Peter Reynolds

Israel is historical fiction. The idea comes from the Bible, the most successful work of fiction ever, and the story of a people called the Israelites, named after their ancestor who was called Israel or Jacob, the son of Isaac and grandson of Abraham. The legend developed and the name ‘Israel’ eventually came to refer to the people as a whole. The ‘Land of Israel’ is described as a promised homeland.

That is all there is. It has as much basis in fact as the Hobbit, the Loch Ness monster, Robin Hood or Beowulf.

Then in the 19th Century the idea of Zionism appeared driven by the need for a Jewish homeland in response to antisemitism, and influenced by European nationalism. Zionist leaders decided that there should be a Jewish homeland in Palestine. The idea developed over time, even gaining Hitler’s support in the 1930s, as he thought he could deport all German Jews to Palestine. Eventually after WWII and the Holocaust, the UK and USA supported the invasion of Palestine by about 100,000 Jewish refugees from Eastern Europe. They drove out about 750,000 Palestinians by military force and so established the state of Israel.

This was quite clearly a terrible war crime but to our eternal shame, probably because of guilt over the Holocaust, UK and USA manipulated the UN into post facto ‘legalisation’ of it. There you have the cause of all today’s problems after 77 years of slaughter and subjugation of Palestinians by Israel.