No God-given right to a country

The Church of Scotland denies any special privilege for the Jewish people in the land of Israel. In fact it went further and declared "Christians should not be supporting any claims by Jews, or any other people, to an exclusive or even privileged divine right to possess particular territory." [our emphasis]
In its report the Church of Scotland refutes claims that scripture offers any peoples a privileged claim for possession of a particular territory. Promises about the land of Israel were never intended to be taken literally, or as applying to a defined geographical territory. The ‘promised land’ in the Bible is not a place, so much as a metaphor of how things ought to be among the people of God. This ‘promised land’ can be found – or built – anywhere.

The Failure of Zionism

The Zionist needs anti-semitism like heroin addicts need their fix. Islamists thrives on hatred of Moslems.

Zionism misled many Jewish workers with its promise of a "homeland for Jews". Israel has failed as a state to protect Jews. The terrible experience of the Second World War convinced many European Jews to embrace the idea of a Zionist State. However, the establishment of Israel did not end anti-semitism. In fact, it has actually caused it to spread to where it had seldom existed before – to the Arab-speaking parts of the world. For centuries Jews had lived in peace and security, integrated and speaking Arabic, in these parts of the world. Now, as a direct result of the establishment of a Jewish State in Palestine, they came to suffer the same persecution that the European Jews had. The result was that centuries of integration was undone in decades. Today there are virtually no Jews living in Arab countries: most Arab Jews are now in Israel where they form an underprivileged group.  And those Arab Israelis who remained within the state of Israel suffered the same fate the Zionists sought to free Jews from: being a minority in someone else’s “nation-State”. Israel is an apartheid state which enforces policies of ethnic segregation.

As socialists we re-affirm that all peoples should seek their emancipation, not as members of nations or religions or ethnic groups, but as human beings, as members of the human race in a world without national frontiers and in which free movement is possible and where all people live together as equals. They should unite to abolish the division of the world into so-called nation-states and to establish a World Cooperative Commonwealth of which we will all be free and equal members – citizens of the world, not subjects of nation-states.

We sympathize with the suffering of our fellow workers, whatever their ethnic origin. It is always they who suffer the brunt of their masters’ wars. Peace is always better than war. Because wars are never fought in the interests of ordinary people. It is also because war provides an ideal opportunity and excuse to suppress democratic rights on both sides. Peace will create better conditions for democracy. No longer obsessed with ethnic conflict, “Jews” and “Palestinians” will be able to re-focus on the social, economic and ecological problems spawned by the “normal” peacetime functioning of capitalism. A space for socialist ideas will open up in this corner of our world.