By LISZT VIEIRA*
Fragments on the religious and cultural origins of the genocide in Gaza
1.
God, an uncreated being, must have been upset and decided to create the world in seven days. The world is not limited to our planet Earth, it includes the entire universe, with the solar system and other systems in other galaxies. After creating nature, he took a piece of clay and created man. Then he took a piece of man's rib and created woman. This is where the idea of the inferiority of women in Judeo-Christian culture comes from.
Since Adam and Eve only had two sons, how did humanity develop? This question troubled me as a teenager: did humanity begin with incest? It was only much later that I learned of the existence of Lilith, with whom Adam had several children. Lilith was Adam's lover. According to gossip, Eve consoled herself by receiving the Archangel Gabriel. When I learned all this, I was relieved: humanity did not begin with incest, it began with adultery. Between you and me, it is much better.
But God did not stop there. He chose a people as his favorite. The Jewish people are the people chosen by God and that territory in the Middle East belongs to the Jews by divine right. But the Jews remained scattered throughout the world in the diaspora for centuries, constituting only a cultural and religious community.
A people without a state, who mixed throughout the world and began to speak different languages. For example, in Eastern Europe, Ashkenazi Jews spoke Yiddish, a derivative of archaic German. In Spain, Sephardic Jews spoke Ladino, a Romance language that developed from medieval Spanish.
2.
When the State of Israel was created by the UN in 1948, Israeli Prime Minister Ben Gurion, leader of the socialist Zionist movement, with a social democratic tendency, told a journalist who asked him what the boundaries of Israel's territory would be. He replied: The boundaries of Israel's territory will be determined by war. As we can see, the current Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, a far-right figure, is not making anything up.
More than 18 months have passed since the massacre of the Palestinian population in Gaza. More than 45 civilians have died, with more than 15 children killed by aerial bombardments and ground attacks by the Israeli army. In addition to this genocide, the embargo on the supply of food and water is killing the population from hunger and thirst. Not even journalists and UN employees have been spared; many have died in attacks officially considered “mistakes.”
All this with direct military support from the US and indirect support from Europe, which looked the other way and ignored the genocide. Only now, some countries have threatened economic sanctions against Tel Aviv, such as the United Kingdom, Canada and Belgium, according to reports. The Diplomatic World in its June 2025 issue. A timid reaction given that the very existence of the Palestinian people is under threat.
“God, oh God, where are you that you do not answer!” exclaimed Castro Alves, outraged by the slave trade. When I see so much misery and massacres, I remember Epicurus’ Paradox, also known as the problem of evil. According to him, given the suffering and evil that exist in the world, God cannot be omnipotent, omniscient and benevolent at the same time. He suggests that these three attributes are mutually incompatible. If God can do everything and is good, then he does not know that there is evil in the world. If he knows everything and is good, then he cannot end evil in the world. And if he can do everything and knows everything, then he is not good.
That God is not good is not news to anyone who has read the Old testment na Bible. If I'm not mistaken, the idea that God is good came from Christianity, not Judaism, with all due respect to that and all religions that exist in the world.
But the governments of Western, capitalist, and Christian-majority countries prefer to support the genocide of a people rather than fulfill the commandments of their religion. Kudos to civil society that has been demonstrating in the streets in several countries in defense of the survival of the Palestinian people.
*Liszt scallop is a retired professor of sociology at PUC-Rio. He was a deputy (PT-RJ) and coordinator of the Global Forum of the Rio 92 Conference. Author, among other books, of Democracy reactsGaramond). [https://amzn.to/3sQ7Qn3]
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