THE UN WALKOUT: A WINDOW INTO THE IDEOLOGICAL BATTLE OVER ZION
Look at the flags in this photograph.
Following Netanyahu's UN address, an image circulated showing 77 countries whose representatives reportedly departed or were absent. The circumstances of each delegation's absence are not all established. Even so, examining the religious and political backgrounds of the countries pictured opens a window onto a much older ideological conflict.
The image brings together Muslim-majority nations, revolutionary Islamic governments, communist states, countries associated with socialism and governments descended from Marxist-influenced anti-colonial movements.
Consider their different histories. Iran's governing ideology emerged from revolutionary Shia Islam, while Cuba remains Marxist-Leninist. Algeria's struggle for independence was shaped by revolutionary socialism. Syria's former Ba'athist socialist order has given way to a government headed by Ahmed al-Sharaa, whose background is in fundamentalist Sunni Islam. In Iraq, a Shia-led political system with substantial Iranian influence succeeded the Ba'athist regime. South Africa's ANC, meanwhile, has maintained historical ties with the South African Communist Party.
These countries do not share one political system or religious outlook. Their ideological histories, however, contain important areas of convergence.
The Cold War helps explain some of those connections. The Soviet Union established relationships with Arab nationalist governments and revolutionary Palestinian organizations, situating the Palestinian cause within the international politics of anti-imperialism. Later, Iran's Islamic Revolution produced another revolutionary movement in which religiously based opposition to Israel became a defining political commitment.
Marxist and revolutionary Islamic approaches to Zionism begin from profoundly different premises. Marxist movements have interpreted it through anti-imperialism, colonialism and national liberation. Revolutionary Islamic movements have developed their opposition through particular religious interpretations. Despite these differences, opposition to Zionism has occupied a significant position within both political traditions.
Beneath these political arguments lies a disagreement over the future of human society.
Marxism envisages history moving through revolution toward a new social order. Revolutionary political Islam grounds its proposed political and social order in religion. The Judeo-Christian biblical tradition offers a different account of covenant, redemption, history and Jerusalem's significance.
From this historical and theological perspective, Zion cannot be understood solely as a question of borders. The conflict also encompasses fundamentally different views of reality, moral authority, political legitimacy and humanity's destiny.
Nor are these disputes limited to Israel or the Middle East. They also appear in the United States and other Western societies, where disagreements about religious belief, national identity, institutions and the foundations of Western civilization continue to unfold.
Some delegations in the photograph fall outside the Islamic and Marxist traditions. Their governments may primarily cite the Gaza war, international law or Palestinian self-determination when explaining their positions. Yet the historical connections among several of the countries pictured illustrate how older ideological movements continue to influence contemporary opposition to Zionism.
Jerusalem is where many of these competing religious beliefs, national ambitions, historical understandings and visions of the future meet.
What happened at the UN was a single event. The ideological and spiritual conflicts visible through it have a much longer history, reaching well beyond the walls of the General Assembly.