Academician Duraković: The Religious Character of the Genocide Against Palestinians

For Patria, academician Esad Duraković writes

In the ongoing genocide in Gaza (and also in the West Bank), one can hear or read even in Bosnia and Herzegovina an inaccurate "assessment" that this is not a religious war. It is stated that this is a "political war," a war for territory, or it is simply said that it is not a religious war without explaining its character.

It is difficult to say whether such statements are a consequence of misunderstanding these events or something else is at play. However, it is abundantly clear that the Zionist dehumanization of Palestinians rests on "religious argumentation" and that the complete "cleansing" of the Holy Land of Arabs is a dogma of Zionism, which consists of some Jews and (tele)evangelists who are extremely powerful and, as Zionists, are more radical even than Jewish Zionists. They shape current policy in the Middle East exclusively according to prophecies from sacred texts, meaning their policy is sacralized to the point of the crudest fanaticism. This is the most brutal type of war, using the enormous power of political actors to achieve goals based on biblical and other prophecies. (It is enough to read in Bosnian the books of two American authors: Grace Halsell, "Prophecy and Politics" and E. S. Margolis, "American Raj: Liberation or Domination").

Author Halsell was born into an evangelical family in the USA, has pilgrimaged to the Holy Land many times, and writes about things knowing them from within.

Any possible "argumentation" that this is a matter of politics, that it is merely a struggle for territory, etc., is absolutely wrong, because – struggles for territory very often have religious motives (as has happened many times in the world, as religious wars for territory have been waged for hundreds of years).

In the Middle East, genocide is being committed against Palestinians to "cleanse" the land for the "chosen people" and to fulfill biblical prophecies. Moreover – there are numerous books and documents about this – the goal of Zionism is to bring the conflict in that area to Armageddon, which is a condition for the appearance of the Messiah, and who can say that this is not a supreme religious goal?!

Much could be written about the religious character of the Zionist genocide, but for this occasion I will cite only two top authorities who testify to this.

1. When Reagan, for example, ran for the US presidency in 1980, he often entered into discussions about Armageddon. Thus, evangelical journalist Jimmy Baker states that Reagan told him: "This very generation of ours will witness the apocalypse of Armageddon.

The end of the world is within our reach." In the same year, his statement was recorded in an appearance before Jewish leaders of America: "Israel personifies the only stable democracy on which we must, without doubt, rely as the place of the imminent battle of Armageddon." In October 1983, Reagan addressed Thomas Dine from the Committee for American-Israeli Relations: "As you know, I firmly lean on your prophets from the Old Testament and on the prophecies that foretell Armageddon."

2. Reagan was president, as we know, and quite recently, an extremely powerful man, the Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Republican Mike Johnson, spoke in October 2023 at the Republican Jewish Coalition conference in Las Vegas about the support of the United States of America for Israel, legitimizing it also with the Bible:

"This special relationship that Israel and the USA have, of course, transcends politics and diplomacy. And it is about much more than current events. As a Christian, I know and believe that the Bible very clearly teaches that we should stand with Israel, that God will bless the nation that blesses Israel."

Unfortunately, this genocide is clearly religious in character. Politics has been used to achieve religious prophecies.

However, it is necessary to keep in mind that Judaism cannot be reduced entirely to Zionism: there are very respected Jews who strongly condemn the Zionist genocide against Palestinians: from the outstanding scholar Noam Chomsky to a considerable number of rabbis.