By Maidhc Ó Cathail | The Passionate Attachment | December 1, 2013
Listening to Benjamin Netanyahu rant about Iran’s non-existent nuclear weapons program, who can seriously claim — as many Jewish, both religious and secular, and non-Jewish critics of Israel attempt to do — that the Zionist-created “Jewish state” has nothing to do with Judaism?
Lighting the candles on the second night of Hanukkah at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, the Israeli leader was quoted by Arutz Sheva, an Israeli media network identifying with Religious Zionism:
Relating to the holiday of Hanukkah, also known as the Festival of Lights, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Thursday called Iran “the greatest darkness” threatening the world and said that Israel would be the “light to the nations” when it came to Iran’s nuclear program.
The term “light to the nations” originated from verses in the Book of Isaiah, believed to have been written during and after the Babylonian exile (597-538 BC), an event that continues to have a destructive influence on world history:
“Yea, He saith, ‘It is too light a thing for you to be My servant, to establish the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the scions of Israel, and I shall submit you as a light unto the nations, to be My salvation until the end of the earth’ (Isaiah, 49:6)
“I the LORD have called unto you in righteousness, and have taken hold of your hand, and submitted you as the people’s covenant, as a light unto the nations” (Isaiah, 42:6)
“And unto your light, nations shall walk, and kings unto the brightness of your rising” (Isaiah, 60:3)
The context of these three references from the Book of Isaiah are a promise to the exiled notables of Israel, in which a God of their own creation will restore them to the holy land supposedly promised them by this invented God, and this return will cause the rest of the nations to open their benighted goyish eyes, and look up to the Chosen people as a mentor for spiritual and moral guidance for the entire world.
But in light of Netanyahu’s unhinged reaction to the possibility of an international rapprochement with Tehran, the nations had better be very wary of any political “mentor” who takes Isaiah’s 2,600-year-old prophecies as a guide to modern-day international relations.
Post Script:
Isaiah 2:4: And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.
That pacifist-sounding verse from Isaiah presumably refers to the messianic age when the nations are expected to pay tribute to the Jewish Messiah at the Temple in Jerusalem.
Hasn’t Netanyahu been doing his utmost to realize Isaiah’s vision that every other nation (so far only those in the Middle East) “beat their swords into ploughshares” i.e. unilaterally disarm in order to leave Israel the undisputed “judge among the nations”?
Follow Maidhc Ó Cathail on Facebook and Twitter @O_Cathail.