Mandela misquoted, Gaza crisis ignored

In a recent article published in IOL and circulated in Christian Zionist circles, a claim is made that Nelson Mandela was a Zionist. As expected, it is done by quoting Mandela out of context.

A case is made that in 1993 Mandela insisted on “the right of the state of Israel to exist within secure borders”… a fact that even Hamas in its 1983 Charter affirms.

It is from this statement that a leap is made that Mandela therefore supports Israel’s Zionist programme undergirding the current genocide in Palestine.

As if Mandela would oppose the solidarity of our republic with the people of Palestine and taking Israel to the International Court of Justice, requiring Israel to abide by internationally accepted rules of justice for all.

Israel’s genocide against the people of Gaza and the West Bank is a ghastly consequence of the arranged marriage of convenience between religion and political ideology.

Political imperatives dictate the terms of the marriage and produce the cruel fruit of the sort of racism, abuse of power and brutality that has left over 60 000 dead since 7 October 2023, the majority of whom are women and children.

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Unprecedented levels of starvation and collective punishment of an entire population of Gaza and now, increasingly, the West Bank is methodically executed in full view of the world.

Israel’s far-right Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu recently said that his government is “racing against time to wipe out Gaza and its Palestinian population”, adding that the territory will become “entirely Jewish”.

“We are eliminating this evil. We are eliminating its residents. Gaza will become completely Jewish,” Eliyahu told Israel’s Kol Barama radio.

Why such barbarism and genocidal tendency in the 21st century, when the doctrine of human rights has become the cornerstone of most civilised societies around the world?

The idea of human rights is a secular doctrine to be sure, but thoughtful Christians accept that it is a realistic approximation of the Christian teaching of loving your neighbour as you love yourself.

All the major religions of the world, including Judaism, embrace it. According to Christian Zionism, the religion that serves as a compliant accomplice to the genocidal ideology of Israel’s Zionist project, the justification for this barbarism is based on something called “covenant”.

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Bafana Modise, a spokesperson of the Zionist formation called South African friends of Israel, says: “Zionism is fundamentally supported by Christians, especially evangelicals, who constitute about 50% of South African Christians and share a deep understanding of biblical scripture that highlights God’s everlasting covenant with Israel.”

Modise is obviously uninformed about many things. For one, the size of the evangelical presence in South Africa is nowhere near the 50% he claims.

Scholars of the movement agree it is no more than 25%.

For another, the supposedly “deep understanding of biblical scriptures” by Christian Zionists is nothing of the sort.

Christian Zionism is a patently false doctrine that is not warranted by New Testament Christianity. Neither Jesus nor His early apostles preached Christian Zionism.

Jesus challenged the tribalism of his Jewish audiences, announcing that the time had come for all people to enter into the Kingdom of God, where there is neither Jew nor Gentile.

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Rather, this doctrine of Christian Zionism is a modern 19th-century invention manufactured to solve the problem of rampant anti-Semitism in colonial western Europe in the last century.

Exporting Jews out of a Europe that killed six million Jews in gas chambers during WWII became necessary.

It is no wonder that Christian Zionism became itself a colonial construct, repeating the colonial scandals of European powers.

This is why Israel is experienced by Palestinian people as military colonial occupation.

An occupation that must end and give way to a just peace for all the inhabitants of the land.

It is no wonder, too, that many on the African continent who bear the scars of colonialism, easily discern the all too familiar pattern of land grab, military occupation and dispossession that is being repeated in Palestine.

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Millions of people around the world, Jews included, are beginning to see through the propaganda that was carefully crafted by Israel political and military planners, along with their ideological allies in the West. They are saying “not in our name!”

It is not because they are anti-Semitic, a label that Zionists deploy on anyone who questions the policies of Israel.

Rather, it is people who love Israel enough to call her to order, as indeed many Hebrew biblical prophets have done and were killed by Israel. Including Jesus himself.

Christian Zionism has one formidable foe: Jesus Christ.

To elevate God’s love for Israel above His love for Palestine is to miss the central message of Christ and the covenant He established with all humanity through His blood. A covenant that Christians everywhere call the “New Testament”.

Evangelicals of all tribes see their very existence as Christians founded on the Bible verse John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that whosoever believes in Jesus should not perish but have eternal life.”

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Without this truth, there is neither evangelicalism in particular, nor any Christianity worthy of its name.

Far from being a deep biblical insight, Christian Zionism flies in the face of the central tenets of the covenant that Jesus introduced into the history of the world.