Palin: “Jews will be flocking to Israel”
I think Goldberg’s comments are a fair reading of Palin’s remark. Jews have their own belief system regarding the coming of the Mashiach. The “battle of Armageddon” is not part of it.
Now, my question is, so what? If this is what she believes is it good bad for the Jews? The Christian evangelicals, our largest support group, all share similar views. Would any evangelical, as President, encourage antisemitism in America to bring it about? I think not. If it were the case, they would be at the forefront of antisemitism today. But they are not. The opposite is true. Keep in mind that for this prophecy to come to pass, Israel must exist. Therefor dispensationalists will do everything they can t keep Israel safe and secure.
On the other hand there is evidence of antisemitic theory in the works and books of Rev Hagee and others. Goldberg’s article is too simplistic and shouldn’t be taken literally (I couldn’t resist). Palin’s Church Does Not Teach A Pre-Trib Rapture explores the issue in greater depth.
This is a very big issue. I think it will impact Palin’s chances more than Rev Wright’s Church and beliefs did Obama’s though I happen to think that the opposite should have been the case.
Ted Belman
By Jeffery Goldberg, The Atlantic
Ever curious about the eschatological implications of that Sarah Palin quote from her interview with Barbara Walters — the one in which she said she believes that “more and more Jewish people will be flocking to Israel in the days and weeks and months ahead” — I called the executive director of the Pre-Trib Research Center at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., Dr. Thomas Ice. The Pre-Trib Center is one of the preeminent evangelical institutions in this country arguing for literal Bible prophecy, and especially for pre-millenial dispensationalism, a complicated belief system that concerns the conditions that must obtain on Earth before Jesus can return (”Pre-Trib” is short for “pre-tribulation.”) One of the more famous conditions, of course, is the ingathering of the Jewish people in Israel. There are hundreds of variations of Protestant prophetic belief, but the Jewish role is generally crucial; very dramatic things will happen to the Jews in these prophetic belief systems, including their conversion to Christianity and their mass death in the battle of Armageddon.
I’ve been writing about these belief systems for a while, and an alarm bell went off in my head when I heard Palin talk about “days and weeks.” It’s quite one thing to say that Israel needs settlements to contain its growing population (a belief unsupported by the facts, but I’ll deal with that another time), but it’s something else entirely to predict that Jews in the Diaspora will imminently be flooding the Holy Land. I asked Dr. Ice if he thought that this statement by Palin, who has been exposed to this brand of evangelical thinking in her Alaska churches, was informed by these beliefs.
“I’ve read that Palin has been part of an apparently unique movement I’ve heard of — that her pastor, when she was in the Assembly of God, believed based on some personal revelation he claims to have gotten from God, that the Jews would move to Alaska during the Tribulation. But nevertheless, my understanding from what I’ve seen is that she holds fairly typical Protestant Zionist beliefs, and one of those beliefs is the regathering of the Jews in Israel.”
Ice told me he believes this sort of thinking is supported by the facts. “Over forty percent of the world’s Jews now live in Israel. What Sarah Palin probably believes is that this is the first regathering,” when the Jews all migrate to Israel. “This is a condition for the second regathering, the regathering in belief, when the Jewish nation is converted. Then there will be the battle of Armageddon, because remember, Satan wants to wipe out the Jews to prevent the Second Coming, but Jesus comes to rescue the beleaguered Jews. We believe that the Jews are going to be converted so that they can call on Jesus to rescue them from Satan.”
I asked Ice if he, like Palin, believes that in the days and weeks and months ahead, American Jews — who make up the only sizable Jewish community still existing outside of Israel — might move there, in order to establish the conditions necessary for the Second Coming. “The historical reason Jews move to Israel is persecution, so when persecution heats up in a country, then the Jews come to Israel,” he said. “She may just have a general geopolitical belief that the world is going to be increasingly anti-Semitic.”
But what about America? I asked. “In case you haven’t noticed, America is becoming less Christian, more secular, and it’s our Puritan roots that have kept this country from being anti-Semitic. But now look at the secular left, it’s very anti-Semitic. Look at the people who are surrounding Obama. They’re very anti-Semitic. Things aren’t as bad as they are in Europe, but it’s getting much worse.” The worse it gets for Jews in America, of course, the closer we are to the Second Coming.
How common are these beliefs? I asked. “Fifty to sixty million people probably hold these beliefs,” he said.
Would any evangelical, as President, encourage antisemitism in America to bring it about?
As an American evangelical myself, I say absolutely not! It’s unthinkable. God’s on the throne. He does things on His timetable - not ours. Nor can we influence the timing of events. As a side-note, this is markedly different than the Shia leadership in Iran and elsewhere, apparently, who think they can hasten the coming of their messiah by starting wars. For crying out loud!!! Does everyone have to have their own messiah?
Or as Jesus said in Matthew:
BTW, kudos to Goldberg. That was one of the most succinct and accurate summaries of what’s becoming mainstream Christian end-times theology. Interestingly enough, most of this is based on our interpretation (I know we don’t agree…I’m not trying to start an argument!) of prophecies in the Tanakh - not the New Testament.
Stepping back a bit, our larger view is that God will turn His attention away from the Church and put it squarely back on Israel. All the prophecies concerning the Messiah in the Tanakh and New Testament will come to pass. The Messianic Kingdom will be established in Israel, populated by Jews, whether the Ahmadinejad’s of the world want it or not. Can I get an amen?! (Some of this is based on our reading of Daniel 9:25-27 and his famous “Seventy Sevens” prophecy. A good read, if you’re so inclined.)
And Armageddon is better viewed as a Satanic-led military campaign against the Jews in Israel to exterminate them once and for all. We don’t believe the Church will even be on the earth at that point. We will have been raptured away. To the extent that we are your friends (and I’m so happy that some Jews do call us friends!) we don’t believe we’ll be around to help you. That makes me extremely sad to contemplate. On the other hand, who needs a bunch of Jesus freaks around when God Himself steps in to save you as He’s done so many times before?
Anyway, I hope this doesn’t anger anybody, but this is what we believe.
Comment by Calvary — November 26, 2009 @ 6:22 am
Not trying to be overly contentious but pls define friends? Then define Friends in your context above. Then explain in view of your statement that you will be around to help when needed, pls explain to we uninitiated why we should show such (FRIENDS) any deference?
I suppose if you can convince us that you are not against us with malice then we should settle for that? Maybe so.
This could be of interest to all who read this post and thread
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lyp2Hj4IO6o&feature=player_embedded#
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bN7ZPZAfvC4&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxqaFXdrd3E&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsdtsIT-Zbk&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-Hc-_sgu8w&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sjs_LIO6Km8&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVwVPt0zYdg&feature=related
100,000 Jews Celebrate the Liberation of the Old City on Yom Yerushalayim at the Kotel May 23, 2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L64q221HsKA&NR=1
Comment by yamit82 — November 26, 2009 @ 3:33 pm
Assuming your Jesus even existed, he comes off as nothing special and often arrogant. Pagan deities in the flesh were plentiful at the time. Yours became a best seller among the masses.
Jews need to mend themselves in order to hasten the arrival of the messiah. It’s up to us - not to you - though you can influence correctly, which means dropping the dead Jew on a stick nonsense for starters, or at a minimum keeping it far away from my people - which contradicts part of your raison d’être.
The messiah is/will, physically, be a plain human being, just like you and me. You folks got that layer of your story wrong, too. See Isaiah 11.
Anyway, I hope this doesn’t anger anybody, but this is what we believe.
Comment by Shy Guy — November 26, 2009 @ 3:48 pm
What facts is Goldberg talking about? Has he ever been to Israel? There is no Land left to build from Haifa to Ashdod unless one builds on in use agricultural land and nature preserves. Does he expectr Israel having a wall to wall megalopolis in ten-30 years?
It is a Jewish belief and has been before some Christians adopted it as their own.
Then if correct she is smarter and more attuned to reality than 99.9% of the Jews in the diaspora. Of course if true then she has the facts of the matter to back her up. Goldberg? He will be toast with most of the other Jews. How do I know well the Bible…..!
There are more outside of America and do we want such support from those who see us and our struggle and demise as a key to their own redemptive processes?
Sometimes a cigar is not just a cigar and sometimes friends are not really friends. Sometimes the enemy of my enemy is my enemy as well, Sometimes.
Comment by yamit82 — November 26, 2009 @ 3:55 pm
A Thanksgiving Day Revelation:
The threat to Jews comes not from the secular liberals who fervently embrace genocidal anti-Semites.
The threat exists from Evangelical Christians who are Israel’s most loyal supporters.
Anyone who accepts this transparently insane premise is so fucking stupid that they should immediately be euthanized.
You must literally have shit for brains to buy into this con job.
Comment by ayn reagan — November 26, 2009 @ 5:42 pm
That is all Palin said. She did not expound on it. While Goldberg may be correct, at the same time, because there seems to be countless interpretations and beliefs among Christians, it doesn’t seem fair to find someone to extrapolate on what she believes and say “she probably believes” this and/or that. Whatever she believes, she is not making it the issue, and while beliefs may be an influence, what we should judge is her policies. If by sound reason we arrive at the same conclusions on policies she does influenced by her reason and faith, who cares except leftists, Islamofascists, and so called “moderates”? She seems to get the issues right consistently. If she continues to come to the right decisions, that matters more that the vehicle she arrives in. The bottom line, is that whatever impacts her ideology, it seems to do so by far and large in a positive direction on sound basis.
Comment by RandyTexas — November 26, 2009 @ 6:01 pm
The interesting thing about this, is most pro-Israel Christians believe that Jews accept Yeshua was/is messiah by a direct revelation. The Christains do not convert the Jews, they can’t, and it is not their job. Their job is to support the Jewish people and to support the right of Israel to exists on Biblical lands. If Yeshua isn’t coming, what’s the big deal? If Messiah does come, then whoever is wrong will be convinced, and either Jews or Christians will have to admit they are wrong.
We all have our own beliefs, no one can prove anything regarding the matter unless G-d Himself does. As long as, for the current crisis, all parties are in agreement on Israel’s right to the land, on the need to confront Islamofacism, and as well, to resist internationalists which are a threat to the freedom of all people, then regarding future matters, I defer to Alfred E. Newman who famously said—What, me worry?
Comment by RandyTexas — November 26, 2009 @ 6:19 pm
Israel’s Fears, Amalek’s Arsenal
By JEFFREY GOLDBERG
Published: May 16, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/17/opinion/17goldberg.html?_r=1&pagewanted=1
Nevertheless, the prime minister’s preoccupation with the Iranian nuclear program seems sincere and deeply felt. I recently asked one of his advisers to gauge for me the depth of Mr. Netanyahu’s anxiety about Iran. His answer: “Think Amalek.”
Strangely, Goldberg does not mention what is perhaps the most striking and well-known fact about the Amalekites: they were the targets of divinely sanctioned genocide. As related in 1 Samuel 15, G-d instructed the Israelite king Saul to “go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.” Saul “utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword,” but spared their king Agag and the best of Amalek’s livestock, for which he was punished by G-d. When Saul’s successor David attacked the Amalekites (along with the Geshurites and Gezrites), he “smote the land, and left neither man nor woman alive.” (1 Samuel 27:9).
Goldberg clearly does not wish to rattle his right-thinking liberal New York Times audience, so he conveniently omits all this from his account of Amalek. However, if Netanyahu’s advisors are right to say that BB sees Iran as the new Amalek, this is a fact with profoundly disturbing implications. After all, the biblically ordained way to deal with the Amalekites is not through “smart but tough” diplomacy, “crippling” sanctions, or even precise and targeted military strikes. Rather, it is through root-and-branch extermination — that is, wiping Iran off the map. Goldberg writes that “f Iran’s nuclear program is, metaphorically, Amalek’s arsenal, then an Israeli prime minister is bound by Jewish history to seek its destruction, regardless of what his allies think.” This is not quite accurate. If we take G-d’s command and the Amalek analogy literally, then an Israeli prime minister would be bound not to seek “its [the Amalekite arsenal’s] destruction,” but rather “their [the Amalekites’] destruction.”
What to think in Light of BB’s caving to Americas will and diktat?
Goldberg explains that the critics “misunderstand” Amalek and its role in Jewish thought. Although he does concede that the Bible calls for the extermination of the Amalekites, Goldberg maintains that “this is a Jewishly inoperable commandment, never carried out, and never to be carried out.”
This claim is simply factually wrong. King Saul did in fact “utterly destroy all the [Amalekite] people with the edge of the sword” in response to G-d’s command; his only failure was that he spared their king Agag and the best of their livestock (1 Samuel 15). (Agag’s good fortune proved to be short-lived; shortly thereafter the prophet Samuel himself “hewed Agag in pieces before the Lord”.) Later, King David did in fact “smite the land, and leave neither man nor woman alive” when he attacked the Amalekites (1 Samuel 27).
I take it seriously.
Comment by yamit82 — November 26, 2009 @ 7:57 pm
This analysis of Sarah’s comment is a huge stretch. Jeffrey Goldberg is a typical liberal prick who despises Christian conservatives and is trying to falsely portray them, the Jews and Israel’s true friends, as anti-Semites, all the while justifying his own alliance with the liberal left real anti-Semites. Not to mention attempting to portray Sarah herself as a kook, which is something the liberals are desperate to do because they live in fear of her. Sarah was most likely speaking about Israeli Jews moving into these neighborhoods or possibly immigrants. This does not translate into her believing in the rapture.
Comment by Laura — November 26, 2009 @ 8:21 pm
Yamit, I think the relationship between Christians and Jews goes deeper than friendship. It’s a cultural, spiritual and historical affinity Bible-believing Christians have for Jews. We believe your Tanakh is the word of God. We know the history of the Jewish people. We know your ups, your downs. The things you have suffered. Your triumphs. Our New Testament is written by Jews in the context of the Jewish culture. We’re seeped in Jewishness!
And most of all, we believe that we gentiles have been blessed through Israel by the Jewish Messiah. We see Jesus as a gift of God and Israel to us. Before this gift, Paul (a Jew) said we gentiles were “excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world.”
In many ways, we look up to Jews as our big brothers in the faith. After all, gentiles did not invent the notion of a suffering and saving Messiah. We didn’t invent Jesus. We were busy worshiping Zeus and Odin and all sorts of other vile disgusting things! This person was brought to the gentiles by Jewish evangelists like Paul.
So while many Jews (correct me if I’m wrong) think of Christianity as a totally foreign religion - like Islam. We see Christianity as a sect of Judaism. (Personally, I think the term Messianic Judaism is more to the point than Christianity.) Sure, we disagree about who the Messiah is. But we’re still family.
Should you show Christians deference? I don’t know! People who want friends will take suitable friends.
Comment by Calvary — November 26, 2009 @ 8:26 pm
Calvary, when you say Jews and Christians are still family, in the broadest sense of course, one must not forget that sibling rivalries can sometimes be very destructive.
Christianity has had the upper hand over the Jews at least since Constantine’s time and has wielded that hand against Jews in horrible and lethal fashion throughout the past 2 millennia.
To be sure the younger and far more powerful brother, Christianity, to use your metaphorical comparison, has in large part since the Holocaust just about 70 years ago, stayed his hand against his older Jewish brother. Though a good part of the Christian brother now does extend kindness and caring towards his older Jewish brother, the Jewish brother still remains at some risk from the younger brother.
That risk includes existential risks, not just from what Christians have done, but from what some Christians to this day, continue to do to Jews in different ways.
One of those ways is that the younger Christian brother is still not fully committted to the defence of Jews and Israel against the Jewish enemies, the most vocal today coming from the Islamists of the Muslim world. One of those Jewish enemies however is the enemy that materializes from the darker sides of that younger Christian brother you refer to.
Comment by Bill Narvey — November 26, 2009 @ 8:46 pm
There is nothing Palin can say that won’t be deliberately misinterpreted.
Is there anyone on this site who believes the Jewish People are safer because Obama rather than Palin is president?
Put another way, if the fate of Jews were dependent on just one person. would it be better if that person were Palin or Obama?
As John Huston said to Jack Nicholson in “Chinatown”: “C’mon, Mister Gittes…you don’t have to think about that one, do you?”
Comment by ayn reagan — November 26, 2009 @ 9:01 pm
Calvary don;t take offense, but in your religious creed that I expect you live to the best of your ability; believe that Christianity came into being as a replacement for Judaism?
Judaism is not predicated as is Christianity on THE Messiah, for Jews it is mostly speculative. Most of the Tanach speaks of a Messianic age but not all that much on the Messiah himself.
I can live without a messiah and still be a good Jew can you do the same as a Christian and remain a faithful Christian?
G-d knew the Jews would never believer one or two fellows who claimed revelation so he made a spectacle.
The Torah is aware of its uniqueness and unabashedly offers this challenge to every Jew who has lived since Sinai:
Crucially, the Torah’s claim about national revelation isn’t esoteric. If a religion claimed to have started when a centipede metamorphosed into a gorilla who, falling into a river, exploded in flame and disintegrated into ashes before rising in the form of a great human prophet, we would understand why such a claim might never be repeated. It is unlikely that two people would independently dream up identical stories with such intricate and nonintuitive details. Yet the Jewish claim is obvious and simple: God spoke to a group of people. This is the sort of claim that would occur to anyone.
But it has never happened since, never even once!
Moreover, the claim of mass revelation was needed by other religions. Because Jews believed that millions of people — all of their ancestors — received the Torah directly from God, they were hesitant to accept just Jesus or Muhammad’s word that the Torah had been annulled. If God changed His mind, Jewry reasoned, why didn’t He let us or any other large group of people know? Furthermore, intelligent pagans might have wondered why, if God really intended to reveal an equally acceptable alternative to Judaism, He didn’t do it in front of a few million non-Jews. By hesitating to claim a mass prophecy, early Christians and Muslims thus lost an opportunity to raise their credibility, even in the gentile world.
Comment by yamit82 — November 26, 2009 @ 9:20 pm
Not ME.
Even Bristol would be better.
Comment by yamit82 — November 26, 2009 @ 9:57 pm
WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS ABOUT GOD’S LAW
AROUND 1700 YEARS BEFORE JESUS WAS BORN, GOD MADE IT CLEAR WHY ALL THE NATIONS OF THE EARTH WOULD BE BLESSED THROUGH ABRAHAM’S DESCENDANTS:
GEN026:004 And I will make thy seed to multiply as the stars of heaven, and will give unto thy seed all these countries; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed;
GEN026:005 Because that Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.
IT APPEARS THAT ABRAHAM FOLLOWED GOD’S LAW OVER 400 YEARS BEFORE THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL RECEIVED THE LAW IN THE WILDERNESS.
AROUND 1200 YEARS BEFORE JESUS WAS BORN, GOD TRANSMITTED HIS LAW TO THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL, THROUGH MOSES, THE GREATEST OF ALL PROPHETS. THE FOLLOWING PASSAGES SHOW THE IMPORTANCE GOD PUTS ON HIS LAWS:
DEU005:029 O that there were such an heart in them, that they would fear me, and keep all my commandments always, that it might be well with them, and with their children for ever!
LEV019:037 Therefore shall ye observe all my statutes, and all my judgments, and do them: I am the Lord.
LEV020:022 Ye shall therefore keep all my statutes, and all my judgments, and do them: that the land, whither I bring you to dwell therein, spue you not out.
LEV025:018 Wherefore ye shall do My statutes, and keep My judgments, and do them; and ye shall dwell in the land in safety.
LEV026:046 These are the statutes and judgments and laws, which the Lord made between him and the children of Israel in mount Sinai by the hand of Moses.
DEU004:001 Now therefore hearken, O Israel, unto the statutes and unto the judgments, which I teach you, for to do them, that ye may live, and go in and possess the land which the Lord God of your fathers giveth you.
DEU004:008 And what nation is there so great, that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law, which I set before you this day?
DEU005:001 And Moses called all Israel, and said unto them, Hear, O Israel, the statutes and judgments which I speak in your ears this day, that ye may learn them, and keep, and do them.
DEU011:001 Therefore thou shalt love the Lord thy God, and keep his charge, and his statutes, and his judgments, and his commandments, alway.
DEU026:016 This day the Lord thy God hath commanded thee to do these statutes and judgments: thou shalt therefore keep and do them with all thine heart, and with all thy soul.
DEU030:016 In that I command thee this day to love the Lord thy God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commandments and his statutes and his judgments, that thou mayest live and multiply: and the Lord thy God shall bless thee in the land whither thou goest to possess it.
AROUND 1000 YEARS BEFORE JESUS WAS BORN, GOD TOOK THE KINGDOM OF ISRAEL FROM KING SAUL BECAUSE HE DID NOT FOLLOW GOD’S COMMANDMENT:
1SA015:022 And Samuel said, Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.
1SA015:023 For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, he hath also rejected thee from being king.
AROUND 970 YEARS BEFORE JESUS WAS BORN, ON HIS DEATHBED, KING DAVID SAID THE FOLLOWING TO HIS DESCENDANT SOLOMON:
1KI002:001 Now the days of David drew nigh that he should die; and he charged Solomon his son, saying,
1KI002:002 I go the way of all the earth: be thou strong therefore, and shew thyself a man;
1KI002:003 And keep the charge of the Lord thy God, to walk in his ways, to keep his statutes, and his commandments, and his judgments, and his testimonies, as it is written in the law of Moses, that thou mayest prosper in all that thou doest, and whithersoever thou turnest thyself:
EVEN THOUGH CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY STATES THAT JESUS WAS A DESCENDANT OF KING DAVID, THEY HAVE CHOSEN NOT TO FOLLOW WHAT KING DAVID SAID.
AROUND 900 YEARS BEFORE JESUS WAS BORN, JUST BEFORE KING SOLOMON FINISHED THE FIRST TEMPLE, GOD COMMUNICATED THE FOLLOWING:
1KI006:011 And the word of the Lord came to Solomon, saying,
1KI006:012 Concerning this house which thou art in building, if thou wilt walk in my statutes, and execute my judgments, and keep all my commandments to walk in them; then will I perform my word with thee, which I spake unto David thy father:
1KI006:013 And I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will not forsake my people Israel.
THIS INDICATES THE IMPORTANCE GOD PLACES ON HIS COMMANDMENTS; HERE MAKING SURE THAT KING SOLOMON DOES NOT THINK THAT BUILDING THE TEMPLE SOMEHOW DOES AWAY WITH THE IMPORTANCE OF THE LAW.
AFTER GOD DECIDED TO SPLIT APART ISRAEL INTO TWO SEPARATE KINGDOMS (JUDAH AND SAMARIA/ISRAEL), HE APPOINTED JEROBOAM TO BE KING OVER SAMARIA/ISRAEL AND MADE IT CLEAR TO HIM WHAT GOD EXPECTED:
1KI011:037 And I will take thee, and thou shalt reign according to all that thy soul desireth, and shalt be king over Israel.
1KI011:038 And it shall be, if thou wilt hearken unto all that I command thee, and wilt walk in my ways, and do that is right in my sight, to keep my statutes and my commandments, as David my servant did; that I will be with thee, and build thee a sure house, as I built for David, and will give Israel unto thee.
BETWEEN 600 AND 800 YEARS BEFORE JESUS WAS BORN, GOD WAS STILL STRESSING THE IMPORTANCE OF HIS LAW THROUGH HIS GREAT PROPHETS ISAIAH, JEREMIAH, EZEKIAL, AMOS, JOEL, HOSEA, AND OTHERS:
ISA001:010 Hear the word of the Lord, ye rulers of Sodom; give ear unto the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah.
ISA001:011 To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the Lord: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats.
ISA001:012 When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts?
ISA001:013 Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting.
ISA001:014 Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them.
ISA001:015 And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood.
ISA001:016 Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil;
ISA001:017 Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.
JER016:010 And it shall come to pass, when thou shalt shew this people all these words, and they shall say unto thee, Wherefore hath the Lord pronounced all this great evil against us? or what is our iniquity? or what is our sin that we have committed against the Lord our God?
JER016:011 Then shalt thou say unto them, Because your fathers have forsaken me, saith the Lord, and have walked after other gods, and have served them, and have worshipped them, and have forsaken me, and have not kept my law;
JER016:012 And ye have done worse than your fathers; for, behold, ye walk every one after the imagination of his evil heart, that they may not hearken unto me:
JER016:013 Therefore will I cast you out of this land into a land that ye know not, neither ye nor your fathers; and there shall ye serve other gods day and night; where I will not shew you favour.
JER026:004 And thou shalt say unto them, Thus saith the Lord; If ye will not hearken to me, to walk in my law, which I have set before you,
JER026:005 To hearken to the words of my servants the prophets, whom I sent unto you, both rising up early, and sending them, but ye have not hearkened;
JER026:006 Then will I make this house like Shiloh, and will make this city a curse to all the nations of the earth.
JER044:023 Because ye have burned incense, and because ye have sinned against the Lord, and have not obeyed the voice of the Lord, nor walked in his law, nor in his statutes, nor in his testimonies; therefore this evil is happened unto you, as at this day.
EZE005:006 And she hath changed my judgments into wickedness more than the nations, and my statutes more than the countries that are round about her: for they have refused my judgments and my statutes, they have not walked in them.
EZE018:005 But if a man be just, and do that which is lawful and right,
EZE018:006 And hath not eaten upon the mountains, neither hath lifted up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel, neither hath defiled his neighbour’s wife, neither hath come near to a menstruous woman,
EZE018:007 And hath not oppressed any, but hath restored to the debtor his pledge, hath spoiled none by violence, hath given his bread to the hungry, and hath covered the naked with a garment;
EZE018:008 He that hath not given forth upon usury, neither hath taken any increase, that hath withdrawn his hand from iniquity, hath executed true judgment between man and man,
EZE018:009 Hath walked in my statutes, and hath kept my judgments, to deal truly; he is just, he shall surely live, saith the Lord God.
HOS008:001 Set the trumpet to thy mouth. He shall come as an eagle against the house of the Lord, because they have transgressed my covenant, and trespassed against my law.
AMO002:004 Thus saith the Lord; For three transgressions of Judah, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they have despised the law of the Lord, and have not kept his commandments, and their lies caused them to err, after the which their fathers have walked:
So then Calvary what happened to that belief of yours?
Comment by yamit82 — November 26, 2009 @ 10:02 pm
Yamit, we can reason together over the verses you quote because we both know it’s God’s word. We just interpret it differently. You can’t have that debate with a Muslim or a Hindu. That’s why we’re brothers.
I’m happy to discuss those verses, and your reasoning, off-line with you and over a longer period of time. The Law, in particular, is a HUGE topic and there’s way too much to talk about in this kind of forum. My email address is available in my profile, I believe.
Can I live without the Messiah and be a good Christian? No. I am hopelessly separated from God without Messiah. Nothing I do can bridge that gap to God - even if I was, compared to others, a ‘good’ person. Isaiah said our righteousness is nothing but filthy rags to God. And the Law reveals my own sin to me. If that wasn’t enough, Jesus took the Law a step further. He said not only is murder a sin (the outward manifestation). But even hating is sin (the inward condition). So God has made it very clear. I deserve eternity apart from Him. So without the notion of a suffering Messiah who is a perfect sacrifice for my sins, I will get the judgment I deserve.
Yamit, I think modern Judaism downplays the role of the Messiah, but it was not so in traditional Judaism. What do you think?
Does Christianity replace Judaism? No. In our view, Christianity is a partial fulfillment of Tanakh prophecies. That’s why I prefer Messianic Judaism to Christianity. Messianic Judaism builds on Judaism. Just like Isaiah didn’t replace the Judaism that existed before him. He built on Judaism in a way that was consistent with the previous prophets.
Without the Christian view of the Messiah, what happens to all the gentiles on the planet? Are we doomed to hell? Is God the God of gentiles too? Does God even love gentiles? Our reading of the Tanakh is that God had always planned an ‘outreach’ if you will, to gentiles. Otherwise, only the small number of Jews on the planet would enjoy a relationship with God. Then Judaism becomes very insular and closed.
Narvey, you are absolutely right:
Christians (and some who called themselves Christians) have committed atrocities against Jews. It’s undeniable and it’s awful. And more than once Jews have been caught in the crossfire between Christians and Muslims. I don’t know what the Christians were thinking. But I know it’s wrong. It’s a sin. And there’s no excuse and I will provide none. Hatred of Jews is not taught in the Tanakh, nor is it taught in the New Testament.
The Jews who wrote the New Testament loved their Jewish nation and passed that on to the gentiles. And Jesus Himself taught in the synagogues and loved on the Jewish people in just about every way he could (even if he famously butted heads with some of the leaders.)
I think one of the biggest Jewish fears is that Christians want to dilute or destroy the Jewish identity. But, Christians don’t believe God created the nation of Israel, called the Jews out of Egypt, put them in the land of Israel, exiled them to Babylon, brought them back, gave them the prophets, gave them the Law, the writings….did all of that just to let the Jewish identity perish. No way!
You have probably heard that some Messianic Jews call themselves ‘completed’ Jews. I know this is WAY controversial, but they do so because they think believing in the Jewish Messiah makes them more Jewish, not less. Maybe no one on this site believes Jesus is the Messiah except me, but the testimony of Messianic Jews who do believe, is that their Jewish identity is strengthened. In their minds, they see the purposes of the Law.
Yamit, you had more interested questions for me. But I’m really out of time now. We’ll talk to you all down the road.
Comment by Calvary — November 27, 2009 @ 12:43 am
Calvary you ans none of my questions. Most of the verses if not all are pretty clear and in the light so to speak not many have obscure meanings, Ea verse is a plea and a command to Obey the Law. Do you who believe the Tanach is the word of G-d follow the Law? Yes or no is all I asked for. Remember, It was you that said you believe the Tanach is the word of G-d.
Can I live without the Messiah and be a good Christian?
A Jew can because Judaism is not predicated on a Messiah either Ben Yosef or Ben David. Therefor how can Christianity complete something that is for Jews not even our trunk, not even a twig?
Judaism speculates two types of Messiahs both very human born to human parents who will perform to separate functions.
Our Sacred Sages had a tradition that in the beginning [of the End Times] there would arise a Messiah [i.e. Anointed Saviour] from the house of Joseph who will reign over the Ten Tribes. He will wage wars and all of Israel will be gathered together under his banner. [This will continue] until later on, a descendant of David will appear and he will reign over them….
A transformation will take place. The Ten Tribes and the stick of Joseph will draw themselves closer unto the stick of Judah, and this too, will be through the agency of a Prophet and by miracles. The Commentary of “Malbim” on Ezekiel 37:15
The task of the MESSIAH SON OF JOSEPH is to remove the spirit of impurity from the Land through the ingathering of exiles, rebuilding Jerusalem, and the planting of the wilderness. Ransoming Captives “Kol HaTor” says [2.118] “And the ransomed of the LORD shall return and come to Zion” (Isaiah 35;10): The task of ransoming captives belongs to the MESSIAH SON OF JOSEPH who performs it by ingathering the Exiles…The Major Ingathering of the Exiles cannot be less than 600,000…They will come with rejoicing and happiness. Comment: “Kol HaTor” says The Major Ingathering of Exiles cannot be less than 600,000. 600,000 was taken to be a key number. It is interesting to note that when Israel declared its Independence in 1948 the total Jewish population in the Land at that time was a bit more than 600,000 which was the key number mentioned by “Kol HaTor” about two hundred years beforehand.
Comment by yamit82 — November 27, 2009 @ 1:42 am
oh brother, here it is again, another no-doubt well-meaning, but flat out wrong, Jew joining with the enemy of both Israel & Christians to spread the false Armageddon LIE about us dispensational pre-Trib evangelicals….Goldberg’s article doesn’t just have a few false points, but is almost entirely false
Comment by soren — November 27, 2009 @ 4:12 am
Please refer to my earlier comment. Christians need to stop trying to convert Jews for reasons stated:
Ayn and Uncle Nahum, there is truth to both.
Yes I believe most Christians and Catholic not only support Israel but likewise Jews. I said many times, I and I am not alone in this, there is no reason to dislike Jews. Growing up with Jews I never looked at them being any different than I. We attended church and they the synagogue, all of us living our faith and being good neighbors. On our Holy days they acknowledge us while we acknowledge them on their Holy days. We always had respect for each other.
What Uncle is saying and I tend to agree somewhat. I am not crazy about those trying to convert Jews to Christianity. Why? Listen Christianity doesn’t have the only passage to heaven. If Christians believe that they are on a very narrow path. Faithful Jews built the Expressway long ago. Wait till they build the Third Temple, lookout additional lanes will be open.
Comment by rongrand — November 25, 2009 @ 7:31 pm
Comment by rongrand — November 27, 2009 @ 4:17 am
Goldberg speaks error about pre-Trib dispensational theology (my own belief, btw), providing others anti-Jewish ammunition by use a strawman misrepresentation with an appeal to authority (a known Jewish reporter) that Jew-haters can spread around & avoid the antisemite labe with since a Jew said it — & they’ve already started using this to attack not just Palin, but also Christian Zionists in general…see popular Young Turks recent video on YouTube.
Comment by soren — November 27, 2009 @ 4:21 am
Calvary, you write
I beg to differ. Your bible is where antisemitism began. This is common knowledge so I am really surprised that you don’t acknowledge it. The Jews that wrote the “gospels” increasing were anti Jews. The first “gospel” was the most Jew friendly. Joshua was a Jew and kept the commandments. He didn’t intend a new religion. The old one was good enough for him.
Jews believe that Christianity is a distortion and perversion of Judaism. The Catholic church for hundreds of years believe that Jews would whither away and did its utmost to bring this about. I think that is called replacement theology.
Comment by Ted Belman — November 27, 2009 @ 5:01 am
To everyone. Please lighten up on the disputations. We are here to discuss Israel.
Comment by Ted Belman — November 27, 2009 @ 5:02 am
Yamit, we believe Jews existed before the Law of Moses. And we believe Jews will exist after the administration of the Law of Moses is expired. We believe aspects of the Law are prophetic and point to things to come. And we believe some principles outlined in the Law are universal and eternal.
I risk getting in trouble with the proprietors, but you ask a direct question…so I will say that the figure of Melchizedek is important here. He was the priest, as you no doubt know, for Abram before the Law of Moses. And then Psalm 110 says that Messiah is a “priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek”. Christians interpret this to mean that the Levitical priesthood (and thus the Law of Moses) will end at some point and Messiah will take over as a priest in the order of Melchizedek. This doesn’t imply lawlessness, just that a different framework is in place.
What is the Jewish interpretation of Melchizedek?
Comment by Calvary — November 27, 2009 @ 8:53 am
Ted, I would say antisemitism started the second God chose Israel and the Jews for His special purposes. And has been raging ever since. Have you actually read the New Testament to claim that antisemitism started there?
The logical conclusion from your statement is that Christians are eternal enemies of Jews. I categorically reject that. It’s absurd. As you look out over the world, tell me who the friends of Israel are. Would evangelicals be your friends if our texts were antisemitic? It makes no sense. …unless you suspect some grand conspiracy to trick Jews into thinking we’re your friends…and then, when we have your confidence, we unleash some diabolical plan.
Friend, I’m just not that clever.
Comment by Calvary — November 27, 2009 @ 9:22 am
CalvaryMelchizedek is considered in Genesis 14:18-20 a goodly man for welcoming and blessing Abraham after he defeated the four kings who captured his nephew Lot.
Thereafter, there is some mention of him in Psalms 14, although there is a difference of opinion whether it is the same person or someone else because Psalms uses two words rather than one to form the name.
Thereafter this figure becomes part of the Qumran material, Apocryphal texts and Christian materials, and I am frankly unqualified to truly comment on these technical details. Christian thinking, in particular apocalyptic writings, sees him as part of the messianic system that clearly Judaism does not accept.
Note: A Jewish priest must be from the tribe of Levi. The author of Hebrews intends to show that Jesus is in fact the only ordained priest that God has for believers. However, Jesus was not from the tribe of Levi but from the tribe of Judah. (See Heb. 7:13,14.) This means that according to Mosaic law, Jesus lacked the first requirement for priesthood.
Even if the readers of Hebrews granted that Jesus was a priest, He was no longer on earth at the time the book was written. This would mean, according to Old Testament law, that some one should take over to perform the services in the temple. In other words, even if Jesus had been a priest, He would not have been one after His ascension.
Listen to a rabbi on this subject: http://audio.simpletoremember.com/singer/lb/Psalm%20110%20Lord%20to%20my%20Lord.mp3
Comment by yamit82 — November 27, 2009 @ 10:34 am
Were they called Jews? Did any status change when the Israelites left Egypt, especially once they received the Torah at Sinai?
Wrong! The Eternal Torah. Remember, you yourself believe the Torah and its prophets speak the truth. Try as you might, your current beliefs do not jive with what is written in Tanach. Guess why?
“The” priest? I know he was “a” priest. Do you know what the word “Cohen” means? Were the “priests” of idolatrous Egypt, in Genesis 47:22, the next in line after Malkitzedek? The answer lies in understanding the generic use of the word “Cohen”/”Cohanim”. It means being a delegate or representative.
As for another of Christianity’s classic goof-ups, this time on Psalm 110, you can read about that here.
There’s a Medrash that says that Malkitzedek was Shem, Noah’s most righteous son. As in King David’s last words:
“The God of Israel said, The Rock of Israel spoke to me: ‘Ruler over men shall be the righteous ["Tzadik" - as in "MalkiTzedek" - literally "righteous king"], even he that ruleth in the fear of God.”
- 2 Samuel 23:3
How appropriate. But there’s no jesus here or anywhere else in all of Tanach.
Comment by Shy Guy — November 27, 2009 @ 10:40 am
Why do I bother posting when Yamit is here?
Comment by Shy Guy — November 27, 2009 @ 10:43 am
Calvary try this link as well:
Psalm 110 mms://stream.simpletoremember.com/simpletoremember/singer/lb/Psalm%20110%20Lord%20to%20my%20Lord.mp3
http://www.simpletoremember.com/media/a/flaws-of-christianity/
Comment by yamit82 — November 27, 2009 @ 10:47 am
Calvary do you know that many more Christians are converting to Orthodox Judaism, than Jews converting to Christianity. The reason is that even most stupid Jews who are totally ignorant prefer something not out the the box :Like Buddhism and Zen and other cultist religions and creeds. That said, and we aren’t even very interested in converting Christians, in fact we make damn hard for them to do so. But still they came seekers after truth, the real and not the lie.
So said the Lord of Hosts: [There will] yet [be a time] that peoples and the inhabitants of many cities shall come
And the inhabitants of one shall go to another, saying, “Let us go to pray before the Lord and to entreat the Lord of Hosts. I, too, will go.”
And many peoples and powerful nations shall come to entreat the Lord of Hosts in Jerusalem, and to pray before the Lord.
So said the Lord of Hosts: In those days, when ten men of all the languages of the nations shall take hold of the skirt of a Jewish man, saying, “Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.”. Zechariah - Chapter 8:20-23
If you believe the Jewish Bible is the word of G-d and if all of Our Profits Spoke for G-d as written in the Jewish Bible then this verse, clearly shows that only the Jew has the Truth the real and not the false and in the end of days on the feast of Tabernacles all the nations will seek out the Jews to teach them the real truth of G-d.
Commentary by Rashi on this verse!
ten men: from the seventy nations. This equals seven hundred for each corner. For the four corners of the tallith there will be two thousand and eight hundred.
“Messianic Judaism” has proven ineffective in evangelizing Jews
B”H
This is the ultimate “measure for measure.” The xtians try to create a way to lure unsuspecting Jews into a church by making the church look like a synagogue and by pretending they are Jews, but instead luring Jews, they lure xtians. Those xtians see the legitimacy in authentic Judaism, leave the fakes behind, and convert to become halachically Jewish!
Only Hashm could come up with such a perfect answer to the evil that these xtians had planned for us. Now, instead of getting Jews to believe in their god-on-a-stick, they are getting xtians to see the beauty of Judaism.
A very good article.
M Michelle Nevada
http://israeljewishnews.blogspot.com/2009/02/messianic-judaism-has-proven.html
—–
Catriel’s Notebook: “Messianic Synagogues” Target Jews but Hit Christians, Some of Whom Are Converting to Judaism
http://jewishvoiceandopinion.com/a/JVO20090205.html
By Catriel Sugarman, Researcher on Jewish Issues, Social Critic, Lecturer, acatriel@netvision.net.il
February 2009
Comment by yamit82 — November 27, 2009 @ 2:07 pm
Gotta getta bigga tallis!
Comment by Shy Guy — November 27, 2009 @ 2:13 pm
Shy Guy, I agree with you.
Listen Ted is right, this site is about Israel.
I would encourage Evangelist and Christians to stop trying to explain what. It is not necessary.
Trust me Jews are pretty much connected to G-d/God and don’t need assistance.
Just maybe if we are smart enough we can learn something worthwhile from our Jewish brothers and sisters.
Comment by rongrand — November 27, 2009 @ 2:15 pm
At the rate Obama is going, 300 million Americans will want to make aliyah to Israel (or emigrate to Australia, as there is still plenty of room in the Outback).
“Satan wants to wipe out the Jews to prevent the Second Coming,”
Well, that puts Iran and Hamas on the same side as the Devil, which pretty much confirms our original assumptions.
Comment by Bill Levinson — November 27, 2009 @ 11:58 pm
Yamit, thanks for those Zechariah verses. They are a beautiful illustration of Israel and the Jews abiding with Messiah in the Messianic Kingdom. And all the gentiles come to Israel to worship. In peace, finally! I’ll be one of those gentiles. Maybe I’ll find they hem of your garment and we can worship together?
Actually it shows that Jews will abide in in truth with Messiah. It’s a prophecy. It is not the current state of affairs. Has a Palestian Muslim grabbed your skirt, dropped his Koran and asked you to show him God lately?
Christians believe that Zechariah 12:10 will happen first:
This is God speaking and He says Jerusalem will look on ‘me’ who they have pierced. But when was God pierced? Then, God says He is like an only child, a firstborn son who has died. The Tanakh tells us that Messiah will originally be rejected by his own people. But it happens according to God’s purpose.
Look, I’m just going to put my heart out here. The years ahead for Israel, according to the Tanakh, are going to be hard, very hard - filled with death, enslavement and oppression. The ancient rabbis knew of this time. They compared the coming of Messiah to Israel to a women in labor. Waves of pain, before joy. You can feel the political situation worsening. And your Muslim enemies are getting stronger militarily. Who denies this?
If Christians are right, and the Church is raptured out of the earth, Israel will have even fewer friends. Without Christians, the U.S. will surely turn on Israel like Europe has. God paints a very vivid picture of this period in Hosea 5:
And the Children of Israel will seek Him indeed. Hosea 6:
Yamit, this is the glorious ending that you quote from Zechariah. Not only will God save you from your enemies, but Jews will live in the very presence of God - not just a human Messiah, but God Himself, in the Messianic Kingdom. My heart leaps for this day and I will gladly prostrate myself to grab your skirt to worship God with you.
Comment by Calvary — November 28, 2009 @ 2:56 am
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Friday charged that Israel aims to “terminate the Palestinian people” and said he backs the establishment of Jerusalem as capital of an independent Palestinian state.”
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1131227.html
Exit, stage left. The whole world is going left, and this my friend, is what it is going to look like.
Fascism has returned, but this time it is in drag.
Comment by RandyTexas — November 28, 2009 @ 5:54 am
Calvary:
after what you did with my previous posts all I can say is:
Proverbs, chapter 23
“HAVING EYES, DO YOU NOT SEE? AND HAVING EARS, DO YOU NOT HEAR? Mark 8:18
Mark 4:12 so that WHILE SEEING, THEY MAY SEE AND NOT
PERCEIVE, AND WHILE HEARING, THEY MAY HEAR AND NOT
UNDERSTAND, OTHERWISE THEY MIGHT RETURN AND BE FORGIVEN.
Which was stolen from:
Who have eyes but do not see; Who have ears but do not hear. Jeremiah 5:21 and Ezekiel 12:2
I will bet you will find Jesus verses in the script and characters of Frankenstein meets Godzilla, “The final Battle”. Guess which is the reincarnation of Jesus?
What is for sure is that you don’t read and what you do , you don’t understand. I’d rather have a conversation with an intelligent atheist than a programed zombie.
Comment by yamit82 — November 28, 2009 @ 8:32 am
Hey, going back to the original question: Are Palin’s particular Christian end-times beliefs good or bad for Israel?
Given the bazillion churches and denominations out there, I think the easiest way to determine if a particular Christian politician will be friendly to Israel or not is to ask: do they belong to a Bible-believing denomination/church? If they do, then they will understand the Jewish claim to Israel. If they don’t, all bets are off.
I think Palin definitely fits into the Bible-believing camp. Thus, I would expect her to be friendly to Israel in the way that Reagan and W were.
Stepping out of the church, I have come to expect any secular leader to be hostile to Israel. If the Zionist argument can be simplistically boiled down to ‘God gave us this land’, this will be offensive or even racist to secularists. Isn’t that the problem with secular Jews?
I could wish that all Jews were like Yamit and actually cared what’s in the Tanakh.
Comment by Calvary — November 28, 2009 @ 8:33 pm
Contrary to popular myth Reagan and W were the worst presidents for Israel and the Jews.
Ronald Reagan 1981–1989)
Highlights:
by year according to H.I.R http://www.hirhome.com/israel/hirally.htm
1981 - Negative - The US pushed for a PLO state in the West Bank against Israeli objections.
1982-1983 - Negative - The US military rushed into Lebanon to protect the PLO from the Israelis.
1985 - Negative - 1985 includes more material than other years, so we have divided it into subsections.
1. Shimon Peres acted as a US agent, against Israeli interests.
2. Bettino Craxi and Giulio Andreotti (respectively, the Italian prime minister and foreign minister) committed political suicide for the sake of pushing the PLO. The US was behind them.
3. Ronald Reagan denied the Holocaust
4. Who was in charge of US covert operations in 1985?
1987-1988 - Negative - The ‘First Intifada’ was a US-PLO strategy used to represent the Arabs in West Bank and Gaza as supposedly oppressed ‘underdogs.’
1989 - Negative - With Dick Cheney, the US began supporting a PLO state in the open as the ‘only solution’ to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
In 1981, against Israeli objections, Ronald Reagan pushed hard for a PLO state in the West Bank and Gaza.[81]
In 1982-1983 the Reagan administration rushed into Lebanon to protect the PLO from being destroyed by the Israelis, after the Israelis invaded Lebanon once again to protect themselves from PLO attacks against Israeli civilians in the Galilee. The US exerted very strong pressure on the Israelis to back down, and then provided a military safe passage for the PLO so that they could make their new home in Tunis.[82]
In 1985, certain Israeli politicians, following US wishes, tried hard to advance the political interests of the PLO. In the same year, some Italian politicians who, it has now been established, were part of a covert (pro-fascist) CIA effort in Europe, sacrificed their political careers for the sake of advancing the political image of the PLO against Israel. Meanwhile, Ronald Reagan denied the Holocaust. This was not Reagan’s senility: the entire administration was behind the effort.[83]
In 1987-88, the PLO launched the First Intifada in the West Bank and Gaza (though the media pretended it was a “spontaneous uprising”). The US cooperated closely with the effort to blame the First Intifada on supposed Israeli brutality, and to use the accusation as a reason to advance the project to create a PLO state in the West Bank and Gaza.[84]
In 1989, with Dick Cheney leading the charge, the US began supporting a PLO state in the West Bank as supposedly the “only solution” to the Arab-Israeli conflict.[85]
George W to follow:
Comment by yamit82 — November 28, 2009 @ 9:16 pm
Another of Christianity’s classic goof-ups. Read about Zechariah 12:10. Notice a pattern what all of your “poofs”?
Dropping the christian terminology “messianic kingdom”, there is nothing new under the sun you tell us observant Jews from our Scriptures. Still no jesus to be found anywhere in all of Tanach.
But Yamit is correct. The truth scares the pants off of you guys.
Comment by Shy Guy — November 28, 2009 @ 11:05 pm
Yamit, I’ve only known you for two days and I can see you are a tough customer. But I’m going to have to call you on the whole Reagan-denied-the-Holocaust thing. Can you please provide some references? For me, it draws into question the other items in your post.
Comment by Calvary — November 29, 2009 @ 6:44 am
Hi Shy Guy. “Messianic Kingdom” is common Christian terminology. We believe in the Messiah and we believe he will rule over a world-wide Kingdom, from the throne of David, in Israel. ….eerily identical to what you believe! Christians also refer to it as the Millennial Kingdom because the duration of the Kingdom is given in the New Testament.
If it sounds a lot like language you are familiar with from the Tanakh, that’s because the lion’s share of ‘Christian’ prophecy is from the Tanach. The New Testament book of Revelation, for instance, is chiefly important to us because it lays out a chronological sequence of events prophesied in the Tanakh. You can not hope to understand Revelation unless you understand at least the basics of Daniel, David, Zechariah, Isaiah, and pretty much all the rest.
Yamit calls this ’stealing’, but he argues for the point I made earlier: that the New Testament is based on the Tanach. They are two pieces of fabric knitted so tightly together that they can not be separated. The New Testament quotes the Tanach extensively and Christians believe it fulfills many Tanach prophecies. So when Yamit complains that there is a lot of ’stealing’ going on, all I can say is, ‘yup, more than you know…’
Your black-and-white statement ‘there is no Jesus in the Tanach’ doesn’t strike me as serious academically. It would be a lot more persuasive if you would say, ‘yeah, there’s a couple similarities, but here’s why it’s not referring to Jesus.’ That would indicate that you acknowledge gray areas and have carefully considered them. Instead, I’m left with the impression that you never seriously studied the gray areas for yourself.
The Talmud, for illustration, acknowledges that Jesus did perform miracles, but says it was through sorcery and/or demons. That, at least, admits there was a person that did Messiah-like things, even if it concludes he is a fraud. Fine, they have acknowledged a gray area and made a conclusion. You won’t do that.
This is off topic, but can I ask you and Yamit a side question I’m curious about? When you study the Tanach, how do you do it? I know there’s a lot of Tanach commentaries like the Talmud and the other writings of respected rabbis. Do you study them side-by side. Do you mainly study the commentaries or the Tanach? What does your rabbi cover at Synagogue?
Comment by Calvary — November 29, 2009 @ 8:04 am
Bitburg.
The strawman that wasn’t.
Comment by Shy Guy — November 29, 2009 @ 8:09 am
What I am observing–and this is in general–there seems to be two basic lines of Christian thought, even though there are thousands of variations. One group basis Christian faith on beliefs as they evolved from Rome. The other group for a foundation looks back centuries before to Israel, Jerusalem, and what is commonly referred to as the “Old Testament.” The difference seems to be that the Roman “root” tends to be the more anti-Semitic while the latter group, which relates to earlier Hebrew scripture is filo-Semitic. The liberal Churches, which also are the ones that actively oppose Israel, other than quoting from a few sweet Psalms, largely disregard ancient Hebrew writings.
Comment by RandyTexas — November 29, 2009 @ 8:15 am
Calvary, you think you’re teaching me anything I don’t know already about christianity.
I like calling it ‘plagiarism’.
And if you know your Qur’an, Mohamed dabbled in the same tactic.
I already did that. Hence my conclusion. So did Yamit.
Set yourself back in the year -1, when your jesus was not yet even a gleam in his momma’s eyes, when there was no “new” testament - not a single verse. The concept of a human form deity was anathemic to every minimally observant Jew. Had you suggested such a thing hundreds of years earlier to any of the prophets, you would have been ridden out of town, or worse, for your elementary pagan beliefs. You do not honor the prophets. You insult them by trying to layer your conveniently compiled “scriptures” to shadow over our Tanach. This is a non-starter and a no-brainer for any elementary Jew and for historians of the development of the Israelite nation. You don’t even get to 1st base with this nonsense.
Sure I will. Read The Jesus Narrative in the Talmud.
But if you really push me, yeh, I’ll admit that there’s a reference to jesus and his miracles in the Torah. Have you read Deuteronomy 13:1-6? Thanks for reminding me.
Folks like us usually open up a Mikra’ot Gedolot on Tanach. This includes a dozen or so well known commentaries, including the original Aramaic translations of the verses, Targum Unkelos for the Torah, and Targum Yonatan for the Prophets and Scriptures. There are usually references to the Talmudic links within these commentaries.
A great compendium on the Tanach is to be found in the 2-3 dozen volume set, Da’at Mikrah, published by Mossad Harav Kook.
But all that is in Hebrew and Aramaic. There’s nothing like the real thing, baby! English? Start off with the online Tanach with Rashi in English.
Almost zero Prophets and Scriptures. It is a terrible mistake.
Comment by Shy Guy — November 29, 2009 @ 8:34 am
Calvary, I suggest you get hold of a copy of David Klinghoffer’s book, Why the Jews Rejected Jesus. I don’t agree with everything the author says, especially toward the conclusion of the book, but he give a clear explanation of why christianity is totally foreign to Judaism from the point of view of any Jew that won’t be hoodwinked by classic christian misinterpretation and misrepresentation of Jewish history and scriptures.
Comment by Shy Guy — November 29, 2009 @ 8:41 am
Actually Cavalry Jesus is not mentioned per-se in the Talmud which for us confirms the non existance of one J of Nazareth( also no mention of Nazareth in the Tanach) Lack of Talmudic interest and or references to your J in the Talud, or any oher Jewish references of that time during and after J lived like in the 1st century confirms and reinforces the the side in the J debates that J is either a historical myth or some composite historical figure.
You may believe what you want but if J never existed what is it and who is it really that you are so devoted? We are after all seekers of truth, right? THE TRUTH SHALL SET YOU FREE? Right?
Quote me exact source references to what our Talmud has to say on your guy on a stick. I am curious if you really know or are just repeating the talking points given to you. Hearsay and rumors don’t count here. What do you know?
Religion by Committee and Democratic vote: How nice.
NT inspired by G-d?
were not included in the NT according to Richard Sisson In his book, Answering Christianity’s Most Puzzling Questions, A partial list of the different books considered by the Church for inclusion were a gospel written by Jesus’ own hand; letters and other correspondences written by Jesus; letters written by the “virgin” Mary; REJECTED!!!
Disputes over which ones were true were so intense that the debate continued for centuries. Finally in the fourth century a group of church leaders called a council and took a vote. The 66 books that comprised your cherished Bible were declared to be Scripture by a vote of 568 to 563.” Religious creed by democratic vote. How nice. Really inspired? You should read what was never included in your inspired NT.
Paul and the writers of all four canonical Gospels described the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus, as they understood it had happened. There is a acknowledged consensus among academic Christian theologians that:
* The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were not written by Jesus’ disciples but by a person or persons whose names are unknown.
* Neither Paul nor any of the Gospel writers had been an eyewitness to Jesus’ ministry or death.
* The Gospels record the beliefs and memories of various Christian groups as they had evolved at the time they were written.
Discrepancies. Matthew 1:20 and Luke 1:31 describe “angels” appearing to Jesus’ mother and her husband informing them of her forthcoming “immaculate conception” and “virgin birth” to the “Son of God,” the “Messiah.” When compared with the way Jesus’ family and neighbors treated him, it is absurd to believe that “angels” really visited them:
* Mark 3:21: Upon hearing of it, his family went out to seize him, for they said, “He is beside himself.”
To offset the startling fact that Jesus’ family thought that he was insane, some New Testament editions replace “they” with “people,” although “they” is in the original Greek text.
* John 7:5: For even his brothers did not believe in him.
* Luke 4:16: And Jesus came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and he went to the synagogue, as his custom was, on the Sabbath day…
There, Jesus hinted to his friends and neighbors that he was the Messiah, however:
* Luke 4:28: When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with wrath. And they rose up, and put him out of the city, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their city was built, that they might throw him down headlong.
How very strange it is, that during all the years in which Yeshu grew up with them, his brothers, friends, and neighbors did not notice that he was a “divine being.” And could it have been that his parents forgot or didn’t tell anyone what they experienced?
Christian scholar Rt. Rev. George Arthur Butterick, in The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, a book written by to prove the validity of the New Testament, states:
“A study of 150 Greek [manuscripts] of the Gospel of Luke has revealed more than 30,000 different readings…. It is safe to say that there is not one sentence in the New Testament in which the [manuscript] is wholly uniform.”
There are 304,805 letters (approximately 79,000 words) in the Torah. In the over 3,000 years since Moses received the original Scripture from Mt. Sinai and wrote the 13 copies (twelve of which were distributed among the Tribes), spelling variants have emerged on a total of nine words — with absolutely no effect on their meaning. The Christian Bible, in comparison, has over 200,000 variants and in 400 instances, the variants change the meaning of the text; 50 of these are of great significance.
How then can any reasonably intelligent Human being consider the NT as divine revelation? Unless it’s not! and/or we have different Divinities. Your G-d is not Ours and Ours is certainly not Yours.
We are both seekers of TRUTH aren’t we?
Anticipating a common reply by you folks I will preempt with:
By the Way I don’t care if there really was a Historical Abraham etc. We didn’t deify him and in the end Judaism is not dependent or predicated upon either his or any of the other Biblical Characters. Judaism is not predicated or dependant upon the concept of THE MESSIAH: We can live nicely for th most part without. You can’t though and to my last point you have no counter argument because Christians have trapped themselves in this whole Messiah sctick. We haven’t. Jews have moved on, not rejecting the concept but by elevating the ideal and not speculating overly on who but on what can be in such an idealistic time.
Our function or purpose is to show those like you what is truth and what is false by observing the Law that we received as a National revelation at Sinai. Listening to your specious and sophist arguments the task seems to be not only daunting but nearly impossible. That’s the meaning in the end to your corruption of Zachariah 8, All you gentiles will come to see that all you believed to be true was false ands that only the Jew has the Truth and the Gentiles, those that are left alive, will seek out a Jew and admit to their beliefs in false gods and ask to be taught the truth.
This will according to Prophesy occur after the war of Gog U Magog. According to Prophesy their will only be one relatively safe and mostly untouched place on the face of the earth and that is Jerusalem and much of the Land of Israel.
Remember:
Genesis 12:3,Genesis 22:18,Genesis 26:4,Genesis 27:29,Genesis 28:14,Numbers 24:9,Acts 3:25,
G-d made the choice of Abram, and singled him out from among his fellow-idolaters, that he might reserve a people for himself, among whom his true worship might be maintained. Period! there is no until Jesus or only other changes. This is a Total Christian Fabrication in order to justify their false creed. Every corruption of Tanach the NT uses to justify their creed based on Tanach can easily be debunked by any Knowledgeable Jew of Judaism and the Hebrew language.
What is a Jew? From a Christian Antisemite
______________________________________________________________
This question is not at all so odd as it seems. Let us see what kind of peculiar creature the Jew is, which all the rulers and all the nations have together and separately abused and molested, oppressed and persecuted, trampled and butchered, burned and hanged…and in spite of all this is yet alive. What is a Jew, who has never allowed himself to be led astray by all the earthly possessions which his oppressors and persecutors constantly offered him in order that he should change his faith and forsake his own Jewish religion? The Jew is that sacred being who has brought down from the heaven the everlasting fire and has illuminated with it the entire world. He is the religious source, spring and fountain out of which all the rest of the peoples have drawn their beliefs and their religions.
…The Jew is the emblem of eternity. He whom neither slaughter nor torture of thousands of years could destroy, he whom neither fire nor sword nor inquisition was able to wipe off the face of the earth, he who was the first to produce the Oracles of G-d, he who has been for so long the guardian of the prophecy, and who transmitted it to the rest of the world–such a nation cannot be destroyed. The Jew is as everlasting as is eternity itself.
Leo Nikolaivitch Tolstoy
“Jewish World” periodical, London 1908
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
On the Jews
They are the most glorious nation that ever inhabited this earth. The Romans and their empire were but a bauble in comparison to the Jews. They have given religion to three quarters of the globe and have influenced the affairs of mankind more, and more happily than any other nation, ancient or modern.
John Adams, second president of the United States
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
From a letter to F.A. Van der Kemp, 1806
Pennsylvania Historical Society
Comment by yamit82 — November 29, 2009 @ 10:08 am
Re:RandyTexas, #42:
largely true, but it’d be both more all-encompassing & more accurate, to divide the 2 Christian lines not into Romanish vs Jewish-roots, but by “hermenteutics” (Bible interpretation methods) literal-gramatical-historical vs. allegorical/spiritualized. Since Roman Catholic Church started the whole spiritualization method of interpretation, what you said is largely true, but the second part of what you said about going back to earlier Hebrew scripture is not so precise, b/c plenty of anti-judaic, Roman-based denominations go back to those scriptures & pre-Israel Genesis (first 11 chapters) too, but the problem’s not so much that they don’t use those scriptures, but that when they do, they use them wrongly by misappropriating them due to spiritualizing them so that, for ex, the Church is “Israel”, the land means “heaven,” etc.
In sum: 2 groups: Bible-believing (more literal, thus philo-semitic b/c take literally promises to literal Israel) vs. spiritualizing/allegorical (more liberal, thus anti-semitic b/c do away with promises to literal Israel)
Comment by soren — November 29, 2009 @ 11:13 pm
Shy Guy. I read the link on Reagan, who I admit is a hero of mine. (Very interesting site. Thanks for the link.) But I didn’t see anything about Reagan denying the Holocaust. I did see that he angered Jews by visiting a German military cemetery and originally not planning to visit a Holocaust site. But later decided to visit both.
This quote indicates that Reagan did speak out about the Holocaust on several occasions. Not knowing any other facts, except those from this article, it does appear that Reagan pandered a bit to the Germans and was callous to the Jewish community, but how does that make him a Holocaust denier?
Being a Holocaust denier is an insane, monstrous thing that shows a propensity for evil and an unholy disregard for truth. But if we casually assign that label to Jew-friendly people like Reagan, the real monsters like Ahmadinejad get a pass. Do you still maintain Reagan was a Holocaust denier?
Comment by Calvary — November 30, 2009 @ 3:36 am
No. I disagree with Yamit’s use of this term. I gave the link as reference to what Yamit was claiming. Yamit is quoting Francis Gil White. I disassociate myself with much of those ramblings.
Comment by Shy Guy — November 30, 2009 @ 7:12 am
Yamit. I’ve read about Jesus in the Talmud from various sources. The last was: M. Wilcox “Jesus in the Light of His Jewish Environment” (1982). Wilcox says there are only a very few (derogatory) references along the lines I mentioned above.
Is it hard for you to change Synagogues since you are unhappy with the teachings at your current one? Is it Orthodox or Reform or something else? Would an “Ultra-Orthodox” synagogue be more likely to teach the Tanach?
You’ve called me every name in the book, but I still wonder where you come down. Can you be friends with me - or any other Christian?
Comment by Calvary — November 30, 2009 @ 7:30 am
Oops, the synagogue change question goes to Shy Guy.
Comment by Calvary — November 30, 2009 @ 7:46 am
The US president was very careful to insult the Jews. In the uproar that followed the proposed itinerary of his visit to Germany (made public well in advance, so as to guarantee the uproar), prominent Jewish leaders such as Elie Wiesel explained publicly to the American president that
“there could be no trade-off by combining visits to a camp and to the cemetery. ‘A visit to this particular cemetery is to us unacceptable,’ he said.”[121]
The way a master dismisses a nagging slave, Ronald Reagan replied that maybe he would add a visit to a Nazi concentration camp site, but that in any case “no thought was being given to eliminating a visit to the Bitburg [Nazi] cemetery.”[122]
I emphasize: this was all carefully premeditated and deliberate. German chancellor Helmut Kohl had actually
“proposed that Reagan join him…in visiting both a World War II cemetery and a concentration camp site, [and yet] Reagan’s advance men accepted the first, but declined the second.”[123]
I am not trying to make Helmut Kohl look good - to include the Nazi cemetery was an outrage anyway, and in fact Kohl was apologizing for the Nazis in public.[124] My point is that the American president went out of his way to out-Nazi the German chancellor and make known his intentions to lay a wreath to honor the Nazis and to simultaneously disrespect the victims of the Shoah.
In fact, Reagan announced this a whole month in advance of his trip, guaranteeing an extended pandemonium that carried the news all around the world. And to make sure nobody thought there had been a mistake, when the protests began he did not give an inch. Then he
“unleashed a new wave of Jewish fury… by claiming that German soldiers buried [in that cemetery] were ‘victims’ of the Nazis ‘just as surely as the victims in the concentration camps.’”[125]
But some might think this was Reagan’s idiosyncrasy, or his administration’s. To dispel any such notion, powerful members of the American Establishment, such as Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, added their voices, calling on president Reagan not to cancel his visit to the Nazi cemetery.[126] Amazing, because even in Germany many were confused and disturbed by this, so Reagan could have taken the easy way out by calling it all a ‘mistake.’
No. In the end he laid his wreath. On the graves of Nazis.
If worldwide Jewish pressure could not get Reagan to do the slightest of symbolic retreats on such an obvious moral issue, with the whole world watching in amazement, what was the ulterior meaning?
Simple: this was ‘the leader of the free world’ doing Holocaust denial via diplomacy-speech. That’s what this was.
US president Ronald Reagan, the most important man in the world, took the loudest megaphone in history, the Western mass media, and screamed at the top of his voice, for a whole month, that antisemitism was normal again. The Jews, who continue to think (whether approving or disapproving) that the US establishment is pro-Jewish and pro-Israel, were deaf to how this reverberated on the walls of everybody else’s subconscious.
[120] The Washington Post, April 12, 1985, Friday, Final Edition,
[122] “The New York Times, April 16, 1985, Tuesday, Late City Final Edition, Section A; Page 1, Column 4; Foreign Desk, 785 words, REAGAN WEIGHS VISIT TO CONCENTRATION CAMP, By GERALD M. BOYD , Special to the New York Times, WASHINGTON, April 15″
“White House officials said today that President Reagan was considering a stop at a Nazi concentration camp site in addition to a visit to a military cemetery in West Germany next month.
Yamit is quoting Francis Gil White. I disassociate myself with much of those ramblings.unlike most of us and most pundits on the web White researches and gives all source material that support his contentions. I have yet to see any refutations of whites many postulations that are sourced and based on equally credible foundations as he supplies if at all.
Comment by yamit82 — November 30, 2009 @ 7:52 am
Kurt Waldheim UN Sec. Gen. (1 January 1972 – 1 January 1982)
Reagan supported and lobbied for a 3rd term for this Nazi: A War criminal whose record was known and publicized over his two Term tenure As Sec Gen. Here again spitting in the face of Jewish sensitivities and anger at Waldheim Reagan wanted his Nazi to continue.
Reagan Years : Anti Israel Anti Jewish: Pro Arab, Pro Nazi
Factual and well documented overview. If any want to refute with factual contra data, Let it fly!
On November 14, 1981, the UN adopted a resolution condemning Israel for destroying a nuclear installation in Iraq.[63] Israel and the US were the only two countries to vote against.
That may look like US support for Israel. However, just a few days later the US voted for a resolution condemning Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights.[64] The US then also reversed itself on the prior resolution concerning the attack on Iraq, launching a frontal diplomatic attack on Israel. The outgoing Secretary General of the UN, the Nazi Kurt Waldheim, exulted publicly over this turn of events, and added that, by the way, the West Bank and Gaza Arabs should be given their own state.[65]
US president Ronald Reagan’s attacks on Israel were so sharp that many prominent members of the American Jewish community interpreted this as antisemitism, so Reagan met
“with 32 Jewish supporters… [and then]… with the presidents of 34 Jewish organizations”
Reagan was quoted as giving them the following non-sequitor: that
“his administration ‘will not condone anti-Semitism and will attack it wherever it surfaces.’”[66]
But nobody was asking Reagan to attack antisemitism wherever it surfaced; the complaint was that antisemitism had surfaced in the office of the president!
In addition,
“…The White House adviser…said Reagan assured his Jewish supporters that ‘the only path to peace we’re following is the Camp David process,’ and not either peace initiatives proposed by Saudi Arabia or Europeans.
Reagan had raised some Jewish concerns by praising what he called implicit recognition of Israel in the plan advanced by Crown Prince Fahd of Saudi Arabia. The Saudi plan calls for establishment of a Palestinian state with its capital in East Jerusalem and peace between countries in the region. The plan never mentions Israel.
The Europeans have questioned whether any settlement can be reached without active PLO participation.”
So Reagan, first, endorsed a Saudi ‘peace’ plan that called for the establishment of a Palestinian state “with its capital in East Jerusalem,” and which didn’t recognize Israel’s actual existence, let alone recognize its right to exist.
Then, Reagan said that no, the Saudi plan would not be followed, and neither would he pay any attention to the Europeans, who were calling for a PLO state. Instead, the “Camp David process” would be his policy.
But the “Camp David process” was Jimmy Carter’s policy, and it called for Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza, the creation of a self-governing Palestinian Arab authority, and, after three years, “negotiations will take place to determine the final status of the West Bank and Gaza.”[67] Since Carter had pushed very hard for including the PLO in the Geneva ‘peace’ conference, it is obvious that this strategy, which looks and sounds exactly like what the Oslo process later became, was meant to create a PLO state in the West Bank and Gaza.
Adding insult to injury, Reagan decided to sell arms to Saudi Arabia (in addition to the secret buildup that nobody knew about - see 1979 section).
But Reagan had some cover because, only a month earlier, American businessman Edgar Bronfman Sr., the president of the World Jewish Congress, had written an editorial in the New York Times in which he:
1) argued for an American role in a Middle East peace process;
2) spoke about “genuine Palestinian needs”;
3) presented the Arabs as genuinely wanting peace; and
4) advised the Israeli prime minister to accept the Arabs’ preconditions and to find “an acceptable solution for the Palestinians.” “Mr. Begin…,” Bronfman explained, “must be prepared to go further than endorsing the idea of Palestinian autonomy.”[68]
More than autonomy: in other words, a Palestinian state! Bronfman was certainly not doing Israel any favors. This must be kept in mind, because, as we will see by the sequel, Bronfman is quite prominent in the American halls of power. This is true as a general rule: only Jews who go out of their way to attack Israel (openly or not so openly) have any influence in Washington.
Now why might that be?
____________________________________________________________
1982-1983 [ negative ]
The US rushed to protect the PLO in southern Lebanon from the Israelis.
____________________________________________________________
Not content with the above, in September 1982, Edgar Bronfman, from his perch as President of the World Jewish Congress, publicly endorsed Ronald Reagan’s plan for Middle East peace. Reagan was using Bronfman as a ‘Jewish diplomat’ to speak for Israel, and American newspapers dutifully carried the headline “Jewish leader OKs Reagan peace plan.”[69]
But who cares what Bronfman said? He was not a spokesman for the Israeli government. As a matter of fact,
“the [Likud] Israeli government [led by Menachem Begin]…unanimously and totally rejected the American initiative.”[70]
And what was Bronfman endorsing?
“The Camp David peace accords call for an interim, five-year period of autonomy for the Palestinian inhabitants of the West Bank and Gaza during which the final status of the territories is to be negotiated.”[71]
Autonomy leading to final status was code for a peace process leading to a Palestinian state. We have already seen that the US was quite keen to have Yasser Arafat and the PLO terrorists run such a state (see 1977 section). Thus, Reagan’s plan to create a Palestinian state, which Bronfman endorsed, was another American attack on Israel.
Even as US President Ronald Reagan was pressing for a Palestinian state run by the PLO, these terrorists were attacking Israeli civilians from their bases in Lebanon. Above we noted that in 1970 Jordan’s King Hussein had militarily expelled the PLO terrorists from his country.
“Thereafter the PLO shifted its bases to Lebanon and continued its attacks on Israel. The PLO’s relations with the Lebanese were tumultuous, and the organization soon became embroiled in Lebanon’s sectarian disputes and contributed to that country’s eventual slide into civil war.”[72]
This was a repeat of the problems the PLO had earlier caused in Jordan.[73]
“From Amman [Jordan], the PLO troops left unheralded, in ridicule. From Beirut [Lebanon], they left in a compromise negotiated by the United States, waving their Kalashnikov rifles. Arafat left not in the middle of the night but with an emotional dockside sendoff from the Lebanese prime minister, a French Navy escort and U.S. air cover.”[75]
But why did the US do this? Because the PLO is the US’s pet, and the US meant to use it again as an attack dog (as we shall see). If any further evidence for this ‘master-pet’ relationship were needed, consider that, in Lebanon, the US had been using the PLO as its *guard* dog:
“The Lebanese occupation by Israel caused the Palestinians to have to leave Lebanon eventually…They had been the protectors for the American diplomatic community in Beirut…There was liaison with the PLO, and the Americans were depending on them for their security.” — Vincent Cannistraro, senior intelligence official.[76]
It’s a love affair!
A bit later, a rival Lebanese faction assassinated Bashir Gemayel, the leader of the Lebanese phalangists. Two days after that, in the resulting chaos, a massacre was committed in Sabra and Shatila, blamed on these now-headless phalangists. Despite the fact that nobody was blaming Israeli soldiers, Ronald Reagan (who was then using the Contra terrorists to kill innocent civilians in Nicaragua) launched a ferocious diplomatic attack against Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin and his Likud government, claiming Israel was responsible for this. Edgar Bronfman Sr., president of the World Jewish Congress, again provided cover for Reagan by supporting this attack wholeheartedly.[77]
Before closing this section, it is important to note that despite the US rescue of the PLO, Arafat’s eviction from Beirut was a severe blow that essentially defeated the organization. By 1983, the Christian Science Monitor was writing as follows:
“The Palestine Liberation Organization continues, meanwhile, a loss of regional influence that began with Israel’s summer 1982 invasion of Lebanon. As part of the initial cease-fire, Mr. Arafat and the majority of Palestinian guerrillas abandoned their base in Beirut. Since then, a hard-line faction has challenged Arafat’s PLO leadership. Now Arafat’s back is literally against the sea, and his departure from [the northern Lebanese city of] Tripoli seems only a matter of time.”[78a]
Sure enough, two months later, the New York Times reported that:
“Mr. Arafat, who is believed to be in Tunis, is scheduled to meet Monday with Lebanon’s Prime Minister, Shafik al-Wazzan, to discuss his organization’s terms for withdrawing the rest of its guerrilla forces from [Tripoli,] Lebanon.”[78b]
The US did what it could to make sure that the remaining PLO troops would get out of Lebanon safely:
“White House spokesman Larry Speakes said the Reagan administration wished for the ‘unhampered’ withdrawal of the Palestine Liberation Organization troops loyal to Arafat.”[78c]
And the Reagan administration became quite strident about this, in fact.
“The United States said today that it had told Israel that it ‘hopes and expects’ the Shamir Government will halt its military actions around Tripoli and allow Yasir Arafat and his Palestine Liberation Organization fighters to be evacuated from the city.
…officials said privately that Washington was losing patience with the Israeli tactics that have delayed Mr. Arafat’s withdrawal.”[78d]
At the time, as the same New York Times article explains, President Ronald Reagan’s point man on the Middle East was one Donald Rumsfeld, now Secretary of Defense in George Bush Jr.’s administration.
“Today, in what State Department officials said was an effort to demonstrate to the Arabs the American desire for good relations with them as well as the Israelis, Donald Rumsfeld, the special Middle East envoy, arrived in Baghdad for talks with Iraqi leaders.
Mr. Rumsfeld is the highest ranking American to visit Iraq since the Reagan Administration took office in 1980.”
What has been reviewed for the years 1982-83 does not suggest in the least that the Reagan administration really intended to have good relations with the Israelis. To confirm that, it suffices to read on and find out what happened in 1985.
From its new base in Tunis, the defeated PLO would find it very difficult to attack Israel, which is why it resorted to such high jinks as taking hostage the Italian ship Achille Lauro in 1985 (see below). The US would therefore make sure to revive the PLO, and eventually bring it to power in the West Bank, where it could once again easily kill innocent Israeli civilians.
____________________________________________________________
1985 [ negative ]
____________________________________________________________
Early in 1984, the Christian Science Monitor wrote,
“This week marks a fundamental reexamination of US Mideast policy. …Tuesday saw a flurry of activity in Washington regarding the Middle East. President Reagan met with special envoy Donald Rumsfeld and with Republican congressional leaders to discuss new directions in US peacemaking efforts there.”[78e]
A bit later, in March of the same year, the New York Times wrote,
“The Reagan Administration is fashioning a new Middle East strategy… The officials said there had been unending meetings to try to find something new to say and do to put the new strategy into effect. A decision to send Donald Rumsfeld, the special Middle East negotiator, back to the region was said to be waiting on this.”[78f]
What was this “new strategy” that the “Reagan administration [was] fashioning”? In 1985 there were three main US initiatives against Israel and the Jews. One by Shimon Peres who, as we shall see, behaved as a hostile American puppet, rather than an Israeli patriot. One by the Italians, acting as agents of the Americans on behalf of the US pet, the PLO. And one by Ronald Reagan in person, as a very public and vocal antisemite.
1. Shimon Peres acted as a US agent,
against Israeli interests
_____________________
A once useful, though now almost irrelevant, simplification: the Labor party in Israel was traditionally in favor of a Palestinian state; the other main party, Likud, was traditionally against. (The labels ‘left-wing’ and ‘right-wing’ in Israel have a superficial rather than substantive connection to their traditional meanings, by the way, because it is the so-called Israeli ‘left-wing’ that advocates for the PLO, an extreme right-wing organization, and the so-called Israeli ‘right-wing’ that is opposed to the PLO.)
In 1985 the Israeli government was divided: the prime minister was Shimon Peres, from Labor, and the foreign minister was Yitzhak Shamir, leading the opposition Likud party. When a parliamentary government is divided this way it is a breach of the highest sort for the prime minister to conduct foreign policy without consulting his foreign minister, especially on the question that most divides Israeli society: the Arab-Israeli conflict. Thus, when the Labor Prime Minsiter Shimon Peres circumvented his Likud foreign minister by using Edgar Bronfman Sr., a US businessman and president of the World Jewish Congress, as his private diplomat to the Soviets, and also the leaders of the American Jewish Congress as his private diplomats to the Arabs in Amman and Cairo, this naturally provoked a crisis. Wrote the Guardian, “…the question of who speaks for the Jews, and for Israel itself, suddenly surfaced twice: in Moscow and in Amman.”[79]
It was all very mysterious…
“[Bronfman's] departure for the Soviet Union a week ago Sunday was not announced; the Soviets did not publicly acknowledge his visit on Monday and Tuesday; and his return to New York on Thursday went unreported. The trip was made public only when Israeli Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir criticized it in an interview with the Jerusalem Post.”[80]
And when Bronfman came back to New York, he was “refusing to disclose whom he met and what, if anything, he had achieved…”[81]
What was all this about?
According to Israel Radio, the discussion with the Soviets was about “Israeli agreement with Syria over the future of the occupied Golan Heights,”[82] and “One Israeli newspaper also reported that Bronfman carried a position paper on a phased Israeli withdrawal from the strategic Golan Heights.”[83]
As for the Arabs, wrote the Guardian,
“The message [the private diplomats] brought to Mr Peres, from both [Egyptian president] Mubarak and [Jordanian King] Hussein, was: put the PLO to the test, and allow it some role in the diplomatic process. But this, of course, is anathema to the Likud half of the government, led by [foreign minister!] Mr Yitzhak Shamir.”[84]
In other words, Peres used non-Israelis to do a diplomatic end-run around the Likud foreign minister. And to what end? To maneuver simultaneously for an Israeli withdrawal from strategic high ground, and in order to create a diplomatic process that would place the genocidal PLO in control of the West Bank.
This sort of thing is usually called ‘treason.’
Yitzhak Shamir “criticised his own Premier [for using] Mr Edgar Bronfman …[and added that]… Israel can talk directly to the Soviet Union…it does not need intermediaries.”[85] As to the content of this diplomacy, Shamir’s response was “not merely to reject the substance of the talks in Amman, but to blast the American Jewish figures for presuming to speak on these matters …[and he] extended the same logic to attack Edgar Bronfman.”[86] But Yitzhak Shamir did not accuse Shimon Peres of treason - he should have.
Ariel Sharon (then Trade and Industry Minister), on the other hand, was not so shy:
“Mr Sharon has accused Mr Peres of going behind the Government’s back to hold secret talks with King Husain of Jordan, and has even claimed that the Prime Minister is prepared to consider what amounts to the ultimate Israeli treason: talking to the Palestinian Liberation Organization.
The Prime Minister’s actions, Mr Sharon has said, amount to ‘unparalleled cynicism, with disregard for every administrative norm’ …[and he has]…accused him of ‘acting with deliberate and premeditated slyness.’”[87]
Sharon was quite right: this didn’t smell good. So was the US involved?
On the surface, it would appear not. At this time there was a “Soviet proposal for an international Middle East peace conference that would include the Soviets and the Palestine Liberation Organization.”[88] In January 1985, “The United States and Israel…rejected calls for a peace conference that would include the Soviet Union and the PLO.”[89]
That looks like American support for Israel. But that’s a bit funny, because:
1) the US had already teamed up once before with the Soviet Union to try and impose the PLO on Israel (see 1977 section);
2) the PLO is an American pet (see 1982 section); and
3) just two months later, in March, when Edgar Bronfman’s trip to the Soviet Union was being set up, the Washington post reported that
“[US Secretary of State George] Shultz, fresh from reporting to President Reagan on his Moscow conversations with the new Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, said Reagan ‘firmly intends’ to seize the moment for high-level dialogue and improvement in relations… [US] Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams said… [that a]mong the signs of possible progress… is an invitation to Edgar Bronfman, president of the World Jewish Congress, to visit Moscow…”[90]
Bronfman functioned as Ronald Reagan’s ‘Jewish diplomat’ whenever the US president chose to attack Israel. Moreover, Bronfman was vociferously calling for a Palestinian state (see 1981, 1982 sections). How interesting, then, that Peres should choose precisely this man to be an agent for secret and treasonous negotiations with the Soviets concerning Israeli withdrawal from strategic high ground. And how interesting that Bronfman’s trip should have been with the blessings of the US government. All of this suggests that Shimon Peres is a US agent, carrying out US policy hostile to Israel.
There is no need to speculate, however. Shimon Peres was in fact directly coordinating his Soviet diplomacy with the US government:
“Talks on the possibilities for improving Israeli-Soviet ties are expected to figure in Mr. Peres’s meetings in the United States with President Reagan and Secretary of State George Shultz this week. The Israelis are keenly aware of next month’s summit between Mr. Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.”[91]
Is the picture getting clearer? Shimon Peres’ attack on Israel was an American attack.
If any doubts remain on this point, they are dispelled by looking at the other half of Peres’ treasonous diplomacy, which had to do with trying to jump-start a peace process with the Arabs that would involve the PLO. Guess who got that ball rolling? The United States.
Peres sent his private diplomats to Amman and Jordan in September. But it was the United States that had earlier laid the groundwork for this. In late May, King Hussein of Jordan made a trip to the US, and a week later the US announced that it would
“soon hold talks with a joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation on ways to renew the peace process in the Middle East…”[92]
This led to an uproar in Shimon Peres’ divided cabinet:
“Some ministers fear this will lead to back door recognition of the PLO by the U.S. and have demanded that Jerusalem immediately inform Washington that Israel opposes this development.
Speaking after the Cabinet meeting yesterday Mr David Levy, a deputy premier and Housing Minister, said ‘It is de facto back door recognition of the PLO.’
He demanded an immediate reply by Israel rejecting what he called the contradictory position taken by the U.S.”[93]
The foreign minister, Yitzhak Shamir, was also strongly opposed.
But the prime minister, Shimon Peres, did his best to tamp down opposition to the US initiative within Israel. A bit later, in September, Peres would carry out the second stage by sending his private diplomats to the same King Hussein, and to president Mubarak in Egypt.
2. Bettino Craxi and Giulio Andreotti commit
suicide for the PLO
_________________
Another American attack, with the aim of producing a ‘peace’ process leading to a PLO state, took place in parallel, from Italy. I shall begin by explaining what Craxi and Andreotti did, and then I will show that the US was behind this as well.
On December 6, 1984, “[Italian prime minister Bettino] Craxi held an unannounced meeting with Arafat in Tunisia.” Why?
“[to get] the 10 [European] Common Market nations behind a Middle East peace initiative when Italy takes over the presidency of the organization in January. His plan calls for the PLO to join in the negotiations…”[94]
Craxi’s next door neighbor, Pope John Paul II, had received Yasser Arafat in 1982 (the same year that the PLO got chased out of Lebanon for murdering Israeli civilians!), and ever since the Pope had been agitating vocally in the PLO’s favor.[95] (It is worth noting that the Pope does not usually meet publicly with terrorists; his public efforts are on behalf of those who kill Jews.) All of Rome’s power spoke with one voice: a state for the PLO in the West Bank.
On December 8th, two days after meeting with the terrorist, the Italian prime minister, Bettino Craxi, vouched for Yasser Arafat in the strongest terms:
“Mr Bettino Craxi, endorsed King Hussein’s call… for a joint approach by Jordan and the PLO toward a Middle East peace settlement …[and]… added that the PLO chairman, Mr Yasser Arafat, whom he met during his visit, had shown an ‘unequivocal desire for peace and negotiations.’”[96]
Mark the word “unequivocal.”
Then, in March 1985, Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak met with Ronald Reagan and returned to Cairo saying “he had not been disappointed in his talks with Reagan.” This means Reagan had lent a sympathetic ear to what Mubarak had told him. And what was that?
“[Mubarak had] suggested that the United States hold talks with a delegation from Jordan and the Palestine Liberation Organization to explore the agreement that King Hussein of Jordan and Yasir Arafat, the P.L.O. chairman, reached Feb. 11.”
Although the Americans stopped short of giving this plan a public blessing,
“The initiative won more support in Europe. Prime Minister Bettino Craxi of Italy gave the plan a boost tonight after talks with Mr. Mubarak.”[97]
Craxi, in other words, was racing to and fro, working overtime as a PLO diplomat, and he was doing this with bravado, even gusto.
Consider only that when, on October 1st 1985, “Israeli jet fighters… flew 1,500 miles to blast the PLO headquarters in Tunis…in retaliation for the Yom Kippur slaying of three Israelis aboard a yacht in Cyprus,”[104] this was the Italian prime minister’s response:
“…Italian Prime Minister Bettino Craxi condemned Israel for conducting ‘terrorist violence,’ and sent a message to PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat offering condolences for the victims of the raid.”[105]
Incredible, but not unusual: the rest of the world also condemned Israel for defending itself from terrorists, and the United States, in particular, voted for a “ringing condemnation of the Israeli action by the U.N. Security Council.”[106] (Naturally, because having deposited the PLO safely in Tunis, after saving it from utter destruction in Lebanon [see 1982 section], the US was keen to protect its pet.)
But Craxi’s passionate pro-PLO diplomacy did not go down well with all Italians.
“Craxi [from the Socialist Party] and Foreign Minister Giulio Andreotti [from the Christian Democratic Party] triggered a major political row [in Italy]… because of the vehemence of their reaction to the Israeli bombing… [in] Tunisia.”[107]
In fact, according to the Washington Post,
“The sharpest criticism of their statements - except for that from the Israeli government - was by Defense Minister Spadolini [of the small Republican Party].”[108]
The political passions were stirred further when in the midst of Craxi’s passionate defense of the PLO terrorists, on October 7th, these terrorists seized (of all things!) an Italian ship: the Achille Lauro.[98]
Ouch! It was not supposed to be that way - the over-eager PLO terrorists had apparently strayed from the original plan.
“The four Palestinians aboard the Achille Lauro intended to stay aboard as passengers until the cruise liner reached Ashdod, Israel, and then planned either to shoot up the harbor or take Israelis hostage… The Israelis were to be held to bargain for the release of 50 Palestinians held in Israeli jails… [But] the four members of the group aborted their plans and seized the ship when their weapons were discovered by the crew after the Achille Lauro had left Alexandria [Egypt].”[99]
Yasser Arafat tried to help his friend Bettino Craxi save face by claiming that the Palestinian hijackers were not PLO men.[100] And Italian foreign minister Giulio Andreotti went out of his way to agree with Arafat in public![101] But who were they kidding? Yes, the PLF, which had seized the Achille Lauro, had earlier splintered into three groups, and two of them claimed to be anti-Arafat. But the third faction, headed by Abul Abbas, was openly loyal to the PLO leader.[102] Unfortunately for Arafat’s and Andreotti’s denials, it was precisely this faction led by Abul Abbas, and which was loyal to Yasser Arafat, that had seized the Italian ship.[103]
So in the end Yasser Arafat had to call his terrorists off:
“[W]hen relations between the P.L.O. and Italy seemed jeopardized by the seizure of the [Italian] ship… Mr. Arafat and Abul Abbas ordered the hijackers to return to Port Said [Egypt] and surrender.”[109]
If you still needed evidence that you are living in an absurd world, it was just provided by the fact that it is possible for the media to write that, after the PLO terrorists attacked an Italian ship, relations between Italy and the PLO “seemed jeopardized.” No wonder people have trouble thinking about the world.
Not to be outdone, the US would add its own absurdities to this mix. After the hijackers turned themselves in to the Egyptian authorities, it was revealed that they had murdered an American citizen, Leon Klinghoffer, Jewish.
“The circumstances of the killing of Klinghoffer, who relatives said was confined to a wheelchair as a result of a stroke five years ago, were unclear. An officer of the ship told ABC that one of the hijackers, with blood on his trousers, ’said he had killed him and thrown him overboard.’
Klinghoffer apparently was killed, the ship’s captain, Gerardo de Rosa, told CBS by ship-to-shore radio, because the hijackers could not get authorities to negotiate with them. They threatened to kill more, de Rosa said, speaking in broken English, ‘but they kill just Mr. Klinghoffer.’”[110]
The US expressed ‘outrage’ at this.
“…when U.S. Ambassador to Egypt Nicholas Veliotes visited the ship off Port Said tonight to check details of the situation and discovered that Leon Klinghoffer had been murdered, he demanded by radio phone that the Egyptians prosecute ‘those sons of bitches.’”[111]
Instead, Egypt sent them on a plane to their master, Yasser Arafat, in Tunis. This suggests that Egypt did not think that the US was serious, because if it had thought that, it is quite unlikely that it would have risked the wrath of the superpower over a couple of men. Another possibility is that the US and Egypt had an arrangement to keep appearances but to let the terrorists go free.
Here’s what happened.
First, the US decided to make a big show of bravery by diverting the Egyptian plane carrying the PLO terrorists to a joint US-Italian base. The official story is that they didn’t know that Abul Abbas, the mastermind, and another senior PLO official were on board. But when this became public, the US did not proceed to “prosecute those sons of bitches,” who after all were now in US custody; instead the US made a big public show of insisting that Italy put these two men, the bosses of the operation, on trial. But the only person murdered was an American citizen…
Of course, the Italian prime minister was Bettino Craxi, who sang love songs for the PLO. So when Egypt voiced its public opposition to the US’s public demand that Italy try the terrorists, Bettino Craxi, of course, found the Egyptian argument persuasive and let the terrorists go.[112]
Having thus once again taken a refreshing and exhilarating plunge into total insanity, Bettino Craxi met with his equally eager advisors to see if they could predict what the consequences of their latest stunt might be.
“Prime Minister Bettino Craxi met with senior aides tonight to discuss the possible consequences of a decision by his Government to allow two key members of the Palestine Liberation Organization [to] leave Italy.”[113]
Four days later, this was the consequence: “Oct. 17: Italian government of Bettino Craxi resigns over Achille Lauro affair.”[114]
Spectacular. Bettino Craxi had shown himself to be a passionate PLO nationalist, willing to sacrifice the post of prime minister of a major world power for the sake of making amorous expressions to the PLO in the most inconceivably absurd of circumstances, releasing - too boot - the specific PLO terrorists who had masterminded an attack against his own country back into the care of Yasser Arafat, their lord and paymaster.
But what did this achieve? Doesn’t extraordinary behavior such as this call for a powerful reason? It does.
This entire maneuver was a tremendous blow to the international prestige of Israel, because it showed that even when the moral facts on the ground could not be more clearly on its side, the Jewish state received the world’s condemnation. Even the prime minister of a country whose ship was held by the PLO preferred these terrorists to Israel. Using the world as theater, a message was sent to the intimate subconscious of people everywhere, awakening the giant that slumbers there (if he was not already awake). We are speaking of antisemitism.
So was the US behind all this?
Let us consider first the obvious oddities in the behavior of the US. To begin with, the only person killed aboard the Achille Lauro was US citizen Leon Klinghoffer, an American Jew. The US had diverted the Egyptian plane carrying the people who had masterminded Klinghoffer’s murder to a joint US-Italian base. In other words, the US had custody of the murderers of an American citizen. But the US did not try these individuals. Instead the US handed the PLO masterminds over to Italy and then (of course) expressed public ‘outrage’ when Italy - as could be expected from Bettino Craxi - let them go.
This all makes perfect sense if the US ruling elite does not care about Jewish lives, even be they American ones. It also makes sense if the US ruling elite cares deeply about protecting its prized pet: the PLO. Under any other hypothesis, however, it is truly difficult to make sense of what the US government did. Especially when you consider that the US has considered just one American citizen killed sufficient to launch the invasion of a country (Panama).
“[On December 16 1989] Panamanian soldiers killed an unarmed U.S. Marine officer dressed in civilian clothes.
Retaliation by the United States was quick and decisive. On December 17, U.S. President George Bush ordered troops to Panama, with the subsequently announced aims of seizing Noriega to face drug charges in the United States, protecting American lives and property, and restoring Panamanian liberties.”[115]
So one US soldier killed was enough to justify the US invasion of a foreign country, and the seizure of that country’s leader to be tried in the United States. But the PLO murderers of one American Jew, already in US custody, were released to the passionately pro-PLO Italian prime-minister, Betinno Craxi, whose foreign minister, Giulio Andreotti, was equally pro-PLO. Predictably, these men returned the murderers of an American Jew, in health, to the PLO.
To put this all in its proper context, we must briefly consider US covert penetration of Italy in the post-war. Once this is properly appreciated, we will have all the pieces of the puzzle because Bettino Craxi and Giulio Andreotti are products of this US penetration.
Immediately after World War II, Italy had the strongest leftist movement in Europe, and the US ruling elite was not happy about that.
“Papers released over the years in the United States under the Freedom of Information Act have established that the US would consider military intervention if the Communists came to power [in Italy].”[117]
Mind you, the US was not saying it would send its troops if there was a communist armed takeover, but that it would do so if the Italian Communists - very popular - won freely at the polls because the Italian people wanted them in power.
In the event, the US decided not to wait and see what happened at the polls. Instead, it carried out an extensive covert penetration of the Italian Establishment, using fascists, in order to destroy the Italian left and make sure that it lost the election. (And the US was doing similar things in Germany).[116a]
Many things still aren’t known about this, but the research of historian Christopher Simpson has shown us at least the tip of the iceberg (Simpson, C. 1988. Blowback: America’s recruitment of Nazis and its effects on the Cold War. New York: Weidenfeld & Nicholson). Simpson writes:
“Not all the clandestine containment programs were aimed at the USSR and its satellites. Some of the most important early applications of these tactics began in Western Europe. The Italian elections of 1948 marked another important milestone in the development of US covert operations and in high-level support for the use of former Nazi collaborators.” (p.89)
The Vatican played a prominent role in this.
As is now well known, Pope Pious XII assisted Hitler’s domestic policy by ordering the German Catholic party not to oppose the German Nazi leader. But this Pope did much else for the Nazis, as documented by historian Peter Cornwell.[116b] Especially shocking is the Vatican’s direct assistance to Adolf Hitler’s extermination program in Croatia, which was there led by the German-allied Croatian Ustashe. These camps were run by Franciscan priests under the authority of Archbishop Stepinac, who greeted Ante Pavelic, the Croatian ‘poglavnik’ (i.e. ‘fuhrer’) as an emissary of God.[116bb] After the war, the Vatican used one of its many infamous ‘rat-lines’ to spirit almost the entire Ustashe (Croatian Nazi) organization to safety, including Ante Pavelic (who was given last rites by the Pope himself when he died in Spain).[116c] What historian Christopher Simpson documented, which is that the Vatican eagerly helped the CIA deploy its covert fascists in Italy in the post-war period, is entirely consistent with the Vatican’s behavior during the war.
“the CIA established much deeper and broader ties with the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church in Rome than had previously been the case. This not only had a powerful impact on the Italian political scene but also…laid the foundation for the agency’s relationship with Intermarium, an influential Catholic lay organization made up primarily of Eastern European exiles that operated under the protection of the Vatican. At least half a dozen senior leaders of Intermarium can be readily identified as Nazi collaborators.” — Christopher Simpson, Blowback (p.89)
This is the same Intermarium that, in cooperation with US intelligence, set up several rat lines to get Nazi war criminals out of Europe after the war. Many to the US (to read about the secret US absorption of thousands of Nazi war criminals, after the war, see 1945 section).
“Cardinal Spellman of New York served as a crucial go-between in CIA-Vatican negotiations… The US government, the cardinal said, had secretly ‘released large sums in ‘black currency’ in Italy to the Catholic Church.’ This “black currency” did not come from American taxpayers. Rather, a substantial part of the funding for clandestine activities in Italy came from captured Nazi German assets, including money and gold that the Nazis had looted from the Jews… The CIA withdrew about $10 million from the fund in late 1947, laundered it through a myriad of bank accounts, then used that money to finance sensitive Italian operations. This was the ‘black currency’ that Cardinal Spellman asserted was given to the Vatican for anti-Communist agitation. Much of the CIA’s $10 million Italian war chest was delivered through clandestine campaign contributions to Christian Democratic candidates… [and] many of the remnants of the Fascists’ wartime ruling apparatus, as well as most of the police, had joined Christian Democratic ranks after 1945…” — Christopher Simpson, Blowback (p.91-92)
Since the Christian Democratic parties were set up by the CIA-Vatican alliance to be fronts for the fascists, it matters that Gulio Andreotti, Bettino Crazi’s foreign minister, was a Christian Democrat. Both prime minister Craxi and foreign minister Andreotti are now known to have been involved with an extensive CIA terrorist operation in Italy that had murdered leaders of the Italian left. This was all uncovered during the early 90s when a few brave Italian magistrates risked their lives to investigate this and make their findings public, producing a scandal that shook Italian society to the core. When this scandal broke, the British daily The Independent wrote that:
“The main loser seems to be the Socialist leader, Bettino Craxi. He said that when he was prime minister he never knew about it. Then a letter was produced with his signature saying he had been informed.”[117]
What the same article reports about Craxi’s foreign minister, Giulio Andreotti, makes it clear that the latter was even more clearly implicated in this terrorist business, and also that he was apparently a secret tool of NATO. I hate to be redundant but this really must be said again: Andreotti’s Christian Democratic party, dominant in Italy in the post war, was “[b]acked by the Vatican and at one time by CIA money.”[118] The violence sponsored by these people was no laughing matter.
“Historically, there is the grim record of seven, unresolved terrorist-type attacks between 1969 and 1984 in which 150 people died: the 1980 Bologna train station massacre of 85 people was the most infamous. It has long seemed probable that those attacks were the work of right-wing sympathizers, well positioned within the Italian state, whose major concern was to push Italian public opinion to the right and halt the advance of an Italian Communist Party which touched 34 per cent at the 1976 general election.
Despite years of trials and retrials, and traces of wrongdoing involving Italian Secret Services, the CIA, the Masonic lodge P2 and the Mafia in all seven investigations, only a handful of minor figures have been sentenced, while no organization has been held responsible. Put simply, most of these attacks appear to have been ‘covered up’.[119]
The above is from an article in the Irish Times that was using the occasion of another terrorist bombing in Italy, this one in Florence, in 1993, to look back. The Irish Times added:
“On the day before the Florence bomb, the former prime minister, Senator Giulio Andreotti, was answering questions about the murder of a journalist. Mr Andreotti is currently being investigated on both murder and Mafia collusion charges.
Just one week ago, the former Socialist prime minister, Mr Bettino Craxi, predicted a new season of bombs.”
You can’t make this stuff up.
It seems, therefore, that Craxi and Andreotti were American stooges in what was (is?) a rather deep and extensive covert penetration by US intelligence of the Italian Establishment. From this point of view, it is now easier to explain Craxi’s and Andreotti’s entirely absurd behavior in the Achille Lauro affair: they only appeared to be Italian politicians. In reality, they were paid US agents, and they had a job to do: make the PLO a player, offend Israel, and teach the whole world that antisemitism was the name of the game - again.
Calvary and Shy: What in the above do you disagree with?
Comment by yamit82 — November 30, 2009 @ 8:57 am
Here is the link to item # 52
http://www.hirhome.com/israel/hirally2.htm#reagan
Comment by yamit82 — November 30, 2009 @ 9:01 am
I can think of lots of ugly terms to describe Reagan’s Bitburg incident but this is not “holocaust denial”. I can point to the same item and argue with your claim here. Roosevelt did not “cooperate” with Hitler’s final solution. At the most he inadvertently facilitated it in the 30’s. His use of terminology which blows everything out of proportion does not add to his credibility, IMO.
We’ll have to agree to disagree.
One is not enough? We gotta million of them. Are you saying “hit me again”?
I’m a Torah observant Jew, what non-religious Jews coined as an “Orthodox” Jew over a century ago.
My gripe is that too many religious Jews are more acquainted with the Talmud than with Tanach. Specifically, they are under-acquainted with Tanach.
I’m not “unhappy” with my synagogue. My comment simply reflects what I see as something not covered sufficiently in lectures or sermons.
Go through every post of mine here and point out where I called you by any name even once.
Hate the sin, not the sinner. The sin (for certain to the Jewish people) in this case is your religion. Go back to post #1 on this thread and see who came charging in here, on a Jewish blog, preaching their gospel. I don’t find that very considerate at all.
I have no compulsion to turn the other cheek.
Ask Rongrand (Roman Catholic) whether I can be friends with non-Jews. He should know the answer by now.
Comment by Shy Guy — November 30, 2009 @ 9:07 am
The length of your post.
Comment by Shy Guy — November 30, 2009 @ 9:09 am
OK he didn’t actually deny Holocaust. He just in everything else prove to be A- Supporter of Nazis if not Nazism. He supported our most virulent enemies, was insensitive to Jewish sensitivities,Saved the PLO to fight us another day. Supported all through his two terms a Palis State, and did everything he could to undermine the security and viability of th State of Israel.
I can’t know his mind or his motivational behavior but based on his deeds while in Office and what is apparent were his goals it is hard not to conclude the there was considerable disdain for Jews in General and Israel in particular. Was he an outright antisemite partially an antisemite or just your average WASP of that period whose view of Jews and Israel were conditioned by who what and where he lived.
I have no reservations in applying the maxim, :If it walks, talks and looks like a duck, I call it a duck. I remember well the Reagan Years from Here and He was no ally and certainly no friend. Not that any American president ever was but he was up there with those presidents that were most overtly anti Israel. That he is an American Conservative Iconic Deity , does not lessen in any way hisapparent disdain for us and his overwhelming covert and overt support not only for Israels mortal enemies but the enemies and murderers of Millions of Jews.
So I ask, in what context historically should we view him?
American (Reagan) sale of AWACS to Saudi Arabia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US/Saudi_AWACS_Sale
The sale of AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control System) surveillance planes to Saudi Arabia by the United States administration of President Ronald Reagan was a controversial part of what was then the largest foreign arms sale in US history. The sale saw objections from a majority of Americans, prominent US Senators, the State of Israel and the Israel lobby.
The sale included the five E-3 Sentry AWACS aircraft and eight KE-3 refueling aircraft, with spare parts and support, delivered between June 1986 and September 1987.
Only months old, the Reagan Administration announced its plans to sell five of the U.S.-made AWACS to Saudi Arabia. The proposal, part of the largest foreign arms sale ever was not received warmly on Capitol Hill where Congressional consent was required. The AWACS proposal was also harshly rejected by Israel and disapproved of by a majority of Americans. Upon formal introduction of the AWACS proposal to Congress in the fall of 1981, many Senators reacted coldly. “This is one of the worst and most dangerous arms sales ever,” proclaimed Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy. Senator Donald Riegle said, “We are being asked to submit to a kind of blackmail; the price gouging of oil.” These Senators feared that the AWACS sale was not designed to promote stability, as would be claimed by the Administration, but to secure U.S. oil resources. Such a deal would mean technology for oil access, and as Kennedy said, a potentially dangerous deal at that. Senator Bob Packwood, who as a Republican was a member of Reagan’s party, was also a leader of opposition to the AWACS deal in the Senate. Packwood spelled out the danger he saw in arming Saudi Arabia: “They have displayed a hostility that must be interpreted as their deliberate intentions to promote continued instability in the Middle East.” Packwood questioned the choice of Saudi Arabia as an arbiter of peace saying, “Let’s think about which nations have been seriously committed to negotiating peace in the Middle East and which have not shared that commitment.” With the recently ended American hostage crisis in Iran fresh in mind, Americans were reluctant to sell military equipment to anyone. In fact, a May 1981 poll showed that 52% of those surveyed opposed arms sales to any country, and only 19% wanted the U.S. to sell AWACS to Saudi Arabia.
Israel, feeling its security directly threatened, was the most strongly opposed to the AWACS deal of anyone involved. Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin expressed “profound regret and unreserved opposition” to the Saudi AWACS proposal.[ Experts on Israeli defense said that AWACS could track every move of Israel’s air force, denying it the chance to launch a “surprise first strike, the basis of Israeli defense doctrine.” While Israel’s “unreserved opposition” was based on the real security threat it faced, its “profound regret” could have been rooted in perceived betrayal by the United States. A protector of Israel since the Six-Day War, the U.S. was planning to sell military surveillance planes to Saudi Arabia, a country whom Israel was technically at war with. A Boston Globe editorial from May 4, 1981 recognized this contradiction as well as other threats posed by the AWACS sale, noting, “the intention to sell AWACS planes to Saudi Arabia constitutes not only a manifest contradiction of Reagan’s campaign promise to enhance Israel’s security, but also serves to further destabilize the Mideast, a region whose stability was supposed to be a strategic priority of the Reagan foreign policy.” The sensitivity of Congress to the threats against peace and stability, was matched by its sensitivity to Israel’s concerns.
The Reagan Administration actively sought to diminish Israel’s voice and influence over the deal. In public speeches, Administration officials admonished Israel for getting involved in a U.S. foreign policy matter. Secretary of State Alexander Haig said the President must be “free of the restraints of overriding external vetoes,” and went on to say that were the AWACS deal blocked by Israeli influence, there would be “serious implications on all American policies in the Middle East… I’ll just leave it there.” Reagan himself declared, “It is not the business of other nations to make American foreign policy.” In August 1981, the Administration delayed indefinitely the delivery of military aircraft to Israel, a move that Israelis interpreted as pressure to approve of the AWACS sale.
In order to gain support for the AWACS deal in Congress and in the country, the Administration lobbied strongly on behalf of it. Though it continually stated the AWACS deal would benefit U.S. “interests” in the Middle East, the Administration also gave promises of the AWACS planes’ importance in securing peace. In a speech to Congress, Alexander Haig said that if the AWACS sale was blocked, “our security, the security of Israel and peace itself (might) be endangered,” Reagan himself promoted the AWACS sale saying, “By contributing to the stability of the area, it improves Israeli security.” The Administration even commissioned former government officials to speak about AWACS as part of the peace cause. Richard Nixon’s Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said “it is essential for the peace process in the Middle East.”
Congress approved the AWACS sale, and as part of the then largest arms export ever, the planes were a symbolic commitment to the U.S./Saudi relationship.
This also marked the first Major defeat of AIPAC, and should have proved for anyone to see that when the American Government wants something even against Jewish interests the Jews are powerless, AIPAC is impotent and so are the Jews of America.
Now who was it that showed the world the impotency of the Jewish Lobby? Reagan.
Jewish Power in America is a myth and this proves it.
I rest my case!
Comment by yamit82 — November 30, 2009 @ 9:52 am
Sorry about that, I found it important to include all Whites references becuse I know that most readers don’t use provided links and certainly if they do don’t bother with reference sources. This issue is important for the information to be printed so no one will have the excuse that they didn’t see it. Whether anyone cares or reads it is another issue.
I support historical truth wherever it leads and some of the crap I have read here and in other blogs about Reagan get my pressure up. My way of blowing off steam/
Sorry for the length.
Comment by yamit82 — November 30, 2009 @ 10:05 am
I have no problem agreeing that Reagan was not a friend of Israel.
Comment by Shy Guy — November 30, 2009 @ 10:11 am
Calvary
I don’t recall ever calling you names? If I did, can you show what and where?
Actually I like the gentiles( Many at least) individually more than I like most Jews. When I was In America many if not most of my friends were not Jewish except for a close circle of Jewish friends from my school days, whose close friendship I still maintain. Seldom dated Jewish girls and almost married a gentile at one time.
The theological discussions here was initiated by you and on this site some of us will defend Judaism, sometimes even aggressively. Nobody asks here what ones religious or theological beliefs are as we tend towards the political elements usually in so far as it affects Israel and Jewry but not just.
I hope that you are not a predatory Christian missionary trolling for Jewish victims. Then I might start calling every name in the book otherwise at least from me, welcome and of course we can be friends.
Comment by yamit82 — November 30, 2009 @ 10:45 am
I was directing the rhetorical question to Calvary and many of those Reagan Groupies, with short memories.
Comment by yamit82 — November 30, 2009 @ 11:01 am
Oh, I forgot.
Comment by Shy Guy — November 30, 2009 @ 3:35 pm
Well, this site is about Israel and is primarily for non-Christians. So it would be very bad manners for me to use it as a missionary platform. You guys have a right to your own site without getting pestered by ne’er-do-wells. Now, the Palin thread is about how Christian eschatology impacts Israel, so I felt like I had some leeway to explain my viewpoint. (I can’t help it, friendly theological discussions are fun for me.) And there are probably more than a few lurkers who enjoyed our back and forth and learned something along the way. I did!
Mainly though, I’m here to learn about Israel and where the Jewish mind is. Also, I want to show some support to Jews in general and provide a Christian sounding board when desired. I get the sense that Jews increasingly feel isolated and beset in this world, so I feel like it’s important for you to know you have millions of ‘little brothers’ out there.
Comment by Calvary — December 1, 2009 @ 7:16 am
Calvary as a G-d fearing bible believing Christian what do the following verses mean to you?
“Am le-Badad Yishkon: In Sefer Be-Midbar,(NUMBERS) the king of Mo’av, Balak, calls on the prophet, Bil’am, for assistance in cursing the Jewish people. Bil’am, after receiving permission from God, agrees to come, but says he may only do that which God allows. Bil’am attempts to curse the Jewish people three times, and in each of his attempts, he ends up blessing the Jewish people, according to God’s will. In the first of these blessings, Bil’am says: “Ki me-rosh tsurim er’ennu u-mi-geva’ot ashurennu; hen am le-badad yishkon u-ba-goyim lo yithashav,” “For from the top of the rocks I see him, and from the hills I behold him: lo, it is a people that shall dwell alone, and shall not be reckoned among the nations.”
This pasuk identifies the Jewish people as a nation that will be separate. Furthermore, it will not be reckoned among the nations.
Rashi explains that the origins of the Jewish nation are strong and its roots are entrenched like the rocks in the hills. They are strong due to the merit of the foremothers and forefathers who laid the foundations for the nation. Rashi continues in accordance with Targum Onkelos, saying that the Jewish people merit to live in solitude due to the efforts of their ancestors and that in the End of Days the nation will not be destroyed among the other nations. The Jewish people will not be counted with them. Sforno interprets this pasuk along the same vein, saying that the Jewish people alone will inhabit the earth In the End of Days. Sforno cites a pasuk in Devarim, “Hashem badad yanhennu,” “Hashem alone guided them.”
Sforno quotes this pasuk and expounds upon Rashi by adding that Hashem would not destroy the nation that He alone led.
The Ramban does not focus on the origins of the Jewish people as their distinguishing factor. Rather, it is their common law that binds them as a nation. No other people can be counted with the Jewish nation. Other peoples gather together physically and can be counted as nations because they are physically connected to one another; however, the Jewish nation is one nation because of shared laws and ordinances. The Jewish people will always succeed over other nations, and will not be destroyed or assimilated, because they share an identity based on a system of law. While some nations are nations based on a common space, the Jewish people share more than just a common space; they share a common destiny that sets them apart ideologically.
Rav Shimshon Refael Hirsch
Isolation
Rabbi Meir Kahane
“Isolation”
By Rabbi Meir Kahane - May June 1990
Isolation. The Jew does not wish to be isolated. He fears being alone, without allies. He fears man, he trusts only in man and so - in the exquisitely Divine way of the Almighty - precisely that which he fears will be sent upon him. He fears to do that which the Almighty demands - to annex the territories and establish Jewish sovereignty over them, as part of the Holy Land of Israel. The Almighty repays him by turning them into burning caldrons of an intifada, with confused Israeli youth not knowing whether these Holy lands are indeed Jewish or “occupied”. While a world that is normal and knows that if land belongs to you then you annex it, feels free to condemn a country that does not do so as an “occupier”.
He fears to throw out the cancer raging in his midst - the Arab enemy - lest the world turn on him. He is repaid measure for measure by a grim Almighty as the world,! daily, condemns him for “oppression” of people that would not have been there had he had faith in G-d rather than fear of the Gentile.
In any event, the Jew will be isolated, and that is the greatest blessing imaginable. For so long as the Jew has even one ally, he will be convinced - in his smallness of mind - that his salvation came from that ally. It is only when he is alone - against all of his own efforts and frantic attempts - that he will, through no choice, be compelled to turn to G-d. And
That is why isolation will be. That it is why it must be. It is the greatest of blessings, and the foolish Jew of little faith sees it only as a curse. Foolish Jew, Jew of Exile, whose soul and mind has been destroyed by that Exile, who has turned from a Jew of faith into one of trembling before the man of dust
Unless. Unless we become the Jews we were meant to be. The Jews of chosenness. Of might and faith. Unless we ignore both the money and the honey of the United States and their empty threats and condemnation. Condemnation? It is dandruff to be brushed away before moving on to do the will of G-d. In any event, there is no choice.
********Now in view of the Above what can or do Christians have to offer us? Not that I refuse genuine concern and wishes for our benefit and good health as a people but…..?
Comment by yamit82 — December 1, 2009 @ 11:53 am
Yamit. First of all, thank you for sharing that. It’s fascinating. You’re showing me the mind and heart of the Jew.
The Tanach and New Testament agree with what you have said: the Jews are a nation separate from all gentile nations. A nation unto God, no matter if you are exiled because of disobedience, dispersed throughout the nations, or in your final home - Israel. The Tanach is clear on this matter.
And yet, as you’ve quoted in Zechariah, someday Israel and the nations will be at peace and worship the same God. How does this come to pass, though, if Jews are separate and isolated? Judaism is not an evangelistic faith, so who is showing the gentiles the way to the God of Israel? This is admittedly a crude reduction, but I think useful:
Christians believe the world is ultimately unified under Messiah and he wants to, if we are obedient, use us to bring him to the world. We see Messiah’s evangelistic mission and love for gentiles in Isaiah 49:6:
So with this in mind: what do Christians have to offer Jews? Honestly, in our view, the only thing of worth we have to offer Jews is the same thing we offer gentiles - Messiah.
Now, our eschatology - based on the Tanach and New Testament - says that Jews will mostly reject this offer. So what then can we offer? For me personally, the answer is just general support for Jews and encouragement to study God’s word in the Tanach. Here, there is common ground.
I don’t agree with everything Rabbi Meir Kahane said, but Christian eschatology is that Christians will be taken off the earth and Israel will indeed be isolated, as he said, in a “world unified in hatred against him”. And this isolation does bring Israel, ultimately, to God.
Comment by Calvary — December 3, 2009 @ 8:51 am
How are you [not] learning from your mistakes right now? Aren’t global audio, video and print communications wonderful?!
Calvary, do you know what Noahides are? You’re close but no prize.
It’s not Judaism. It’s not an arm of Judaism. It included numerous abberations of Judaism.
Humanity’s goal in life is to honor G-d. You’re doing a nice job of it partially. You could improve tremendously by dropping the pagan baggage.
Your religion didn’t understand what the Torah’s “messiah” is from day 1. You have nothing to offer us. It’s vice versa. But you have to let the truth set you free, by simply reading what the Tanach says, not what you want it to say to suit your thought habits.
Have you ever noticed that the majority of people raised in any religion, will reject another religion’s beliefs? These are everyday facts. Nothing new under the sun.
No. For you don’t study Tanach. You parrot what someone told you it contains, which it doesn’t.
Indeed so. There will only be Judaism and Noahidism. See ya then - the sooner the better!
Comment by Shy Guy — December 3, 2009 @ 9:41 am
Calvary, you don’t have to be Jewish to easily recognize what a sloppy job the compilers of the NT did. Recommended viewing: The “Jesus was not the Messiah” series.
Comment by Shy Guy — December 3, 2009 @ 10:09 am
The “light unto the nations” promise is contained in the problematic Isaiah 42, traditionally a favorite of messianics for its verse, “the former things came to pass, and new things do I declare.” It cannot override the explicit commandment that Jews are “the people that dwells alone.”
The Jews’ status as chosen people is politically incorrect. The concept is not racist: unlike the black/white skin-color distinction, anyone can join the chosen people by converting properly. The concept, however, is probably insultingto gentiles: any Jew is chosen from birth, automatically, while Gentiles have to undergo a very hard conversion. It is of no sense to fool Gentiles with the “we’re chosen but not better than you” tune. Of course, it’s better to be chosen than not. Chosen-ness means the greatest imaginable advantage in the most valuable sphere of all, in the transcendental realm. The Torah is explicit: Jews were chosen in order to raise us up (Exodus 20:17). In our prayers, we thank G-d for having chosen us from among all nations and exalting us above all towns. It’s great to be chosen by the biggest authority in the universe.
BUT
Impossible Christianity is so far removed from Judaism and core Jewish concepts that it could be compared to fire and ice.
What you evangelize: according to Jewish thought are totally pagan concepts and beliefs. You cannot corrupt our believes create a competing religion and then say you have any direct connection with Judaism except for some cursory concepts and even here for the most part they are a corruption of Judaism.
Thanks but no thanks your Messiah is a False Messiah and a false prophet: He has not accomplished a single requirement that The Messiah Needs to Accomplish, but there is more much more reasons why we rejected your deity on a stick!
This link will explain it in detail as to why.
JEWS DO NOT ACCEPT JESUS AS THE MESSIAH BECAUSE:
http://www.simpletoremember.com/articles/a/jewsandjesus/
There is no common ground because you have shot an arrow into a tree then painted a bulls eye target around the arrow. Christian have mistranslated key verses, many meaningful key words , omitted others when they didn’t fit and add verses from the Jewish scripture when it served a Christian purposes . When Christians have corrupted the original word of G-d, we consider that to be not only blasphemous but no greater sin than a corruption of the Word of G-d and his intent.
Even the descriptive concepts of Heaven and Hell are alien in Jewish core thought you will find no mention of them in Tanach and most Jewish thought and when some Jews have considered it is only speculative.
Since Jews believe that our Torah was a national religious revelation, given to and received by the whoe nation of Israel it stands to reason that if G-d wanted to change , abridge or annul his covenant with the Jewish people he would have told us and in the same convincing manner by which we as a nation received that covenant.
This fact alone along with your Messiah no producing any of the prophetic requisites leaves Jews no other choice but to reject out of hand.
The Tanach does not elucidate much on the Messiah only a few verses but most describe the messianic age or time.. Judaism can stand alone without the concept of The Messiah, which is not a core foundational concept, as a Great Rabbi and Philosopher wrote in his Book “First principles” The concept of a Messiah is not even a twig on the tree trunk that represents Judaism. Our concept of the Messiah is purely speculative, therefore from the Tanach and the Prophets we know what the messianic age will look like so we can extrapolate on what we should expect from a real Messiah.
We need not base this belief on blind faith for once you know what is required from The Messiah as elucidated by the Prophets we can judge just from empirical evidence never faith. If then a single act ordained by our prophets and sages does not occur we reject such a messiah as a false messiah. This is why Jesus has always been rejected by Jews. He performed none and I mean none of the biblical prophetic requirements.
Jews consider themselves better than others. Not inherently better but as a result of a special mission. Americans seem to be similarly proud of their role as the beacon of democracy. The Jews survived for millennia due to their feeling of ethical and religious superiority. Christians, thinking according to their religious framework, naturally disagree. For our part, all Jews disagree with Christianity and many – with democracy. Our feeling of superiority is sensible, but not objective.
Jewish arrogance is a major force behind anti-Semitism. No one likes to be thought of as inferior. Politically correct rabbis might speak of equality, but our sages universally proclaimed the Jews different from other nations. In practice, difference and isolation is always associated with resentment toward outsiders; “equal but different” is a line too thin for nations to walk. The discussion of Jewish difference and nationalism painfully irritates anti-Semites. People who feel that they are doing Jews a favor by accepting us as equals are offended when we refuse their equality.
Atheist Jewish liberals would not dare say to their gentile friends that Jews possess something which gentiles lack; that the Jewish way of life is inherently better. Liberals have no right to say this, as their way of life is not Jewish in any sense, but indistinguishable from the nations’. A Jewish liberal who speaks of Judaism somehow being equal to Jeffersonian political utopia—what can he teach his gentile acquaintances? His “Judaism” only includes the points acceptable to his fellow gentile liberals; all the rest is abandoned. It has not even been eradicated, as that would have required knowledge of Judaism on the liberal’s part, but simply abandoned, left unlearned and unknown. The liberal’s Judaism is narrower than gentile ethics, a subset of it. Such “Judaism” includes what gentiles accept, but not everything that they accept. It contains only the things which gentiles have long adopted anyway, and therefore cannot serve as a light unto the nations.
The “light unto the nations” role assures that the Jews respect other peoples. We won’t suffer to bring the light to the world unless we believe its people are good.
Comment by yamit82 — December 3, 2009 @ 10:37 am
Well spoken Uncle. Jews have always respected other peoples. The problem lies with other peoples who do not respect Jews. If you inquire why the disrespect you will not find a reason!!!!!!!!
Again, it’s beyond me why some Christians show up here in an attempt to convert Jews, I guess we need to put the sign out “Jews already have and had G-d from the very beginning no need to apply here”.
Comment by rongrand — December 3, 2009 @ 1:13 pm
Shy Guy and Yamit, thoughtful and interesting comments. I’d like to respond, but I don’t want to risk further irritating rongrand. I think he’s developing a rash. So the last word is yours.
Comment by Calvary — December 4, 2009 @ 6:13 am
It always ends with excuses. I wonder why - not.
Comment by Shy Guy — December 4, 2009 @ 7:36 am
Shy at least when he chickens out and runs for the hills he does it with that ever so polite Facade/ To prove a point lets ask Ron to withdraw his objection so we might hear this Chickens reply. We are all seekers of truth wherever it leads.
Comment by yamit82 — December 4, 2009 @ 10:22 am
Listen, for the love of me I don’t understand what Calvary’s agenda is about. What is he trying to prove?
Let’s keep it simple, G-d led His people back to the Holy Land Israel, provided them the help needed to defeat their much larger enemies.
I would have to say they are pretty well connected to G-d.
There are a lot of people in the world who don’t know G-d/God, take your message to them.
Comment by rongrand — December 4, 2009 @ 1:08 pm
You know the answer as well as I do. Just read John 3:16, 14:6, Matthew 28:18-19 and Mark 16:15 for starters and then Romans 1:16, Matthew 10:5-6 and 23:29, the latter according to David Stern in his Jewish New Testament commentary.
We greatly appreciate your suppressing the urge, if you have one.
For those that can’t keep it in, like Cavalry, we simply point out the inconvenient facts about their fancy.
Comment by Shy Guy — December 4, 2009 @ 2:34 pm
Shy Guy you know me by now. I don’t have an agenda and I am not out to prove anything.
I grew up with my Jewish neighbors and they respected my belief and likewise I respected theirs. Neither of us tried to persuade or convince the other who is right, wrong or indifferent. We shared a love for one another. The common denominator is G-d/God.
If anything, our energies should be working together to stamp out hatred and anti-Antisemitism.
By the way, the only urge I have is to support my Jewish friends and Israel.
Comment by rongrand — December 4, 2009 @ 2:57 pm
Yamit, dare we continue our discussion without rongrand’s approval? Reasoning together: Man to Chicken. With a rebel yell, we can speed this car over the cliff like Thelma and Louise into the sunset under the banner “Truth or Bust!”
And rongrand, if Yamit agrees, don’t you even think about reading our posts. I’m serious. So help me, I’ll jump right into Al Gore’s internet, ride the electrons all the way to your house and smash your PC into a million bits. And then! I’ll take you to the store and buy you a new one. …because that’s just not cool.
Comment by Calvary — December 5, 2009 @ 4:59 am
Listen Calvary I don’t know who you think you are and I really don’t care. I am not impressed and you know what, my Jewish friends aren’t either.
Why anyone would bother to engage in a conversation with a fool is beyond me.
By the way sport, riding the electrons all the way to my house would only end up with you getting your ass kicked.
Maybe that’s just what you need.
“….because that’s just not cool“, the sign of a real punk.
Comment by rongrand — December 5, 2009 @ 5:41 am
I have let this discussion go on long enough. Let’s move on to other things.
Comment by Ted Belman — December 5, 2009 @ 8:18 am
Thanks Ted, I am in total agreement as I suggested earlier.
Comment by rongrand — December 5, 2009 @ 2:40 pm
Rongrand, I’m with you 100%. I’ve said it before.
Comment by Shy Guy — December 5, 2009 @ 7:54 pm