Herzl, Moses, the Khameneis and Mohammed

It may come as a surprise to some that Herzl did not believe in God.

The Zionism of the late 19th century consisted of different strands and, though Religious Zionism was one of these, Herzl, an Austrian Jew who would buck against being categorised as “assimilated” – a label he completely rejected as being impossible, the impossibility of assimilation convincing him that Jews, in general, should have their own nation-state – being an atheist, subscribed to the Political Zionism grouping.

Although in 1903 Kenya was suggested to Herzl as a possible homeland for the Jews, he eventually fell in with those who saw the area now known as Israel, then known as Palestine, as the natural, historical home most suited for the diaspora.

Among those in the Zionist movement who looked to “Palestine” as a home, there were those who claimed that the Tanach was the Word of God and that God’s promise to the Patriarchs, that the southern Levant would be Israel’s if they did not swerve and were true to him, was therefore to be taken as the indisputable Word of God. These were not only to be found in the Religious Zionism grouping.

There will, however, be Jewish and non-Jewish Israelis, and non-Israelis, who believe that the Patriarchs, in particular Moses and before him Abraham, had their own political agendas when they made known God’s promise. Their agendas? – the moving of a nation to express itself as a geographical entity. These sceptical onlookers would have it that Moses, when he wrote, or purportedly wrote, the Tanach, did not and could not provide proof that God had spoken to him.

Whichever way these claims are looked at, it cannot be disputed that, for example, the Ten Commandments are the most beautiful; the most elegant expression of man – expressions, in fact, that it is hard to believe could have been the result of human capabilities.

It is, therefore, extraordinary to hear, with one exception – in 2020, the pronouncements of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei when these pronouncements incite Iranians and the now greatly-weakened proxies of Iran – Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis – to push all Jews in Israel into the sea. Extraordinary because they are the pronouncements of a Muslim leader of Iran and a Muslim leader who has eyed the rest of the Middle East as a possible arena which he could exert power.

Is Khamenei a Muslim?

The definition of a Muslim is a follower of the religion of Islam.

Does he, Khamenei, accept the Quran as the Word of God as God dictated it to Mohammed? He is, after all, the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran. If he does so accept the Quran, he must also accept that the Quran recognises the validity of the Tanach and it therefore follows that he must also accept God’s promise of the southern Levant to
the Jews.

The question must, therefore, be asked: does Khamenei crave to be a good, observant Muslim, or does he simply crave power?

And his son, Motjaba, his heir apparent?