No, The Other Zionism

Published Aug 21, 2024, 4:00 AM

Right now, Zionism has been the way to separate being an anti-semite from objecting to Israel's behavior and actions in Gaza. But do you know what the OTHER Zionism is? Maybe you've heard Bob Marley talk about Zion in his music. It's not the same thing.

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Media. Words are funny.

That's how I'm opening this because look, there's sounds that we just decided meant stuff to the point of where sounds can make you take somebody life. And sometimes the same sound can mean different things depending on their spelling their context. Give an example, when Black people say barbecue, we could be talking about three different things. We could be talking about the food Barbecue. We could be talking about as in like the style of cooking barbecue, the food. We could be talking about the actual act of cooking that food. To barbecue. We could be talking about an event. We are going to the barbecue. You not invited to the barbecue. The what the East call the cookout, we call the barbecue out here out west.

You know.

It's the same with the Latinos, like with Mexicans. They say the Canada, they mean one of three things.

They mean the act of grilling. We are going to have it.

Cadogna saida that is we're gonna have barbecue, We're gonna grill, and we are going to eat Cardiaa like they just it's the name of the food, it's the act of grilling, and it's the event.

So that's the Mexican version of saying.

When we be like, oh, you ain't invited to the barbecue, they say you're not invited to the cardie asada, Like that's what they mean.

The word is the same.

It means three different things depending on the context and when it's coming out their mouth.

You could figure out what's happening. Now.

I say all that to get very serious on to talk about the words zion. Oh, it's about to get I felt like I heard the record scratch right now, because if you've listened to reggae music, if you've heard anything made by Bob Marley, you don't heard the word zion many times.

You're a fan of Lauren Hill. What's the name of her child? Zion? Now that Joe and mild in Zion.

Black people love Zion, Moltzion a boy on the side of Babylon trying to front like you down with mozoyon ou la la la is the way that we rock with we doing out think.

The black hotep Rosta, you know, chow stick. We'd love Zion. We're chanting down Babylon. Babylon is will be defeated by Mount Zion. Is that the same Zion in Israel and Palestine.

What y'all mean by that? Then?

What the hell is a Zionist? So is that somebody that believe in Mount Zion?

Like? What? How? What is Zionism?

And I'm sure if you listen to this show data ops, right, you you convince Zion like those are the ops.

So I don't know if the thought has ever crossed your mind to be like, well, is is the.

Zionism that y'all talking about the same Zion? And Zion is that the rosters.

Are talking about?

What?

What?

Maybe it's never crossed your mind, but it's the word needs to be dissected. So I am using this moment to teach you two things. What do the rosters mean when they say Zion? And what is Zionism and its history? All right to a politics? Okay, listen first before I get into it. This week is like this.

What look is like this? What look is like this? It's like this sun? It's like that sun, like I'm pumping. Let me take the news serious, all right? This week it's like this.

Well, the Olympics ended, and I'm only excited about breaking. I'm sad that it's not gonna be in twenty twenty eight and it's not because of ray Gun. They decided before her that they weren't gonna do it in LA, which sucks. I don't know why they decided that, but they decided that way back in twenty twenty. Having said that, speaking of ray Gun, I know she's taken over to memes. I feel bad for these amazing b boys and be girls, specifically Logistics. Sorry, that's a text, specifically Logistics. I not murdered them, fools. And while she was in the middle of slaying, absolutely slaying ray Gun, here's the thing.

Have you ever been in a battle? Okay, Now, I'm from LA.

So that double time kind of what you think is bone thugs and harmony chopping stuff that originates at a place called the Good Life Project blowed this group called Freestyle Fellowship, and that is a sound that just kind of came from the LA underground.

My figured rymee look at a time like, I don't rap like that.

So if you're at a spot and you're battling somebody and they killing it on the double time, it's killing the crowd you have. You I can't compete with that. You gotta go all the way the other way. You gotta get real creative and try to do something else. So for me it becomes I'm gonna try to do the contrast and do sort of a slow flow with a gang of wordplay and get really creative with a pattern. My time rhymes to find the mind saturn roller skate rhymes to find a kind kattern, pump a bone battern for the bold flatter, you will flatter you know what I'm saying. I'll make you scatter like just something else. You gotta take a.

Chance, and sometimes it lands, sometimes it doesn't.

Okay, you get creative, you take a shot like take old dirty bastard, he don't rap like the rest of wu tag. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. And I picked up when she was throwing down. She was trying to rep the ausie land, do animal style kangaroo hops to rep her soil and be creative.

Sometimes it works, sometimes it don't.

Now I don't know nothing about her husband being in charge of no thing and all that good stuff that they were saying. All I know is you have to battle a lot of people to get to the top, and battling is very subjective, and sometimes creativity and style points count. But when your creativity just swinging a miss. She clearly don't have no power moves. She was battling logistics who got style, finess, flavored dance, intangibles and power moves.

What are you gonna do?

I saw a headspinning there, but she clearly don't have no power move. So she's trying to fight back with style.

Just didn't work.

So I'm saying this as somebody who has been in a battle, and sometimes you lose your train of thought and the words sound like gibberish.

She too, She took a creative chance and it was a swing and a miss.

Sometimes it happens on a serious note. Okay, receipts are being pulled on walls and on JD and everybody involved, and we're trying to figure it out. The Democrats are doing their best to make Project twenty twenty five Trump's thing, which it is not. It is somebody trying to tie it to Trump. I can't believe I'm saying this in his defense. That is a lot of overlap, but that's their own thing now Trump, it's all caps saying Trump he don't know who the people are because he know who they are and he know what they want.

So that's cap.

But it's in his defense, is not his now? Secondly, in JD Vance's defense. I know, I know what it sounds like, but I'm gonna say it. He being dragged over this app harvest startup. So that was a company that was an agricultural company that was supposed to be an Appalachia and was going to give hundreds and hundreds of jobs to the area. Everybody got excited. It was like, dope, man, he one of us, or at least you told us he one of us. It's going to be a fresh job.

Now.

Again, he was an investor and he was just on the board. Now, I have sat on a couple boards. And just because you're on the board don't mean you in charge of operation now. And just because you're an investor don't mean you in charge of the money now. You got a lot to say, obviously, but you can't necessarily be blamed for everything to go bad, and you can't necessarily take the praise for everything that go good. Now, not only did this business fail. Before it failed, they was talking about it was one hundred and twenty degrees inside that building because it's a greenhouse. The conditions were terrible. And while everybody was like, man, I can't work in here. They brought in not a couple migrant workers, not even Mike undocumented, five hundred of them, five hundred undocumented workers, which in any other scenario, all right, what do I care? The reason why any of us care is because you supposed to be Captain Appalachia.

You called yourself that.

If you didn't call yourself Captain Appalachia, it would have just been a failed thing. But you set yourself up as Robin Hood of the Woods. So since you did that, you, I mean, what you're gonna say, Homeie, I saw your watch you confront like you one of us. But that ain't really hurting nobody. Now you're hurting us saying you one of us. So he's gonna have to answer to that. And his answer was, yeah, sucked. I invested and I was on the board, but I mean I wasn't in charge. And in his defense, he's.

Right now if it is wallskutog.

Y'all still calling that man tampon ten as if you ain't. All you got to do, beloved is read it. You can read the law. It is all over Beyonce's Internet. I'm a reader for you. You Article one General Education, Section one one dot two twelve Access to menstrual products. A school district charter must provide students with access to menstrual products at no charge. The products must be available to all menstruating students in restrooms regularly used by students in grades four through twelve, according to the plan developed by the school district for purposes of this section. Menstrual products means pads, tampons, or other similar products used in connection to menstrual cycle.

That's it. That's what the law say.

Not the whole reputting tampos and boys bathrooms. I mean, okay, I just read you the law. That's what the law say. So just you know, cap down a little bit.

Now.

The DNC has started. We looking for you to put some words to your excitement.

Anti.

We looking for Joe to like, you know, go out in a blaze of glory and uh, it's all week this week now. Now, I did get to watch a lot of Mondays, not enough to do a full recap. But the thing that's most interesting right now is the comparison to the nineteen sixty eight one, which was there's a lot of similarities. There was a huge protest that happened in sixty eight against the Vietnam War, and right now there's a huge protest going on against the war in Gaza. The difference in nineteen sixty eight and now is the cops beat the breaks off them protesters on TV like we all saw it this time. See Robert and Sophie and Garre are out there and they pretty much kind of behaved.

It's pretty chill.

Now we'll see, But right now it's being pretty chill, relatively speaking. And what's different this time is Joe went off script. Joe said, you know what, them protesters out there, they got a point.

Innocent people being killed on both sides.

Now, now, Sophie says she got a view of the teleprompter that wasn't on the script. Now, of course we're we're all grabbing for scraps, But good for him, that's a good scrap to grab. I'm so glad you acknowledged it, rather than acting like it's just a party on the inside. The campaigns of Harris and of Trump have been hacked by Iran, according to the US Intelligence It's not like this wasn't expected. Country's been tapping into our elections as a sport. They've been doing this for a long time. Iran is not happy. Iran is like, you not only did you kill Cosum Soulamani, you just popped another We believe you just popped another person on our soil recently. Because you gotta remember, like Israel and America are interchangeable. To them, they don't ain't no difference share. That means that y'all need to double check all sources. That mean you need to question everything coming at you and keep your antennas high.

You know.

Another interesting difference is is that the news didn't report it. They didn't report the stuff that was in the league. You know. Man, in twenty sixteen, this was like catnip all the leaks, you know, butter emails. It's almost like we learned a lesson, like you know, and there's a few ways to look at it, right. It's like, hey, like if it's something in there that's like really like American people need to know. It's like, what's your duty as the media to be like, Okay, I know how we got it, but like it's kind of too real to talk about it, to not talk about it. On the other hand, it's like, you know when people make fun of your little brother, and they be right about him, but you can't make fun of him. I don't want to hear from you, like you can't say nothing about my little brother, your mom being like you telling on your little brother, your mom like why you snitching. I don't want to hear from you, just because like, no, you don't get to talk about it. So the news was like, I mean thank you because they sent they sent the content of the hacks to pro Publica. They was like, yo, you can have it pro Publica. It was like, okay, cool, thank you, but like I don't need to get this from you, I mean respect. And finally there's another rumor of a ceasefire deal, and I say rumor because that's exactly what it sounds like because Anthony blinking like, yo, it's good. We just waiting on her mask. Benjamin then y'all who said, like, I ain't agree to nothing. I don't know what you're talking about. They still haven't met our turns. And in the middle of that, we just still sent twenty million dollars to them people.

So let's be real.

Can't nobody really tell another country what to do? You can't really, there's no way an American president can stop a country from going to war to another country, but what they can do is not pay for it.

Anyway, Let's get to what Zion is like this all right now, I'm back.

Now listen, I am going to do both these things an incredible injustice because both of these topics will take a lifetime to understand, and both of these topics could have many different interpretations depending on your understanding of history, politics, religion. Remember when I wanted to talk to y'all about the who thy's husbelah all of these different topics where I'm like, when you get into a religion, just like listen, listen when I say Christian, it's the same concept when I say Christian. We talk about my Zion all the time. Matter of fact, if you black, you probably went to Mount zion A and me new get Semity Church of God at Christ Now I made that up right now, There's probably is a new guest, there's probably a Mount zion A and me I.

Know there is is one in South Central.

What I'm trying to say is we use these terms all the time because they end. But when I say Christian, that's what I mean. Now when you say Christian. You may think Holy Roller Pentecosta, you may think Trump, you may think you may think Catholic, you may think there's so many other things you might think that are all these different? So you asked, you ask ten different Christians what does it mean to be Christian?

You're gonna get ten different answers most likely.

Remember we did the Terrorform episode with the hummy Kevin Garcia, and I tried to break down in the beginning. It was tough, but I tried to give y'all a cursory understanding of like Western Church history. You see how I had to give that caveat that I'm talking about Western Church, like, we ain't talking Coptic, we not talking Greek Orthodox, were not talking Russian Jesuit Like.

There's this You could really get lost in the week.

So please give me that grace that what I am about to talk to you about is grossly trunk caded, Okay, but it's just to help y'all understand so that as you have your picket signs out that at least you don't sound like a herd. So first let me teach y'all what a rastadm, what arastadim mean when they say, mont Zion and I'm sorry about my patois rastadim. Okay, first, let me step back and say what I'm What is Rastafarianism? Now, I would say, like globally, it's probably one of the youngest world religions, getting its roots by name in the nineteen thirties, deriving from the Ethiopian emperor Hali Selassii. Okay, Now, as I say this again, like a rasta, a Rastafari, like, this is not a compartmentalized philosophy, your religion. This is a way of life, right, a liberty. You know, this is our culture, our heritage, our history, right and our way of being, which some could argue is well, that's the definition of a religion. A religion, a way of being right, your liturgy. Anyway, there is an encompassing around this. Now it is impossible to separate Rasta from the africanness of it.

Okay.

So the belief is this, when you listen to roots reggae, when you listen to you know, Bob Marley and them, like, there's so much to cover, dance hall, like that's the club music, roots reggae, like you think of this as like worship, like this is praise and worship. There is a tie going back to the Queen of Sheba and King Solomon. Now I'm getting into my Old Testament. This is why there's so much Judaism and christian tied to it, because there is a belief that it's and it's and rightfully so, because if you believe the Bible, it's in the scriptures. Is that the Queen of Sheba, which was it's believed to be an ancient queen from the region of Ethiopia. Now obviously Ethiopia is a nation state, but Ethiopia as as a continual connection of tribes a Romo Tigre like just the different tribes that are there.

They have. Ethiopia and Thailand shares the legacy of being the only two countries that were never colonized or conquered. Is not Israel.

Italy almost did right, the British almost did, but they were never able to actually colonize Ethiopia.

And Ethiopia takes a lot of.

Pride in this, so a lot of their lineage and heritage because their history wasn't cut off or attempted to be raised.

You can know a lot about them.

Ethiopia in the scriptures in the Bible is called the land of cush Also, right, it's believed that Moses's wife, Zipporah was from Ethiopia when Moses. This is all Old Testament stuff, but it's all makes sense. It all makes sense as to why the connection is so important to him. Moses before the whole let my people go, before the Ten Commandments type joint. Moses supposedly, according to the story, saw a one of Pharaoh's guards abusing one of the Jewish slaves, and he hopped up and killed the guy, and then he had to run. And so then when he ran, he ran to the to Midian and he married Jethrow's daughter. And it was believed that that area was Ethiopia. Okay, so like that at least the region that we now call Ethiopia. So there's this belief that Moses's first wife. You fast forward to Solomon King David, King David's son, right, the writer of Psalms, and it's believed that, according to the passages, that he had never seen anybody more beautiful or a kingdom more amazing than the kingdom that the Queen of Shiba came from. Now you fast forward to Emperor SALASSII and Emperor SALASSII, a Romo Ethiopian man who became the emperor of what we know to be Ethiopia, right geopolitically, but it's a belief that his bloodline can be traced back to King Solomon. Right, the emperor blood line of Ethiopia could be traced back to King Solomon's.

That's the roster belief.

Again, as many rosters, you might get many answers, but overall, this is the belief right now.

Set that aside. Okay, Another connection is in.

I know there's a lot of Bible stuff, but you got to follow me because we are talking about Jews and Rastas, so of course we're going to talk about the Bible right now. The Book of Acts in the Bible has this story of this one of the apostles named Philip, and Philip runs into an Ethiopian eunuch who, according to the Bible, was reading the Book of Isaiah. And Philip sees him on the road and he's like, you know what you're reading? And the dudes like, how can I know? If nobody teaches him? So he sits down with him, and he, according to the scripture, according to the Bible, explains Isaiah, the prophecies, the Messiah, the death barely on resurrection of Jesus, and how that stuff was prophesied in the Book of Isaiah. So he ties other things and then it says that this Ethiopian eunuch got baptized right then. Now it is then believed that he brought Christianity as we know it. Their belief is like we we saw it right there, but prov I thought Rostel was Jamaican, I'll get to it. So so that's that's tie number three right now. The fourth tie, which is one of the most compelling things to me between the Jews, Zion and Ethiopia is the city of Axom. So the city of Axom is in the northern part of Ethiopia and is known to be and it's truthfully the oldest, the first and oldest Christian city because contrary to what yell, little white pastor will teach you, the faith went to Africa before it went to Europe. Okay, hell, it went to Mongolia before it went to Europe. The point is the white man ain't teach us who Jesus was.

Now.

It is also believed that the arc of the Covenant from the Old Testament isn't axiom. There are ruins at different church that have good archaeological evidence to believe that they set up the tent with the dimensions that Exodus and Deuteronomy and them, and then all Testament scriptures have taught them to do this. There are if you go to Israel now black Ethiopian Jewish people. As a matter of fact, they to be able to now get into the modern politics, to be able to repatronize, to be able to come back to Israel as a Jew, you'd have to prove by your DNA that you have Jewish heritage, you are in fact an ethnic Jew. And the Ethiopians there's a sect of Ethiopia that not only can prove it, but are some argue, the closest like DNA related to what might be the ancient Israeli Right, they're the like that some would argue that as far as the diaspora, not as far as like people ain't never let I'm talking abouts far as the diaspora, right, so they it can truly say. And there's a lot of traditions that in certain parts of Ethiopia that they continued far longer and are actually far more closely related to the ancient practices, then what modern Israel looks like. This is just it's just history now because anti blackness is universal.

When they got to.

Israel, the modern Israel, a lot of Ethiopian women were sterilized. And if you walk around Jerusalem, just like everywhere else, the people doing all of the all of the dirty work, all of the bront work, all of the jobs, nobody won't are the black. Unfortunately, that being said, the tie between Ethiopia, the ancient religion of Judaism, and the ancient people of Israel, one because of the region, one because of folklore, and one because of DNA has Ethiopia is the verifiably connected to whatever the ancient Jerusalem was. Okay, you fast forward to Holly SELASSII in the nineteen thirties, who they believe according to a Rasta him Is, I want to say two hundred and twenty fifth, my I think that's what my cousin told me two hundred and twenty fifth. Don't quote me on this, I'm just quoting my cousin of the Solomonic dynasty. So they believe that like the actual king, like a descendant of King David right, a son of David kind of like who Jesus was a descendant of David, right, was also Selassia ya ya ya aa you following me?

Okay?

Now, the word Arastafarii comes from Halli Selassi, which is ras Tafarai. Right, It's it was his name, right. So he was one of the only independent black leaders in Africa at the time. Right, So he bears this cultural, political, historic, and symbolic importance to just the African diaspora. Now, once you get into the practices of Rastafarianism, like again like the rastadim, the way of life, like the diet, you know, avoiding shellfish, eating seafood, like it's pretty similar to like kosher practices again because they have this tie to the.

Land, the history.

So there's there's a lot of practices that are like that are that they they they have a lot of practices about being welcoming to the sojourner, about the way that we collectively sing ja is a Jamaican version of saying yah, which is short for yahweh.

So when we say.

Jah rastafari, you know it's your ja is yah yahweh or jahovah. Right.

So these a lot.

Of them are vegetarian. They don't eat meat at all. Definitely not be for pork. Because you keep the temple clean, right, you very rarely are gonna find and overweight rasta like they're usually in incredibly good shape. The dreadlocks have to do what what's called the valve the Nazarite because again we're talking the Old Testament Samson in the Bible. You know Samson with his golden locks, you know the Samson and Delilah. Like Samson that took what's called a Nazarite vow, which was a vow to keep himself holy to the Lord. And the symbol of that holiness to the Lord was not crust cutting your hair. This is as a symbol of our holiness.

The vow of the Nazarite. You grow your dreadlocks. Right.

Dreadlocks was a term given to us by the British that we just own Nazi dread so because our hair, our locks were dreadful, so dreadlocks. There's also sex that believe that like God grabs the dead souls by their dreadlocks and bring them to brings them to Heaven. Again, there's the symbols beautiful, but either way, it's a symbol of the promise your commitment to keeping yourself sanctified to the Father, right is if you're being a traditional rostadem Now their belief different than it's still again so follow me.

This is still at Abrahamic faith.

That's why you're gonna hear terms like mauzaion, right, which I'm gonna get to specifically in a second. But their belief different than Christianity, although similar in a lot of ways, similar to Judaism in a lot of ways. Their belief is that, like I said, Selassie was the Messiah. Right, this is an Afrocentric belief. How did it get to Jamaica the trans Atlantic slave trade. So it gets to Jamaica via the slave trade. We got carted off. Remember this is an Afrocentric belief. And when Africans got brought to Jamaica, they brought their beliefs.

Then it sinked.

You know, had a lot of syncretism with a lot of like the voodoo and tribal and Caribbean practices, you know, a lot of the stuff that was happening in the Caribbean. That because again this is East Africa, West Africa with the Arishi and the you know, and a lot of the West African beliefs are a little more animis.

You know, and not so Abrahammick, if you will.

Right, all that to say, just like any other faith, tradition or practice, when it travels, it takes on a lot of the personalities, traditions, and practices of the people that it traveled with and the location it lands. So the music that you hear, because obviously if you hear music in Ethiopia, it don't sound like reggae because reggae is Jamaican, right, So what you consider Rastafarian, you think Caribbean, because that's I mean, I get it right. And Ethiopia is Christian, right of course, there's obviously it's a modern country. There's millions of religions there, not millions, but you know what I mean, there's a lot of different religions there, but Ethiopia's Christian rasta that's birthed out of the diaspora that has its.

Tie to Ethiopia.

Y'all following me, you have people like Marcus Garvey, right, who we need to at some point do a whole study on him in the Back to Africa movement. And I don't have time to get into the depths of Marcus Garvey. But but the point was, as far as the Pan African experience, were those who the diaspora, we who got separated from our land, whether it was your run of the mill black Baptist slave in Tuscaloosa, right in Mobile, Alabama, backwoods of preacher and you know, making Georgia, that we was on the plantations.

If a Bible got into our.

Hands, it was so easy to see ourselves in the children of Israel. Like it's not hard to see. If you read the Book of Exodus, you like, damn, that's us. It was too it was too the connection is too obvious. We're like, oh my gosh, cart it off into slavery from a distant land. Like and then there's a longing for a return to your promised land. The city and the capital of my promised land is the city of Zion.

You're following me.

It would be the same in the Caribbean for the rastadem But they looking back in Selassie, it is Rastafarianism is by definition anti colonial, obviously, and they believe that Africa is their not only their their literal ancestral homeland, but it's their spiritual homeland and the country of Ethiopia gets a particular reverence because of the role it played in the nineteenth century for the resistance of because of Selassie, for the resistance of European imperialism. Everybody else fell, Ethiopia didn't. So the gold, green, and red colors of the modern Ethiopia flag are the traditional colors of the Rastafarian because it can in some ways get it roots, gets its roots from there.

Right.

Okay, I know that was a long preamble, but you gotta understand we're talking. So once you have this understanding of your connection to Judaism practice anti colonial you know, dispersed, taken away from your homeland and longing for a return to your promised land, now we could talk about what Zion is. Now, Rastafarian has two basic tent poles Zion Babylon. You hear that stuff in all the raget you listen to, right, So these are the theological ideology ideological tent poles. The dichotomy is tied again to the anti colonial origins because Babylon, remember again in your Old Testament, is the symbol of the evil powers, the evil empire, just like in the Bible, it's the the the the epitome.

It is everything that's wrong in the world.

It's the system is symbolized in king Nebukane, the the and the kingdom of Babylon.

And we long to see Babylon fall.

We chant down bout this worldly system that enslaves and and and attacks and and seeks to control not only the outward person, but the inside of you what what Christians would call your sin nature worldly Babylon. Right. So, if you're following again the saga of the Old Testament Israel fleeing Egypt or getting away from Egypt, becoming free and then being enslaved.

By Babylon again, Babylon's the problem. Does that make sense? Now? In the Bible, Zion is just.

Another name for Jerusalem, right, and it can refer to the land of Israel fully. Now the Rastafarian Okay, this is where our difference is repurpose the Biblical definition to an Afrocentric direction. For the Rasta Zion is the continent of Africa, specifically Ethiopia. But the term represents not just a physical place, because Ethiopia is just Ethiopia, but it's an ideal. It's what we would call to become cross. It's this is paradise. This is Thy Kingdom. Come Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. Zion, Heaven and Earth meets. So it's not just it's it's physical and so much more, which in a lot of ways is the same for the jew But we'll get to that. It is the destruction of a worldly system and the raising of a selected godly kingdom where all of us. What we would talk about, the Christians would talk about the Kingdom of God is righteousness, peace, enjoying the Holy goth is to be a part of the kingdom. So it's a both place and it's an idea to strive for. Right where the Rasta's they would equate with preserving and glorifying Black African culture, right the Iron Lion of Zion, you know, Bob Marley's you know some but for more information, like Rastafari is kind of like like how we have denominations. There's a divide it into mansions, and they got it from like the Gospel of John when Jesus says, in my father's house there are many mansions. Right again, I'm telling you it's an Abrahamic faith. A lot of people don't think it's just a. It's a black you know, anti colonial African outpour of it. Right, so you have like the Bobo, the Ashanti, the twelve tribes. That's that's a denomination, if you will, they would call it the twelve tribes of Israel. N I never pronounced it, right, But the Naya be the Naya be BINGI like, I never pronounce it right. But there are a certain type now some again, there are some look more traditional than others, and then a lot of people just follow like an individual like rasta way of viewing it. But at the end of the day, Ethiopia is, for lack of better term, the new Jerusalem. This is zion when we're talking about Rastad. Okay, now what the Zionists believe? Next? All right, we're back now Zionism the name the overall name for right now. You know, if you're pro Palestine, that's the.

Name of the bad guys. They're Zionists.

And people have tried to separate the idea of anti Semitism from Zionists being anti Zionists, that these are different things. Now that would mean that you'd have to understand all those things and their history from them. Now I'm trying to handle this like with as much respect as I can, because I'm talking about a culture that's not mine, right, So please grant me that grace that there's I'm probably gonna overlook. Like I said in the beginning, I'm probably gonna overlook some stuff that I'm not trying to overlook. I'm trying to give as best as I can and understanding right of these different things anti am I that's I mean, those are the Nazis. You just don't believe that. It's a type of thing. It's a type of overall term for the concept of the convolution of idea, this weird idea that all that is wrong. Like it's almost like you've made the Jew Babylon, you know what I'm saying, Like we just talked about like you, they are everything that's wrong. They are both. They are both the killers of Jesus. They are the vermin that I'm trying to describe anti Semitism, the the the religion and the ethnicity that somehow or another is poor and subhuman but also quietly controls all of the inner workings of money and power in the world. And your only solution is to wipe them out. That would be anti Semitic. That's the idea of that that comes from this thing called the Protocols of Zion, which again the word Zion I'm gonna talk about, which is something that we've talked about on the Behind the Bastards episodes of the Protocols design.

Now that's anti Semitic.

Now once we get into now if you remember the one of the You Wasn't Outside episodes when we pulled the clip of a rabbi explaining the idea of what makes a Jew a Jew according to the faith is they're covenant with Yahweh. That it's not necessarily a location. As a matter of fact, to see it as a location is to minimize it. Where he was like the Promised Land that our claim is because we are in covenant with Yahweh and that can happen anywhere.

The location don't matter. So to say that the capital has to be.

In Jerusalem or has to be in Tel Aviv because that's God's will is He's like, no, you're missing the point, Like who cares where a modern nation state plants? Like that's a secular system that is like the rastadem would say that is Babylon. To worry about what other nations say I am a part of the kingdom, and the kingdom exists because I am in covenant with yaw. We are a covenant people. That's what makes that's what gives us our Jewishness is our covenant with y'owe.

Who cares what the borders are.

That would be a specific type of Judaism, right, A religious type of Judaism. Now, an ethnic Judaism something different. A political Judaism is something different. And that's what we're going to talk about right now. Zionism as we're talking about not the Rastadim, but Zionism. You could say, I'd say, go back to August twenty ninth, eighteen ninety seven. It was a meeting on the Rhine River in this small city like in Switzerland.

Called Basil, right, um Basil.

Now, this meeting had people from all over the world, and it was to discuss this concept of Zionism. Now, like I said in the Biot, like I said, zion is just a biblical term for Jerusalem. Right, So they choose that term because if you're paying attention to Europe Pagras, it ain't a good place for Jews. It's been all bad for them for a while. And this discussion was to say we have to have a place cause it seemed like no matter where we go, we not want it. Now they pull in all the way back Damaal freaking Canaan to Egypt. They are talking about their deep history and they're like, like, no matter where we go, we not want it. So we need to find a place where we could just be ourselves. And they thought, what better place than our ancestral homeland. Now, if you're looking around this room, you would think the same thing. I would think, y'all white as hell, Like you're you're European.

I don't understand the same.

Way that you would probably look at that Ethiopian and go, but you're African.

But follow me now.

So people in during the time, from like Munich, from Germany, from Poland, from Switzerland, they're like, what is you talking about? Like I'm just as German as everybody they German. They're like, we speak German, like this is just our religious Like I ain't never seen I never been to Israel, never seen Israel.

Israel's not a thing at the time.

That place is Palestine, you know, like it's not a that's not a that's it would be the same as me saying I need to go back to Nubia, but like Nubia's gone, you know black people like again a Marcus Garvey thing, but that was closer today time, like you need to go back to there's no place here wanted for you. I'm like, well, that's not I don't I don't even know the language they speak at Tobo. I'm guessing that because I took an African ancestry and they were saying I'm my father side that maybe.

I'm like, what do I know about? I don't even think about that.

So the Jews at the time were like, what, I don't this what did you talking about? Like it would be the equivalent to a back to Africa movement to where it's like, I mean, it sounds cool, but like I mean it's already people there, and I mean it's been hundreds of year, like I'm German, like we're German. A lot of the rabbis were like, look, first of all, this is blasphemous. Were not supposed to return until the Messiah come, Like that's what the prophecies that, and he gonna bring us back.

I don't know about what the hell you doing? Right?

And then the others, like the more modern ones, were like, well, we're not a nation like. That was actually the point, Like don't you then you read yo yo taura, you don't need a king. I'm your king. You're not a nation like That's the point. The point is you're supposed to be different. I'm your king. You're a part of a kingdom of God, the kingdom of Heaven, and I'll bring you back when it's time, when the Messiah come. So like whatever y'all doing, that's not even now I'm saying that again, this is eighteen ninety seven.

That's that was the belief of them.

Now again those were some rabbi and not only that, Like I said, they're like, well, I'm French, I do what anyway, Enter this guy named Theodore Herzel right, who was a journalist who covered this actually probably one of the most radicalizing moments for anybody, for any Jew in Europe, right, and it was the case for this man named Alfred Dreyfus, right, which basically became like the trial of the century. They called it the Dreyfus affair, and the journalist who covered it was Theodore Herzel. Basically, the Dreyfus was accused of treason and found guilty and sentenced to like a work prism, totally wrongfully convicted, completely.

Out of nowhere, y'all made all that up.

But how that work was like because he was Jewish, it became not just about him, but that you can't trust the jew. And Theodore Hertzel's watching all this, and he's watching the people get whipped up into a frenzy. People that was just your neighbors. Like again, I'm just as German as you, I'm just as European as you are. Like, fam, I remember the feeling when Trump first started taking over the brains of the white Christian where I was like dog, we was at cracker Barrel yesterday.

What happened?

Like we used to what just what has bewitched you? Like all of was you like this the whole time? It was super confusing. It's like all of a sudden, we're different, y'all. It's me like I've been meet this whole time. So Theodore Hertzel was like, yo, okay, listen, we clearly not wanted here and it's only gonna get worse.

Turns out he was absolutely correct.

So he comes up with this idea that is like he's like, Okay, I'm gonna suggest a Jewish state in the current state of Nation of Palestine. Y'all think I'm crazy right now, But in about fifty years you gonna see this was eighteen ninety seven. Guess what happened in fifty years nineteen forty eight shoots Israel.

Bekay, days, ain't that crisy?

So now Zionism, you want to be able to distinguish it between two different types of Zionism, right, And this is where I would critique making the concept the bad guy, because there's two types here.

Okay, there's the.

Zionism that comes out of a longing for a home that's where us and erastas actually share a place where we can be fully accepted, fully ourselves, and fully safe, because again, we're not wanted anywhere we are, right So, there's.

A longing for a home that you've been ripped away from.

Right now, when they say ripped away from, like we're talking guess what I'm talking about King of Babylon. We're talking about the nations being scattered like five eighty BC when the Ark of the Covenant went missing, and this beautiful, amazing Kingdom of Israel that used to exist in modern day Palestine Israel, in that region that was called Judea at that time where they existed.

And then.

If you know your history, I've said this so many times in the usn't outside episodes, that little strip of land has been conquered and colonial and ran by every possible kingdom, every possible empire in the modern world, finally by Britain. And then but as that was happening, the people who were ethnically Israeli as we mean the in the ancient sense, were scattered all over the world.

So that's why you could be white.

As hale in Jewish and you could be black as hale in Jewish because they were scattered, right. And then of course now you're not going to marry people while you're there. But somehow or another they've been able to keep on to their traditions and their religions because they were also it's one of those things which you're ethnically and religiously and your identity so anyway, scattered all over the world. But as as we know, there's plenty of people that didn't lead. Again, I'm giving you you wasn't outside history, which you understand, so there's this longing of being like, man, this we used to have a place to be in the world, and you feel like you're looking around everybody else got a place to be in the world. This is born from despair, and rightfully so. But then there's this other type of Zionism that is more like this idea of reclaiming and enthusiasm about our heritage and our culture, like we need we need to be like the same way I would be like loud and black, like we need to be black as hell out here, Like we need to reclaim take up space and be ourselves rather than like shrinking ourselves, Like I want to reclaim all that it is for us to be us now as a minority. That shouldn't be hard for you to understand. I mean, that's us sitting here in America. And then you got the Republicans being like, well, you're American first, and I'm like, nah, nigga, I'm black.

I got my red, black and green on the wall.

You know, it's the Latinos flying their Mexican flags and like, nah, we who we are?

You feel me?

And you're like, when you're an American, you know it's you're a Nosavo kid. You know, when you finally discover the concept of Azlin, you want to know a little about your own heritage. Yeah, you're American, you know what I mean, from East Lost. But you want to reclaim your history, your heritage, your language.

You want to learn Aztec dances.

It's like, so there's that version also, So in that sense, it'd be weird to you when you like, you're like yo, like Yo, we're Jews. You're like, oooh, I'm German. It's like nigga, you French like word. These people don't love you, like why you identify as that? You know, so there's you see that as a lens of Zionism. You so those so you have these ideas happening at all around the same sort of time and idea with the same term zion. So it could be seeing as somebody that's like yo, like I want to learn our ancient language, I want to learn our practices, I want to do the shabbat.

I want to like I want to bring back.

It became this umbrella term for just what it meant to like reclaim your culture, reclaim your identity, reclaim the fullness of what y'all are and then there's the geopolitical idea. Now, this geopolitical idea borrowed from all of these particular concepts. And if you read the writings of Theodore Herzel and a lot of the people involved in this, they were all bride eyed about the idea that like, oh, this is going to be a colonial takeover of Palestine. You have to remove the indigenous population for this to happen, because there's no way they're going to give it to me. And there were certain ways they tried to do it. They tried to do it peacefully. One way they said was well, first of all, let's go talk to Britain, because remember the British Empire actually drew the partition. The British Empire is the one that drew the line between Israel and Palestine, because remember it used to belong to them. Another idea that the Zionist had was, yo, let's go talk to the Turkish empire, right, because remember the Ottomans were there before the British. And they was like, okay, so if you let us be a government, how about we pay all the debts? What if we pay off debts?

They were trying. Matter of fact, Israel the location.

Wasn't even their first choice because they was like this a little too complicated. They thought about going to Africa, They looked at a couple different places as to where to land. This geopolitical idea of Zionism.

I'm telling this out of order. Let me back up.

So the idea that like, it's just a myth that the Zionists were not aware of the Palestinian Arab population. They were well aware of it. But the question is what to do with that information? Because yeah, as Jewish as as Hurtzel was, he's also a European, so that like he saw the Arabs as barbaric like that they were.

I mean, it's just there's no other way around it.

They were well aware that you are going to have to displace people to build a nation like this, So that was not they knew. Right now, again, I'm talking about the geopolitical idea of Zionists. But their idea was like, surely y'all can see that, like.

We're not a big empire. We're not.

We're like, we're just we're just looking for a place to be, you know, and since we're from here anyway, it should this shouldn't be a problem. So yeah, so, like I said, Hertzel went to the British, he went to the Ottoman Empire, and he asked them, like, yo, can we just go settle Keep in mind is like European Jews had been moving to tel Aviv for a while. You know, they actually formed the city of tel Aviv, right, those were Jewish settlers from Israel. That's formed the city of tel Aviv this well before Israel became a state, right, so.

They had already been moving.

Now they were just like, we just need legitimacy, So how about we buy it from the Ottomans?

And you know, the emperor of.

The Ottoman Empire was like, bro, I can't sell you land like it belongs to the people and they fought to conquer this place. I'm not finish, just just sell it to you. And not only did he not sell it to him, he started building policy to make sure that they can't just be immigrating and just buying up Palestinian land.

He was like, I'm not really I'm not really.

Here for this, and like why would I welcome like a large religious minority into my empire?

You might take it over.

So, like I said, he was like, I can't look they're not just letting us come now, they're restricting our thing, our movement. He even, like I said, he went back to the British Empire, asked for a spot in East Africa, like can we just and the Jews back home? It was like, nigga, we're going back to Zion. The hell you talk about East Africa for He's perzels like bro, I'm trying right. So eventually they found the city of Tel Aviv. They create their own like anybody else, Like you created Chinatown. You created like you create your own community. Then newm niggas got organized. Now the timeline I'm telling you this, Like I said, Remember he had this first idea eighteen ninety seven. So this is all during the times between like World War One World War Two. Remember Britain didn't take over until nineteen seventeen, because that's why he was building with the Ottoman Empire. Dudes once and then once they was gone once British, Once Britain take took over nineteen seventeen, we're about we're seeing the end of World War One, right, You're thinking maybe this was a new world.

And then all hell.

Broke loose with the Nazi Empire and at that point, once the Nazis things started happening, it was like, oh, nigga, we gotta go like this. We can't be playing games. Were trying to play nice like like that. The Nazi thing kicked this mug in a high gear. So now by nineteen forty seven, it's like now it's like the Jews are like a third of the population in Palestine at the time, right, So so now it's getting a little itchy, you know what I'm saying, Like, now y'all, just y'all, just over here, And if you're an Arab nation, you like, okay, wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait okay. Why we got to lose our home because of stuff Europe did? Why are we paying the price? Like I feel you, you know what I'm saying, Like that's terrible what you're going through, But like why you gotta come, Why you.

Gotta take our house?

Why y'all gotta be like what's going on right now? But anyway, since nobody's handing it to them, now we got numbers, since nobody's just gonna let us be here, the only way to do this is by force. So them dudes made a military. Now it's time to scrap for it. But as you know, this is still a British outpost. Finally, Britain's like, okay, listen, I'm done with all this. When were we gonna do? Y'all get that part, y'all get that part. They created the partition, but they said, now y'all figure out what is what and.

Who run this and all that, like I'm done.

And there at that moment the birth of the nation of Israel, the lines created by Britain after they left in Palestine looking around here going man.

What what just happened? Right now?

And then, like I said in other you wasn't outside episodes, the rest of the Arab nations was like, oh hell no, like if they were the war immediately everybody jumped them.

Egret, everybody jump it was like.

And then and look Israel one like like they just.

What did y'all do? Like who are you? Why are you get to be a nation?

But that's what happened, and we still scrapping over it. Nation states again have more to do with the recognition of other nations and who gets to decide who gets what power and all this good stuff. I like we said borders are made up, they're drawn by conquerors. It's not don't let that fool you. The concept that has people out in the streets is the type of Zionism that has to do with the displacement of an indigenous population by force because you believe God wanted you here. That's one way to look at it. And that, my friend, it's just run of the mill imperialism. It's basic. Then there's the Zionism that says, like I said, I am preserving my culture. And then there's the Zionism that says, I am longing for a place for us to belong, a Zionism that is much more an idea of a promised land rather than the hostile takeover of a place where people already exist. Spiritual, religious, political, all of that in this one turn. So I am not going to tell you what to think of when you say Zionists, just like I don't know what to tell you what you think of when you say Christian But I tell you what it ain't what the rastas mean.

And I tell you what if.

You're sitting in Palestine right now, do it even matter hood politics?

All right?

Now? Don't you hit stop on this pod. You better listen to these credits. I need you to finish this thing so I can get.

The download numbers. Okay, so don't stop it yet, but listen.

This was recorded in East Lost Boyle Heights by your boy Propaganda. Tap in with me at prop hip hop dot com. If you're in the Coldbrew coffee we got terraform Coldbrew. You can go there dot com and use promo code hood get twenty percent off.

Get yourself some coffee.

This was mixed, edited and mastered by your boy Matt Alsowski killing the Beast softly. Check out his website Mattowsowski dot com. I'm'a spell it for you because I know M A T T O S O W s AI dot com Matthowsowski dot com. He got more music and stuff like that on there, so gonna check out The heat. Politics is a member of cool Zone Media, executive produced by Sophie Lichterman, part of the iHeartMedia podcast network. Your theme music and scoring is also by the one and nobly Mattawsowski. Still killing the beat softly, So listen. Don't let nobody lie to you. If you understand urban living, you understand politics. These people is not smarter than you. We'll see y'all next week.

Hood Politics with Prop

From the makers of the Red Couch pod: The political landscape can be confusing, but it doesn't have  
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