TEHRAN (FNA)- Eric Walberg, Canadian author and journalist, says Israel has been trying to take the Judaism elements out of the society, and function as a secular entity; though, it is done under the cover of Jewishness to maintain their international face as a religious regime.
In an exclusive interview with FNA, Eric Walberg said, “The religious Jews are against Israel, traditionally. They argue this is distortion of God’s message. This is the underlying contradiction between religion and tribalism… Majority of the Israeli settlers consider themselves secular; not Jews, and with no interest in Judaism. They even have taken out any elements of Judaism from their education system. The religion is used only as a cover.”
Eric Walberg is a well-known Canadian author and journalist specializing in the Middle East, Central Asia and Russia since 1980. He is also a regular contributor to various mainstream and alternative media, including Counterpunch, Dissident Voice, Global Research, Al-Jazeerah, Press TV and Turkish Weekly.
Below is the full text of the interview:
Q: There are obvious contradictions between what is practiced in Judaism and how Israel functions. Is Israeli eligible to be called a Jewish regime?
A: The trouble with Israel’s culture and education system is that they are trying to build a new artificial ideology which is called Jewishness; it is not a religion any longer. The problem emerges when they try to educate young students on secularism in the name of religion: what they have done is taking out Judaism (a religion) which the founder of Israel Ben-Gurion dismissed as a historical misfortune of the Jewish people. So, the whole idea was to get rid of the religion originally, but then they realized that for acceptance internationally they could not use the Nazi tribal racist ideology openly, which is underlying. But on the surface, they still promote Judaism as a religion. This is why the religious Jews are against Israel, traditionally. They argue this is distortion of God’s message. This is the underlying contradiction between religion and tribalism. They try to bring religion into the society, but in a secular way. Majority of the Israeli settlers consider themselves secular; not Jews, and with no interest in Judaism. They even have taken out any elements of Judaism from their education system. The religion is used only as a cover. They have to pretend to be a religious state if they want to call themselves Jewish. If they are not religious, then they will be called a tribal state, which is a racist term.
Q: There are many differences detected between Judaism and Jewish religion. Do you believe such added or removed elements in the new era are intentional?
A: An instance is Israel’s Star of David, which was originally the seal of Solomon. It was in the fourth century that the emblem began to be used as a religious symbol. Now, it is used as a nationalistic symbol on the flag. So, there is one very clear evidence that how religion and secularism are confused. The other evidence is holocaust, which has been taken from secularism and put into Jewishness. The word means the burned offering. There is a Jewish religious idea that there is a somehow all of the Jews are some kind of the burned offering to the God, which is a horrifying idea; why would God want to kill millions of people as religious offering?
Q: Considering the internal affairs, especially the high rate of racial discrimination inside Israel, is there any room left to recognize the regime as a religious one?
A: Some 20% of the residents of the occupied territories are Arab Muslims. They are completely left out of the mainstream education. There are Arab language schools, but they cannot go to university, as they cannot speak in Hebrew. This causes the second class citizens to become in existence. Adding other minority groups such as Mizrahi, who are Arab Jews coming from Iraq, Egypt, Yemen and Iran, more than half of the population are discriminated against. The ruling class is Ashkenazi Jews, who are from Europe. It displays the rate of racism, even among Mizrahis and Ashkenazis Jews which are put into two different classes, preventing any sorts of integration. Being a Jewish state is a racist itself, totally different from being a religious state.
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