New Zion and Old Zion under flags of convenience

Mohammad Siddique Seddon·

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It is no surprise to see Israeli flags and Union Jacks flying side by side in Northern Ireland. This is a clear indicator of the religious fundamentalist psyche of the far right Loyalist movement. In displaying their support of Zionist Israeli brutality they are endorsing Israel's wrongly perceived legitimacy and its extended territorial claims. For the Protestant extremists the Israeli government's brutal and murderous expansionist policy in Palestine must be supported in order to vindicate and legitimise their own historical occupation and settlement of Northern Ireland by their English ancestors. It is in much the same way that the right-wing evangelicals in America validate a Jewish 'homeland' in the Holy Land of Palestine. British territorial claims to both Ireland and America were theologically, and therefore religiously justified within Protestant Christian interpretations of the Old Testament. New lands and potential colonies were presented as the religious Zion in accordance with Biblical teachings; God's 'chosen people' were spiritually justified in their holy war for the Holy Land. In the case of Ireland the indigenous Irish Catholics represented no less than theological anti-Christ's and for the colonialist in the 'new world', the American Indians were a plausible 'demonic' and 'barbaric' other. The perceived religious deviance of the Irish Catholics and apparent 'heathenness' of the American Indians by the Protestant English were in themselves justification for occupation, domination and annihilation - Old Testament style. British Colonialists began to graph Biblical history onto the political landscapes of colonised Ireland and the newly discovered America. These new 'Israelites' had found the pretext and a religious reasoning for their imperialism and colonialism.

Furthermore, the Protestant obsession with Jewish 'restorationism', a peculiar form of non-Jewish Zionism which started in the 17th century as part of a theological reworking of Christian eschatology born out of the ideas of Protestant 'chosen ness' and staunch anti-papal and anti-Muslim sentiments added weight to Zionist claims in Palestine. It was believed that if the Protestants could 'restore' the Jews to Palestine, they would then rise up and annihilate the 'Turks', 'Barbarians' and 'Saracens', all Elizabethan misnomers for Muslims. Thereafter, it was believed that the Jews would convert to Christianity or rather Protestantism. The removal of Islam and Judaism would give Britain control of Jerusalem in preparation for the Messiah. Such a reductionist secular and religious ideology served both British imperial assertions and the Protestant millenarianist eschatology. It is remarkable how some three centuries later this Pax Britannica vision was partially realised with the creation of the state of Israel in 1947.

The ideology of religious imperialism - Zionism, was also applied to Britain's past global expansionism in India, South Africa and beyond. Modern America, a distinctly secular state with no apparent religious agenda, has begun to mirror the 'chosen' Protestant mind-set employed to legitimise earlier British colonisation. Although the religious aspirations of America's new form of imperialism are clothed in less conspicuous terms, its new nomenclature - globalisation means much the same thing. Cashing-in on secular fears of religious encroachment, largely seen as being perpetuated by Muslims, has meant that any words or acts of protest to America's vision of globalisation can be translated and transposed on to 'Islamic fundamentalism'. By cleverly further substituting 'Islamic fundamentalism' with 'terrorism' within the terminology and rhetoric used to identify its 'enemy', America has been able to make Muslims synonymous with terrorism. Hence, any criticism of Israel and empathy of the Palestinian struggle by prominent westerners, Teddy Turner and Cherie Blair respectively, are seen as anomalous out-of touch comments divorced from reality. Yet despite the efforts of a very powerful pro-Zionist lobby voices of reason and questions concerning real justice are being evermore heard.

However, This frighteningly manipulative interpretation of Muslims as terrorists by America has been left largely unchallenged by the 'free-thinking' media. As a result, Palestinian defence of their land, lives and property and their opposition to Zionist Israeli expansionism is interpreted by America as no more than acts of terrorism. America and Britain, the economic financiers and political sponsors of the state of Israel are also forced to ideologically support Zionism in the Holy Land. If they concede to the rightful and legitimate claims of the indigenous Palestinians then they must revisit and rectify their own forms of Zionism committed against the American Indians and the Irish Catholics. The reluctance to enforce the return of land to Palestinians or even to endorse an unsatisfactory scenario of the creation of a 'Palestinian state' by both America and Britain could lead to legitimate claims for the same appropriate measures for native American Indians and the Irish mainlanders. It is indeed no wonder that flags of convenience fly in tandem in Northern Ireland.