Sunday, June 27, 2010
[The following, by Eamonn McDonagh, is crossposted from Z Word.]
Every so often and apropos of nothing in particular El País feels obliged to vomit up a gut full of hatred for Israel. Today's edition runs an editorial titled "The Israeli Quasi-theocracy".
It characterizes Israel as being "territorially gluttonous", of hiding its real motives and being run by a military-theocratic government which bases its policies on the contents of the Bible. It also accuses Ariel Sharon, of all people, of advocating and practising a policy of never ceding an inch of territory to the Palestinians.
Argument is obviously wasted on such a text so I won't offer any. I'll just mention that:
1. In 1979 the Spanish state signed and ratified a treaty with the Vatican binding it to provide financial support for the Roman Catholic Church, a commitment it complies with to this day. No such support is provided for other religions.
2. Juan Carlos 1, the constitutional monarch of Spain, and his family all ostentatiously practise the Roman Catholic faith. Article 57 of Spain's constitution establishes that the current monarch will be succeeded by his descendents in perpetuity.
3. Many state occasions in Spain, such as the funerals of members of the security forces murdered by terrorists continue, to be imbued by Roman Catholic ritual.
4.Crucifixes continue to hang on the walls of public schools. No such privilege has been extended to the symbols of other faiths.
Israel gave up Gaza in order to render it Judenrein for Sunni Arab Muslims, a "club" that owns something like 99% of the land mass in the M.E. Further, after those Sunni Arab Muslims were given Gaza, they destroyed much of the Gazan infrastructure, e.g., the thriving greenhouse industry. Israel previously left Lebanon, prior to that they gave up the Sinai. They have given up land in the West Bank - time and again they have given up holdings that other nation/states would have held onto.
Virtually the only thing Israel has held onto is a minimum amount of land in order to maintain defensible borders - no more than that.
Spain, by contrast and at least in formal or pro forma terms, is something of a quasi-religious or quasi-theological state.
Other resources: Spengler: Why do the Spanish Hate the Jews?, excerpt:
"The American Jewish Committee’s latest press notes include the following item:
"The Spanish numbers are scary, all right–the percentage of Spaniards holding a negative few of Jews jumped from 21% in 2004 to 46% in 2008–but that’s not the only thing to be scared about. If you dig into the whole report, it isn’t just Jews that the Spanish hate, but Christians, too. 24% of Spaniards hold a negative view of Christians now, compared to 10% in 2004. ..."
Iow, the pro forma religiosity of Spain does not comport with the perforce fact of a rather thoroughly secularized and essentially leftward Spain in the current era, within post-Christian Europe.
The referenced Pew Research Study (small pdf)
As to "quasi-religious" or "quasi-theological," it's arguably that, with a great deal of pseudo and co-opted hyphenated categories of the same kind. It's rather problematic, shall we say ...