Freemasonry is at the core of Western politics. As progressives become more clear about the shortcomings of this system, they are shocked to see Freemasons ending the democratic experiment. This is at least partly the result of Freemasonry’s dependence on Plato’s anti-democratic notions. We see this dependence in US politics when Kyrsten Sinema demands unity and civility at all costs. We also see it when a presidential candidate, Hilary Clinton, tells a rival faction to respect authority. Here we discuss the role of politics in our season of creation.
When Recep Tayyip Erdogan defends Gaza, he is one of the few leaders in the Middle East to openly criticize Benjamin Netanyahu for his callous bombing campaign. In addition to providing hope for Gaza in her ongoing trial, Erdogan also reminds us that the Levant has seen better times. Palestine was under Turkish rule for four hundred years prior to the days of the British Mandate of Palestine. Apparently, Erdogan has not forgotten this long-lost child of the Ottoman Empire. On November 29, after Netanyahu continued to spew his vile threats at Gaza, Erdogan called Netanyahu the ‘butcher of Gaza‘.
During his time as president of Turkey, Erdogan has helped the Palestinians in many ways. His humanitarian relief to Gaza is probably his most important effort. This relief has been desperately important during Israel’s continuing blockade of food, water, medicine and electricity. Without his help and the help of the United Nations, the population of Gaza would have starved to death long ago.
It is shocking that Netanyahu’s blockade remains in place even during his bombing spree. Erdogan’s courage is all the more admirable because his criticism may have cost him politically and monetarily. He is tied up, with the rest of the world, by the manipulations of dying energy markets. In fact, an energy war surrounds the upcoming climate summit.
COP28
It has been reported that the COP28 president secretly used his climate summit role to push oil trade with foreign government officials. The COP28 president is Sultan Al Jaber, chief executive of the national oil company ADNOC and the Chairman of MASDAR, the United Arab Emirates fossil fuel and renewable energy companies. In this article by Rachel Donald of Planet: Critical, she explains that much of the behavior we see in the oil markets is due to the fact that oil is no longer a good investment. The costs are too high for profitability.
However, gas is another matter. But this only refers to the lower cost of gas compared to oil production. Renewable energy is the obvious way of the future. However, the West is determined that renewables will not prevail. The West claims gas is a transition fossil fuel that will move the world toward renewable energy. But that’s not at all what gas represents.
The fight to end fossil fuel use threatens the political world order
The market for both oil and gas have decreased, but gas is still relatively inexpensive to produce. This motivates producers to artificially increase the demand.
The sheer size of gas reserves would enable another 125 years of burning fossil fuels. For rational people, continuing to use gas in stead of renewables makes no sense as a policy. The motivation for its continued use is that the transition to renewable energy will diminish the power of Western nations.
Due the high costs of constructing the international infrastructure, developing nations are forced into partnerships with Western countries to exploit these natural resources. Renewables, on the other hand, are within the reach of developing countries. Renewables would give them energy independence from Western countries. But this threatens the political world order. And it is this fact that is missing from the climate energy conversation.
China has cornered the renewable energy industry, but…
The energy war is the Global North’s biggest investment. But while the U.S. and its allies have been focused on fossil fuels, China was busy gaining access to precious minerals needed for renewable energy. China has also been expanding supply chains. Under the right circumstances this would assure China’s power over the West. Unfortunately, China still needs energy to supply the world with renewable power.
China is the biggest customer of ADNOC. If China’s gas supply were cut off for some reason, it would cause an oil crisis for China. But the crisis would spread. In retaliation, China would stop its exports of materials to the allies’ industries. By the time the markets sent their lobbyists to Washington, it would already be too late. The economies of both superpowers would be in free-fall.
Erdogan’s courage in context
Turkey had just renewed relations with Israel after a decade-long rupture. The two countries had been discussing developing closer trade relations and working on new energy projects that could have helped build longer-term trust. But as mediators were trying to extend the truce between Israel and Hamas, Netanyahu kept insisting he would eradicate Hamas. Erdogan accused Netanyahu of complicating the process. After Erdogan called him the ‘butcher of Gaza’, Netanyahu recalled all diplomatic staff from Turkey and other regional countries. And Turkey has withdrawn its Tel Aviv envoy. This is an example of the price paid when Erdogan defends Gaza.
How should the world gage the threat of Benjamin Netanyahu?
Those of us who can only watch it happen are suffering too. My own opinion is that Netanyahu is more than a threat to Gaza. He seems to take pleasure in broadcasting threats and administering public cruelty to the Palestinians. He has no problem with horrifying observers all over the world. And this is in spite of world-wide calls for a cease-fire. Benjamin Netanyahu is not exhibiting the behavior of a rational person, let alone a prime minister.
In addition, AIPAC is threatening to run candidates against American representatives who criticize Israel. All things considered, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that Netanyahu, with Western backing, is a threat to the entire world.
This is the context in which Recep Tayyip Erdogan defends Gaza. It seems to me that he is our only hope for an end to Israel’s hostilities against Gaza and the rest of the world.
Control of gas and oil supplies is the main weapon of Israel’s U.S. ‘protectors’. It appears this is the motivation for the bombing of Gaza. The story of Gaza’s natural gas field and the U.S. military are missing in reporting of the bombing of Gaza. A natural gas field was discovered off the Coast of Gaza in 1999 by BG Group, a multinational oil and gas company headquartered in Reading, United Kingdom. And this gas field is not the only one on Israel’s radar.
Secret U.S. military base(s) are also missing from the story of the bombing of Gaza
It has come to light that the United States has a military base in Israel. This was reported in the Jewish Virtual Library. JVL sources were listed as Barbara Opall-Rome of the Defense News and The Washington Post. The Post’s article is no longer on its website. Actually, there is more than one. The chronology is complicated and will be discussed in more detail below.
Israel is claiming rights to several gas fields, but who really owns them?
Several gas fields have been discovered off the Mediterranean coast in recent decades. In fact, while the Israelis were bombing Gaza, Israel granted twelve licenses to six companies to explore for natural gas in that area. Total oil and gas reserves were valued at $524 billion in 2019.
But did Israel have a right to award these licenses? According to a UN report, Israel is not entitled to all of the gas. Some of the reserves are in the occupied territory of Palestine. Much of the rest is outside of national borders and should be shared with relevant parties. In fact, the UN report questioned whether Israel has a right to any of it. After all, the gas fields took millions of years to form and the Palestinians occupied the entire territory of Palestine for thousands of years before the Israelis arrived.
The question of the hour is, who owns this particular gas field off the Gaza coast? It won’t be surprising to anyone that the majority owner, the Palestinian people, have no access to its income.
Gaza swims with sharks
The Palestine National Authority has maritime jurisdiction up to 20 nautical miles off of Gaza’s coast. This is according to the Oslo II Accords. The PNA signed a 25-year contract for gas exploration off the Gaza coast with BGG in November 1999. Long story short, Gaza ended up with nothing. Here are the details as described by Rachel Donald of Planet Critical.
Ehud Barak
Palestine’s Prime Minister at the time, Ehud Barak, authorized BGG to drill the first well in July 2000. And of course, BGG struck gas. Then Palestine and Israel began to negotiate. They agreed on a deal that was thought to be fair to both Israeli demand and Palestinian supply. But then…
Arial Sharon
Arial Sharon became Prime Minister. His government rejected a supply deal between the Palestinian gas field and the state-owned Israel Electric Corporation.
Tony Blair to the rescue
Enter UK Prime Minister Tony Blair in 2002. As a result of Blair’s influence, Sharon agreed to negotiate an agreement. He agreed to take an annual supply of 0.05 trillion cubic feet of Palestinian gas for a period of 10 to 15 years. But in 2003 Sharon decided the money might be used for terrorism. So he changed his mind.
Hamas scuttles a new deal with Ehud Olmert
Ehud Olmert’s government made a new deal with the Palestinians that was supposed to start in 2009. Israel would purchase 0.05 trillion cubic feet of Palestinian gas for $4 billion annually. However, the 2007 Battle of Gaza changed the deal again. This battle began when Hamas took control of the strip. They supposedly did this because they wanted to increase the original 10% Palestinian share in the BGG deal.
I have no inside knowledge of Hamas’s motivation. However, In my opinion it is curious that an attack by Hamas also justified Israel’s 2023 bombing campaign. In both cases Israel benefitted by claiming entitlement to self-serving retributions. In 2023, Israel took the opportunity to award exploration licenses off the Mediterranean Coast. Now back to the saga of Palestine’s gas field.
Israel nullifies the 1999 contract that BG Group, the Palestinian government and the PNA agreed to
An Israeli team of negotiators was set up by the Government of Israel to formulate a deal with BGG, bypassing both the Palestinian government and PNA. This nullified the contract signed in 1999 between BGG and PNA. However, in December 2007, BGG withdrew from negotiations with the Israeli government.
In 2008, Israel belatedly tries to restart negotiations with BGG
In June 2008, the Israeli government recontacted BGG to urgently renegotiate the deal. But it seems this was a cover for at attack on Gaza, which was already planned. The UN report states: “The decision to speed up negotiations with BGG coincided, chronologically, with the planning of an Israeli military operation in Gaza, whereby it would appear that the Government of Israel wished to reach an agreement with BGG prior to the military operation, which was already in an advanced planning stage.”
Israel confiscates Palestinian gas fields in 2008 invasion of Gaza
The invasion of Gaza by Israel in December 2008 brought the Palestinian gas fields under Israeli control—without regard for international law. Israel’s government has been dealing with BGG ever since. The UN estimates billions of dollars in loss for the Palestinian people.
The military base(s)
According to the Jewish Virtual Library and Defense News, there is a new U.S. military base located at the Israel Defense Forces Air Defense School near Beersheba. When construction began in 2017, its stated purpose was to support a contingent of soldiers who would operate systems to help Israel defend against rocket and missile attack. In this base, the plan was for U.S. soldiers and Israeli airmen to be living and working side-by-side. But these articles also mention a U.S. independent facility in the same general area of Israel’s Negev desert.
Pentagon awards contract for expansion of the joint base in August 2023.
The dates reported by the various websites are confusing. I believe construction of the joint U.S. and Israeli facility began September 16, 2017, while Donald Trump was in the Whitehouse. The JVL says ground was broken for the initial construction in 2017. And this one seems to be the one that was expanded in 2023. But before this base was built, the U.S. already had a military base in Israel.
Making sense of the dates
The Intercept says the Pentagon awarded a multimillion-dollar contract for construction of a base in August 2023. However, this contract must have been for its expansion, because the JVL and Defense News says construction was begun in 2017.
At that time, the U.S. had another military site independent of Israel that was not the subject of an expansion. The Intercept was able to report the monetary value of this older site because it was mentioned in an August 2 contract announcement by the Pentagon. The intercept reports that this site is a $35.8 million U.S. troop facility.
The two sites share a code name
The U.S. military has operated this independent facility for more than a decade in the same general area of Israel’s Negev desert, according to the Jewish Virtual Library, Defense News and the Intercept. But Ken Klippenstein and Daniel Boguslaw of the Intercept report that both sites are part of code-named Site 512.
The Americans operate the independent site without an Israeli presence. Its purpose is to house the U.S. AN/TPY-2, an X-Band radar that is integrated with Israeli search and track radars to augment early warning in the event of ballistic missile attack from Iran. The Intercept article specuates that these sites did not warn against the Hamas attack because they were focused in Iran.
One of Israel’s Iron Dome systems is in the U.S.
One of Israel’s operational Iron Dome systems is now in the U.S., according to the Defense News article. It is competing with U.S.-proposed systems as a possible solution to the medium and short-range air defense requirement.
We are outraged about the behavior of Israel toward the Palestinians. At the same time, atrocities that are happening in other parts of the world don’t demand our attention. Apparently, we have high expectations for Israel. The question is, are these expectations realistic?
My own opinion is that they are not realistic. How can they be? For one thing, it is difficult to see Israel and her enemies clearly. First, the biblical story of ancient Israel influences our thinking. Second, there is the more recent history of Judaism and its struggles, which we think we understand, but we don’t. Most of us only know about these things superficially.
Paying Lip Service to Solve a Complicated Problem
Unfortunately, we have been paying lip service to solve a complicated problem. After October 7 we mention the Holocaust in passing to demonstrate how sympathetic we are, and then we commence pleading with the Israelis to cease firing on the Palestinians. In a previous post I even said I hoped God would save the Palestinians from Israel.
The most glaring problem with asking God to save the Palestinians is that during the Holocaust the Jewish people also prayed for help. Instead of helping them, God allowed them to be tortured and killed. That is a tragedy in itself and there is simply no explanation for it. But if God had saved the Palestinians in October 2023, it would have been the cruelest shock of all.
The logic of the biblical narrative is another problem. Saving people from the Israelis does not fit the biblical narrative from which Israel takes its meaning. Yet that is the situation we find ourselves in. This turn of events merits a comment at least. Who would have guessed in 1948 that Israel and Palestine would find themselves in this impossible position?
Actually, many people guessed something like this would happen. It would make more sense to ask what the world has been doing to promote peace since 1948. The answer is, nothing. The world has done nothing to promote peace in Israel. Why? Peace is not the purpose of modern Israel.
Morris Jastrow on The Future of Palestine
In 1919, Morris Jastrow Jr. wrote a very helpful book about Zionism. It’s called Zionism and the Future of Palestine: The Fallacies and Dangers of Political Zionism. 1 You might wonder why I would recommend such an old book about Zionism. I recommend it because it explains key facts about Zionism and Judaism that no one pays any attention to. They involve lost opportunities, harsh judgements, withheld love, ostracism, isolation, fear, and social degradation.
The Jewish people are familiar with these facts, but they will remain in the background. For the most part, I will be talking about the facts in the text, which are harrowing in their own way. The book begins with the Hebrew religion and explains how it became Judaism and then Zionism. Jastrow concludes in Chapter 2, “Judaism and Zionism are thus mutually exclusive, but for all that passed down the ages linked to one another as inseparable partners.”
So, if Zionism is not Judaism, what is it?
Religious, Economic and Political Zionism
There are three varieties of Zionism: religious, economic and political zionism. According to Jastrow, the older Zionism was religious, but now it’s political. If this sounds too obvious to mention, recall that Jastrow was writing in 1919.
Zionism started out as an ameliorative measure for Jewish “self-emancipation.” But it was already becoming political in Jastrow’s time. The Zionists purposely created the impression that Political Zionism was part of Europe’s 19th century movement for the reassertion of nationalities. However, Zionism did not fit that pattern. Many Jews were settled in countries where they had the same rights as their fellow-citizens. Only a small percentage were interested in Zionism. Nevertheless, the Zionists declared victory even before the Paris Peace conference.
Vague Definitions of Zionism
Confusion increased because of the vague Definitions of Zionism. Arthur J. Balfour, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, in a declaration dated Nov. 2, 1917, used the term ‘National Homeland’. According to Jastrow, this term was not political. It was merely diplomatic policy.
By 1918, Balfour stressed sentiment and amelioration, and still there was no sign of political Zionism. The same was true of the French and Italian governments, and President Wilson. They were merely in sympathy with the humanitarian phases of the Zionistic movement.
However, there were concerns among the Palestinians even before the end of the War. Christians and Muslims protested the program of the political Zionists, and they sent their objections to the Paris Peace Conference. And there were others who objected. They included Sir George Adam Smith, Herbert Adams Gibbons, the Honorable Henry Morgenthau, Ex-Ambassador of the United States to Turkey, and others with direct knowledge of the East and Eastern conditions.
The French Government’s Commission was not Favorable to Zionism
In 1918, the French government sent a commission to investigate economic conditions and attitudes. The commission’s report was unfavorable to Political Zionism. As a result, the Zionists put pressure on M. Sylvain Levi, a member of the commission, to retract his report. He refused, which brought the English Zionists down on him. However, it did have an effect on the terms the Zionists were using. They began to speak of the Jewish State as a possibility in the distant future. Zion would now be called the Common-wealth of Palestine.
Additional terms for the aims of the ‘Common-wealth’ project varied from Jewish Nation to Jewish culture to Jewish spirit. Sadly, many of the leaders knew nothing of Jewish history or literature. The result has been that every Zionist feels free to manufacture his own definition. This is especially true when it comes to defining a Jewish State.
Zionism in Orthodox Judaism
Orthodox Judaism has four pillars, which include the belief in one god, the belief that the Jews are His people, belief in the Messiah as God’s messenger and the belief in the return of the Jews to their native land. The Zionism of Orthodox Jews assumes an indissoluble bond between religion and nationality. But the national bond is theoretical until the time of restoration. And none of this is to be brought about through human agency. However, the orthodox longing for the return to Zion is one of the chief roots of the modern movement. (p, 17)
Economic Zionism
The movement was largely inspired by the economic aspect of Zionism. The aim was supposed to be amelioration of the pitiful condition of Jews in such countries as Russia and Romania. These Jews had no rights of citizenship and were subject to all manner of oppression. Oppression alternated with persecution and officially sanctioned pogroms. (Pogroms are the practice of the government when it turns its people loose on a minority population.)
The Jewish population in this area formed half of the entire number of Jews in the world, but the Russian Jews were the most miserable. Russia is where the modern Zionistic movement began. So, first it was aimed at amelioration for Russian Jews, and then because of the Russian government’s actions the goal became self-emancipation for the Jews.
Dr. Leo Pinsker’s Self-Emancipaton for the Jews
A Physician, Dr. Leo Pinsker, living in Odessa, introduced this project in 1881. He called it ‘Self-Emancipation’ for the Jews. It was his solution to what had become the ‘Jewish Question’. Pinsker had in mind an effort by the Jews to secure a new home in some soil where they might live safely and develop freely without the pressure of the constant struggle. This project was given more urgency by an anti-Semitic outbreak in Germany and Austria, which threatened even the Jews of more politically advanced countries. (p. 19)
However, most of the Russian Jews went to North and South America. Only a small number went to Palestine. Pinsker’s proposal lead to organizations throughout Russia, known as ‘Lovers of Zion’. Their purpose was to encourage colonization of Jews in the Holy Land. These organizations then spread to Germany and Austria due to the wave of anti-Semitism mentioned above. Finally, because of sympathy for the Jews in the East, additional branches were formed in Europe and the United States.
Jastrow was sympathetic to all of these developments. In his opinion, if Zionism had confined itself to the economic realm, the establishment of Jewish colonies would have been viewed as beneficial.
At the time of writing Jastrow reported that there were 40 Jewish colonies in Palestine, with a population of somewhat over 10,000. He believed these colonies improved agriculture and technical arts in Palestine.
Political Zionism
Herzl took this approach because he believed the existence of a “Jewish Question” in the enlightened nineteenth century was due to the fact that the Jews actually formed a separate nationality. He wanted to create a visible focus for this Jewish nationality. But this step caused more problems than it solved.
Jastrow believed religious and economic Zionism were harmless and also helpful to the economy of Palestine. But political Zionism was another matter. “When the Zionistic sentiment of Orthodox Judaism is divorced from its attachment to religion, the result is mischief. It involves difficulties that the Zionists recognize, but also dangers serious enough to condemn the entire movement as unfortunate and as threatening the position of Jews throughout the world.” (p. 25)
The Roots of Modern Zionism
According to Jastrow, three factors contribute to the rise and growth of modern Zionism: the persistence of the longing of orthodox and also of unorthodox Jews for the old homeland; the persistence of the retention of the nationalistic aspect to Judaism, even though inconsistent with the basis on which that religion rests; and the conditions under which Jews were formerly forced to live. At the time Jastrow wrote these lines, many Jews in Russia, Romania, and Poland still lived in those miserable conditions.
Sentiment is a powerful force, and attracts Jews with all aims, whether they want to make Jerusalem a nation for religious or political reasons, both orthodox and unorthodox. And sentiment had a stronger pull at a time when other nations were about to gain national independence.
Also influential were the feelings of Christian Zionists who were encouraging the movement for a return of the Jews to Palestine. Jewish Zionists seem to have overlooked the reason Zionism was important to the Christians. The restoration of Palestine is supposed to bring the second coming of Jesus. This will be followed by the disappearance of the Jews through their acceptance of the Messiah.
Jastrow thought Christian believers involuntarily placed themselves on the same plane as the anti-Semitic agitators of Germany and Austria. They were considered anti-Semitic because Zionism was a means of getting rid of the Jews in their lands.
Unorthodox Christians, on the other hand, were influenced by romantic sentiment, for example, novelist George Eliot. (p. 29) Jastrow had sympathy for the sincere Christian believer, but he called for caution:
We should in a similar spirit respect this doctrine of orthodox Judaism, though unable to subscribe to it, but this must not deter us from recognizing the source of this doctrine, and if we do so we will see the serious mischief that the Zionistic longing is bound to work when it is divorced from its attachment to religion, as is done by the leaders of political Zionism, particularly by the American and English leaders and by many of those who have become Zionists just because of this divorce.
(p.30)
Jastrow also objected to those who encouraged others to go to Israel, but who had no intention of going themselves. He called them ‘Zionists by proxy’.
The Religious History
The religious history will be discussed in a separate article. I want to make sure I get it right. Hopefully our Christian friends will make sure I do.
Back to the Present
We have high expectations of Israel. Are our expectations for Israel realistic? I don’t think so, because we don’t understand the pressures the Jewish people are under. And even though we acknowledge the terror of the Holocaust, we expect the Israelis to act as if there are no threats in the world.
If we were to go back to the period after the Enlightenment, when the Jews suddenly enjoyed the same political rights as their neighbors, we would see them blossom and begin take part in the cultural life of their various countries. Considering everything they had endured, the subsequent outbreaks of anti-Semitism must have been painfully disillusioning. And then came the Holocaust. There was the sheer terror of it, but also grief, humiliation, disbelief, and unendurable sadness. Most of all there would be lasting fear and mistrust.
And then what happened? After the War, they went to Palestine to become a military outpost for the United States and her allies. Now they are supposed to spend the rest of their lives accomplishing several impossible things a day. And what if they don’t succeed? Who is going to help them then?
A Call for a Time-Out
This is a call for a time-out. A time-out would obviously involve a cease-fire, but it would have a more inclusive understanding. We would have to make ourselves familiar with the last 2,000 years of Jewish history. But our aim would be the survival of both Israelis and Palestinians. To this end, we would have to acknowledge Hamas as party to this conflict.
Unfortunately for the time-out proposal, there is mistrust on both sides, and with good reason. Each side would expect the other to use the time-out to further its own preparations, meaning that both sides would cheat. However, we have a lot to make up for, and it’s best if we don’t blow ourselves up before we begin.
And we can’t forget the colonizing nations who have helped create Israel for their own purposes. This part of the problem will involve peacemaking on a much larger scale. Hence, a time-out.
Jeffrey Sachs says Ukraine is a lost cause. Please watch his interview regarding Ukraine. The United States’s maneuvering has led step by step to war and the destruction of Ukraine. The entire Russia/Ukraine War is the result of a U.S. regime change venture, courtesy of U.S. neoconservatives, namely, President Biden, Victoria Nuland, Anthony Blinken, and Jake Sullivan.
When Victoria Nuland first discussed replacing the Ukrainian president, she was motivated by the fact that President Yanukovich had passed a neutrality agreement to head off war. The Biden administration chose war instead. Nuland’s meddling is common knowledge–her phone call was intercepted by the Russians and replayed in the U.S. Even so, there were several opportunities to avoid this war before it started, and the Americans refused to try.
On December 17, 2021 President Putin put on the table a draft U.S. Russia security agreement to avert the war. The agreement called for several things but the most important was an end to NATO enlargement. Jeffrey Sachs urged Biden to negotiate at that time, but the U.S. declared that the expansion of NATO is none of Russia’s business. Subsequently, Zalinski called for negotiations based on Ukraine’s neutrality, but the U.S. blocked negotiations.
This video lays out in more detail the reasons Jeffrey Sachs says Ukraine is a lost cause. The transcript is included in the video notes. Please take note of the steps that must follow the end of hostilities for true peace with Russia.
There is grave disorder in the halls of our government. It is a kind of disorder that can’t be set right by judgement, scolding and condemnation. It can only be addressed with blessings and prayers. This is a desperate call for blessings and prayers for a disputed land. Nothing less will do. But first we must describe the problem.
In 2016, progressives presented a new direction for the United States. It was based on the reality of climate change, diminishing farmland, pollution of water resources, and a growing population. We proclaimed that instead of addressing these things, our government was building weapons with which to destroy far-away people. In the process, they were dropping white phosphorus, which destroys anything it touches–buildings, human bodies and land. This they continue to do.
Describing the ailment
We face two intractable cases: Russia/Ukraine and Palestine/Israel. Here we are describing the ailment. The administration has obviously gone the opposite direction from what we had hoped. The political establishment cleverly side-stepped progressive demands and defeated our presidential candidate. Now, they apparently think they have silenced us. It’s as if they think an electoral cycle was the only obstacle to their plans, or as if reality is the ideology of the winning candidate.
But I don’t intend to scold. I’m describing the ailment. The administration knows all of the details that will be described here. What they don’t know is that we know the details too, and we fear and pity the administration.
Diagnoses and recommendations
To the Biden administration, considering the inappropriate response to Israel’s destruction of Gaza and the suffering of the Palestinians, possible diagnoses follow. The first is collective mental illness. Another possibility is moral immaturity. A third possibility is a wholesale capitulation to greed and hubris. A fourth could be childish defiance. A fifth possibility is demonic possession.
Whatever the diagnosis, the whole world can see what is happening to us. The administration alone can’t see it. Still, I think it is important that we are all on the same page, so, please read the following and feel free to correct any material errors.
The crisis in Israel and Palestine is the climax of decades of dereliction of duty by Great Britain, the United States, and their allies. This dereliction of duty has allowed a vicious, racist cabal to take control of the Israeli government, the Israeli military, the United States Congress, and the European Union. Today, as the rest of us bemoan the killing of Palestinians, it is important to be aware of the momentum behind this massacre.
It is not as simple as demanding that the killing stop, although that has become the most urgent problem since October 7. But going forward, the dereliction of duty must be explained in political terms. Then we need to call our government and its allies to change its ways. In religious terms, we should call them to repent. The following is taken from an article I found on the website of the Institute for Palestinian Studies. Please see the full article for further details and footnotes.
The rot
The Trump administration moved American foreign policy on Israel and Palestine to the far right. But Trump’s policies have not moved back to the left since the end of his administration. Why? Because Trump was only accelerating a long-standing policy, or lack thereof, toward Israel. For decades, US politicians in both parties have courted the Jewish far right. Trump’s administration was different in degree but not in the general direction.
Trump chose Jared Kushner as special advisor, and David Friedman as ambassador to Israel. Because of their ties to Rabbi Meir Kahane, this encouraged Benjamin Netanyahu to put a terrorist movement in the Israeli parliament. Previously this movement had had no visible ties to Netanyahu, although ties certainly existed. This meant that Netanyahu could deny responsibility when the Kahanist movement, as the terrorist movement is still called, violently expanded Israeli settlements. Thanks to Trump the connection no longer has to remain hidden.
What are these ties? Both Kushner and Friedman had been donating money to groups associated with the followers of Kahane. They funneled money through a think tank associated with Kahane and headed by Rabbi Dov Lior. Dov Lior often praises famous mass murderers in Israeli history, such as Baruch Goldstein.
Benjamin Netanyahu: inheritor of Rabbi Kahane’s patrons
Rabbi Meir Kahane was assassinated in 1990, after which his wealthy patrons decided to fund Benjamin Netanyahu. These patrons include Manfred Lehmann, Reuben and Rose Mattus, Irving Muskowitz, Kenneth Abramowitz, Simon Falic and Sam Domb, among others. Organizations associated with Meir Kahane and Israel’s Kahanist prime minister continue to have Kushner’s and Friedman’s loyalty.
During Netanyahu’s last premiership, he personally oversaw the installation of more illegal settlement infrastructure in occupied Palestine territories than had been built in the previous 25 years. Kahanist groups showed their appreciation of Trump’s support for Israeli expansion by minting a coin with his face and gifting him with a silver Torah crown.
Kahanist Jewish Power party leader Itamar Ben Gvir was elected to the Knesset in 2021, and two months later he organized anti-Palestinian pogroms across the country. Unfortunately but predictably, Israeli media treated this activity with approval. In addition, Ben Gvir was given more screen time than any other Knesset member. He placed third in the November 2022 elections and Kahanists won fourteen of 120 seats in the Knesset.
In his present term, Netanyahu has gone so far as to install Ben Gvir as his national security minister with power over Israel’s security forces. Ben Gvir’s injustices are too many to list here. Please see the article.
A brief history of the rot
This is a brief history of the rot. Corruption has been present at least since Israel signed the Oslo Accord with the PLO in 1993. Immediately after it was signed, the Kahanist community of New York City waged a war against the Accord. They also waged a hate campaign against Israeli Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin. At a rally led by Anthony Weiner in Times Square in 1993, they publicly called Rabin a murderer and warned that he was leading Israel to ‘national suicide’. The Village Voice quoted a rally attendee who said, “Rabin is worse than Hitler…Rabin should be killed.’
In 1995, Labor Party Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated by a disciple of Baruch Goldstein. Six months later, Benjamin Netanyahu became prime minister of Israel with the help of Kahanists.
Ongoing opposition to the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority
A continuing aim of the Kahanists seems to be to discredit the Palestinian Authority. In 2004, Rabbi Moshe Tendler slurred Yasser Arafat’s successor, Mahmoud Abbas at a dinner of the far-right Zionist Organization of America (ZOA). Then Anthony Weiner, the Democratic candidate for new York city mayor, took the microphone and called for an end to all US aid to the Palestinian Authority.
Kahanists not only slur the PA’s leaders, they advocate legislation to reduce or eliminate its funding. For example, a Kahane-related fund raising organization influenced Senator D’Amato to introduce a bill in Congress hobbling US aid to the PA.
Republican infamy
Republican infamy and support for the Kahanist organization and its sister organizations is not surprising. Democratic support, on the other hand, is disturbing. First I’ll report a few items of Republican infamy. In March 2022 Mike Pence assured the Kahanists of American support when he visited Hebron. While touring the Ibrahimi Mosque, he said to Ben Gvir, ‘Stay strong, and we’ll stand with you’. The Ibrahimi Mosque is the place where Goldstein committed his massacre, accompanied by Ben Gvir. Goldstein murdered twenty-nine Palestinians during prayers in 1994 while wounding another 120.
Christian American far right, Jewish American far right, and AIPAC
The Christian American far right embraces the most extreme Zionist Kahanist terrorists, while the Jewish American far right, which dominates the American Zionist lobby, embraces the most extreme Christian nationalists. They include US Senate, House, and gubernatorial candidates who supported the January 6 insurrection. Last, but not least, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) has issued public statements of support for more than a hundred supporters of the Trump-led January 6 riots.
The Democratic Party is right behind the Republicans
As mentioned above, the Democratic Party is right behind the Republicans. For decades, AIPAC and its sister PACs have been taking millions of dollars from supporters of Kahanist causes and giving them to Democratic primaries. Particularly in New York, politicians in both parties are aware that the city’s rabbis wield political influence.
Rabbis and racist elected officials
Rabbi Moshe Tendler, who died in 2021, was spiritual advisor to top Democratic Party politicians. He also played a pivotal role in the election campaigns of Rockland county District Attorney Kenneth Gribetz. Gribetz was DA for twenty years with, Tendler’s help.
Democratic state representative, Dov Hikind, was a racist Democratic state representative. He was able to deliver the votes of his constituents for thirty-five years because his Brooklyn district of Borough Park contains the largest concentration of Orthodix and ultra-Orthodox Jews in the United States. Hikind admits this was a block vote. In other words, conservative communities obey their religious leaders when they cast their votes.
Most Jews are Democrats. But even Orthodox Jews were initially lukewarm about the Zionist project. Unfortunately, when they saw that Israel was able to beat multiple Arab armies in the 1967 war, they decided Israel must have inaugurated a pre-messianic era. According to this interpretation, it followed that the Israeli government should dominate the surrounding nations rather than coexist with them.
Democratic grandstanders and hangers-on
To continue the saga of Democratic grandstanders and hangers-on, Hikind also helped elect Republicans such as US Senator Al D’Amato, New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and New York Governor George Pataki.
Sam Domb, a patron of Benjamin Netanyahu, foots the bill for New York’s annual Salute to Israel Parade down Fifth Avenue in return for certain perks. The event now includes a concert in Central Park, featuring speeches from racist figures in the Jewish community. New York City politicians have attended, including Former Congressman Anthony Weiner, former State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and State Assemblyman David Wepriin.
In 2020, Domb helped fund Democrat Bill de Blasio’s run for the US presidency. He also told Haaretz in 2003 he had funded Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign.
Here is a list of additional Democrats beholden to Kahanist related figures: Chuck Schumer, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Lois Frankel and Ted Deutch, US Representative Josh Gottheimer, US Senator Bob Menendez and US Representative Juan Vargas.
Sadly, Joe Biden is also implicated. In May 2022, just after Israel’s thirty-sixth government lost its majority, and early polling pointed to its impending demise, the US State Department announced that it no longer considered the Kahanist group Kahane Chai to be a terrorist organization. ‘The move sent a clear signal to Netanyahu that US President Joe Biden did not object to his including the Kahanists in any future government’.
And if this information isn’t damning enough for the Democratic Party, ‘Robert Kennedy Jr. made a public pilgrimage to the home of Dov Hikind and received his endorsement.’
To the governments of the US and her allies: Repent and ask God for mercy
To individual officials in our Democratic administration and allied governments: Stop what you are doing. It will be difficult. Those who are paying you will object. So will your colleagues who are on the take. But you have no choice if you care about your eternal rewards. You must confess and forsake your evil ways. Why? Because there will be eternal consequences for your behavior. Repent and ask God for mercy.
Most of the world is cringing and cowering and begging Benjamin Netanyahu to stop killing the Palestinians. He seems to have either closed his ears to us, or he enjoys tormenting us. Meanwhile, his Zionist allies are not at all embarrassed about ignoring our pleas. And we wait for someone to do something.
Unfortunately, it seems as though the Israel/Palestine conflict has become a familiar category. Although we feel distress, disgust and outrage at what is happening, it’s a very old problem and we are not sufficiently alarmed. In my opinion, we should be. World leaders know they are dealing with a problem that is impossible to solve. All of the madness stems from this impossibility. But, to be clear, it is only impossible to solve if they have to treat the Palestinians with dignity.
Question: Will Israel, with the approval of its allies, wipe out the Palestinians while we watch in horror? Frankly, that’s how it’s beginning to look. And that is the logic of modern Israel. Now, if we think Israel will wipe them out, what can we do? If we were to protest what would we demand? This is where the impossibility of Zionism raises its ugly head.
Theoretically, we could begin by assuring that the Palestinians can control their own food, water, electricity and travel. But then the problem of boundaries would come up. Palestine’s boundaries are too tight. Ideally, Israel would be required to withdraw from its illegal settlements. Of course, Israel would object and the Palestinians would still be unhappy. Why? Israel is just repeating what the United States and Australia have done to their indigenous people.
The reason the Palestinians have been so tightly controlled is they have been robbed, and everyone knows it. And Israel does not intend to undo the theft. The end of imprisonment for Palestine would be the end of Israel’s Shangri-La. So we have probably been begging Benjamin Netanyahu in vain.
I’m not saying the situation is acceptable. It is not. I’m saying this is Zionism. The only reason it still shocks us is the world has been lulled to sleep. Zionism wasn’t just theft. It was also layers and layers of lullabies and lies.
Zionism has ruined the Jewish people. Today, the world blames Israel for what has happened to the Palestinians. However, the inhabitants of Israel are pawns. Zionism is based on the belief that the Jews are part of a cohesive race of people who want nothing more than to live in Palestine. Ironically, this belief is basic anti-Semitism. A united Jewish ‘race’ was a phantom when Zionism was invented, yet this belief has resulted in the people of Israel proclaiming they own Palestine. What a terrible transformation.
In this context it makes sense that concerned citizens of the world demand a Palestinian state. But they make this demand in spite of the fact that a Palestinian state has been rejected for more than 70 years by everyone in a position to make it happen. This is the trap of Zionism.
A history of meaningless destruction
This history is long and tragic, and it’s been written many times. Unfortunately, we don’t have time to educate ourselves about the causes of the current conflict in Israel. But for those who are aware of the history, it is clear that military solutions are no solutions at all. Yet, in Israel, the horror of October 7 and everything that followed it seems normal. This military regime has no memory of civilization.
The Ottoman Empire
The last real civilization that was known in this region was the Ottoman empire. Unfortunately, the reforms of the Young Turks introduced a spirit of Turkish nationalism, and their handling of foreign affairs resulted in the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire.
There were other factions working against the Empire besides the Young Turks. These included provincial governors, Palace officials and the Freemasons. According to Hanioglü, M. Şükrü, the activism of the Freemasons in the Ottoman Empire can be traced back to the 1870s.1 All things considered, it’s hard to imagine how the current regime in Israel could be an improvement over Ottoman ‘absolutism’.
But we still need to explain how the Jewish people became entangled in Palestine. The Young Turks, Turkish Jöntürkler, was a coalition of various reform groups that led a revolutionary movement against Sultan Abdulhamid II between 1889 and 1908. During the British Mandate in the Ottoman Empire, there were rumors that the Jews were involved with the Young Turks and Freemasons.2 The British overseers apparently believed the rumors about Jewish involvement, and later this belief rendered Britain defenseless against the idea of Zionism. Then, World War II and the Holocaust made Palestine seem like an attractive refuge from the world’s hatred. Today, modern Israel is evidence that the fear of being hated, was never dealt with.
Plans for a Palestinian State are based on the wrong premise
In the face of Israel’s brittle militarism, it is clear that any solution would have to heal the effects of ostracism and persecution on its victims. However, that kind of thoughtfulness is unheard of in this world. Victims are expected to figure everything out on their own. This blindspot has allow Zionism to ruin the Jewish people. All we can say is that if we had had our wish this would have been the first step to a solution. Instead, we have the present horror.
Considering that a Jewish state was not the solution to the real problem of anti-Semitism, it follows that even our best utopian plans for a Palestinian state are based on the wrong premise.
Since we insist on ignoring the step of healing, the only other solution would require the ability to go back in time and tell the Freemasons and Young Turks to appreciate what they have. This is obviously ridiculous, but what do you call the belief that Israel will some day give the Palestinians a state?
Meanwhile, the Palestinians are dying and all the grownups in the world have gone mad. And they’ve had plenty of assistance in their madness from contemporary Zionists. So, what can be done? It may seem like wishful thinking, but the first solution remains a possibility.
This might seem like the biggest fantasy of all. Hatred pretends to erase the possibility of healing. However, hatred is not all-powerful. Love is the most powerful force on this planet, and it is always a possibility. Furthermore, the hope for love never dies in the hearts and minds of the most despised among us.
Can God see the Palestinians through our eyes?
When there seems to be no earthly help for the helpless, it’s natural for believers to petition God. What can he do, you ask? After all, the existence of modern Israel is based on religious ‘history’ and defended by the United States and its allies. Who would petition God on the side of Israel’s enemy? The answer depends on your understanding of God.
I saw a video on YouTube. There were several Palestinians standing in line. They had no baggage of any kind– just the clothes on their backs. One man was looking at the camera as it recorded his defeat. His eyes were not asking for anything, or even hoping for anything. I saw this and understood it, and it took my breath away.
I don’t think God sees everything with his own eyes. Sometimes he sees through our eyes. It occurred to me that God saw those people like I did, and he had compassion for them.
I’m not suggesting God is choosing sides. I think he he saw those Palestinians and their need, and he is going to help them.
Hanioglü, M. “Notes on the Young Turks and the Freemasons, 1875-1908.” Middle Eastern Studies, vol. 25, no. 2, 1989, pp. 186–97. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/4283298. Accessed 17 Oct. 2023. ↩︎
George Kennan tried but never succeeded in living down his famous ‘X Article’ in which he said ominous things about the Soviet Union. When he talked about containment, he thought he was recommending the political containment of a political threat, not some ‘doctrine’ of perpetual military containment. More importantly, he thought containment should apply to the Americans as well. Sadly, the neocons were able to use the words of George Kennan to achieve their aims. The neocons erased George Kennan.
If certain people have their way there will be war with Russia. Americans have no business contemplating such a thing. For that matter, there was no excuse for the Cold War. It was concocted from Kennan’s recommendations. This is disturbing, considering that is not what he said. This concoction was done by a hysterical press and the ‘thinkers’ of RAND Corporation. Of course, neocons at RAND and their purportedly enormous brains are not working for Americans. They work their magic at the behest of the Air Force.
Neocon Pretensions
The neocons’ idealistic and pretentious lack of genuine foreign policy
Kennan expressed concern about the ascendance in the United States of an ‘idealistic and pretentious lack of genuine foreign policy’ that focused on the American Dream. He thought the U.S. must put its own house in order first.
He argued that the Soviets were part of an historical tradition of the Third Rome, which although it is a rival religion, is still Byzantine. Strangely, he could already see similar totalitarian tendencies at work in the United States. The Americans had taken up a form of existence that does not recognize limits, a result of unconditional acceptance of the logic of the marketplace. This had led to the loss of a sense of what should not be done.
America’s monster: the indestructible myth
So instead of a political containment lasting for 10-15 years the doctrine was transformed into an ‘indestructible myth’:
“There emerged one of those great forbidding apparitions to the credence in which mass opinion is so easily swayed: a monster devoid of all humanity and of all rational motive, at once the embodiment and the caricature of evil, devoid of internal conflicts and problems of its own, intent only on bringing senseless destruction to the lives and hopes of others.”
The symptoms of our decay go beyond politics. They include ‘overpopulation, urbanization, hyper-intensity of communication, and destruction of the environment’. However, for Kennan the nuclear arms race was the clearest indication of spiritual decline. It was a ‘spiritual and philosophical derangement of the last order’, a madness, a death wish, a lack of faith, ‘wrong in the good old-fashioned meaning of the word’.1
ROSSBACH, Stefan, Gnostic wars : the cold war in the context of a history of Western spirituality, Florence : European University Institute, 1997, EUI, SPS, PhD Thesis – https://hdl.handle.net/1814/5371 ↩︎
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