear of yourself, you naturally become fearful of everything around you by means of projection. You must believe that everyone else must be at least as cruel and demonic as you happen to be.
In my early work I argue that Jesus was the first to grasp this vicious cycle. Accordingly, he made the Father into a realm of goodness. He then tried to teach his contemporaries to turn the other cheek. It didn't end very well as we all know.
However, the realisation of the centrality of fear is fundamental to the understanding of Israeli political and military doctrine. From the day of its inception, Israel has been obsessed with its 'powers of deterrence'. Israel wants the entire region to be fearful of its existence.
The iconic right wing early Zionist figure Ze'ev Jabotinsky referred to it as the Iron Wall doctrine and according to great Israeli historian Avi Shlaim, Ben Gurion adopted Jabotinsky's Iron Wall philosophy despite the two being bitter rivals. The above explains why Israel invested in nuclear bombs and WMD already in the early 1950s. They wanted everyone out there to be fearful of them the way they are also fearful of themselves. The Israelis too often vow to bring Arab and Muslims back to the Stone Age. Members of the Israeli current cabinet are talking about it in the open. Others are less vocal yet implement tactics and strategies that translate into the genocide we witness in Gaza. The siege, the destruction and the barbarism that have been performed in Gaza over the years proves that the Israelis are not kidding. They aren't different from the God of Sodom and Gomorrah. In fact, in their eyes, they are that God. They are both the excecutioners and the absolute almighty moral authority.
Tragically for Israel, their scare mongering has run out of steam. The indigenous people of the land and also Israel's immediate neighbours have lost their fear. This is the true meaning of 7 of October. It is the determination to be emancipated from the Old Testament doctrine. This is the true meaning of the resistance we see in the region.
See also: Gilad Atzmon talks about his latest book "The Wandering Who?"