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Causes of the war
in the Middle East The war in the Middle East between Israel and Hamas, which on the
Hamas side has also been joined by Hezbollah in Lebanon and Iran, has, in my
opinion, its roots in the so-called "Holy Books" of the two
religions, i.e. the Tanakh (the "Old Testament") of the Jews and
the Koran, as many Muslims understand it. First, the "Holy Book" of the Jews, the Tanakh: In the first part of the Tanakh, the Torah, the land of Israel is
given by God to the Israelite people as an eternal possession. Some biblical
scholars see this as an admonition to the people of Israel to see the land as
a gift from God to all in the people, i.e. no one may call a piece of land
their own; according to this theology, every piece of land has a social
responsibility. People in Israel today are trying to achieve this in the
kibbutzim, where there is common ownership and grassroots democratic structures. But the problem is that many people in Israel still believe today that
God actually gave them the land, and the devout Jews
in particular are convinced that they have not only the right but the duty to
drive all other peoples and religions out of the land in order to take
possession of the land on God's behalf. God himself, according to the
biblical text, has established a political system, a "theocracy"
with a "chosen people of God". That is why the ultra-conservatives in Israel, who are becoming
increasingly numerous because of their large number of children and are
exerting ever greater influence on the politics of the Israeli state, still
define the state of Israel according to cruel biblical stories: Examples: Dtn 7,1-2: When your God יהוה brings you to the land that you are about to enter and possess, and
[God] dislodges many nations before you—the Hittites, Girgashites,
Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, seven nations much
larger than you— and your God יהוה delivers them to you and you defeat them, you must doom them to
destruction: grant them no terms and give them no quarter. Dtn 9,3: Know
then this day that none other than your God יהוה is crossing at your head, a
devouring fire; it is [God] who will wipe them out—subduing them before you,
that you may quickly dispossess and destroy them, as יהוה promised you. 1 Sam 15,3: Samuel
said to Saul, … “Now go,
attack Amalek, and proscribe all that belongs to him. Spare no one, but kill
alike men and women, infants and sucklings, oxen
and sheep, camels and asses!” That is why these devout Jews simply take away the land of the Arabs
in the West Bank and build their settlements there. Is it any wonder that these Arabs experience solidarity in many
countries around the world because of this injustice? To the “Holy Book” of the Muslims, the Koran: There are
also texts there that call for intolerance, sometimes even ruthless cruelty,
against other religions in the name of God: Examples: Sure 3,118: „O you who believe! Do not
befriend outsiders who never cease to wish you harm. They love to see you
suffer. Hatred has already appeared from their mouths, but what their hearts
conceal is worse. We have made the messages clear for you, if you understand. Sure 5,51: O you who believe! Do not take the Jews and the Christians as allies; Sure 47,4: When you encounter those who disbelieve, strike at their necks. Then,
when you have routed them, bind them firmly. Then, either release them by
grace, or by ransom, until war lays down its burdens. Had God willed, He
could have defeated them Himself, but He thus tests some of you by means of
others. As for those who are killed in the way of God, He will not let their
deeds go to waste. Sure 49,15: The believers are those who believe in God and His Messenger, and then
have not doubted, and strive for God’s cause with their wealth and their
persons. These are the sincere. Therefore, Hamas' cruelty is not only an expression of their anger and
solidarity against the injustice done to their fellow believers in the West
Bank, but also a behavior demanded by their religion in the Koran. So in order to create peace in the so-called
"Holy Land", a historical-critical view of the "Holy
Scriptures", i.e. the Tanakh and the Koran, would have to prevail. Only when one recognizes the conflict situations in which these texts
were created a very long time ago and what meaning these texts had at that
time will one realize that these texts are no longer valid today, and
certainly not as political instructions for action for our time! It is also worth asking why people in our time do not consider the
psychological, sociological and political science findings of our time for
personal and sociopolitical problems but instead believe that they can find
solutions in ancient texts that God has supposedly given us. This is about the connection between contemporary spirituality and
contemporary rationality, i.e. the formulation of a doctrine of faith that
was developed in dialogue with the findings of psychology, sociology and
political science and is constantly being renewed - in line with the progress
of these sciences. Manfred
Hanglberger |
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