Political eschatology: Israel and the reconstruction of the Temple of Jerusalem

 

 

Strategika
April 17, 2024

“Jewish messianism is in its origin and in its nature – it cannot be emphasized enough – a theory of catastrophe. This theory emphasizes the cataclysmic revolutionary element, in the transition from the historical present to the messianic future.” [1]

—Michael Lowy

“Messianism has infiltrated every level of Israeli society. The discourse of the right in power is the discourse of the messianics. Nearly 40% of infantry officers belong to the religious nationalist movement. (…) Today, more than 50% of Jewish Israelis believe in the coming of the Messiah. (…) Don’t forget that the Camp David agreements failed in July 2000 because no agreement could be found on the Temple Mount.” [2]

—Charles Enderlin

“From Baboeuf to Saint-Simon and Fourier, from Proudhon, Louis Blanc and Cabet to the International, several kinds of millenniums have been constructed on paper, and we know what havoc they wreak on uneducated brains led by half-cultivated brains.” [3]

—Hippolyte Taine (1871)

I have studied in my various books the millenarian roots of political globalism. Political millenarianism takes multiple forms throughout history, and sometimes it is driven by a deep nostalgia for origins. Often, however, it is spurred on by a dizzying progressivism. These two extreme polarities feed each other, as much as they reject each other. One of the most radical forms of political millenarianism is today represented by the ideology that guides the ruling coalition in Israel. This is a supremacist type of millenarianism which places at the center of its theopolitical agenda the reconstruction of the Temple of Jerusalem and the resumption of blood sacrifices to Yahweh within it.

The Temple must be rebuilt precisely on the Temple Mount, a sacred site considered by Muslims as the third holiest site in Islam, where the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque are located. It is easy to measure the truly explosive consequences that this project brings. It is an ambition which appears unrealistic, but not for millenarian political Judaism. This is a trend in Judaism for which the promise of the reconstruction of the Temple constitutes a horizon of expectation as important as the return of the Jews to Israel.

For messianic Zionism, if the reconstitution of a Jewish state almost two thousand years after its disappearance was possible, then the reconstruction of the Temple in Jerusalem must be too. The Temple must become the political and religious center of a restored Jewish theocracy, and thus complete the mission of religious Zionism in the 21st century, which succeeds and replaces the secular Zionism of the 20th century.

To access the rest of the file (in French, 57 pages) click here.

Gideon Levy: Israel’s Society Has Been BRAINWASHED…Empathy for Palestinians Has Been CRIMINALISED:

Source: https://strategika.fr/2024/04/17/eschatologie-politique-israel-et-la-reconstruction-du-temple-de-jerusalem/