The Golden Age of King David and the First Temple

The recent action against an unarmed civilian flotilla heading for Gaza with humanitarian aid has appalled a world, and divided oppinions as to the conflict in Israel/Palestine once again. It's not the first time, and certainly not the last. We're talking about a conflict so old and documented it's second to none. Just look at how a term like philistine (palestinian) has entered the english language as an insult implying someone uncouth and uncultured.

To an atheist like myself it is hard to see what these people are fighting over. They have different names and languages, and so what? What is the reason these two peoples can't "just get along"?

The answer lies in the ever elusive concept of myth. More specifically national restoration myths.

Nationalism is a rather complex phenomenon, and I'm not going to go into depth on it. However, myth is a central concept in nationalism, while not necessarily the reasoning behind the ideology. All nations have stories that they feel is central to their understanding of their own identity and are vital for national cohesion. One example is how americans identify with the pioneers and pilgrims who shaped their nation. It is a myth cycle upheld and reinforced through rituals, such as thanksgiving. The myth of the revolutionary war is reinforced through indepence day. These myths also come with a set of perceived values, that are central to the idea of the nation itself: independence, hospitality and family. These values are central to the american idea of life.

This is mostly unproblematic, and only when the myths and values are teamed up with a program for social change or national irredentism something negative and potentially deadly starts to happen.

The most recently well known example of deadly irredentism occured in World War two, when Germany attacked its neighbours with the pretense of wanting to unite germans that had been divided after World War one. This war of national restoration was paired with internal restoration of perceived germanic values. The result was genocidal mania and a war that cost over 50 million lives over six years. More recently we witnessed how Kosovos position on national myth cycles turned ethnic conflicts in Serbia into a potential for ethnic cleansing and civil war.

In the case of Israel we have a strong national myth cycle, reinforced through countless years of existence as diaspora around the world, and persecution, pogroms and discrimination in various shapes and forms. While jewish culture enriched the various contries it existed in, through literature, music and philosophy the diaspora was always self aware of its removal from the holy land. When the Balfour congress, in 1917, decided to create a homeland for jews it was against this background. This was at a time in history when nationalism was seen as a potential way to solve problematic conflicts, and states like Yugoslavia, Poland, Checkoslovakia, Finland, Hungary and Austria were formed to be homelands for various oppressed nations in Europe. Israel had to wait however, because no obvious location for such a nation could be found. While it was decided that Israel would be located in Palestine, it was allready full of people, and other locations (Madagascar, Brazil...) were equally problematic - and unwanted by the Zionist Federation. Eventually it was decided that Israel would in fact be located in Palestine, which is after all the promised land of jewish national myth - Canaan. And in 1948, after quite a bit of trouble and terrorism and fighting, Israel came into existence as a modern state. That's when the real trouble started...

This was for purposes the equivalent of opening up a box of wasps and sticking your penis in there while shaking the box. Palestine had been occupied for quite some time by palestinians, and they had their own perception of the matter. Not only was there a great deal of land to argue over, there was also myth. Particularily myths associated with Jerusalem/Al Quds. Jewish myth focuses on the restoration of the temple on temple mount, only problem is that the Al Aqsa mosque lies there, and that mosque is equally important to palestinian national identity. This is a point of contention so strong that archaelogists are literally trying to prove which culture was there first, by excavating the mount. Israeli extremists want to tear down the mosque, while many palestinians fear that the excavations are actually undermining the mosque in order for demolition. Until the temple of Solomon is rebuilt, the Messiah cannot come, and you really do want him to come.

This is where we enter the land of national restoration myths, or golde age myths. The general idea, that you can find in any and all nationalist political movements around the world is that "once we were glorious, but someone or something took it away from us, and now we need to restore those days". The golden age we are speaking of is the time when the tribes were united under king David. The tribes fell and were spread as diaspora around the world, and now it is up to us to rebuild the past. Quite physically rebuild in this case actually, the symbolism could not be any clearer. The ahistoric ideas of something original and unblemished is central to this kind of thinking. It was even a major part of american electoral campaigns this recent fall. Obama and McCain both spoke about taking america back from Wall Street, and even "back to main street USA". The America they wanted to return has of course never existed, except in blockbuster films and romantic literature about Davy Crocket, or the suburbs before the blacks moved there. It was quite comical to hear these visions, but restoration myths can be quite scary when paired with the notion of an enemy of restoration - such as the jews were to the nazis, the kulaks to the communists, the palestinians to the zionists or communists to McCarthy, or zionists to islamists. It's a really explosive combination.

Most Israelis and Palestinians would be perfectly happy to live next door to each other, send their kids off to the same school and go to see the same lame american romantic comedies, but there are those who are too enthralled with myth to see realities in front of their nose.

To complicate matters further jewish national myth is intertwined with evangelical christian myths, concerning the second coming of christ. Christian extremists around the world support the israeli cause in because Christ cannot return untill the jews have returned to Canaan. I'm not a theologian, but the scriptural basis for these assumptions sound wafer thin to me. I even hear a norwegian pastor speak of secret bases in the desert with a pre-assembled temple waiting to be brought in and rebuildt on the temple mount by way of helicopters. At an unspecified time a signal to demolish the temple would be given, and the palestinians would be exterminated by force. God only knows how this person can continue to recieve tax money to support his cult. Thankfully he is not representative of most christians, though many enough follow his logic.

I can see no end to this conflict. Three out of the five major world religions have their various myths tangled up in a few square miles of estate in Israel and the west bank, and they're not about to agree. "OK, we can sacrifice this symbol in exchange for that one." That's not how it works. People tend to get irrational over myths, and sometimes they even kill for them.

However, for the sake of all the people who have to live in the vicinity of this specific hot piece of real estate, let's hope that these religious dimwits die out as soon as humanly possible. It is a sad affair, and I really hope palestinians and israelis can find a way to live together in peace in times to come. How, I don't know.