The Red Sea in Zionist mythology

Dr. Muhammad Hasab Alrasool

In the stories of some Hebrew historians and clerics, there are references to the Red Sea’s special place in Biblical and Zionist mythology. These stories say that the Red Sea was a Jewish sea in the past and that ties and connections between the ancient Jews and the Red Sea date back to the tenth century BC. Contemporary Zionist historians have repeated that the Red Sea will remain a Jewish sea in the present and the future, as it was in the past.
According to these stories, Suleiman bin David’s kingdom expanded by adding the Red Sea and the Kingdom of Sheba, and his conscience expanded, so he married two women from both shores of the sea, the daughter of one of the Nile Valley pharaohs from the western shore, and Bilqis from the eastern shore. He had a son with the second named Ben Sira. The narrative goes on to say The Emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie, is the grandson of Kings Solomon and Bilqis, and this is a common story among Jewish circles, and among Christians and Muslims belonging to the Amhara ethnicity in Ethiopia.
The stories and narratives of historians and clerics about the Red Sea have been presented to the leaders of the Zionist movement and the leaders of the “state” since the first conference of the Zionist movement in Basel in 1897, and their narratives have strengthened the chances of Palestine being chosen to establish the “Jewish state” project. The entrenchment of these narratives was demonstrated in practice in the Zionist settlement plan in Palestine before and after the establishment of the “state.” In 1938, settlement operations began in southern Palestine, Negev, Umm al-Rashrash in 1949, Sinai, Sharm El-Sheikh, and the islands of Tiran and Sanafir in 1956.
When the United Nations General Assembly discussed the partition plan for Palestine in 1947, the Zionist movement showed great interest in southern Palestine. It exerted great pressure on America so that southern Palestine would be part of the “Jewish state,” and its goal was achieved. When the port of Umm Rashrash (Eilat) was constructed in 1951, David Ben-Gurion announced that the fleets of David and Solomon would once again make their way into the Red Sea.
Politicians and academics say that one of the most prominent goals of the tripartite aggression in 1956 lies in completing the achievement of the goals of the 1948 war and consolidating Israel’s connection to the Red Sea by reviving the port of Umm Rashrash (Eilat), which remained inactive for five years after its opening, due to the closure of the Gulf of Aqaba to… Maritime navigation, and because of the implementation of the provisions of the commercial boycott of “Israel”, especially in the Suez Canal and in the Strait of Tiran and Sanafir, which negatively affected the future of the Negev and the economic conditions therein, and this reflected on the processes of settling displaced Zionists there.

Based on that Zionist mythology, a general theoretical framework for the theory of Israeli national security was established. In 1923, the founder and leader of the Revisionist Zionist movement and the godfather of the Israeli right, Zeev Jabotinsky(1880-1940), wrote and published two articles titled “The Iron Wall,” in which he mentioned his well-known saying: “Reaching an agreement with the Arabs is not possible, because they will not give up their land and their rights, and therefore conflict with them is inevitable.” He added to that by saying that peace with the Arabs will become possible only after inflicting severe military defeats on them. What prompts them to accept the existence of “Israel” and to be convinced of the futility of resisting it militarily?
Jabotinsky also says: “There is a necessity to erect an iron wall of deterrent military force, built to inflict severe military defeats on the Arabs, sufficient to generate despair in their hearts and push them to give up Palestine, accept the existence of Israel, and convince them through defeats of the futility of resisting it militarily; then peace will become possible.
From these two articles and from those statements that explained the Iron Wall thesis, David Ben-Gurion wove the general framework of the Israeli national security theory, which was based on three pillars: intelligence superiority, deterrence, and rapid resolution. The “Al-Aqsa Flood” operation launched by the Hamas movement toppled those pillars in one sentence, and with a fatal blow, when the “Flood” operation demonstrated the failure of Israeli intelligence in relation to Palestinian superiority and when it confirmed the ability to deter the resistance in exchange for the decline in deterrence of the occupation, and when the performance of the resistance in Gaza demonstrated the ability to be extremely steadfast, the speed of decisiveness was broken on its rock.
From the south of the Red Sea, about six weeks ago, Yemen entered the war alongside Palestine, supporting it in the face of Israeli aggression. It began bombing “Israel” with ballistic missiles and drones and imposed by force of arms a ban on the passage of Israeli-owned ships in the Arabian Sea and the Red Sea then developed This ban included all ships carrying goods to Israeli ports, which angered “Israel”, America, and some Western countries, which began a movement to form a new international coalition to confront Yemen to change its decision, and to guarantee “Israel’s” security and safety from Yemeni missiles and marches. And lift the embargo and siege imposed by Yemen on “Israel” by preventing ships from heading north towards its ports.
By entering the war as a supporter of Palestine, Yemen imposed a new strategic equation, built on the unity of the path of Arab weakness in Yemen and Palestine, and built based on the siege of “Israel” in exchange for the siege of Gaza. On the other hand, it tore up the Jewish narrative of the Red Sea and closed the way to the fleets of David and Solomon, which they wanted to build. Gurion allowed it to build a road in the Red Sea and imposed a slogan whose first half reads: If Gaza dies of thirst, then the rain will not fall, and its second half reads: Gaza, and then there will be a flood.

* Writer and researcher on regional issues