Encyclopedia of Jews, Judaism & Zionism: Unraveling Complexities of Mideast Conflicts (2-2)
As the Middle East has been ravaged by wars and conflicts for decades, most of which involves Israel, the Encyclopedia of Jews, Judaism and Zionism offers a comprehensive analysis of the history of Jews and the Zionist groups and their relation to Israel.
The Egyptian scholar and author, Abdel Wahab El-Messiri, who took nearly 25 years to release the book, looks into the historical facts about Jews and Zionism in a cognitive and intellectual framework, driven by his desire to “know the enemy.”
Comprehensive Work
As Al-Messiri’s magnum opus, the Encyclopedia of Jews, Judaism and Zionism is comprised of 8 volumes, each consists of around 450 pages. Each volume is divided into chapters and sections, and discusses a specific subject.
The first volume introduces the work’s theoretical framework. Meanwhile, volumes 2,3, and 4 discusses the Jewish groups. The fifth volume discusses Judaism, while the sixth volume discusses Zionism. Volume 7 focuses on Israel as a Zionist occupier, while the last volume is dedicated to indexes.
The Egyptian author also published a brief edition for the encyclopedia, consisting of two volumes, providing a summary for the basic material in a way accessible to the non-specialist readers.
The Truth Behind Zionism
The book draws a line between Judaism as a religion and Zionism as an ideology that uses European race theory to move the Jewish people out of Europe and justify the killing of Palestine’s indigenous people to replace them.
It refrains from using biased terms and uses instead more neutral terms to describe the Jewish and Zionist phenomena, debunking myths around Jews and revealing truths about Zionism.
In the light of this, the author contends that Jews do not represent an integrated ethnic, religious and cultural unity. Therefore, he uses the term “Jewish groups” to refer to them. Hence, he implies that these Jewish groups do not have the right to pursue a Jewish national project, as they represent various groups.
El-Messiri concludes that Jews are just one element of the secular civilization, i.e. the Western civilization. He views the Zionist thought as Western in essence and one of the byproducts of the modern Western imperialist ideology.
Western Influence
Al-Messiri says that the Zionist groups that occupied Palestine were more affected by Hitler than the Torah. In his opinion, Israel could have existed without the Belfour Declaration or the Torah promise as a result of the “population transfer” mechanisms, which represent a secular concept rather a religious one and were used by the Western civilization during its renaissance.
Al-Messiri rejects the idea of the “Jewish influence” and the “Western conspiracy” against Arabs and Muslims, viewing the crisis as an understandable conflict between two systems. He argues that Israel is being used by the US, and not the other way round.
With regards to this, he says that the “new Zion” is part of the Western colonial formation and that the Zionist lobby and media are a cheap tool in the hands of the West. Therefore, Israel is a functional client state for the US.
Zionist Threats
Throughout his writing journey, Al-Messiri received dozens of threats to his life, including 13 threat letters from the Israeli former Knesset member and founder of the Zionist Kach group, Meir Kahane.
As a result, Al-Messiri was put under the protection of the Egyptian security authorities. However, the Egyptian intellectual underestimated these threats as an attempt to prevent him from releasing his book. Thus, he produced several drafts for the Encyclopedia of Jews, Judaism and Zionism, keeping one in Kuwait, one in Morocco and one in London.
Reaffirming his devotion to the Palestinian cause, Al-Messiri dedicated his book to Said Khaled Al-Hasan, one of the prominent symbols of the Palestinian resistance.
